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GOP, MAGA Isolationists Split Over U.S. Role in Mideast Conflict; Trump Speaks to Reporters as Israel, Iran Launch More Strikes. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired June 20, 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]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has splintered the Republican Party into two factions. Warhawks who say now is the time to go after Iran and its nuclear weapons, and MAGA isolationists who believe striking Iran would be a complete betrayal of President Trump's America First agenda.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Let's discuss with pollster and communications strategist Frank Luntz. Frank, great to see you as always. I think this divide was perhaps best encapsulated this week by this conversation between Tucker Carlson and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

What did you think of that?

FRANK LUNTZ, POLLSTER AND COMMUNICATION STRATEGIST: It was dramatic. It's something that I'm not used to seeing within the Republican Party. Typically, you've got 90 percent of them being very aggressive, being very focused, willing to use the military to put America in a stronger position, and that is not the case right now. And it's interesting that Trump, the president even has people who support him who are opposed to what he's saying about Iran.

We've been looking at the polling. Eighty-five percent of Americans do not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. However, they're evenly split over whether the U.S. should be involved. It's really 45 percent get involved militarily, 45 percent do not, and 10 percent that don't know. But there's also a split on the Democratic side between those who simply want to back Israel, not militarily, and those who want to back the Palestinians, or in this case, Iran. It's not that they're backing Iran, but they do not support the president's position on this.

So both political parties are going through a little bit of chaos, a little bit of confusion, and I think that's why the president postponed the decision for two weeks to try to get some more clarity.

KEILAR: There's just also this, you know, decades of weariness because of protracted wars, right? And that factors very much into this on both sides.

LUNTZ: And let's be candid, it hasn't worked out for the U.S. Afghanistan, I'm sorry, but Afghanistan was not a success.

KEILAR: Right.

LUNTZ: Iraq was not a -- Iraq, you can argue about that, but it's still problematic. And Americans just don't want to be part of forever wars.

Trump got that point right. And what's interesting is that here and Ukraine, Trump in some ways is the advocate for peace, although it's changed over the last 72, 96 hours. In the end, I'd be advising Iran, knowing the situation that I do, pay attention to him.

The president does not like to be ignored. The president does not like to be rejected. He's given them another chance, negotiate, commit to getting rid of the weapons.

KEILAR: You're saying don't dismiss the two weeks.

LUNTZ: Pay attention because you can save your country. I can't call it, and it's not my job as a pollster to call it, I can't even call where America is going to be because we're changing over time. But we do not want Iran to have nuclear weapons.

And if we believe that not only do they have them, but there's a threat that they will use them, the public will be on the side of action, not on the side of ignoring it.

SANCHEZ: You're essentially saying that Iran should not devalue Trump's two weeks that he gave them. But I do want to ask, as a communications strategist, what you make of him talking about two weeks as an extension and hoping for diplomacy when he said that we should wait two weeks for a number of things that have never come to fruition.

Actually, Frank, I'm sorry to cut you off, but the president is speaking right now. Let's listen.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has done a fantastic job. So Rwanda, a long-term war with the Congo, a very bloody war, they're all bloody, but this was a really bloody one, is going to be making peace with Congo and they could get on to making trade deals with the United States and other places and have a much more normal form of life. We're very honored by that.

As you know, we did a very great job with India and Pakistan. And we had India in. It looks like we're going to be making a trade deal with India.

And we had Pakistan in. It looks like we're going to be making a trade deal with Pakistan. And it's a beautiful thing to watch.

Serbia, Kosovo, likewise, they've been fighting for years. And as you know, we brought that one to a conclusion. And now we have a couple of big ones. We have Russia-Ukraine, which is making a little bit of progress, and we have Israel. And nobody really knows what that one is all about. We're going to find out pretty soon, I guess.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Iranian foreign -- Mr. President, the Iranian foreign minister this afternoon said if the U.S. is serious about negotiations, that you would call up Israel and request that they stop their airstrikes. Will you make that request?

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TRUMP: Well, I think it's very hard to make that request right now. If somebody is winning, it's a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing. But we're ready, willing, and able, and we've been speaking to Iran, and we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, what was the thought process behind the two-week timetable?

TRUMP: Just a time to see whether or not people come to their senses.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, did the Europeans help at all in talking with Iran?

TRUMP: No, they didn't help. No. Iran doesn't want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty years ago, you were skeptical of a Republican administration that attacked a Middle East country on the idea of questionable intelligence of weapons of mass destruction. How is this moment different with Iran?

TRUMP: Well, there were no weapons of mass destruction. I never thought there were. And that was somewhat pre-nuclear.

You know, it was -- it was a nuclear age, but nothing like it is today. And it looked like I'm right about the material that they've gathered already. It's a tremendous amount of material.

And I think within a matter of weeks, or certainly within a matter of months, they're going to be able to have a nuclear weapon. We can't let that happen.

I was very much opposed to Iraq. I was -- I said it loud and clear, but I was a civilian. But I guess I got a lot of publicity. But I was very much opposed to the Iraq war.

And I actually did say, don't go in, don't go in, don't go in. But I said, if you're going to go in, keep the oil. But they didn't do that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon? Your intelligence community has said they have no evidence that they are at this point.

TRUMP: Well, then my intelligence community is wrong. Who in the intelligence community said that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.

TRUMP: She's wrong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, are the Chinese in any way helping Iran at this moment, hearing reports of serious planes landing in Iran from China?

TRUMP: They say that they're there to take people out, but I can't tell you about that.

I get along very well with China, get along very well with President Xi. I like him. He likes me. We have a very good relationship. We'll see what happens. I can't imagine them getting involved.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, is this a decision that you need to make on Iran, whether to strike militarily? Is this the biggest decision you'll have to make as President?

TRUMP: Well, I can't tell you that. I have to see what happens. I can't, you know, really say that.

It depends what the decision is. But I wouldn't really be able to tell you that now. I'll tell you in about a year from now, maybe five years or ten years from now.

You never know about decisions. You never really know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sir, would you support a ceasefire while the negotiations happen with Iran?

TRUMP: I might, depending on the circumstances.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you --

TRUMP: It's very hard to stop. I will say this. It's very hard to stop. When you look at it, Israel's doing well in terms of war.

And I think you would say that Iran is doing less well. It's a little bit hard to get somebody to stop.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, Liam Cosgrove is here. Former Congressman Matt Gaetz brought an interesting idea, suggesting that if you were to broker a deal where nuclear inspectors go into both Israel and Iran, that you could win a Nobel Peace Prize. And they might even rename it the Trump Peace Prize.

Did you hear those? What do you think of that?

TRUMP: Well, they should give me the Nobel Prize for Rwanda and, if you look, the Congo or you could say Serbia, Kosovo. You could say a lot of them. You could say, I mean, the big one is India and Pakistan.

I should have gotten it four or five times. I should get it for the -- I would think the Abraham Accords would be a good one, too. They won't give me a Nobel Peace Prize because they only give it to liberals.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you support Iran being able to have nuclear -- or would you support Iran being able to have civilian nuclear energy capabilities, up to 3.76 percent?

TRUMP: You know, they're sitting on the top of one of the largest piles of oil in the world. I just don't know why they need that for civilian work. You know, it's one thing for certain countries to say, hey, I want to have a certain amount where I could go nuclear a little bit because we need it for electricity, we need it for air conditioners, et cetera.

But when you're sitting on one of the largest oil piles anywhere in the world, it's a little bit hard to see why you'd need that.

Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, are you concerned that Iran or its proxies would wage terror attacks against American targets abroad if you order military action?

TRUMP: We're always concerned about that, and we have to take them out and be very strong. You're even in danger talking to me right now. Do you know that?

You are in danger talking to me right now. So I should probably get out of here, but you guys are actually in danger. Can you believe it?

One more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, is it still your expectation that NATO countries spend 5 percent of their GDP on defense spending?

TRUMP: Well, I think they should do that. I don't think we should, but I think they should. We've been spending -- we've been supporting NATO so long, in many cases, I believe, paying almost 100 percent the cost.

[15:40:00]

So I don't think we should. But I think that the NATO countries should, absolutely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And if it's something like Spain decides not to?

TRUMP: Well, NATO is going to have to deal with Spain. Spain has been a very low payer. They were always a very low payer. They were either good negotiators or they weren't doing the right thing. I mean, I think Spain has to pay what everybody else has to pay. Spain has been notorious for low pay.

You know who else was a low payer, just about the lowest? A place called Canada. Because Canada said, why should we pay when the United States will protect us free?

And they've been right about that. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've been making progress towards a peace deal, but I don't know if you know this, but Lindsey Graham and Mike Pompeo were there on the ground in Ukraine, seemingly doing the opposite, trying to provoke the Ukrainians to keep fighting. What do you think of that?

TRUMP: Well, we're going to see. And people have to be very careful with what they say. They've got to be very careful with their mouth, because their mouth can get them into a lot of trouble.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One more. ICE. ICE has said that they're trying to arrest up to 3,000 individuals a day. There are some communities that are saying they are fearful of being wrongfully detained or separating some families, even if they're undocumented.

Is the fear in some of these communities worth the deportations of these undocumented individuals, a mass deportation program?

TRUMP: Always a tough subject, because look, we have farmers. I love farmers. I won 80 percent, 85 percent of the farmers. And I love them, and I'm never going to do anything to hurt our farmers. And you can also say the leisure business, et cetera. There are some businesses where you have a disproportionate amount of people that are the people that you're talking about.

At the same time, we have to get the criminals out of our country. And we're looking at doing something where, in the case of good, reputable farmers, they can take responsibility for the people that they hire and let them have responsibility, because we can't put the farms out of business. And at the same time, we don't want to hurt people that aren't criminals.

Most of the people that came in over the last three years under Biden, I would say probably three and a half to four years, those people, you have a lot of criminals, you have a lot of, I mean, we're looking at that very closely. You've had people that have worked on farms for 20 years. It's very hard to go in there and say, you know, you're coming out.

But we're going to let the farmers take responsibility. They're great people. They'll do it. They know the good and the bad. So the hard part about this is it's not like a normal war where people wear uniforms. They don't wear uniforms.

But we have murderers that came out of the last four years. We have murderers. We have drug lords. We have people that we don't want. We have prisoners. They emptied out Venezuela and many countries.

They emptied out their prisons into the United States. We have to get those people out. But we have stone-cold murderers, 11,888 murderers.

We've already gotten a lot of them out of here. But we don't want them. So we have to be careful.

But I never want to hurt our farmers. Our farmers are great people. They keep us happy and healthy and fat. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are there other cities that you're going to try to replicate what you've done in Los Angeles?

TRUMP: Well, I mean, we had a big victory last night in the court, Court of Appeals, with respect to Los Angeles, but really the country, where Gavin Newsom, who's really an incompetent governor, he's just doing a terrible job between his fires, between all the houses burning down, his forest fires, and now Los Angeles. If we didn't go to Los Angeles, and the sheriff admitted it, he had no control. He would have lost control.

We saved Los Angeles by having the military go in. And the second night was much better. The third night was nothing much. And the fourth night, nobody bothered even coming. We put out that fire. We did a great job of it.

He sued us for going in and for helping him. We went and helped him. Right now, you'd have Los Angeles burning to the ground. Largely, it would have already been destroyed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you want your legacy, Mr. President, to be that of a peacemaker? Are you worried that striking Iran would change that?

TRUMP: Always a peacemaker. That doesn't mean sometimes you need some toughness to make peace, but always a peacemaker.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you win in Iran without ground forces?

TRUMP: Say it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is an aerial campaign in Iran enough, or do you need ground forces?

TRUMP: Well, I'm not going to talk about ground forces. The last thing you want to do is ground forces.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does Iran have two weeks, or could you strike before that? Are you essentially giving them a two-week timeline?

TRUMP: I'm giving them a period of time. We're going to see what that period of time is. But I'm giving them a period of time, and I would say two weeks would be the maximum.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, do you think deportations should focus on criminals or all people who are here illegally?

TRUMP: Should start focusing on criminals, and that's what we've been focused on. Very bad criminals, dangerous criminals.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But Stephen Miller said to go out and arrest every person who's here illegally. He's told ICE to arrest everyone who's here illegally.

TRUMP: Stephen and I have a very good understanding. He's a terrific person. We have a great understanding.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, if there is an attack on U.S. assets, will you promise to conduct a full investigation and make it transparent with the American people before blaming Iran for such an attack?

TRUMP: Well, if there's an attack, we'll know almost immediately with modern equipment who made the attack, and those people will be very, very unhappy. I want to get you people out of danger. You're in danger standing with me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One more. Prime Minister Netanyahu said that they had the capacity to take out all of Iran's nuclear facilities. So what role would the U.S. be able to play, and why would they if Israel says that they have all of the abilities of their own military?

TRUMP: Well, I'm not sure he said that, but they really have a very limited capacity. They could break through a little section, but they can't go down very deep. They don't have that capacity, and we'll have to see what happens. Maybe it won't be necessary. Maybe it won't be necessary.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, would you like to see Congress pass a bill that bans child transgender surgeries?

TRUMP: Well, I know they're talking about it, aren't they? We're going to have to see how it comes to me and what form. Certainly it's been something I've been talking about also. OK?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. President. Appreciate it.

TRUMP: Thank you, everybody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

KEILAR: All right, we're listening to President Trump there in New Jersey, and he's being questioned as he is given -- as he has given this time period of two weeks to Iran as he weighs whether to involve the U.S. in taking out some of Iran's nuclear program.

And what's really interesting there was the reporters were trying to pin him down on exactly what that time period is. Is it a floor? Is it a ceiling? He said, we're giving them a period of time, and he said that the two weeks is a maximum. So he's sort of indicating there that something could happen, a strike could come before two weeks.

And he was also pressed on the intelligence about, you know, he's stressing, we're hearing Israel stress that it is nearly imminent that Iran could be to the point of having a nuclear weapon. He was asked about intelligence from Tulsi Gabbard, his director of national intelligence. He said flat out that she is wrong.

And then he also was asked in the context of Iraq, of course, you know, intelligence being incorrect ahead of that invasion there.

I just want to be very clear about this, because he stated there that he had been against the invasion of Iran, contrary to what Trump claimed right there and what he has claimed time and time again. He did not actually publicly express opposition to the invasion of Iran before it occurred.

Iraq, I should say, pardon me.

SANCHEZ: Yes, message taken. I think it was notable also the president reflecting on talks today in Geneva saying that didn't help. The president saying that Iran wants to speak to us, though the Iranians today, according to CNN's own reporting, essentially said that they would not have direct talks with the United States unless Israel stopped its current campaign.

Now, obviously, the United States doesn't control what the IDF does, but President Trump there was asked if he would urge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to slow down Israel's attacks, and he remained noncommittal. He said, quote, if somebody is winning, it's hard to get them to stop.

Also notably, the president was asked about the potential for U.S. troops to be sent into Iran to have boots on the ground. The president saying, quote, the last thing you want is ground forces.

Let's take you live to the White House now with CNN's Kristen Holmes. Kristen, what else stood out to you from President Trump's question- and-answer session with reporters?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I will say this, he hit really a lot of the highlights here. I have a whole list of the things he said about Iran, and just listening to you tick them off.

But I do want to note a couple of things that we heard here, which was he did respond for the first time to the Iranian foreign minister who said earlier today if the U.S. wants to end this, wants to have diplomatic talks, they need to pick up the phone and call Israel and tell them to stop bombing, and then we can sit down.

And he said that it's very hard to do because Israel is winning the war, so it's hard to tell them that they need to stop at this point.

As you noted, saying that the Europeans didn't help the situation at all, that is not the read that we got out of that meeting. In fact, the Iranians said that after that meeting they actually were more willing to have a diplomatic conversation.

And just one quick note of that. We, the United States, was engaged in that meeting. Yes, we were not there, but Steve Witkoff, the Middle Eastern envoy, met with the United Kingdom foreign minister yesterday before he flew to Geneva for these talks, so we were very much a part of that conversation, even though we were not in the room.

And then on top of that, we have exactly what we had been reporting, that Trump, the president, believes that his national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, is off-message. That's what we reported yesterday. And here he was asked about her assessment back in March where she said that Iran was not near to developing a nuclear weapon, and he said, point blank, she is wrong.

[15:50:00]

And then another interesting part of this to me was actually not about Iran and Israel, but it was about what was going on in Ukraine with Ukraine and Russia. He was asked specifically, you say you want to cease fire, but we saw that Lindsey Graham was on the ground there and he was actually encouraging Iranians to keep fighting -- sorry, Ukrainians to keep fighting.

And he had this kind of remark where he said that people need to close their mouth and stop talking. It gets people in trouble when they run their mouth. So we know that the president does not want to engage with what is going on between Russia and Ukraine.

In fact, he's actually been pulling himself out of it after promising to solve that in the first 48, 24 hours of his presidency.

But all in all here, we look at that two weeks, we still don't have the exact answer of what it means. He says that he's giving people time to come to their senses, and one of the things we continue to ask is, what does it look like when the two weeks is over?

Is this something where Donald Trump says, OK, two weeks is over, we are striking, we are getting involved, or is there more of a squishy evolution here? And of course he said there that two weeks is the maximum, but we also know that he wants to give this time to play out diplomatically. One of the things that we have heard time and time again from advisors around him, from White House officials, is that the president is incredibly wary of getting us involved into some kind of long-term conflict in the Middle East.

So he is looking for an off-ramp here in terms of diplomacy.

KEILAR: All right, Kristen, thank you so much for that. Let's go to Jeremy Diamond now. He is in Tel Aviv.

You're listening there to what the president said. Jeremy, what stood out to you?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly President Trump making very clear that he has no intention of telling the Israeli prime minister to stop bombing Iran. It's clear that the president is seeing what Israel is doing in Iran, and he said that he believes that they are winning, effectively pointing to the success of Israel's military campaign in Iran over the course of the last week.

We know, of course, that the Israelis have been touting a series of figures to point to the successes of that campaign, whether it is the killing of a series of senior Iranian military commanders, the attacks that they've carried out on several Iranian nuclear facilities, or just today the Israeli military chief of staff saying that they've destroyed about half of Iran's ballistic missile launchers.

By a series of metrics, it's clear that Israel's campaign has been quite successful, and the president is seeing that and making clear that he has no intention of telling the Israelis to slow down or stop.

What he also showed is that he seems to be believing the Israeli prime minister over his own director of national intelligence in terms of how close Iran was to a potential nuclear bomb. The Israeli prime minister and other senior Israeli government officials have been saying that it was a matter of weeks or months. We heard President Trump use that exact same language just now and rejecting the conclusions of his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who said that there was no indication of such a short timeline for Iran to get to a nuclear weapon.

And so even as President Trump is giving this space for diplomacy over the course of the next two weeks, he is also making clear that, for now at least, he is certainly siding with what the Israelis are doing in Iran. He is supporting them, and he is also supporting the reasons for why Israel carried out those strikes, even as he's uncertain about whether or not to get U.S. forces involved in that directly.

KEILAR: All right, Jeremy, thank you so much.

We do want to bring in David Miliband, the former British foreign secretary who is currently the president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee. Sir, thank you so much for being with us.

You heard what President Trump said there, and on Europe he said these talks, they didn't help. Iran doesn't want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us, meaning the U.S. Europe is not going to be able to help on this one, the U.K. obviously a part of those talks. What did you think hearing that?

DAVID MILIBAND, PRESIDENT AND CEO, INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE: I thought two things came through very clearly from what the president said. The first is that the next two weeks are precious, and he has created this two weeks of space, not a space between Israel and Iran because the volley between the two sides is continuing at a very high rate, but there is a space before there is a decision on the American intervention.

The second aspect that I think is important is clearly there's an element of tag-teaming going on between the U.S. and the European talks with the Iranians. The fact that the Iranians were sitting with four European foreign ministers in Geneva today is, I think, significant. The fact that the British foreign secretary was here in Washington yesterday suggests to me that there's some very clear messaging being done, both through the Israeli action, but also through what the Europeans are saying.

[15:55:00]

I'm sure they're conveying in no uncertain terms to the Iranians quite how serious the peril that they face is, and the determination that is frankly united across the Atlantic alliance that Iran should not be a nuclear weapon state because that's the last thing that the Middle East needs at the moment.

KEILAR: Do you see a diplomatic solution anywhere here in the near term?

MILIBAND: I've always believed that there is a diplomatic solution. to the Iranian nuclear file. I spent three years when I was foreign secretary working on this in very difficult days under the Ahmadinejad administration in Iran, which made it very, very difficult.

But even in those early days, it was clear to me that you could be 100 percent clear that Iran shouldn't become a nuclear weapon state and 100 percent clear that there was a diplomatic resolution to it. Even in the last few weeks, it's been clear that the American side, with some Gulf support, have put forward some quite ingenious ideas about how to get around the Iranian determination to have a civilian nuclear program with the proposal for offshore processing of uranium.

Now, the Iranians have been significantly weakened in the last six months, and they've been weakened further in the last seven or eight days.

It's clear to me that there is a diplomatic way out of this. And of course, 10 years ago, there was an agreement which the Iranians were forced to abide by, by the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Authority, and by the threat of renewed sanctions.

KEILAR: And just really quickly, if there do continue to be these traded strikes, how much danger does that put talks in?

MILIBAND: Significant, because obviously, the further this goes, the harder it is to pull back. We all know from history, as well as our own careers, that it's easy for the shooting to start. It's very much harder to get it to stop.

And the further it goes, the greater the danger of conflagration.

KEILAR: Former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, thank you so much for being with us. We do appreciate it.

SANCHEZ: And thank you so much for being with us. And Frank Luntz as well. We never got his answer to the two-weeks question.

Frank, we appreciate you sticking around. "THE ARENA" --

KEILAR: We can get it in two weeks.

SANCHEZ: Two weeks. "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

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