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EPA Tells Some Staff to Stop Policing Midwest Oil and Gas Industries; Iranian State Television Studio Hit by Israeli Strike; First Full Day of Deliberations in Karen Read Murder Retrial. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired June 16, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: CNN has learned that the EPA has instructed staff overseeing parts of the Midwest to stop policing oil and gas industries in a region that's been plagued for decades by pollution.

CNN's Rene Marsh is here with the details. Renee, how long has this been going on and what are the implications?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I've been talking to sources for several weeks now, a total of seven EPA sources, four of them within this Midwest region, and they said it happened just weeks into this new administration. And this directive was given for this Midwest region, as you mentioned, plagued by a legacy of pollution. It was given verbally.

And that meant that they were not able to issue violations to suspected or facilities that were in violation of environmental laws. And they haven't been able to request information of these facilities that they suspected of being in violation of these environmental laws. And then in other parts of the country, like Region 6, which oversees Texas and Louisiana states where there's a lot of oil production, they say that many of their cases are at a standstill.

They can issue violations, but the cases are not moving forward, effectively freezing things there. We did reach out to a watchdog group that has analyzed the publicly available EPA data, and it does show that enforcement cases initiated under this administration went down some 32 percent during the first three months of this Trump presidency compared to the Biden presidency. Again, this analysis done for CNN by the Environmental Integrity Project.

[15:35:00]

And Boris, it's worth noting, like we have seen Republican administrations in which regulation is rolled back or eased on industry, but many of these EPA employees, many of them longtime employees, say this is different. This is unprecedented in the sense that they are seeing a carve-out for a specific industry to essentially telling some staff not to enforce laws on the books for this specific industry.

SANCHEZ: That is really stunning. What is the EPA saying? MARSH: Well, we reached out to them, shared our reporting, and an EPA spokesperson says that -- and I'm quoting now -- Inspections and enforcement continue to occur in the energy and oil and gas industries.

They went on to point to several settlement cases that they finalized. We will note that many of those cases were from the Biden administration. They stemmed from the Biden administration. They were negotiated under the Biden administration.

And the other side of this is the Department of Justice has been a partner with the EPA. Their office, their environmental division has lost a lot of attorneys, either from resignations or firings as this administration thins out the ranks. And so the EPA enforcement officials say they feel like they've lost some leverage even with the industry because they don't, in their words, have the partnership of DOJ, DOJ pushing back on that. But beyond all of this, Boris, it's the human impact.

And it is just the reality that if this is happening on the scale of what we're hearing from our sources, it's the human health impact in these communities that are in the shadows of these facilities. And can they rely on the EPA across the board to be cracking down on these facilities that are in violation of these environmental laws?

SANCHEZ: Rene Marsh, thank you so much for the reporting.

More ahead on the intensifying conflict between Israel and Iran. Israel saying it's identified new incoming missiles launched from Iran just hours after it struck Iran's state news channel.

We'll be right back. Don't go anywhere.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We are seeing new video of the aftermath of an Israeli attack on Iran's state-run television channel. New footage from outside the TV studio showing the headquarters of Iran's public news network burning after the attack. You can see a giant plume of smoke billowing from the building there.

The dramatic strike captured on video during a live broadcast. You hear that loud explosion there while the anchor was presenting live on the air and then quickly leaves the set as you see smoke coming in there inside the studio.

Yeganeh Rezaian is with us now. She is an Iran media analyst. And of course, she and her husband Jason, who is a reporter for The Washington Post, were both arrested and imprisoned in Iran back in 2014. Yegi (ph), thank you so much for being with us.

You see this video. It's really something to see, Israel striking the studio complex of Iran's state news channel. What does that symbolize to Iranians seeing that? YEGANEH REZAIAN, IRAN MEDIA ANALYST: Brianna, thanks for having me. Let me tell you, yes, IRIB or Iran, Islamic Republic's state broadcasting is the propaganda machine of the system. And that's where they launched many, many propagandas against me in my personal life. So I have been hurt by that machine many times, as you know very well.

But let me also add that many people who work there as journalists or media workers are not necessarily in that building because they think like the regime or they are allies with the regime. In the absence of free, independent media working in Iran as regime has suffocated media, whether domestic or foreign media, many journalists or media workers had to work there. That was their only option.

So my heart goes out to those who have been in that building and have been injured or killed. At the same time, Israel has an advanced and precise system of notifying alarming people. And they did an hour before taking that strike.

But for anyone who knows Tehran or who have ever traveled to Tehran or like me, who was born and raised there in that neighborhood, knows that it's a neighborhood of hundreds of thousands of civilians. An hour in a situation when all the roads are blocked, when there are no facilities, when there is no gas for cars and people are having a hard time commuting, and there is no safe shelter.

The regime has not even built a single shelter in the past 40 years. An hour is not enough. Iranian people do not have any shelter to seek shelter in.

They have no other help. And that's unthinkable, unthinkable, that's outrageous. And the destruction inside Tehran is much more extensive than what we are seeing in the news.

[15:45:00]

And that makes me go back to my previous point, Brianna, the fact that domestic media and domestic journalists are not able and free to do their work. They are being summoned here and there by the judiciary, by the prosecutor general's office. And journalists like you from CNN and from international media are not able to obtain visas.

There is no Washington Post left in Iran. There is no New York Times left in Iran to be the voice of Iranian people, to show the footages of destruction. I know that the regime has launched many, many missiles to the civilian neighborhoods in different cities of Israel.

And again, my heart goes out to any civilian who is suffering as a result of this war, whether Iranian or Israeli, irrespective of their religious belief. But these images show that Iranian people, the civilian, our loved ones are alone there. They don't have any support in the U.S. government. They don't get any support from their own government. And just destruction and harming people is not going to bring any peace or is not going to eliminate the regime's nuclear facilities or nuclear power.

KEILAR: Yegi, what are you hearing from your family and your friends in Iran? Are they able -- you know, are you able to get through to them? Are they able to get information that isn't from state-run media?

REZAIAN: Well, the communications path are very difficult. Part of it is because the infrastructures are being attacked. Part of it is that regime has a very sophisticated way of silencing people and shutting down internet every now and then, not letting local journalists, again, freely publicly report on newspapers.

There is no other option besides the state media. There's no other alternative TV running in the country or radio facility, nothing. And that's why if the destructions and the strikes continue, especially in Tehran as a city of over 14 million, people are having a hard time connecting to social media.

Social media is their only podium to be able to get in touch with their loved ones. Regime often, as you know, easily shuts down internet. They can easily do that for days.

They can also disconnect and filter WhatsApp or Instagram, which is the only widely accessible social media in Iran. And then that's where a city like Tehran with over 14 million people becomes a mass grave of many innocent civilians who are not able to get their voice heard.

KEILAR: Yeganeh Rezaian, thank you so much. We really appreciate your time and giving us some of that context to just about the timing and what Iranian people are facing.

REZAIAN: Thank you for having me.

KEILAR: And ahead for the second time, Karen Read's fate is in the hands of a jury. Deliberations underway in her retrial for the murder of her Boston police officer boyfriend of the very latest.

[15:50:00]

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SANCHEZ: Jurors in Karen Read's murder trial -- retrial, I should say, are spending their first full day deliberating the high profile case. They're weighing whether Read killed her police officer boyfriend by hitting him with her SUV, as prosecutors allege, and leaving him to die in the snow. Read has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against her, including second degree murder.

Let's get the latest from CNN's Jean Casarez, who's live for us outside the courthouse in Dedham, Massachusetts. Jean, what's the latest?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the latest is it is packed with people, packed with supporters here at the courthouse. But I want to tell you, the jury has been deliberating almost seven hours now in this courthouse across the street from me.

Not a question. There has not been a peep from this jury. And that's unusual because normally there are some questions. But the judge said to them when she was giving the final instructions,

go slow. This has been a long case. It is very, very significant. And it is very difficult. There are so many factors that are involved in this case. So don't rush to anything.

So maybe they are taking her advice right there.

Let me tell you something that just happened. The family of John O'Keefe, escorted by law enforcement, walked through the front door into that courthouse. That can be significant or that can also be the ending of the day of the jury deliberations and everyone comes into court.

Now, I want you to see what's outside. I'm going to step aside so you can see the massive, and I mean massive, support for Karen Read. They have been here from the morning hours. They are still here. And they are all talking about this trial.

They're not sitting around talking about other things. They're talking about the evidence. They're talking about Karen Read. They're talking about justice, because they believe that that is what is due in this case, because there has been, in their words, corruption of the investigation here.

[15:55:00]

Now, the Commonwealth, in their closing arguments, really focused on the evidence, the phone data, the debris field right in front of the house where John O'Keefe was let off, and they say then hit, clipped by Karen Read's Lexus. So the jury, at this point, still deliberating. We're here.

We'll let you know the latest as it comes -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Jean Casarez, thank you so much for the update from Massachusetts.

Coming up, do not sit on the art. A couple of tourists learned it the hard way.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Two tourist take a seat and smash it. And it wasn't just any chair, it was a valuable museum piece called Van Gogh's Chair. It's a modern interpretation of the painters famed piece of the same name. You see it there hanging on the wall. But this version made by an Italian artist 20 years ago, is cover in hundreds of Swarovski crystals. A museum in Verona, Italy, captured the two tourists, checking it out after everyone else had left the room. And then?

KEILAR: Then you see a woman settle in. Yes, and then her male companion snaps a photo of her, and then he takes the oh, it doesn't go so well for him.

SANCHEZ: He nailed it.

[16:00:00]

KEILAR: The legs collapsed. He gets up. Oh, what do they do? Of course they tell on themselves. No, they don't. They get up, they hurry out.

The Palazzo Maffei in Verona filed a police report, just released the footage as a reminder to treat art with respect. The museum was able to repair that chair.

I mean, come on, guys.

SANCHEZ: I'm glad they repaired it, but wouldn't you put something like that in like a glass case? I feel like it's so obvious. We do these stories --

KEILAR: What about a little sign that says like, hey, don't be dumb?

SANCHEZ: Yes, but people disrespect those signs. You got to guard it better than that.

KEILAR: "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts now.

SANCHEZ: I blame the museum.