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Trump Increasingly Warm To Using U.S. Military To Strike In Iran; Israel Plans To Strike Very Significant Targets In Tehran; Iran's Military Chief Tells People In Haifa And Tel Aviv To Evacuate Ahead Of Punitive Operation; Ice Told To Continue Worksite Immigration Raids; Kraft Heinz To Remove All Artificial Food Coloring By End Of 2027; FDA Is Trying To Phase Out All Petroleum-based Synthetic Food Dyes; State Department Briefing Amid Iran-Israel Conflict. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired June 17, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:50]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Iran says it's launched new attacks toward Israel as President Trump wades deeper into this escalating conflict. Trump now calling for unconditional surrender after saying that he knows the exact location of Iran's supreme leader.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Plus, the Department of Homeland Security reversing course and saying immigration raids will continue at farms, hotels, and work sites despite President Trump admitting just days ago that his deportation policy at those locations was hurting businesses. And then later, U.S. lawmakers seeking more protection after a quadruple shooting in Minnesota that left a state lawmaker and her husband dead. We are following all of these major developing stories and more, all coming in to "CNN News Central."

SANCHEZ: We start with breaking news in the intensifying conflict between Israel and Iran. President Trump's top security officials are set to convene in the White House Situation Room in just moments. Officials telling CNN that the president is growing increasingly warm to using U.S. military assets to strike Iranian nuclear facilities. Earlier in the day, the president called for Iran's unconditional surrender. He also posted to his Truth Social that, we now have complete and total control of guys over Iran. The President also issuing a warning to Iran's supreme leader saying, "We know where the Ayatollah is hiding and are not going to take him out, kill, at least for now."

CNN's Kaitlan Collins is tracking all of this forest from the White House. Kaitlan, those we-s are notable because initially when these strikes began, the U.S. put out that this was a unilateral move by Israel. What are you hearing from sources about the president's mindset on this?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, and some White House officials have remarked that comment there about the Ayatollah saying, we know where he is and we're not going to go after him, at least not for now is maybe not exactly reassuring to the supreme leader, but that is the reality of the situation that's been unfolding here at the White House. The president has returned after cutting his trip to Canada short. He's expected to meet with his top national security officials inside the Situation Room this afternoon. It was scheduled to start for 1:00 p.m. but it seemed to be delayed getting in. We saw the vice president himself just arriving a few moments ago.

And so of course, we know what's facing the president when he meets with that team inside the Situation Room. And that is the question of what the United States is going to do next here and just how involved the United States may get in this. We have seen some of the president's top advisors and allies outside of the White House and inside the White House advocating for him to get more involved. That includes people like Senator Lindsey Graham who said he had a private phone call with the president today where they discussed this very matter.

And Graham essentially urged the president to move on this front when it comes to striking Iran's nuclear facilities and having the U.S. assist Israel, not just in the defensive way that they've been doing since Iran has been striking Israel, but also in a more offensive matter. And the question really here when it comes to weighing that calculus is whether or not if the U.S. does get involved, if it means it would be successful in its mission if they do decide to go after Iran's nuclear program. We actually asked the president about that as we were flying back here to Washington on Air Force One. And this is what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Is there any guarantee that if the U.S. did get involved militarily, that a U.S. bomb could destroy Iran's nuclear program and facilities?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: There's no guarantees on everything or anything in life, you know that. Look at you, right? There's no guarantee. But you're saying a guarantee of what?

COLLINS: Do you think if the U.S. got involved militarily, it would actually wipe out Iran's nuclear program or where's your assessment of that?

TRUMP: I hope their program's going to be wiped out long before then but they're not going to have a nuclear weapon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: That sentence there at the end has been a long stated position, long held position of President Trump's for the last 10 years, essentially, that he has been saying publicly he does not want Iran to get access to that nuclear weapon. And what the shift is though behind the scenes that we're hearing is the president is increasingly open to this idea of having the United States assist Israel and help in striking Iran's nuclear facilities.

[14:05:00]

That is a change from where he was in recent weeks and months when he wanted to pursue a diplomatic option with Iran. But he's become increasingly frustrated with that. I mean, Boris, you can see that and all the posts that you just mentioned, where the president is telling Ayatollah, we know where you're hiding. We're not going to hit you just yet, but it's still an option, saying that the United States has control over the skies over Iran, using that word we was a critical choice there in the President's post.

And so, it seems that that is where it is shifting, though it does not appear any final decision has been made as we're waiting to see what is the outcome of this meeting that the president has with his national security team inside the Situation Room, and whether we see a change in the U.S. posture here.

SANCHEZ: Kaitlan Collins, live force from the White House. Thank you so much, Kaitlan. Let's take you live to the ground in Tel Aviv where we find CNN's Clarissa Ward. And Clarissa, what are Israel's calculations? Have they changed at all in light of these recent comments by President Trump?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think publicly it's still very much the rhetoric that you're hearing from Israel's leadership, is that we're very grateful and comfortable with the situation as is with President Trump, and the U.S. providing defensive support. Privately, I think, of course there's much more hopes, let's say, that the U.S. could weigh in or intervene militarily in a more meaningful and substantial way. But essentially, Israelis really feeling that they have the momentum here and that they are very much on the front foot, talking a lot about the ability that they have showed over the past few days to really minimize Iran's capacity for launching missiles, going after those missile launch pads.

Yesterday, they were saying that they had destroyed about a third of them. Obviously, we have no way to verify that figure, but we can tell you based on our experience on the ground, for the first three nights of this chapter versus the last 24 hours, it has been a lot quieter. The IDF saying last night, roughly 30 missiles and drones were fired towards Israel. That's a massive departure from the first night when it was about 200 missiles. And we've had several occasions where sirens will go off, people go into the shelters, only then not to hear much of a barrage at all.

Many interceptions obviously taking place and a few missiles falling mostly in open areas. So, there's definitely much less activity in terms of the effect on Israel, although the idea of also cautioning getting too glib or too cavalier and saying that Iran does still have what they call the capacity and the intention to strike Israel, to hurt Israel. They have hit civilian targets as we've seen. They have also, Boris, crucially hit military targets, although the IDF does not share or talk about what those targets are and what capacity or to what extent damage has been done as a result of them. So, people here essentially preparing for another night, I would say it feels a little bit more relaxed on the back of last night, which was relatively quiet. But again, everyone taking it very seriously when they hear the alarms, when they hear the sirens, making sure that they get to shelter within that 90 second recommended time period, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Clarissa Ward, live for us in Tel Aviv. Thank you so much. And as you hear there from Clarissa, Israel certainly wants the United States to get more involved in this conflict. From the president's own rhetoric, it seems like the U.S. is taking some ownership over what's happening, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yeah. The president and the vice president, Boris, really ramping this up. I wonder, Cedric Leighton, who's here with us to walk us through a lot of what we're seeing, how likely is it that we're going to see more U.S. involvement here?

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Brianna, I think this is going to be one of the key questions that the National Security Council is going to have to address. How likely is it? Well, basically, what the Israelis have done is they have softened up the target set for any type of action. What this means is that they've been able to go into places like Natanz, Isfahan, Fordow, which is of course a major area, and Tehran, the capital itself, and the Americans now have an ability to come in and attack those hardened and deeply buried targets, as we call them. And those targets are the ones that the Israelis do not have the capacity to attack by themselves.

KEILAR: Take a closer look for us, if you would, at Fordow, this enrichment site.

LEIGHTON: Yeah, absolutely. This is the basic satellite image of the Fordow site here. And what you're taking a look at here is a security perimeter around this part. It's basically in the northern -- north central part of Iran.

[14:10:00]

And then you see centrifuges are buried up here underneath the mountain. There's tunnel entrances here. These are very vulnerable points when it comes to targeting this type of an installation. This support building, right here, is basically a key element of the installation. But, of course, what you want to get at is those centrifuges. So, we know that it was started in the early 2000s. They started building it then. It's about almost 300 feet below ground and it contains around 2,700 centrifuges. This is the stuff that's needed, the machine in essence, that's needed to make enriched uranium and that could potentially take it to weapons-grade level.

And according to the recent international Atomic Energy Administration report, they suggest that Iran has ramped up their uranium enrichment to 60 percent. They need to get to 90 percent plus for weapons grade, but 60 percent is a long way to that. And the fact that they have that was an area of big concern. KEILAR: And you are one of multiple experts who has pointed out they would need multiple strikes at multiple points in order to get this site. But also, it requires a type of weapon that Israel does not have, right? But the U.S. does, so walk us through that.

LEIGHTON: So, this is the GBU-57. This is also called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. It's a 30,000-pound bomb. And what it does is it can penetrate the ground, basically down to about a hundred meters plus. And what it can do is, it can basically eliminate a lot of those hardened and deeply buried targets.

But the problem is this. Fordow is buried more deeply than this bomb can do by itself. That's why it would normally take multiple strikes to do it, at the very least two, probably three before it does that. And the delivery mechanism would be this. The B-2 Bomber is one of the few weapons platforms that can carry this, this type of bomb, because it's 3,000 pounds. And it is able to, in essence, do this because it can deliver both nuclear and conventional weapons. It has the capacity to take a lesser bomb. This is a only 500-pound bomb, but the Mark 82, they could take 80 of these and they could take several of the GBU-57s with them.

KEILAR: We just got something in that I wanted to see what you thought of. But Iran's military chief is telling people in Haifa, this is Iran's military chief telling people in Haifa, Israel and Tel Aviv to evacuate ahead of punitive operations. This is the Chief of Staff of Iran's armed forces telling residents there that they should evacuate because of this, saying the operations carried out so far have been a warning for deterrence and a punitive operation will be carried out soon.

He basically says that what Israel has done to Iran make them determined to carry out the punitive order. Talk about what your concerns are, what we may see here.

LEIGHTON: Yeah, so this is -- so we have Haifa in the north and to Tel Aviv in the central part of Israel. The big aspect here is that if they are using something other than conventional munitions, that could be a major game changer. I don't think the Iranians have that capability, but there may be a bit of bluster in this warning, but what we can probably expect is an extra wave of attacks, drone attacks, missile attacks against Israel. So the more or less quiet period that Clarissa was talking about in her reporting, that may be coming to an end with a warning like this.

At the very least, the Israeli defense systems, the Iron Dome, David's Sling, the Arrow Systems, they should be prepared for something much greater than they've seen in the last night or two. And the other thing is this, American assets are starting to get positioned in the Eastern Mediterranean. They will definitely be employed if they need to defend Israel from an onslaught like we think might be happening here.

KEILAR: All right. Yeah, we'll be looking for some of that. Cedric, thank you so much for taking us through all of this. Really appreciate it. LEIGHTON: You bet, Brianna.

KEILAR: Still to come, days after President Trump conceded his deportation policy was hurting farmers, ICE agents are being told to carry out immigration raids at work sites. The nation's largest farmers' union will be with us next. And Kraft Heinz announcing a big change to its product line, details on the ingredients it's promising to remove. And new reporting on the Trump family's latest venture, Trump Mobile, including where the phones are actually made. We have these stories and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

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[14:19:04]

SANCHEZ: We're tracking more whiplash in President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda. The Department of Homeland Security has now reversed guidance issued just last week that limited immigration raids at farms, hotels, and restaurants. The guidance which largely paused raids at work sites was issued after the president conceded in a post online that his policy was hurting businesses. He wrote in part, "Our great farmers and people in the hotel and leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good longtime workers away from them." With those jobs being almost impossible to replace, this, the president said, is not good.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, undocumented immigrants make up nearly half of all crop farm workers in the United States. Joining me now is Roman Pinal.

[14:20:00]

He's the National Vice President for United Farm Workers. Roman, thank you so much for being with us. What do you think was behind Trump's initial move to back off these immigration raids at certain places and now, this decision to reverse course?

ROMAN PINAL, NATIONAL VICE PRESIDENT, UNITED FARM WORKERS: Well, we would love to better understand the thinking behind it, but what we can clearly say is that this back and forth from a president that seems to be changing his mind every day, it's a dangerous situation for farm workers. Right? We were skeptical from the very beginning that a pause on workplace enforcement wouldn't mean anything because they were continuing to do the sweeps in the communities that farm workers lived in. So we remain skeptical.

We're going to remain vigilant. But, this unpredictability is unfair not only for the workers, but for the farmers. And the farm workers and farmers are needed by our consumers in this country, so we can keep our vegetables and our fruits fully stocked at the grocery stores across this country. SANCHEZ: Expand on that skepticism. What are you hearing from workers

on the ground and specifically, what details are you getting about where these raids are taking place?

PINAL: Yeah. In today's internet world and social media world, right, the visual accounts and even rumored accounts come in fast and furious. I personally saw, for example, crews of workers stop working because an SUV with tinted windows was driving slowly along the main road adjacent to the farm. And I could not -- I couldn't believe the fear uniformly felt by dozens of workers at one time. I excused myself from the workers and I went to go knock on the door of that SUV about a few hundred meters away. It turned out they were just making a phone call and pulled over to the side of the road, right? And they apologized.

But that's an example of the kind of fear and the visual things that are existing right now amongst farm workers around this country.

SANCHEZ: I imagine that some folks in the administration would hear that account and hear that there is terror among some of these communities and think that that's actually a good thing. Think that they're accomplishing the mission that voters elected Trump to carry out. And yet, nearly half of the country's agricultural workers, as it turns out, are lacking legal status. Do you think that there's a full understanding of what the ramifications of this kind of crackdown are going to be even economically?

PINAL: You know, I -- If you remember during the first Trump administration, the same administration classified farm workers as essential. It's another example of the whiplash, the back and forth. So we needed them during the pandemic, and they had to present themselves to work, otherwise no benefits from the government. And today, they're not? Nothing's changed. The only thing that's changed has been some opinion or some guidance based on whoever's advising the president on a day-to-day basis, right?

We have a lot of faith that Americans want to continue to be healthy, to eat fruits and vegetables. And most Americans recognize that we need a consistent and stable supply of labor in our farms. During the pandemic, we couldn't pick strawberries through a Zoom meeting, right? You had to show up to work. That continues today. Today, we're continuing, harvesting the fruits and vegetables for this country in an atmosphere of fear. And we need to put an end to that.

SANCHEZ: I do want to get your perspective on an argument that I've heard from some, especially after this raid in an Omaha meat packing plant. The argument was that after some 70 folks there were detained by ICE, that those jobs would be filled by documented people by -- in the words of some in the administration and its supporters, real Americans. Is that the case that if we remove the majority of these farm workers, there's a huge supply of workers out there willing and able to fill these jobs?

PINAL: Well, you don't have to have a Master's Degree in History in American history to realize that this country has always, since day one, depended on a labor force, an immigrant labor force from a -- a foreign-born labor force. There's never been a sustained domestic supply of workers in our farms in this country. We need workers. We need to continue producing our own food. It's a vital industry. And if we're serious about protecting our farmers and our producers, our protein and meat producers, then we have to protect farm workers as well. [14:25:00]

SANCHEZ: Ramon Pinal, we have to leave the conversation there. Thank you so much for the time and perspective.

PINAL: My pleasure. Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Brianna?

KEILAR: One of the biggest food and beverage companies has just announced a sweeping phase out of artificial food dye. Kraft Heinz, maker of Jell-O, Capri Sun, and Lunchables, says it will remove all synthetic food coloring from its products sold in the U.S. by the end of 2027. This move comes after its executives reportedly met with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. earlier this year. Bloomberg reported Kennedy warned a potential federal action if food makers did not act first.

CNN Medical Correspondent Meg Tirrell has the details.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kraft Heinz is making this announcement, of course, after the FDA in April, announced to plan to try to phase out synthetic food dyes over the next two years. Now, some critics of that announcement pointed out that it was really voluntary that food companies will have to go along with what the FDA was suggesting. And so now, we are seeing the first major brand coming out saying that they are going to do this. Kraft Heinz saying that it'll remove all artificial colors from its brands sold in the U.S. within the next two years. And also that it won't release any new products with artificial colors starting immediately.

Of course, the company also notes though that almost 90 percent of its brands or products already don't have artificial food dyes in them. So this will really only affect a sliver of its portfolio, but some really iconic brands like Kool-Aid and Jell-O, which we all associate with those really bright colors. So those over the next two years will be getting a makeover. But the company has already done this with some other really iconic brands, things like Kraft Mac & Cheese. A decade ago, the company switched to natural colors to give it that really bright orange color we associate with Kraft Mac & Cheese. So, they use things like turmeric and natto and paprika, which we all know from our own spice cabinets have these really bright, pigmented colors.

And so, they're going to be working on how to do this over the next few years and we will see what they end up actually looking like. Now, the companies have argued generally that these colors are safe, but have been moving in this direction already. Some of the health concerns around artificial food colors have to do with things like cancer risk that's particularly been seen in animals as well as neurobehavioral issues that have been suggested in kids, who are more sensitive to these things. So, some states like California have already moved to ban artificial food dyes and more than half of states have some form of legislation on the table looking at that as well.

According to the environmental working group, a lot of these forms of legislation really target food dyes in school foods, for example. So, we'll see if other big brands follow suit, but we're going to see Kool-Aid and Jell-O potentially looking a little different over the next two years.

KEILAR: All right. As the president and vice president ramp up rhetoric about the U.S. possibly getting involved in this Israel-Iran conflict, let's head now to the State Department where the question part of this briefing has just begun.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- depending on the countries that they're in and anymore (inaudible).

TAMMY BRUCE, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESWOMAN: Right. Well, I won't be giving you, just as a reminder, of how today is a little bit of a different day for the briefing. There is always things that I can't say to you and yet, we have a long back and forth, sometimes we have a little bit of a debate. I won't engage in that today. My responses will be perhaps a bit quicker than usual and I'll be moving around more quickly to reach as many of you as I can. And there will be -- there will be less that I can answer for you because of the circumstances that we're dealing with around the world. So, it is -- just want you to know, it's not personal. But we're working on certain things like the task force as an example.

The task force is a group of people who are working, taking the calls of people, of American citizens around the world, making sure that they get connected with what they may need in that region. I won't go into the details of all that the task forces do, of course, but it's about information, making sure people here at the State Department and people -- that we get the information we need, but also people around the world, American citizens, get directed to the information that they may need as well.

So I'm -- I'll leave it at that. But this is something that the State Department does when there's a situation that requires it and this is one of those times.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tammy, I'm sorry, could I?

BRUCE: Sure, Matt. Sure, of course.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That phone number that you guys, if you call that number, which I can do right now, what do you -- who do you get?

BRUCE: You get an individual who is --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The task force or -- ?

BRUCE: No, you don't get the task force. That phone number is a general phone number because the task force is busy.

(LAUGH)

BRUCE: But, it is a separate unit that is established to take the calls, to assist American citizens who call to the embassies, particularly you're going to be referred to embassies who can help you get what it is you need. So, good question. Thank you, sir. All right. Yes, Sandra?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's some specific consular needs.