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Oil Prices Falling to Levels Seen Before Iran-Israel Conflict; Trump Lands in Netherlands for NATO Summit; Prosecution Rests in Sean Diddy Combs Sex-Trafficking Trial. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired June 24, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: I'm standing in Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates right by the Strait of Hormuz, Iran behind us, this crucial shipping lane where about a fifth of the world's daily oil production travels through every single day. Crucial economic fear in the Israel-Iran air war that we saw was what would happen to oil prices, especially if Iran blocked the strait, which 24 hours ago their parliament had approved. They had approved blocking this strait, which would have been an unprecedented moment.

And then, of course, the reported ceasefire, that caused oil markets to recover, to rebound even more. The price of oil now on the back of the fact that the ceasefire is now in effect, is falling so much it is back to levels seen when Israel first launched its attacks against Iranian nuclear and military sites.

So let's go to our own Vanessa Yurkevich in New York. And Vanessa, I mean, just an incredible roller coaster ride here for the markets.

You know, what -- when you say oil is going lower, I mean, a few days ago when you and I were talking, I know you were talking about a two or three cent possibly per day increase in gasoline prices. What has happened now?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is market volatility for you. You're seeing it in real time. As you mentioned, oil prices really falling dramatically, at some moments today, cheaper than they were before even this conflict started.

So because of this ceasefire, as you mentioned, we saw markets -- oil markets tumble to lows that we saw before this conflict got started. And essentially, gas prices, though, are still a little bit higher than they were a week ago because there's a little bit of a lag. We did start to see that one to three cent increase over the past week or so.

You can see today the national average is $3.22. That's up five cents from a week ago. We're not where we were last year, though, when gas prices were $3.45 a gallon. So if this conflict continued, especially as you mentioned, Erin, if the Strait of Hormuz was blocked in any way, not from from where you're standing, that could have been that three cents rise day to day, continuing into the levels that we saw last year. But now GasBuddy reports that by the end of the week, we should see gas prices start to fall again. They don't have too much to fall, though, because remember, we're only up about five cents from where we were a week ago. But still good news for obviously consumers hitting the road this summer as they were probably tracking gas prices quite closely.

BURNETT: Right, and of course, another person tracking them closely was was President Trump, who, you know, was making comments about stop, stop threatening the oil supply in all caps ahead of the ceasefire.

He also came out and once again slammed the Federal Reserve chairman. It's an independent role. He's called Jerome Powell stupid now in recent hours, calling him dumb. Powell, meantime, is testifying to a House committee today.

It's crucial testimony in the context of the fact that interest rates have not been brought lower. So what are you hearing so far in that testimony, Vanessa?

YURKEVICH: Well, Erin, despite the fact that President Trump is calling on the chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, to lower rates, Jerome Powell is sitting there in front of Congress saying that let's not rush this. We don't need to lower rates in our next meeting in July, essentially throwing cold water on what many economists expected would be the first rate cut of the year. Jerome Powell saying that if you look at the backwards data, yes, the economy is looking pretty good, but he still hasn't seen evidence that the tariffs are showing up in a big way in the data.

But he still expects that to happen. He expects inflation to rise.

[13:35:00]

And he also points to the fact that many of the members of the board that vote on these interest rate decisions have also called for him -- or for the board to lower rates.

Listen to more of what he said about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEROME POWELL, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: But a significant majority feels it will be appropriate to reduce rates later this year. And what that means is that each of those persons who wrote down a cut in rates later this year, they think that there's some state of the world where inflation doesn't prove to be as high or the labor market weakens where or some combination of those two things that it will turn out to be more likely than not appropriate to reduce policy rates subject to great uncertainty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YURKEVICH: Jerome Powell went on to say that he does expect inflation to rise in the short term, but ultimately in the long term, Erin, he does expect inflation to fall in line with the Fed's 2 percent target rate. Also, 80 percent of investors, according to the CME FedWatch tool, do expect the Federal Reserve to hold rates steady at the next meeting just next month -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right, Vanessa, thank you so much. Vanessa Yurkevich in New York for us.

And still to come, President Trump landing in Europe for the NATO summit days after launching strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. And you talk about what can happen in such a short time. The world has changed in so many unknown ways now.

Stay with CNN as our breaking news coverage continues after a very short break.

[13:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: President Trump just Landing in Amsterdam, soon making his way to the official NATO summit. There's going to be an arrival ceremony at the Royal Palace in the Netherlands. He is headed there. You're looking at Air Force One on the tarmac.

This is an historic meeting by any imagination. It already was with the tariff war going on. But now, on the back of this unprecedented moment here in the Middle East, even more so. NATO going to be discussing so many things, including the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran, those strikes on a U.S. base here in the Gulf, the war in Ukraine, the tariff wars.

I'm joined now by Ivo Daalder. He is the former U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Obama. and ambassador just, you know, to this moment that we are in. Just take where I'm standing now. A ceasefire that that came on the heels of a region, a Middle East that had suddenly become engulfed in war. Missiles in the Gulf yesterday.

Here we are, though, now in the midst of this ceasefire. Trump has downplayed Europe's influence with Iran. Right. And there's -- it's very clear that whatever happened here with the ceasefire was a function of Tehran and Israel and the United States. So what does this mean for NATO?

IVO DAALDER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NATO: Well, NATO is not formally involved in the negotiations or indeed in any other way other than it should Iran have the capacity to attack NATO countries. But NATO countries have been very much involved in the diplomacy that has addressed a nuclear threat for many, many years. Indeed, it was the Europeans who started the diplomatic process that ultimately in 2015 led to the negotiation of the nuclear deal, a nuclear deal that would have avoided this war had it been continued and implemented. And of course, President Trump in his first term withdrew from it.

I think what we will find is that Israel and Iran and the United States are very good at conducting war, but they're not particularly good at conducting diplomacy. And they will need countries like Europe. They need -- and the U.S. will need countries like Europe to be part of this process. The nuclear program has been damaged. Parts of the ability to continue has been eliminated.

But the nuclear weapons program as such is very much still a possibility and can only be dealt with through diplomacy.

BURNETT: Right, and to emphasize, as the vice president of the United States has acknowledged, Ambassador, right, that there are mass amounts of highly enriched uranium in Iran in perhaps unknown locations, at least the U.S., as of what we've last heard, does not know where they are. They don't know where it is. They don't know how much. So, so huge question marks there are still.

I am curious, though, what this NATO summit means for what had been the absolute biggest issue prior to this, but but remains so in the context of Iran being embraced in Moscow yesterday and Putin very firmly standing with Iran and, you know, the Dmitry Medvedev and sounding off and talking about how other countries would provide Iran with nuclear weapons.

The context of Russia here and Putin, how important is this moment for Trump in terms of how he handles that with NATO?

DAALDER: It's extraordinarily important because in some ways this summit prior to the events over the last two weeks really was focused on one singular thing. How can Europe do more to defend itself against the Russian threat, given that President Trump has indicated not only his displeasure with Europeans when it comes to how much they spend on defense, but frankly, has raised doubts about the willingness of the United States to continue to fulfill its security commitments to Europe.

[13:45:00]

And under those circumstances, the European members of NATO, led by the secretary general, have come up with a plan to increase defense spending so they can actually mount the forces and capabilities necessary to deal with a Russia that has turned its economy into a war economy, that is siding with other major rogue actors around the world from North Korea, which has sent troops to Ukraine, to Iran, just as you mentioned, and the embrace that we saw in Moscow. And of course, China as a major threat to global stability and global peace.

And so this is an opportunity, but just an opportunity for President Trump not only to come to The Hague and claim a win in having pressed Europeans to do more on defense, but then also to reaffirm the very strong commitment that the United States has had for 76 years in -- to NATO and that he understands the fundamental challenge and threat that Russia now poses to security, not just in Ukraine, but indeed in Europe as such.

And that is what I think most Europeans will be waiting for. They have done their bit increasing defense spending. Is President Trump now prepared to do his bit committing to NATO?

BURNETT: Yes, certainly in terms of what they would perceive as an imminent threat and danger, it would have been Russia and not Iran. Ambassador Daalder, thank you so much. I appreciate your time so very much.

And we are going to have more of our breaking coverage on this crucial day here right after this break.

[13:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We're following breaking news to CNN. At any moment we're expecting President Donald Trump to emerge from Air Force One as he arrives in the Netherlands for a NATO summit that has very much been tailored to him. This is going to be an in and out stop for President Trump, who is now on his way down from the ladder and onto the tarmac in Amsterdam.

He's set to attend a leaders dinner hosted by the Dutch royal family later tonight. And then tomorrow is the actual summit in The Hague. This is a truncated NATO program that has been put together largely to appease President Trump.

Notably, one of the expectations is that what will come from this summit is a statement and a commitment from the NATO allies to support 5 percent of their GDP toward defense spending, something that the president has rallied for for a long time. Also notably, though, Trump was asked before this trip about his support for Article 5 of the NATO treaty, essentially combined self-defense, assured self-defense among the allies. Trump said that it depends on your definition of Article 5, whether he supports it or not.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Not a full throated defense of that, although he said he does want to be friends with other NATO members.

Let's go now to Erin Burnett, who is in the UAE, to talk a little bit more about this. This is something, Erin, that he has long been calling for, for these NATO members to step up and provide a significant amount of their GDP to go towards defense.

BURNETT: Yes, absolutely. And you've seen it, you know, when you have a new membership, right, when you look at a country like Finland that has gone ahead and done that because of the threat that they see from Russia. And now, of course, with all the unrest in the Middle East, even more cause.

But a commitment is different than a reality. But those numbers have gone up. And that is there's there's very clear that that is because of President Trump's pounding the table on that.

And Boris and Brianna, also, he arrives as, you know, on Capitol Hill they have sort of abruptly canceled the security, the classified briefings for senators and congressmen. There were supposed to be two of them to brief on exactly what happened here in the Middle East, what the U.S. struck, what they achieved, what the battle plan was, what happened. That has all now been abruptly canceled and put on hold as we await answers on what was really accomplished with those strikes, what Iran's capabilities are, what the state of the ceasefire is.

So that's obviously a crucial context here in these past few moments as he's getting in the beast there in the Netherlands and heading to that dinner that you were both talking about.

SANCHEZ: Yes, no doubt the Middle East will be top of mind in the Netherlands, as will, I'm sure, the war in Ukraine and Russia's invasion there. Erin, please stand by in United Arab Emirates. We are tracking more breaking news here in the United States.

Prosecutors have rested their case against Sean Diddy Combs.

KEILAR: CNN's Kara Scannell is live outside of court. Kara, tell us what's happened today and also what's going to happen next.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the government has rested their case against Sean Diddy Combs. They've called 34 witnesses over the past six weeks of testimony, including two of Combs' former girlfriends, Cassie Ventura and another female who testified under the pseudonym Jane. They both testified that they believe they were sex trafficked by Combs, forced to have sex with male escorts against their will.

And the jury had also heard from several of these male escorts who said that they had sex with Cassie Ventura. The jury also heard from several personal assistants of Sean Combs, and they saw text messages, voluminous records of messages between Combs and the women, Combs and the escorts and the women and the escorts setting up these hotel nights. They also heard about how the hotel rooms where these freak offs, wild king nights, the nights where the alleged sex trafficking took place.

They heard about how those rooms were set up, how Combs wanted baby oil, how the women said that they took drugs, including ecstasy.

[13:55:00]

And they also saw a lot of evidence that was seized from Combs' homes when they were searched, including weapons, you know, long guns. They also saw copious amounts of drugs, cocaine, ketamine, ecstasy.

All of the prosecution trying to convince the jury to find Combs guilty of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.

So now Combs' legal team, after this day of testimony where they cross-examined one of the government's witnesses who kind of put together these summary charts to try to help the jury connect the dots as it related to Jane. That witness finished his testimony.

Now, Combs' legal team is trying to argue to the judge that these charges shouldn't even come to the jury because the government hasn't met that burden. Assuming the judge does not grant that motion, then the defense will present their case. They have said that they are only going to read into the record some text messages and other evidence and they're not going to call any witnesses -- guys. KEILAR: All right, Kara Scannell, thank you so much. Live for us from outside the courthouse there of the Sean Diddy Combs trial.

And moments ago, President Trump landed there in the Netherlands. We were taking live pictures of it as he left Air Force One. His trip coming as Israel and Iran have agreed to a ceasefire. And Trump says he now wants a deal done between Russia and Ukraine.

We'll have the latest from the NATO summit just ahead.

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