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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Senators Press Blanche on Epstein Files and Trump Loyalty; Trump Reverses Court, Orders ICE Traffic Stops to Resume After Pause; Human Rights Org Says, Iran Ramping Up Political Prisoner Executions. Bessent Unveils New Gold Coin With Trump's Face; Floods, Tornadoes And Wildfires Wreak Havoc Across United States. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired July 15, 2026 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.

This hour, an Epstein survivor's going to be here on The Lead. Her reaction after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche admitted to mistakes by the Justice Department when releasing the Epstein files. How those mistakes impacted lives. That's ahead.

Plus, former President Joe Biden emerging today to announce the name of his new book and the pub date, explaining decisions he made and why. Given the state of politics, does this help Democrats? Does it hurt Democrats? Does it matter?

Also, inside Iran right now, what's really going on? New reports detail a rise in political executions. Hear from a woman who told CNN her two brothers face sentences of death.

And here in the U.S., violent weather across parts of Texas. We're talking tornadoes and a half year's worth of rain just this week. And in the Northeast, the U.S. cities to likely see an orange haze because of the wildfires in neighboring Canada.

The Lead tonight, Todd Blanche's promotion to attorney general hangs in the balance after a high-stakes hearing on Capitol Hill if he wants to get confirmed to the top job at the Justice Department. The president's former personal attorney turned-deputy attorney general, turned-acting attorney general, Blanche can only afford to lose one Republican senator on the Judiciary Committee following the sudden death of Senator Lindsey Graham this past weekend. Graham was on the committee.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle didn't go easy on Blanche today on topics such as his mishandling of the Epstein files and his loyalty to his former client, President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TODD BLANCHE, ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE: There were mistakes that were made, and so approximately 1 percent of the redactions had to be fixed after we released the Epstein files. SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): Are you on President Trump's firm?

BLANCHE: I'm his lawyer. Was his lawyer, and now I'm the deputy attorney general.

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Is President Trump, just as a simple matter of constitutional law, eligible to run for another term as president in 2028?

BLANCHE: I don't believe he is, no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig with me right now.

That's quite a moment there where he said, I am his lawyer -- I was his lawyer.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: A little Freudian.

TAPPER: What did you make of Blanche's performance today?

HONIG: I think we saw on display the difference between words and actions. So, to hear Todd Blanche testify today, it was all of the good old DOJ principles. It was prosecution without fear or favor. It was do the job in the right way for the right reasons. It is, at times, when he said it correctly, I represent the American public, not any one person or politician.

But contrast that with the record that we have, Blanche has now been essentially either deputy A.G. or acting A.G. for a year-and-a-half, how do you reconcile those things he said with the way he mishandled the Epstein files, with this ridiculous slush fund and immunity agreement that he came up with that was so offensive, Republicans rebelled and he had to walk away with it? How do you reconcile that with the almost overtly political prosecutions and investigations of Letitia James, Jim Comey, Mark Kelly, Elissa Slotkin, Jerome Powell, on down the line?

So, what he says is nice, but to me, actions are much more important.

TAPPER: The committee covered the president's pardon power and the anti-weaponization fund, that slush fund, for January 6th and others, the Trump family's IRS settlement, immigration, the Epstein files, a whole host of other topics. What didn't they cover that you wish they had asked?

HONIG: I would have liked to see a bit more follow-up and specificity. So, for example, he was asked at one point a good question, is DOJ independent from the president or not? And Blanche gave a sort of mealy mouth, both ways-ish answer. But a good direct follow-up would've been, will you take orders from the president to prosecute people he doesn't like? When he posts on Truth Social, I want this person prosecuted, will you follow that?

I'll give you another example. With the slush fund, there were all sorts of intricate questions about the wording of the agreement and all that. Somebody should have asked him, look, these people, these January 6th rioters, they can still put in for claims. With or without a slush fund, will you commit that no money will go out the door to violent January 6th rioters?

[18:05:04]

So, that type of specificity, I think, could have pinned him down a bit more.

He was asked about meeting with the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse to address the concerns they have about redactions in the files or failures to redact information. He had a kind of confusing answer. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): Will you meet with these ten survivors? I'm asking you on the record.

BLANCHE: If they have lawyers, as you know, I'm prohibited from meeting directly with them. I have met with counsel for survivors, as has many people in the Department of Justice.

DURBIN: So, will you get it done within the next 30 days that each of these survivors --

BLANCHE: I will get it done today if that's necessary. My point is there's somebody here who can meet with them today, get their information, arrange to meet with them, absolutely.

DURBIN: I think you want to be in the room.

BLANCHE: Pardon me?

DURBIN: I think you want to be in the room because you ought to hear this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What does he mean he can't meet with the Epstein survivors if they have lawyers?

HONIG: Please let me correct this, because that is absolutely false, and it's devious. Because if you're not a lawyer, you might hear that and go, okay, I guess he's playing by the rules. He's wrong, and he knows it. He was a prosecutor for a long time.

The rule that you can't meet with someone unless they have a witness present -- a lawyer present, is if they're a defendant, a person you have charged with a crime or are about to charge with a crime. If you're talking about a witness, there is no such rule. And even if you wanted to be extra careful, you call up the witness and say, hey, do you have a lawyer? You can bring your lawyer or you can choose to come without a lawyer. You don't have to. So, he's completely manipulating that rule, I think, to excuse his inaction with respect to survivors. TAPPER: Do you think that Blanche was able to assuage the committee's concerns when it comes to the Justice Department not complying with the letter of the law, when it comes to the Epstein files? He needs to -- there's still like 2 or 3 million files they haven't released.

HONIG: Well, so what he said with respect to the inadvertent release of victim information, which is unforgivable, he did own that. He did say that was a mistake. He tried to minimize it. He said, well, it's a small portion, but a really damaging portion.

But the thing that he's not yet answered is there are over-redactions as well. The law, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, specifically says, information is not to be redacted because of personal embarrassment or political damage that might be done to an individual.

There are still many documents, emails in that file, where the name of the person emailing with Jeffrey Epstein is still redacted, and I won't get into the details, but they're emailing explicitly about girls and young girls, and send me this kind of girls, and what did you think of that? We don't know who those people are, and the law says that has to be unredacted. I don't think he addressed that.

TAPPER: All right, Elie Honig, thanks so much.

Let's go now to CNN's Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju, who's on Capitol Hill. Manu Blanche doesn't have much room, much margin for error today. Is he going to get the votes needed to get through committee?

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, he can only afford to lose one Republican vote on what's expected to be a party line vote, and there are two Republicans who are still undecided. And those two Republicans really have nothing to lose, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who's retiring at the end of the year, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who lost his primary earlier this year to a Trump-backed challenger, of course, Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general.

Now, after the hearing, both of them indicated how they view this nomination, saying that they have not made a decision yet, in large part because of how they have Blanche answer questions about that $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund.

This is what Cornyn told me in the immediate aftermath of his questioning with Blanche earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Did Todd Blanche satisfy your concerns about the weaponization fund?

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): Well, basically he confirmed that it's not dead. It can't be changed without written consent of the parties according to the settlement agreement. There is no written consent of the parties, and he agreed that it could be enforced as a matter of contract. RAJU: Does that concern you?

CORNYN: Yes.

RAJU: You're truly undecided right now?

CORNYN: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, as Cornyn says he's truly undecided, Jake, Tillis told me that he is, quote, leaning yes, but he's not a yes yet because he says he wants more to be done to codify that this weaponization fund is dead altogether, meaning he wants legislation to actually pass the United States Senate with the support of President Trump. That, he says, will be enough for him to get to yes.

But will that actually happen by the time of this committee vote before the end of the month? That's going to be one of the big questions to watch as Todd Blanche has virtually no margin for error in this very partisan committee.

TAPPER: All right. Manu Raju on Capitol Hill for us, thank you so much.

Ten survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's twisted abuse were in the room during Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's hearing today. He said he had a message for them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLANCHE: We will never, never not talk to victims. We will never not do everything we can to prosecute anybody that committed any crimes against any of these women.

So, that narrative is false. We have spoken with over 30 representatives of dozens and dozens of victims since this process started.

[18:10:00]

Any victim, if they're here today, I would encourage them to -- or their lawyers to meet with the FBI. We will 100 percent investigate. There are no closed investigations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Liz Stein is here with me now. She was one of the ten women who was there in the room. Liz, I have so many questions for you, but, first of all, as always, how you doing? I know this stuff sucks.

LIZ STEIN, EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: Long day. Yes.

TAPPER: Yes.

STEIN: Yes. TAPPER: You doing okay?

STEIN: Yes.

TAPPER: Okay. Todd Blanche said, we will never, never not talk to the victims. We will never not do everything we can to prosecute anybody that committed crimes against any of these women. That narrative is false. Is that narrative false?

STEIN: Very ironic. We have been asking, almost begging, to meet with the DOJ for months now. We have made ourselves available. And I think that what we saw today from Todd Blanche was a lot of deflection. There's always deflection, right? Survivors have been speaking to the FBI for almost 30 years, since 1996. We have given information and he just keeps putting the impetus back onto us instead of the DOJ to do their job.

TAPPER: So, Blanche says that the Justice Department has met with more than 30 representatives of Epstein survivors. That's not survivors themselves. He also then said he personally cannot meet with you without your attorney. Elie Honig says that that's bullshit. What was your response to that?

STEIN: Well, we felt the same way. And I just want to make clear that when they listed those 30 attorneys, some of them had been in contact with the DOJ just for things like to give names that needed to be redacted. So, they haven't been in contact with those 30 attorneys to get us in front of the DOJ. And also there was at least one attorney on that list who says that they've never met with the DOJ.

TAPPER: So, interestingly, Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, he had a heated exchange with Todd Blanche pointing out that Blanche says he can't meet with survivors but he met with Ghislaine Maxwell personally for two days down in Florida at the prison where she used to be.

STEIN: Yes, and then moved her to a lower security facility.

TAPPER: Yes. If you had a chance to meet with Todd Blanche, if he's watching CNN right now, what would you say to him?

STEIN: Well, I said this the other day. You know, something that I talk about a lot is the fact that there's been so much political and emotion infused into what boils down to a crime. We're crime victims. And I would just ask him, if I was his daughter, Sydney, would it be acceptable for him, for the Department of Justice to be treating us this way?

And I would hope that his answer would be no. Because at the end of the day, like I said, we're crime victims, but we're also someone's daughter. We're someone's sister, someone's aunt, someone's mother. And we need to see justice for the crimes that were committed against us.

It was beyond insulting that they kept talking over and over again today about the strides that they've made in combating human trafficking. Imagine what strides could be made if this case was investigated.

TAPPER: So, he also said that if any victim was -- if they're here today, I would encourage them or their lawyers to meet with the FBI. There are no closed investigations. What's your response to that?

STEIN: We've tried to do that over and over and over again, and we've been met with resistance. So, I -- you know, again, he's putting -- he's deflecting onto us when it's the job of the DOJ.

TAPPER: There are two Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee who seem to be wavering, John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. What's your message to them on how they should vote and why they should vote that way?

STEIN: Again, this is not a partisan issue. We're victims of a crime, and we have been courageous over and over and over and over again. And I would just ask Senators Cornyn and Tillis to maybe vote their conscience and stand behind us as survivors.

TAPPER: But why should they not vote for him? Why do you think Blanche should not be attorney general?

STEIN: I think that we've seen the way that he has mishandled the release of these files. Just one simple example is the way that the redactions were handled. We saw over and over perpetrators' names were redacted, and our personal information was unredacted. We were exposed as survivors. There were survivors who had never been public, never even considered becoming public, and now they've been thrust into the public spotlight.

TAPPER: Yes. And Attorney General Bondi said Todd Blanche was in charge of all of it.

Liz Stein, thank you so much.

[18:15:00]

Thanks for your courage, as always, making the world a better place for future victims or hopefully future women who won't be victimized because of you.

STEIN: Thank you.

TAPPER: In the wake of two men killed by ICE in Houston, Texas, and in Maine, what sources tell CNN made President Trump furious. He personally called for a reversal on an immigration policy switch that had put a pause on traffic stops.

And later, the plans for Trump's signature and face on U.S. money, on currency, and some of the pushback, notably from a Republican. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Just 24 hours after Trump administration's put the brakes on most vehicle stops by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and others enforcing the president's plans here, President Trump hit the gas on it. He said he was bringing it back. Sources say he was furious about the pause. He ordered traffic stops to resume. He called them effective for enforcement.

The pause was announced just yesterday after agents killed two people in less than a week, one in Houston, the other in Maine, under highly questionable circumstances. The partner of the Colombian man killed in Maine posted a heartbreaking tribute saying, my soul aches. I have so many questions.

[18:20:00]

I wish it were all a lie.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez joins us now. And it was just yesterday we reported that DHS, Tom Homan had reported a halt on most traffic stops and then President Trump just took to Truth Social and just brought them back?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, sources tell us he was furious. Look, what happened yesterday was that ICE put out guidance to its agents essentially telling them there was going to be a temporary pause on initiating vehicle stops after the two fatal shootings that involved these vehicle stops. And White House Border Czar Tom Homan went out and spoke to reporters and stressed this was temporary. They just wanted to assess what had happened here.

But President Trump, when he was watching the coverage this morning and getting immense blowback from portions of the MAGA base that saw this as a weakening of immigration enforcement, grew more furious, and that is what fueled his Truth Social post where he called traffic stops, quote, the most important and effective tool.

Now, we're also told by our sources that Tom Homan and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin did not alert Trump to this pause prior to imposing it. Now, I did just receive a statement from the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and in it he says, quote, President Trump and I are on the same page. We want our ICE officers to have all options available to keep them safe while executing our mission of deporting as many illegal alien criminals from our country as possible.

Now, that part is key, Jake, because the reality is that without the vehicle stops, they weren't going to hit those 2,000 arrests a day that they want to to continue this aggressive immigration crackdown. So, the president coming out and making it very clear today that he is the one that calls the shots when it comes to his mass deportation pledge and that this vehicle stop pause was not going to continue.

TAPPER: My sources on Capitol Hill tell me that Homan had told people on Capitol Hill before Trump reversed it that he needed to be more confident in the training for these traffic stops. But I guess the president didn't talk to him before reversing it.

What more can you tell us about this social media post? ALVAREZ: Well, we are hearing from the partner of the man who was fatally shot in this ICE-involved shooting in Maine. Her name is Karolina Rojas. She posted on TikTok, and I just want to -- I mean, you had read part of it, but she also said, I have no words for this pain. My life, you are my everything, never, ever leave me alone. That was part of her TikTok post. She posts photos, you see them there, of her and him, as well as their three-year-old daughter. So many questions still about what unfolded in Maine. There are investigations that are ongoing and a community that, along with Karolina Rojas, has been grieving at what happened.

TAPPER: Is there any indication that federal authorities are allowing an investigation into whether this was a, quote/unquote, good shooting?

ALVAREZ: Well, that is part of what is happening not only in Maine, but also in Houston, where they're trying to collect this information from federal authorities. I think the question is will they give them everything that they are looking for, because as you know, Jake, in Minneapolis, that was not the case up until recently.

TAPPER: It was certainly not. They blocked it and covered it up in the case of Renee Good, at least, and we'll see about Alex Pretti.

Priscilla Alvarez, thanks so much.

Some breaking good news in the sports lead, just incredible excitement after Argentina's big win last hour, Priscilla's dancing in here, beating England, advancing to the World Cup final. This scene here, this is Miami, big day. Sunday's final will now be Argentina and Spain. We're here for it.

The Lead's back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:25:00]

TAPPER: Our Politics Lead now. Tomorrow night, eight Democrats hoping to replace Graham Platner as the Democratic nominee for Maine's U.S. Senate seat will face off in a televised debate, all of them vying for votes from 601 delegates in Maine, who, at a Democratic convention on July 25th in Maine, will pick the nominee who will ultimately face Republican Senator Susan Collins this fall.

Here now is Democratic Congressman and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts. Congressman, thanks so much for being here.

You were one of the first Democrats to break with the support for Graham Platner, despite all of these red flags, starting with the Totenkopf Nazi tattoo, but then there was the extramarital sexting and the Reddit posts that were vile, and then in early January, a New York Times story where there was allegations of domestic violence.

What does this -- the fact that you were so alone, I mean, your fellow Massachusetts Congressional representative, Elizabeth Warren, was -- she said that Graham Platner was her kind of man. Why did you take that -- I mean, obviously, you were proven correct, but what led you to take that bold position? You got a lot of heat for it at the time.

SEN. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): Character matters. Ten years ago, Republicans decided that character doesn't matter in politics. We've seen the cult of personality that party has become, and Platner, to me, demonstrates the hazards to Democrats of agreeing with Republicans, because character should matter in politics.

TAPPER: What did you say to your fellow Democrats when they gave you heat? I mean, some of them were like, oh, so you want Susan Collins to be reelected? And there was all sorts of stuff involving AIPAC and the fact that you're Jewish and all this. I mean, there's a lot of garbage.

AUCHINCLOSS: A lot of garbage.

TAPPER: From the left, to be clear.

AUCHINCLOSS: There's two themes at work here. One is there is an element of the left and of the right for whom Israel is an all- consuming obsession. And, you know, Platner has to take accountability for his own decisions. A foreign government didn't make him get a dumb tattoo, didn't make him post perverted things on Reddit, didn't dictate his treatment of women. He's got to own his own decisions.

And while we can have a healthy debate about Israel as a party, and indeed, today, we just did, actually, on the House floor, that cannot become the issue that consumes all the oxygen going into '26 and '28 where we have to be talking about America and Americans.

[18:30:00]

The other element here, Jake, is Democrats are so hungry for disruption, and we should be. We cannot be the party of defending the status quo but we can have disruptive candidates about whom we are proud. Sam Forstag in Montana is a fire jumper, first time in politics, Jamie Ager in North Carolina, a farmer, first time in politics, Nancy Lacore in South Carolina, a vice admiral, first time in politics. These are outsiders coming to shake things up, and they're people that I want my kids to grow up to emulate.

TAPPER: Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, told Politico that he's staying out of Maine. He's staying out of the race. His original choice to support for the Senate race was the governor of Maine, Janet Mills, who's a little long in the tooth but had never been accused of rape. Do you agree that Schumer should stay on the sidelines? What does that say about his leadership?

AUCHINCLOSS: I think Mainers have probably had enough of outsiders coming into the state, whether they're consultants or senators, and putting their thumbs on the scales for preferred candidates. There's 601 Mainers at a convention. Let them decide.

TAPPER: Maine used to be a Congressional district of Massachusetts. I learned that from you a few minutes ago. Are you going to endorse anybody?

AUCHINCLOSS: Whoever the nominee is, I'm excited to help them beat Susan Collins.

TAPPER: One other thing I want to ask you about is this question of ICE and the role of ICE. We saw this horrific shooting in Maine. We saw the horrific shooting in Texas. We saw what happened in Minnesota six months ago. One of the candidates, Shenna Bellows, she's the secretary of state in Maine, an appointed position we should note, she's calling for ICE to, quote, get off our streets. Others are calling for ICE to be abolished altogether. What do you think, and do you worry at all that going that far might alienate some of the moderate voters that Democrats need to win that Senate seat?

AUCHINCLOSS: ICE has morphed into a paramilitary. It's sowing fear amongst immigrant communities, and it needs to be reformed, retrained from the root. Right now, it consumes more federal resources than every single other law enforcement agency combined. That's more than crime, guns, drugs, counterterrorism, corruption. That is not where Americans' priorities are at.

Americans want a secure border. Americans want individuals without documentation who are convicted of crimes to be deported after they serve their sentence. Americans do not want their neighbors, who are contributing to the economy and to their society, to be harassed by these thugs.

TAPPER: All right. Representative Jake Auchincloss, Democrat of Massachusetts, thank you, and thank you for your service, as always, sir, I appreciate it.

AUCHINCLOSS: Good evening.

TAPPER: We have breaking news in The World Lead. U.S. CENTCOM releasing this video showing strikes taking out an empty oil tanker sailing towards Kharg Island, the island an economic lifeline for Iran.

Also in Iran tonight, we have some brand-new reporting about what's happening on the ground there, and it's not pretty, political executions. What one woman in agony told CNN about the death sentence her two brothers faced, that story's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:35:00]

TAPPER: In our World Lead, as President Trump unleashes a brand new wave of punishing strikes on Iran tonight, Iran continues to execute its own citizens. At least 47 political prisoners have been put to death this year, according to an Oslo-based human rights group, IHR. It's a huge increase from just 16 last year.

Today, IHR confirmed another man was hanged, killed by the Iranian regime for taking part in January's protests.

CNN's Isobel Yeung spoke with an Iranian woman living in Europe constantly worried about her brothers who are on death row in Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ISOBEL YEUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Niki Nikbakht recently learned that her two brothers, Hadi and Fazlollah (ph), have been given the death sentence by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Every day from her home in Germany, she checks in with her family back home.

Niki's brothers are just two of dozens of political prisoners facing execution in Iran right now. They stand accused of encouraging dissent against the regime, and were convicted of broad charges of corruption.

The Islamic Republic in the past has said that they only issue the death penalty after due process, and that it's only given for very serious crimes for people who have committed horrendous things. Is that not what your brothers have done?

NIKI NIKBAKHT, BROTHERS SENTENCED TO DEATH BY IRANIAN REGIME: They always try to portray politically active people as a threat to society to justify their death sentence. It's creating fear in society.

YEUNG: Earlier this year, after widespread protests where the authorities cracked down with lethal force, President Trump claimed he'd stepped in to stop Iran from executing hundreds of people. But since the U.S.-led war, Iran has intensified repression and sped up the pace of executions. At least 44 political prisoners, including protesters, have been killed since the conflict broke out according to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGO.

So, this is Hadi and his wife and his two sons. And how are they handling it?

NIKBAKHT: I don't think that their mother has mentioned the death sentence to them.

YEUNG: With each execution, the regime sends a chilling message, we're still in charge, and dissent will not be tolerated.

It must be impossible to put out of your mind. I mean, how are you feeling on a daily basis about what could be to come?

NIKBAKHT: The only thing I can do now is be their voice. There's nothing else I can do. There are no words. It's unimaginable, but we must stay strong.

YEUNG: Human rights groups decry what they say are forced confessions used to justify these executions. Earlier this year, 26-year-old Nasser Bakhdazaei and 28-year-old Mehrab Abdollahzadeh confessed to serious crimes. Nasser's filmed confession about espionage was used as propaganda and publicized on Iranian state media.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

YEUNG: But in recorded calls from prison during their final days, both Nasser and Mehrab said they'd been tortured into making these confessions. [18:40:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

YEUNG: Both Nasser and Mehrab were hanged on the 2nd of May.

Hamid Chapati shared a cell with both men in Orumiyeh Central Prison. Chapati is a Kurdish Iranian activist who was imprisoned there for three months.

HAMID CHAPATI, SHARED CELL WITH EXECUTED IRANIAN DISSIDENTS: For Nasser and Mehrab, and every prisoner sentenced to execution, every day can be the last day, and every moment can be the last moment. At night, they cannot sleep.

YEUNG: Do you remember the day when you found out that Nasser was executed?

CHAPATI: Nasser sent word through a mutual friend that he wanted to talk to him one last time. And, unfortunately, I could not talk to him.

But when I heard the news of his execution, I feel like I was executed with him too.

YEUNG: As the war in Iran heats up again, human rights feel far from the priority, and the regime is once again ruling through fear.

Isobel Yeung, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Our thanks to Isobel Yeung for that report.

Breaking news in our National Lead, an FBI search warrant claims that there was reason to believe there were illegal drugs in the van driven by the man who was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Houston last week. In the warrant affidavit, the FBI agent described arriving after the shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and claimed to observe small plastic bags with a white crystal-like substance in the van. The Department of Homeland Security has not indicated that the ICE agents who stopped Salgado Araujo knew of drugs that were possibly in the van at the time of the shooting.

Former President Biden dropped a new video today revealing details about his upcoming memoir. Will this give folks much to talk about? I'll ask two political insiders coming up.

Plus, the new coin featuring the current president and the reaction it's already getting.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:45:52] JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And our politics lead today, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled a new $1 coin to help celebrate the United States 250th birthday. Purportedly, it's a coin that has -- well, Donald Trump's face on it.

Here is Secretary Bessent talking about putting Trump's face on American currency.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: The currency has to say, "In God we trust" somewhere on it, and there cannot be a image of a living person. But we have the president signature. We can put living people's images on a coin. President's also going to have a coin coming out with his image on it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: With me in studio is our panel.

So Republican Congressman Tom Massie, not a fan of either President Trump or the Trump coin. He posted this, quote, "Congratulations, we've entered the end stages. Eliminate the penny, plug the nickel, and make some commemorative gold coins nobody can afford. I feel sorry for the folks who will be sold worthless knockoffs by the usual grifters."

Kristen, a lot of families out there struggling to pay the bills, and I don't know how much this celebrates. the country at its 250th birthday. It certainly celebrates the president. What do you think?

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think this, this is just but one small piece of a much larger puzzle that is a huge additional political liability for the president's party going into this midterm.

Do I think that any one thing, any one coin makes the difference? No, but I think it's when you add together, he's putting his face on a gold coin, he's building this ballroom, he made, you know, is he making America's 250th birthday about himself at a moment when Americans are not interested in leaders who are making things about themselves? They want to be able to make ends meet.

Right now, the two biggest issues that I see voters care about, it's cost of living, but it's also this corruption and this feeling that there are elites who are focused on themselves. Donald Trump rose to political power, making the case that elites were too focused on themselves. This is one more thing that runs completely counter to that message that he has used in the past to very effectively build a political coalition.

TAPPER: I have to say, I'm older than you guys, and I'm old enough to remember the 200th birthday of this country. I was seven, and it was great, and it was nonpartisan, and the country had just been through hell with Watergate, Vietnam, and everybody came together. I'm sorry your kids didn't get to experience that. Maybe the 300th. In addition to Trump's face on this coin, his signature is going to be

on the $100 bill. Thoughts?

JOSH ORTON, PRESIDENT, DEMAND JUSTICE: Yeah, I mean, first, can we just sort of acknowledge that there has been no American more obsessed with gold since Liberace than Donald Trump? I mean, the Oval Office, the coin. And now with the signature on the $100 bill.

I think it's an interesting contrast to all of the populist promises that Donald Trump has made and never followed through on. What happened to the 10 percent cap on credit card interest rate? What happened to the check from the tariffs that was going to go to people that he's still emailing about today?

I think voters going into November are going to have a very clear understanding of all the promises that they were sold in a Donald Trump administration, and now him parading around worrying about an arch, face on a coin. This is almost cartoonish, and it is impossible for Republicans to defend.

TAPPER: Today, former President Joe Biden announced his upcoming memoir and the pub date in a social media post. Here's a little bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I've written a book about my time as president. It's called "Promise Me, America". It's about the challenges we faced as a nation, about the decisions I made, why I made them. It's about why I chose to run for re-election and why I chose to step aside.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER; What do you think? Is this something Democrats want?

ORTON: I think that Joe Biden made the right decision not to run for election. I think he made the right decision to delay the publication of this book until after the midterms, because I think the focus between now and election day is on who is president now and the fact that he's enriched himself by billions of dollars with crypto, the fact that the affordability crisis is still not solved, and the fact that he's gotten us into what is essentially a Groundhog Day war where we've bombed Iran to get rid of the nuclear weapons, only have to bomb Iran to get rid of the nuclear weapons.

[18:50:02]

We've taken out a Khamenei to be replaced with a Khamanei.

This is a time where I think that Republicans are going to have to answer for Trump's administration. I think that it was the right decision to delay the publication.

TAPPER: What do you make of the time? He had said it was going to be before the midterms in the book came out, but now, Little Brown and Company are announcing it's after the midterm.

ANDERSON: If I'm a Democrat, I'm breathing a little bit of a sigh of relief, because if Donald Trump doesn't himself know political favors, it is a reminder he's back in the White House because Americans knowing full well what Donald Trump as president was like -- having seen January 6th, having seen all the indictments and all of that still nevertheless said I would rather have that guy as president than in that case, Kamala Harris in a situation set up by a Joe Biden and a -- you've reported on this extensively.

TAPPER: I have.

ANDERSON: A decision, a series of decisions that were incomprehensible.

I wonder to what extent you get any kind of what your reaction is to him saying like in my decision to step aside as if like it was a considered thing and not a something that was kind of forced.

TAPPER: Yeah, we'll see. I can't wait to read it. Can't wait to read it.

Let's turn to the Hill. Todd Blanche's high stake job interview. Look at this question from Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): Are you and President Trump friends?

TODD BLANCHE, ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL: I'm his lawyer, was his lawyer, and now I'm the deputy attorney general.

So, I met him as his criminal defense attorney. I'm not sure there's very many people who have ever had a criminal defense attorney who calls that person their friend.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: I'm his lawyer, was his lawyer. What do you think?

ORTON: I think Donald Trump thinks of Todd Blanche as his lawyer still today. And I think he was chosen to be attorney general because he will follow Trump's political direction to prosecute who he wants. I think this money, even though he says the slush fund is dead, these January 6 rioters are still going to apply. And I think there is still a very good chance they get paid money.

And what I think is interesting is every one of Trump's judicial nominees, as you have covered, refused to say that he lost the 2020 election, was an attack on the Capitol. When you have this sort of loyalty, both in the judicial branch and in the nation's top law enforcement officer, we're reaching sort of banana republic territory. He's the attorney general nominee because he is Trump's lawyer.

TAPPER: And John Cornyn, among others, has expressed concern about this fund, the slush fund. And he told Manu Raju today that he, basically, that Blanche's answer confirmed that it isn't dead.

ANDERSON: Yeah, right now there's a weird political problem that Trump has kind of created for himself by picking fights openly with folks like John Cornyn endorsing against him in a primary when John Cornyn still holds the keys to whether or not some of these picks are going to get confirmed. Now, the best news for Todd Blanche is that someone like Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who has no political need to bend the knee to the president whatsoever, was also of the mind at the end of the hearing, OK, this actually sounds like it's met my standards.

And so, it's probably, I think, a good hearing today for Todd Blanche it's just that there's this broader political problem of John Cornyn is unleashed he can do whatever he wants and he does not have to make Donald Trump happy.

TAPPER: All right. Thanks to both of you. Really appreciate it.

Coming up next, some of the extreme weather in the last 24 hours, tornadoes, a half year's worth of rain, and the orange haze over parts of Canada and the northeastern U.S.

We'll be right back.

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[18:57:33]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Oh, no is right. That's an apparent tornado spotted near San Antonio, Texas. This dangerous weather is a national lead this hour. Devastating scenes from Texas today after life-threatening floods and tornadoes wreak havoc across the state.

Meanwhile, massive clouds of smoke from ongoing Canadian wildfires blanket the Great Lakes and northeast region of the United States, bringing dangerous air quality to more than 100 million people.

CNN's Derek Van Dam. takes a look now at the damage done so far and what remains to come.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Jake, this is what it looks like when you receive over half a year's worth of rain in a short period of time. Roads turned into rivers in Boerne, Texas, where the National Weather Service hoisted a flash flood emergency. That's the highest alert level during a flash flood event. And to make matters worse, a tornado tore through the suburbs of San Antonio earlier this morning.

Look at this dramatic video of high-water rescues. There were multiple vehicles submerged in floodwaters across Uvalde and into Medina counties. This is the area that has picked up over a foot and a half of rain with more precipitation expected. We have a level 404 that's a high risk of excessive rain that will lead to flash flooding and the wording here from the National Weather Service is. Life threatening, locally catastrophic flash flooding as repeated rounds of rain produced another 10 to upwards of 15 inches of rain in some of the hardest hit areas.

The other big story that we're monitoring are the wildfires across southern Canada. Look at this dramatic video coming out of Armstrong. This is a passenger train that was engulfed in flames. This train was trying to actually evacuate people from an encroaching wildfire. Fortunately, they were successful in getting everybody to safety. but really amazing, astounding and quite horrific video to watch.

These are the wildfires that have erupted across the border of Canada and the U.S. And it's sending a plume of smoke along the East Coast. If you're anywhere along the I-95 corridor, the Great Lakes, northern New England, you've probably seen that thick, hazy hue to the clouds, almost a permanent sepia tone, right?

Well, we have some of the worst quality of air right near the surface from Toronto all the way to New York City. Look at this. This is Toronto earlier today, and New York City shrouded in smoke once again, almost a repeat of June of 2023 -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Derek Van Dam, thanks so much.

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