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U.S. Announces Evacuations Out Of Israel For American Citizens; President Donald Trump Called Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell "Stupid" And Criticized His Refusal To Cut Interest Rates, Blaming Him For High Borrowing Costs; Third U.S. Aircraft Carrier Group Set To Deploy Close To Israel; Supreme Court Upholds State Ban On Transgender Care For Minors. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired June 18, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:33:40]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back to our breaking news coverage of the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. Right now, the United States embassy in Israel is arranging evacuation flights and ships for any American citizens who want to leave Israel. As the Israeli military says it has detected a fresh round of missiles launched from Iran in the last hour.

A series of airstrikes from both Israel and Iran overnight. Right now, Iran is in a near total Internet blackout. President Trump says that he has offered Iran the, quote, ultimate ultimatum just a day after calling on the country to surrender and claiming to have an easy target on Iran's supreme leader.

Iran responding by calling it a cowardly threat and promising to respond to any action from the United States. Here's who was the president earlier today on whether he's made a decision on U.S. Military intervention and offensive operations against Iran.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: You don't know that I'm going to even do it. You don't know. I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran's got a lot of trouble and they want to negotiate. And I said, why didn't you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction? Why didn't you negotiate with me two weeks ago? You could have done fine. You would have had a country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Meantime, sources say the U.S. is preparing to send a third aircraft carrier to Europe, putting it in close range of the conflict here in the Middle East.

[13:35:05]

Let's go back to Erin in New York. Erin.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Anderson. And you know, as were watching the swearing in of the now ambassador to France, Jared Kushner's obviously father. So we're watching that Trump was talking and had more verbal attacks today, not just on what's going on in the Middle East, but on a whole list of other things, from Gavin Newsom, governor of California, to Joe Biden to Jerome Powell.

In fact, he called the Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell stupid. And he did that because he wants interest rates to be cut. And the Fed is meeting right now. So there is going to be a decision on that.

However, it would be a shock if Trump got what he wanted. Powell and the Federal Reserve Bank governors are expected to keep rates steady.

They are trying to balance inflation issues which have been stoked by tariffs as well as now possibly oil inflation and the weakness in the job market. President Trump has been calling, though, for rate cuts.

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TRUMP: We have a stupid person, frankly, at the Fed. He probably won't cut today. I come too late, pal, because he's always too late. I mean, if you look at him, every time I did this, I was right 100 percent. He was wrong. Maybe I should go to the Fed. Am I allowed to point myself, Doug? I don't know. Am I allowed to appoint myself at the Fed? I do a much better job than these people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: CNN business and politics correspondent Vanessa Yurkevich is here. So, Vanessa, you know, he says that calling Powell stupid and you have a decision here on interest rates, which I guess is going to come here in the next 20 minutes or so. And then we're actually going to hear from Powell.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is the best part of the whole day, is when we get to hear from the Fed, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, because that is when reporters get to ask him a lot of questions. They're going to ask him about what the president said. They're going to ask him about all of this uncertainty in the Middle East. They're going to ask him about the trade war and that how he sees that out in the economy and in the Fed's decision.

But we are very much expecting 99.9 percent of investors are expecting that the Fed will hold rates steady for the fourth time in a row. And this is because we have heard from Jerome Powell saying that he is in wait and see mode.

He wants to see what the effects of the trade war are ultimately going to have on the economy before he makes any decisions because ultimately if he decides to cut rates, if the Fed decides to cut rates, that could actually fuel more inflation because --

BURNETT: Right. YURKEVICH: -- these rates, remember, are tied to people's borrowing costs. Right. So if the Fed is not going to make any moves today, hiring or lowering, keeping it the same, that's going to be maybe a little bit disappointing for the president but also for everyday Americans because mortgage rates are tied to this --

BURNETT: Right.

YURKEVICH: -- car loans, student loans, credit card interest payments. So maybe a little bit of disappointment from the American people that likely rates are going to hold.

BURNETT: And yet the context of this, a real hit to retail sales.

YURKEVICH: Yes.

BURNETT: And some of that was people trying to buy things ahead of tariffs. Right. But then you got that big hit and, and people fear of the tariffs, inflation of the tariffs and then on top of that, oil and what's going on the Middle East, some people would say, hey Vanessa, if we're going to see a war in the Middle East, oil should be 100, oil should be 120.

YURKEVICH: Yes.

BURNETT: It's still been surging, but it's only at 75. And that already is causing problems at the pump.

YURKEVICH: Certainly it's happening very quickly across nearly every single state except one, the state of California. In the United States, gas prices have risen in the last week. The national average right now is 319 a gallon. That's up 7 cents in one week.

BURNETT: Wow.

YURKEVICH: We're not where were a year ago, but we could be getting there. According to GasBuddy, they expect that over the next several days and weeks, gas prices are going to rise by 1 to $0.03 --

BURNETT: Per day.

YURKEVICH: Per day.

BURNETT: Wow.

YURKEVICH: And ultimately in the next two weeks could be upwards of 20 cents. And this is because of what's happening in the oil markets. They have been largely flat today, but as you mentioned, up 20 percent in the last month or so. And that directly correlates to what we are paying at the gas pump.

BURNETT: Yes, absolutely. And of course with so much uncertainty in oil supply right now. All right, Vanessa, thank you so much. And Vanessa, of course we watching that decision coming out here in the next 20 minutes and then the live comments from Jerome Powell on the back of the president calling him stupid. As President Trump says he may or may not take action against Iran. Sources tell CNN that a third U.S. aircraft carrier is now set to deploy to the region. And Supreme Court is taking a major position on gender affirming care for trans minors. We'll be back with all the breaking developments this hour. Stay with us.

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[13:43:36]

COOPER: Despite Iran's explicit warning to the U.S. to stay out of the ongoing conflict with Israel or risk an all out war, the U.S. has been quickly building up its military presence in the region. U.S. officials tell CNN that the USS Ford Aircraft Carrier Strike Group, the world's largest warship, is being sent to Europe next week, likely to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea near Israel. Another aircraft carrier will be deployed to the Middle East to join or replace the USS Vinson.

More than 30 aerial refueling tankers were surged the region and powerful U.S. missile defense systems are already there. General Wesley Clark is a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and the founder of Renew America Together. General Clark, thanks for being with us.

In terms of the assets being moved into place, what does that tell you about any kind of schedule if the U.S. was going to increase and take part in offensive direct action against Iran?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: Probably another couple of days before we're ready to go, maybe four or five days. But Anderson, this also gives us increased diplomatic leverage over Iran. And I would hope that behind the scenes the administration is pursuing some effort to persuade the Ayatollah to give up on the nuclear stuff before it's too late.

[13:45:00]

COOOPER: How capable, I mean, look, much has been made of Israel's inability to destroy the Fordow facility that in a mountain deep underground they would need those bunker busting bombs from the U.S. the B2 bombers to deliver them that only the U.S. has.

Other Israeli officials have said there are other options or hinted at other options. What would those other options look like? I've heard people discuss the idea of Special Forces trying to actually, you know, send in troops to try to destroy the facility.

I've also heard about the idea of cutting on, kind of breaking, destroying the electricity to a facility, seeing if centrifuges would spin out of control. Are there other options that Israel has or is the U.S. really essential to destroy that Fordo facility?

CLARK: We don't know all the options they might have Anderson, but clearly the ones you mentioned are certainly possibles. You could put Special Forces in there, they can bring demolitions, they can close the tunnel entrances, they can shut off air supply. They might penetrate to some extent down the tunnels. They might then blow up elevators, they might put explosives down shafts.

There's all kinds of things that could be done. They'd have to secure a defensive perimeter around it. It's a big mountain so you need lots of troops there. It's not just a five or 10 men team. But could you do that? Sure. Could you use cyber to somehow get inside and destroy the equipment? We did that before. Probably. That's probably not going to be possible. Can you cut off electricity? Sure.

But you don't know for sure that they don't have some alternate generating capacity, large batteries or something already inside that facility.

But Anderson, the other thing that's really strange about this is we just fixated one facility and we don't know what's in the eastern part of Iran. Do we think that we know such perfect intelligence that it's only this one additional facility that has to be taken out to deprive Iran of nuclear capacity.

I'd be really surprised if that's all it takes. And we talk as though one B2 bomber with one bomb would destroy this. This is a big mountain. It might take a dozen strikes and then you wouldn't know unless you went in.

So Anderson, I just hope that the people making these decisions are thinking about what is the desired end state too often and we've done this so many times now, 1999, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. We get mesmerized by the military technology. It's very interesting. There's always a lot of questions about it.

But the real issues are strategic what are we trying to do here? What are the consequences? What are the risks and what's our fallback strategies? We're not hearing anything about that. You know, Israel goes out, make some strikes. We don't do that.

COOPER: You made it -- you mentioned something in passing which I think is important, hasn't gotten a lot of attention. Even if the U.S. was to bomb the Fordow facilities with its the bunker busting bombs and multiple ones, there would still need to be troops supposedly, I guess in this case would be Israeli special forces to actually go into that facility to assess the damage.

There's no way to fully do that from the air with any certainty that the nuclear material has been destroyed or what's happened to it.

CLARK: That's true, but that's also true with Natanz and it's true with a number of other facilities that have been struck or will be struck. If you're really going to get rid of their capacity, you've got to have troops on the ground to exploit the strikes.

COOPER: That obviously would be a whole other level of escalation. General Wesley Clark, I appreciate your time a lot to consider. We're going to be continuing to cover this from the region. We have more breaking news coverage of the Israeli Iran conflict live from Tel Aviv just ahead. Stay with CNN.

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BURNETT: All right. Welcome back to our special coverage of these multiple breaking stories. The Israel, Iran conflict, of course, ongoing as darkness has fallen on Tel Aviv and Tehran. Also awaiting, in just the next few moments, the breaking news out of the Federal Reserve on interest rates. And moments after that, we'll begin the live press conference for Fed Chair Jerome Powell after President Trump insulted him personally.

Today, all of that unfolding as the Supreme Court is upholding Tennessee's ban on gender affirming care for transgender youth. Now, this delivers a major blow to the trans community. Just go through this Tennessee law. It restricts hormone therapy and puberty blockers for transgender minors, and it also punishes doctors if they provide such care. CNN's Chief Supreme Court analyst, Joan Biskupic joins us now.

And Joan, can you walk through this decision exactly what it is and what it means?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Sure. Can you hear me okay, Erin?

BURNETT: Yes, I can hear you.

BISKUPIC: OK, great. Thank you. Yes, this was one of the most closely watched cases. And as you know, more than 20 states have these kinds of laws restricting gender affirming care for any youth who would be trying to transition, as the law says, to live with or have an identity with the opposite of that child's biological sex.

[13:55:00]

And the Supreme Court, by a 6 to 3 vote, upheld these laws. But the chief justice, John Roberts, didn't look at this case as if it were a sex discrimination case. It was challenged on the basis of a sex discrimination law, saying, you know, these people are being disadvantaged because they are transgender youths.

But he said, no, this law actually was focused on age, youth, and medical use. The fact that these puberty blockers would be used in this particular way. And in addition to saying that this is not a sex discrimination law, he really highlighted the policy implications, saying this case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field, we leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process.

And then, Erin, Justice Sotomayor, writing for the liberals in dissent, really said that the chief had recharacterized this law, that it was truly about sex discrimination. And she concluded by saying by retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims. Erin. BURNETT: All right, Joan, thank you very much. It was important.

Breaking details out of the Supreme Court this hour. And please stay with us here as President Trump has been ramping up the rhetoric on the Iranian supreme leader. Much more of our breaking news out of the Middle East and around the world here on CNN continues after this.

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