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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Sources: U.S. Iran Working On Laying Out Secret Proposals For Implementing Points Signed In Memo Of Understanding; Major Supreme Court Rulings Looming With Two Weeks Left In Term; Trump At Odds With Conservative Justices As Landmark Cases Loom; Obama Laments Nation's "Perpetual Anger And Division"; New Details On Forthcoming Book On Trump's Second Term. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired June 18, 2026 - 17:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: All right, thanks to my panel. "The Lead" anchored by Phil Mattingly starts right now.

[17:00:31]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Would you trust a gentlemen's agreement with Iran? The Lead starts right now.

Brand new CNN reporting tonight about secret proposals between the U.S. and Iran as the two sides officially begin 60 days of negotiations. These plans going beyond the agreement President Trump officially signed last night. The breaking details in just moments. Plus, we are down to the wire in a Supreme Court term that has already produced momentous decisions. With just a few weeks to go, the justices still have a number of key cases to decide, including three which test President Trump's powers.

Our legal experts are here to break it all down. And the stars were out at the opening of the Obama's presidential library today, including all of the living presidents, minus one. But President Obama did deliver some pointed criticism of President Trump while urging the next generation to stand up for democracy, fairness and respect. We're going to be live outside the library in Chicago ahead.

Welcome to The Lead. I'm Phil Mattingly. Jake Tapper is on assignment today. We begin with our World Lead. The White House today deployed Vice President JD Vance to answer questions and defend the memorandum of understanding with Iran because the reviews on Trump's agreement, well, they're rolling in and they are, well, kind of range from bad to lukewarm at best, even, and perhaps most importantly from Republicans. Listen to what this group of bipartisan senators had to say about it today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): History demonstrates that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is an exceptionally bad idea. And I think, unfortunately, the president is receiving some really bad advice on this deal.

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): Everything I've heard about it causes me concern.

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-D): Literally everything that President Trump said he was trying to accomplish with this war he has failed to accomplish.

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): Let's give the 60 days to give peace a chance.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Some of the criticism of the MoU is valid, I think. But here's the way I look at it. Without the MoU being signed, there is no pathway to diplomacy to end the nuclear ambitions of Iran.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now, in fact, we reached out to more than a dozen Republican lawmakers to see if they wanted to come on the show today and defend the MoU. They all declined. Shout out to our Hill team for the hustle getting that sound from lawmakers on Capitol Hill. A source says that this afternoon the White House gave the first briefing on the Iran MoU to some members of Congress. It was a handful of senior Senate and House lawmakers.

Still, President Trump has not taken kindly to all the criticism. Posting on Truth Social this morning, quote, "These fools who think -- who think haven't been tough enough on Iran when the stock market just hit a record high and oil prices are tumbling down, are either jealous or bad people or stupid."

Both Iranian and U.S. officials have now signed this memorandum, and Vice President Vance says the clock is now ticking on the 60 days to finalize a final deal to end the war. A reminder of what's in the MoU, it opens the Strait of Hormuz. It doesn't allow Iran to charge tolls, but only for these next 60 days of negotiations. It ends the U.S. blockade on Iran ports. It ends sanctions on Iran, which would enable Iran to tap its oil wealth in new ways.

It leaves the door open to unfreezing some Iranian assets. It develops a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran, and Iran says it won't procure or develop a nuclear weapon.

We start things off with CNN's Kristen Holmes on the North Lawn of the White House, where earlier today she asked what I thought was the best, I'm biased here, but I thought was the best question of the briefing with the vice president about this deal. What are you learning, Kristen?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So this actually feeds into the larger story that we just reported, which is this idea that Iran and the U.S. have been laying out these secret proposals that are meant to implement that MoU. And some of these proposals do actually address how to deal with the future of Iran's nuclear program. Now, JD Vance, in an exchange that I had with him, confirmed that some of these proposals, which the administration has referred to as gentlemen's agreements are in writing. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Are any of these gentlemen's agreements written down anywhere?

JD VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So some of them are written down, but fundamentally, whether they're written down or spoken, this is why we structured the deal that we did, because we don't trust words, we trust action and we trust conduct. And so we're going to reward conduct, and we're not going to reward any words, whether they're written on a sheet of paper or not, there's a lot of discussion. The MoU, the gentlemen's agreements, the final deal, words don't matter, ladies and gentlemen. We're about verification.

[17:05:08]

And so what we're going to do is to say if they do the things that they have promised to do, they have promised not to enrich. They have promised that they would allow inspectors in to destroy that highly enriched stockpile. And then, of course, it's not usable anymore. You take it somewhere else. They promised a number of things, and that's why the deal contemplates a number of benefits if they do those things, but it doesn't do anything if they don't actually meet those promises.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So one of the things it seems as though he is laying out there is that these secret proposals are these promises that Iran had made to the United States. Now, I do want to be clear. All of our sources said that nothing is final, that Iran has not signed any sort of document other than the MoU. And they say that this refers to the specifics in the MoU, including what negotiators are pursuing as the way forward for talks on Iran's nuclear program. And of course, among the issues, enriching uranium, which you heard president -- Vice President Vance just say there.

The other thing, Phil, that I have to mention here that happened during this briefing, which was really stunning was Vance's takedown of Israel. I mean, he went after members of the Israeli cabinet saying, I wouldn't go after your only ally in the entire world, referring to President Trump. And these are some pretty harsh words for Israel. And then we saw President Trump leveling a more veiled message to Israel of essentially saying that they expect a complete ceasefire, including from Israel. And that is just further than we've seen any administration really go when it comes to criticizing Israel. MATTINGLY: Kristen, that's such a good point. You've heard frustrations from every administration that you and I have covered over the course of the last 15 or 20 years, quietly, privately, never spilling out this without any subtlety like we've seen over the course of the last couple of days. Kristen Holmes from the White House, as always, great reporting. Thanks so much.

Let's discuss now what with Alex Plitsas, the director of the counterterrorism program at -- on the Atlantic Council.

Alex, really appreciate your time here. I want to start kind of big picture because it's been fascinating talking to Republicans, also listening to Republicans who are talking to my colleagues on Capitol Hill. You're just not finding many people maybe like, OK, we'll give them a shot here but I don't think this is going to work. It's about the best defense slash response you can get. I want to get your reaction to something the vice president said on kind of defending this writ large.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: I've seen skeptics of the deal. People say the Iranians will never change their behavior. Well, maybe that's true and if so, they don't get any of the benefits of the bargain. But isn't it worth trying? Isn't it worth seeing whether this incredibly weakened position that the President of the United States has put the Iranians under, whether that motivates them to change their behavior?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Alex, I think what that made me think when I heard the vice president say it is if you think about the alternatives here, that seems to be at least a fair defense on some level. What do you think?

ALEX PLITSAS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I mean, I think so. And if we're going to just read between the lines here, I mean the revelation of the secret agreements is final confirmation for what we've basically been hearing over the last couple of days. Administration officials have been quoting this is going to happen or that's going to happen in the Iranians the same way. But none of that was in the document that was read out yesterday. So it was clear that there's understandings to the background.

And the Iranians also were seeking access to liquidity. They've been demanding 12 billion of the 24 billion that's been frozen of their funds. And that's because the blockade and the sanctions have been working. So the Iranians are not in the greatest economic position right now and they know that they need access to short term cash. So there is pressure there.

But they also seem to be acutely aware that the United States is not really interested in going back into full-fledged combat. And so you're trying to find a happy medium in the middle. And there's a lot of rhetoric in public that doesn't necessarily reflect what's going on behind closed doors. And in speaking to folks who are familiar with the secret agreements as well as the main document itself, they said, look, don't take too much stock. This is a framework.

There's not a lot of meat on the bones because a lot of the substance in the background, but this does shift a lot into the next 60 days. And it took us 18 months to get 157 pages for the JCPOA. So this is going to be a very heavy lift for U.S. negotiators.

MATTINGLY: Based on what you've learned up to this point, is there anything in kind of your discussions with people who are familiar with these secret agreements that either you're surprised by or that you think will be helpful in the process moving forward?

PLITSAS: So I think helpful in the sense that they both realize that negotiating in public, given the rhetoric, has made it virtually impossible for either side to save face unless there is some sort of substantive give. And any good deal, right, unless you completely get somebody to capitulate, is never going to be good 100 percent for either side. But it's got to be good enough for both sides to live with. And getting there means both sides have to get there on both sets of issues. And because they're not 100 percent there on everything at a high level they may agree, there's really some more work to be done.

And so until that happens, the -- I think the discussion was let's keep this quiet for the next 60 days until we can really finish. But from what I've been told, there's enough tacit agreement, at least at a high level, for the substantive issues that were important to the United States and to the Iranians that it got the Iranians and the administration to both agree to move forward. And where the real breakthrough came was in the last week or so with the Qatari diplomats who were on the ground who really brought this thing over the line. So this was a Pakistani led process that the Qataris then came in and played the closers on to get this over the line.

[17:10:17]

So again, seems to be high level agreement on most of the issues. Hey, we're going to do X. How that happens and the specific method and the timing, et cetera, will be worked out. But there seems to be agreement on most -- on most issues. There are some like proxies, I'm told, that are not included and those are things that, you know, will be left to other mechanisms to deal with.

MATTINGLY: Can I ask you about that? The idea of there's been comments from administration officials that say, look, we will be able to track any type of financial investments passing off of money to proxies going forward, particularly if it comes from the OFAC license related to oil sanctions, allowing at least for the period before any final agreement is reached for Iran to start selling its oil again. I understand from the treasury side that they actually do get a lot of visibility if Iran starts selling again in terms of how they can see -- how things are working. Is the kind of causal chain spreading out to then they can track those payments to proxies. Is that as clean as they're making it out to be? PLITSAS: In some cases, yes. But that assumes that the revenue from the oil directly as it gets into the coffers is then going to flow from there over to the proxies where it could come from, as simple as the tranche of cash that's released from the frozen funds also being distributed. So the incoming source isn't necessarily as important as the outgoing. And I have heard concern from a number of intelligence and government officials, both allied and across the region, who have stressed that they are concerned that the Iranians are going to provide a substantive amount of money to Hezbollah after they get their coffers refilled and that was some of the assurances that were granted which would be detrimental because the United States has made it quite clear, as has Israel, that they will not allow Hezbollah to reconstitute in that form. And they're certainly not going to allow Iran to do that.

That would be a violation of the agreement. And I was told that there have been some strict warnings about that. So whether or not the Iranians heed that warning is a different story.

SMERCONISH: Yes, no, it absolutely is. This is going to be a fascinating and rather fraught 60 days ahead of us. Alex Plitsas, thank you as always, my friend. Appreciate you.

PLITSAS: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Well, up next, we've got new CNN reporting about the Trump administration ramping up its efforts to revoke citizenship from some naturalized Americans. Stick with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:16:19]

MATTINGLY: A CNN exclusive in our Politics Lead. A senior Justice Department official says the Trump administration plans to file at least 250 denaturalization cases by October, ramping up its effort to revoke citizenship from people naturalized in the United States. The department already filed 29 denaturalization cases in less than two months targeting foreign born Americans accused of fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship. CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is here with her exclusive reporting.

Priscilla, nearly 8 million people became naturalized U.S. citizens in the last decade. Where is this going? How big does the administration want it to be?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, if you look at the totality of this, it really is a small fraction of the millions of people who are naturalized over the years. But in context, this is a significant ramping up. In fact, it's unprecedented. So in the last 18 years, specifically 2008 to 20 -- to mid-June of this year, there were only 166 denaturalization cases that were filed. And the administration is trying to exceed that in just over a year with at least 250 cases being filed.

Now the administration has said so far that they are focused on those who had a criminal history or who committed criminal acts during or rather before or during their naturalization process. And the complaints that we've seen so far do back that up. You mentioned those 29 cases. Well, they include people who committed fraud. There was sexual abuse of a minor in one case and expressed support for terrorism in another.

And the federal government does have the authority to do this in statute if -- and it becomes the first step of the process. So if they find someone who made false statements that were important to the naturalization process or find that someone illegally procured it, which means they weren't eligible for it, then they can take the step of denaturalization. However, it is not completely up to them. When I say complaints, it means they have to go to courts around the country and file the complaint. And then it can take two tracks, the civil or criminal.

So a judge will decide or a jury will decide if it's a criminal matter, whether someone's denaturalized. And if that does happen, Phil, that person would go back to the status that they had before. So, for example, a lawful permanent resident, which falls short of a U.S. citizen, and perhaps put in deportation proceedings, depending on what the matter was that led to that.

Now, the DOJ official that I did speak with said and, quote, "This is a lawful tool that Congress has had on the books for decades to protect the integrity of American citizenship and make sure people who are present in this country and have enjoyed the benefits of citizenship are doing so lawfully and the right people are acquiring citizenship."

Now, again, historically, it has been rare for these cases to come up. They've typically been reserved for war crimes and terrorism. So what this does indicate is that the Trump administration is keenly focused on this, that they want to bring up the numbers of denaturalizations, which in some ways is a holdover from the first Trump administration, and see that come to the floor.

MATTINGLY: Can I just ask you real quick, because I have you here, oftentimes with immigration in this administration, when you see something like this, it's a leading indicator of something to come or a scaling process that there -- that there are plans for. Do we have any sense of kind of like how far they want to take this?

ALVAREZ: Well, they are shifting a lot of resources which indicate that they want to take this much further than these 250. So, for example, they have a denaturalization unit at the Justice Department of 12 people who generally are focused on these cases. But now they are moving attorneys around to also work on these cases, say, for example, civil fraud attorneys. They are also delegating cases to the U.S. attorney office is around the country. So if you look at that in totality, there are way more players involved now, way more attorneys doing this work.

[17:20:00]

And it is a move to also attack this part or target this part of this immigration system, which they say, again, they don't believe people who fraudulently obtained U.S. citizenship should continue to have it. It's still going to take years because these court cases don't happen quickly.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

ALVAREZ: But it's the first step.

MATTINGLY: It'll be really, really fascinating to watch as it moves forward. I know I'm just going to ask you, you'll tell me all the answers. As always, Priscilla Alvarez, great reporting. Thanks so much.

Well, it's the final few weeks of a blockbuster Supreme Court term, and the justices still have a handful of major decisions to hand down. Are we getting any signals as to how they may rule? Our legal experts weigh in next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: In our Law and Justice Lead, the Supreme Court today unanimously ruled to curb the power of the federal government to keep weapons out of the hands of Americans who regularly use drugs, including cannabis. The nation's highest court has just under two weeks left in its term and 17 cases left to decide, including some that are expected to be its most significant rulings this year, leaving many court watchers curious about this year's pace, which is good because I've got court watchers with me right now. Joining me right now, Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig and CNN's Chief Supreme Court Analyst Joan Biskupic.

[17:25:17]

And I'm going to -- I'm going to kind of rip the veil off for a second, Joan and I were walking up from our offices to set, and Joan teased me with behind the scenes of what's actually happening right now and then walked away. Joan.

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Fortunately, I'm here.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Tell me what's happening there.

BISKUPIC: Because we all -- we don't know when they're in this crunch period. And it's like anybody up against a deadline, students finishing a term paper, you finishing a project, anybody finishing a deadline, it tends the time you take tends to expand to the time you have. They have an informal deadline of the end of June. And that's when the toughest, most closely decided cases come.

And here's what is happening behind the scenes. And I know this from debriefing justices after the fact and looking through their papers that go into archives after they leave the bench, and you see how much back and forth there is. Let's just take a case that's very close to your heart, the Lisa Cook case. President Trump is trying to fire someone who's on the Federal Reserve, and he claims to that it's for cause that she lied on some mortgage papers, said that two residents were her primary residences. She denies all wrongdoing.

And even during the oral arguments in January, the justices seem to think whatever she did, it does not rise to a fireable offense. But that's just what we heard. But what -- so in January, after they heard the oral arguments, the chief would have assigned that opinion to someone, and then they would be going back and forth with the justices in the majority to make sure that everyone's on board with the language. And if somebody says, I'd like to make a change here, somebody -- the author would be saying, well, will that change all of a sudden make somebody else drop off? And they have to hold five votes.

You need five votes for a majority. So you have all this back and forth on a case like that. And there's a dueling case in the same category with the Lisa Cook one, one that involves President Trump's potential power to fire heads of other regulatory agencies. And I'm sure they're being decided in tandem. So not only do you have negotiations going on among the majority, then you have dissenters, and they are -- they've gotten circulations of these draft opinions, and they're saying things like, you're crazy, this is baseless, and everybody has to answer everyone.

And then you get to the last week in June and they call it all off and they say, all right, issue it. So that's -- it's a --

MATTINGLY: It's like very, very, very volatile process for an institution that you think of as, like, very staid.

BISKUPIC: Exactly. It looks so cool and collected underneath. They're all sweating right now because you're right, they've got 17 opinions that they basically have to get out in about 10 days.

MATTINGLY: It's literally me in college. Not Elie, obviously, although we both went to great public universities, state institutions.

Elie, the court, six to three majority, right. But it hasn't always delivered favorable opinions to President Trump so far this term. Do you think we'll see the justices split along ideological lines more consistently in the coming weeks?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: You know, Phil, there's an easy narrative out there that, well, this is a six to three conservative court, and when push comes to shove, they're always going to side with Trump and the Trump administration. However, if we look at this term that's wrapping up now, that simply has not been true. Yes, Trump and the administration have won some big cases, but they've also lost some whoppers, too. For example, this Supreme Court struck down Trump's signature economic policy, his international tariffs. This court blocked Donald Trump from deploying National Guard troops on the streets of Chicago.

This court limited Donald Trump's ability to deport people under the Alien Enemies Act. So there have been decisions both ways. But this notion that, well, this court's just in Donald Trump's back pocket, it simply has not been borne out by what we've seen so far this term. Looking ahead, I think we're going to continue to see mixed ideological results. If I had to guess, based on listening to the oral argument back in April, I think Trump's going to lose by a big number in the birthright citizenship case. I think he's going to lose in the Lisa Cook, the Fed case that Joan and you just talked about. But I think he's also going to win in others. There's a case where Trump's trying to limit the ability of states to count mail in ballots after Election Day, I think he's going to win those. So each of these case stands on its own merits, and it's really hard. And I think reality defies the easy, glib narratives that are out there.

MATTINGLY: Elie literally just took all of the questions about specific cases that I had. And it was very impressive, but also very frustrating that he can just do it like that.

Joan, real quick, we have like 10 seconds left. What do you think is the biggest case left in your mind?

BISKUPIC: Well, you know what, I think birthright citizenship is the one that average people are waiting for. I think that Elie's right that Trump is going to lose that. But you know what I think the biggest case is? I think they've already decided the biggest case, and that's the voting rights case in Louisiana and its companion case from Alabama that has completely reordered the election scene right now in the 2026 cycle.

[17:30:06]

MATTINGLY: Immediate ripple effects.

BISKUPIC: Exactly.

MATTINGLY: Great. Good point.

BISKUPIC: That's the biggest point.

MATTINGLY: Joan Biskupic, Elie Honig, two of the absolute best. Thank you guys very much. Appreciate you.

Well, President Obama opening his Presidential Library today in the company of every living president except the current one. But the speeches did contain some not so veiled references to the current occupant of the Oval Office. CNN's Jeff Zeleny has more live from the Obama Presidential Library next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:34:53]

MATTINGLY: Our Sports Lead begins with something you don't see every day. What they used to call a ticker tape parade down the high rise canyons of lower Manhattan. Today, it was 40,000 pounds of shredded paper floating down on the NBA champion Knicks. New York Knickerbockers, if you want to use the official terminology, and about 2 million onlookers. Knicks star Jalen Brunson and his family were on the float displaying that championship trophy. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani presented the team with keys to the city to go along with the millions of fans' hearts. The team already won. It has been fun to watch.

Well, now to our National Lead and something else you don't see every day. All four living former U.S. presidents and first ladies together in one place. The Clintons, Bushes and Bidens were in Chicago to celebrate the opening of President Barack Obama's Presidential Center and Library. They were joined by a mini galaxy of musical stars including Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, Eddie Vedder, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder. There were a lot. You could look across the crowd and spot dozens of regulars from the Obama administration as well as presidential wannabes. The current president, he wasn't there, wasn't even invited, but he seemed to be on lots of minds.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For us to give in now, after all this country has been through, to cynicism and division would be a betrayal of our founding ideas. A betrayal of our faith. And I remain convinced that the overwhelming majority of Americans feel the same way that as unsettled as we are. People aren't looking for perpetual anger and division. They are looking for fairness and common sense and mutual respect. That deep in our gut, we want to find a way to turn towards each other again, not further away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Also in the crowd today was CNN's Jeff Zeleny, who I would term, I think rather fairly, a regular of the press corps throughout the rise of Obama and into his presidency in Des Moines and Chicago at the times. Jeff, with that context and kind of what you've witnessed in parallel to this former president, what struck you about today's ceremony?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Phil, it was classic Barack Obama in every way, every major speech we have seen him given, many of which are chronicled back in the museum behind me. Even starting with that speech that really put him on the national stage 22 years ago in the 2004 Democratic Convention, talking about the commonality, talking about how his story fits into the story of America. Now, of course, that is complicated.

This entire museum and the argument of hope and change is complicated by what came after the Obama administration. That, of course, is the Trump administration. So for the last 10 years, Donald Trump has effectively overshadowed the Obama legacy in some respects. It contributes to his sort of stronger favorability ratings. There's no doubt every president looks better in the rearview mirror. George W. Bush, a key example of that.

But listening to president -- the former president here, as he was being celebrated for his past, he was urging and imploring his supporters and a larger audience to be sure to look ahead to the future. He said, don't wallow around in nostalgia. Nostalgia is basically longing for something that was as opposed to thinking about what could be. And that is the point of this entire Obama Presidential Center here. It's really over 19 sprawling acres in Jackson Park on the south side of Chicago here. It's a museum, to be sure, but it's much more than that as well.

It's a community center with gardens, a basketball court, a Chicago Public Library branch. So what the Obamas are trying to do is encourage the next generation of leaders. But the reality check on this here is that there is a very divided America. There is no doubt about that. But his favorability rating, Phil, in a new poll out this morning, 57 percent, the highest favorability rating of every former president here. That's driven, of course, by Democrats, but also by independents and even some Republicans.

One in five Republicans have a favorable view of him. So it was a moment of American history here. The first presidential museum to be open in 13 years. The last one was 2013, the Bush Library in Dallas. So any time you see effectively a gathering of the former president's club, it's very notable. And even more notable, obviously, the one who was not here and not invited. Phil?

MATTINGLY: Yes, the implicit split screen in that. It was a heck of an event to watch. Jeff Zeleny, you've seen so many of them chronicling it better than most, maybe anybody. Jeff Zeleny in Chicago, thanks so much.

[17:39:36]

Well, a new book reveals President Trump's obsession with redecorating the Oval Office, including how he used superglue to try and hang some gold decorations. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: In our Politics Lead, CNN is learning new details from the upcoming book "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump" from New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, including this anecdote about Trump's hands-on approach to his golden makeover of the Oval Office. "One morning, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt walked into the Oval Office and found Trump, 'clutching a tube of superglue and attempting to affix gold decorations to the marble fireplace mantle,'" according to the book.

CNN's Jamie Gangel has been reading through a copy obtained by CNN ahead of its Tuesday release. And of course, Jamie got a hold of the book. Jamie, did the President's handiwork surprise anyone in his inner circle?

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: No, I actually thought that was maybe the most interesting part of it, was that when they discuss talking to other aides, they say, as he was known to prefer his own aesthetic handiwork to anyone else's, the sight of the President squeezing glue onto gilded appliques and mounting them on the wall himself surprised no one in his inner circle.

[17:45:19]

MATTINGLY: I mean, honestly, I'm not either. There's a level here where I'm just like, yes, yes, it kind of sounds like it.

GANGEL: So how do you unsee this, then take it to the next level of, was he gluing other things all over the place? There is now a very hot text chain. How did he get the superglue? And from one person at the archives, I heard that White House curators are now thinking about how do you get superglue off the mantle?

MATTINGLY: I got four kids, man. Let me tell you, they got a job ahead of them. OK, I also want to ask, the book also details how the President sees himself compared to the notorious world leaders like Napoleon, Stalin, Mao, even Hitler. Explain.

GANGEL: So this is, frankly, an extraordinary story. First of all, the book, more than 1,000 interviews, three years of research covers the first 14 months of this term. And in March, Maggie and Jonathan Swan go to the Oval Office for a formal sit-down interview with the President. And he's very proud about some presidential historian has given him this document, which he says shows he's more powerful than Hitler and Stalin and Attila the Hun. I'm not sure why you would want that comparison.

And he's proudly reading it and showing it to them. And they can't figure out who the presidential historian is. And they start searching. Name doesn't show up. But the President had said that this historian was a friend of former Hall of Fame golfer Gary Player. So they search Gary Player, the historian. The historian is Gary Player's former caddy and confidant.

MATTINGLY: Again, tracks on some level. Is that why he was so angry? He attacked them at one point.

GANGEL: So actually, that attack came, I believe, a few days before the sit-down interview.

MATTINGLY: OK.

GANGEL: And I spoke to someone familiar with the meeting. And they said the meeting could not have actually been more cordial. Trump was in sell, sell, sell mode. So maybe that attack was a precursor to intimidate a little bit.

MATTINGLY: All I know is that I'm very much jealous you've read the book. I can't wait to get my hands on it. There are no other reporters I have higher respect for than Maggie and Jonathan.

GANGEL: Right.

MATTINGLY: Like, it's going to be great. I want to bring, we should know, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan will be here on The Lead next Wednesday. Jamie, stick around. I want to bring my panel in.

And Mo, just kind of -- there's been elements of this book that have been coming out. It's probably the most highly anticipated book in Washington this year, maybe I've heard in a long time. Your reaction to, Jamie was actually really good at walking us through this in a way that brought, was anxious at points, excited others. What do you think?

MO ELLEITHEE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GEORGETOWN INSTITUTE OF POLITICS & PUBLIC SERVICE: I mean, the level of ridiculousness of some of these anecdotes is off the charts, even by today's standards. But you do see a through line, right? And it's not a through line that we're not, you know, that we're unfamiliar with. It is Donald Trump makes everything about himself. I love the gold plated stuff, the super glue stuff. The A.I. generated ads for the midterms write themselves, right? Where here's a guy who at a time that most Americans are struggling, high price of gas, high price of groceries, is sitting in the Oval Office rather than dealing with that, taking a tube of super glue to put more gold surrounding him. Like that is exactly the choice. Democrats want people to be thinking about when this election comes.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Yes. OK. You're very good at politics, but even I could see it. Yes. No, that would be effective.

MAURA GILLESPIE, FOUNDER AND PRINCIPAL, BLUESTACK STRATEGIES: Donald Trump, just like us, loves arts and crafts.

ELLEITHEE: Right. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

MATTINGLY: OK. So the book also lays out this exchange between President Trump and his OMB director, Russ Vought, about then Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who Trump was trying to push out by making his life miserable, threatening lots of things, eventually DOJ investigation. In the book, the book quotes Trump from a staff meeting, "I want to bust his effing balls, honestly. What about that effing building? Can we stop it? Can we stop construction? I just want to bust his effing balls. Eff him. Trump asked if they could stop construction. I'll look into it, Vought said. No, don't look into it, Trump replied. Bring me a plan."

[17:50:12]

Jamie, it was clear in public comments and social media posts that Trump wanted Powell out. That adds a lot of context to the sequence of events that we saw in this time period.

GANGEL: Right. So I think what's clear from their reporting here is an aide told Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman at the time that Trump actually was not going to fire Powell, but he was going to, "torture him" as much as possible. And you see the setup behind the scenes. And there were other stories throughout the book. We've picked a couple of these very colorful stories to tell. But this goes behind the scenes at meetings.

People that he was going to go after, like Chris Krebs. I'm being moved, but I'm back. And you really get a sense of how haphazard but how mean he is in some of these situations.

MATTINGLY: Maura, what's your read kind of both what Jamie's reported here, but also I think some of the expectations, other excerpts we've seen into this rollout?

GILLESPIE: On the book itself, I'm also looking forward to reading it. I didn't think that I'd ever be on T.V. talking about Attila the Hun, but here we are.

MATTINGLY: Super glue and gold in the Oval Office, though.

GILLESPIE: Arts and craft. But I think, again, it's all these different things, one points to me that the focus is very much on himself and members of Congress who are looking at reelection. This isn't going to impact them. How does this help them, right? They can't talk about this to their constituents and talk about the big wins that they want to put on the board when the President's sole focus is on decorating, which we know that's a big part of it.

To me, I read this as Donald Trump wants to have some legacy. He just turned 80 years old. The window for a legacy post-presidency that many presidents also enjoy, he has limited time to do that, to build that. So he's putting his name on everything. He's really focused on leaving a mark in that way. But what he's not focused on are the things that he promised to be during his campaign.

And Republicans in Congress have to reconcile with that and decide whether they're going to stick with following what Trump says and does and go along with it, or if they're going to remind their constituents that they were elected by them and they represent those people. And so there's a decision that they need to make for themselves.

MATTINGLY: It's such a good point. There is a self-preservation mode that politicians tend to move in -- morph into right around August, September, maybe July. And we're hitting that point. I want to turn back to Chicago. We were just talking to Jeff Zeleny about former President Barack Obama, the opening of his library. He was joined by former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden and their wives, first ladies, for the opening of the Obama Presidential Center. Mo, President Trump was not invited. It's very rare for the current president to gather with their predecessors. Was it a missed opportunity?

ELLEITHEE: I'm not sure what anyone would have gotten out of it had Donald Trump been there. But it was so fascinating to watch this event, especially thinking about the one that's going to happen in a couple of weeks for the America 250 celebration. This was the launching of a beautiful new center that has Barack Obama's name on it. It's supposed to be all about him.

He used his speech to unify and talk about the American ideal. Donald Trump has already said he wants to turn the one in a couple of weeks into a Trump rally. The event that's supposed to be the unifying event that brings everyone together behind an American ideal is going to be about him. It's just such an interesting dichotomy of politics as it was once practiced not so long ago versus how it seems to be practiced now.

GILLESPIE: But it's also a slight to the people who put together these America 250 events. It's a bipartisan commission that's been working for years to celebrate our country's big anniversary. And so he's hijacking it in a lot of ways.

ELLEITHEE: Yes. MATTINGLY: I want to play some sound from Michelle Obama, who I think we've talked a lot about the former president's speech where there were some implicit kind of nods to the current president and maybe some slights to the current president. I don't think the former first lady was implicit in anything she was trying to say here. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: The lies about your birthright, your faith, your patriotism, the outrage when you stated the biological fact that if you had a son that he too would be black. You were doing the people's work, rescuing our economy, expanding health care, ending a war, ordering the Bin Laden raid, saving an auto industry, winning a peace prize.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: There should be like a camera on W anytime Michelle Obama is speaking. It's like, yes, we need to do that. OK, she closed that speech saying, "A lasting legacy isn't a name on a building." What do you think of that?

[17:55:02]

GILLESPIE: I think it's very poignant. I think it speaks to what we -- Trump's doing as he knows that this is the way he can leave his legacy, that he has control over because beyond that, I think what is very telling is what he hasn't done. And what she's pointing out, I think also juxtaposing that with what happened with the UFC fight and the comments made about Michelle Obama, former First Lady, I think it was important for her to say something about that in a way that was dignified.

I don't know that Donald Trump particularly cares, but his legacy impact, it's pretty obvious what he wants versus what the American people are expecting from presidents.

MATTINGLY: I think we all have a clock on when Truth Socials are going to start rolling out at some point. Appreciate you guys all very much. Jamie, as always, great reporting.

A Republican senator is calling President Trump's Iran agreement the worst foreign policy blunder in decades. How the White House is defending it despite all the bipartisan blowback. That's next.

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