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Trump Arrives in the Netherlands for NATO Summit; Trump Touts Iran-Israel Ceasefire En Route to NATO Summit; Trump Says Iran Will Never Rebuild Its Nuclear Program. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired June 24, 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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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": We're following breaking news this hour on CNN. President Donald Trump just arriving in the Netherlands for this week's NATO Summit. He's there as this fragile ceasefire between Iran and Israel appears to be holding for now. Earlier, on Air Force One, the president expressed confidence that the conflict is coming to an end.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sir, how are you confident that this might not happen again, say in a couple of weeks?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think they're tired of it. I think they don't want it to happen again. And Iran's not going to have a nuclear weapon, by the way. I think it's the last thing in their mind right now.

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": So, that's a notable shift in tone by President Trump because just hours before he was slamming both Israel and Iran, he was accusing them of continuing attacks after the ceasefire was announced. He said, about both countries, "They don't know what the f they're doing." We have CNN's Erin Burnett, live for us in the Middle East and she's with us now.

And Erin, despite this delicate ceasefire, Israel's military chief is now saying that Israel's campaign against Iran is not over.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR OF "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT": Yeah, no, absolutely. And you know, hours ago as the ceasefire seemed to be on the verge of ending barely after it had started, Boris and Brianna, we did see Israel say they were going to have this massive attack on Tehran. Now, they pulled back from that under pressure from President Trump. But now, the military chief from Israel is saying that while a "significant phase is over," Israel is now entering what they are calling a "new phase with Iran." All right? What that means remains to be seen.

But we do know they'd never laid out their full battle plans. We do know that they obviously didn't completely destroy everything and certainly not all the enriched uranium. We do know that they had wanted regime change, although it was not a formal goal. So, all of those things just point to how delicate this situation is, how fragile it is.

Now, the Iranian foreign minister is just speaking, saying that Iran will not return to the negotiating table with the United States as long as "aggression against his country continues." And they're continuing to use their words that they do for Israel, calling it the Zionist regime. Hours after the ceasefire was due to go into effect, Israel did say they struck a new -- a radar site, north of Tehran and more ballistic missile firing locations. They do say that they will refrain from further strikes after President Trump spoke to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister there this morning.

But again, as Boris and Brianna were saying, we'll see what that means. Not just how long that restraint will hold, but also how do you define restraint and how -- what form does a strike take? Moments before the ceasefire began, several people were killed. An Iranian missile struck a residential building in Be'er Sheva, Israel, civilian casualties there.

Let's go to Kristen Holmes because she's at the NATO Summit in the Netherlands and Kristen, President Trump has just arrived. This is a crucial moment for him. It is a crucial moment on the world stage. He does deserve a lot of credit for the ceasefire. He is taking that credit. What is the latest you're learning?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Erin, I mean he is taking that credit. But part of what you saw earlier when he was so angry is when you talk about this next chapter for Israel, President Trump wants the entire chapter that we've just seen to be over with. He believes the next chapter is about the United States making a nuclear deal with Iran and he's setting the table for that. That's what he wanted. He wanted to bring diplomacy to the table.

So, the fact that both of them broke this ceasefire was what contributed to him being so angry. Now, as you've mentioned, president Trump has spent a lot of the time -- a lot of time on the phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We'll see how all of this plays out tonight. Now, while that's very important to Trump's legacy itself, the other part of this is this backdrop of NATO, of -- is him arriving here to this Summit having just brokered this ceasefire, playing a large role in that.

There's a lot of reasons why this is important for the president. One, he has long touted this go it alone strategy, one that other leaders have not really appreciated when it comes to President Trump.

[14:05:00]

He feels that they haven't appreciated that. This gives him the opportunity to say, look at what I did. I am a peacemaker.

Now, the other part of all of this, of course, is that he has long ranted against NATO in general, its purpose, saying that he, the United States, should not be spending all of this money on defense for countries that are on the other side of the ocean. Another part of all of this, but the one thing that's so interesting is leading up to his arrival in NATO, it seems like it's going to be a much different kind of greeting than he's gotten in the past. He posted some text messages that were from the United Nations Secretary General that were praising him, saying you made the right decision in Iran, basically saying this was your victory.

You're coming here with that as the backdrop of your success on negotiating the ceasefire. Really setting the tone here, a very much different tone and one that the NATO leaders are hoping perpetuates throughout the meeting because as we've seen, at times, President Trump has gotten aggressive and that is not what they're hoping for in this setting.

BURNETT: Kristen Holmes, thank you very much, in the Netherlands. And here in the Middle East, let's go to our Chief International Correspondent, Clarissa Ward in Tel Aviv. Clarissa, a full court set of meetings and calls coming from the Iranian president now, with the ruler of the UAE, with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Obviously all important, right now though, a quite gaping void of hearing from the supreme leader himself in Tehran. What is the latest on the ground where you are in Tel Aviv?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the latest, Erin, is that that ceasefire, though it got off to a very shaky start, appears to be holding. Israel's Home Front Command has lifted the state of emergency. We're definitely seeing a lot more cars on the road, a lot more people at the beach, earlier schools reopening, workplaces reopening. So, there is a sense that things are returning to normal here. Although we did hear the IDF Chief of Staff essentially saying that, Israel retains the right to strike Iran when and if they see fit.

And we've seen with previous ceasefire with Lebanon, for example, Israel continues to strike Lebanon and has done so many times since that ceasefire went into effect. But there is definitely a sense that those choice words from President Trump, and also of course, that conversation between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was described as very firm, have had an impact.

We heard also from the IDF Chief of Staff basically saying that Iran's nuclear program has been set back years and also that Iran's missile program has been set back years. And he said that the IDF's focus now will return to Gaza, to returning the hostages and to toppling Hamas. And I do think it's worth mentioning, Erin, because obviously the world has been absolutely consumed with hostilities between Israel and Iran over the past 12 days.

Well, during that period, more than 860 people have died in Gaza, more than 70 today alone. The humanitarian situation there continues to be absolutely devastating and critical. And we've even heard from the Hostage Families Forum, who today implored Israel's leadership to expand that Israel-Iran ceasefire to include Gaza as well. So now, there will be a question as to perhaps, in this moment, has space been created for some kind of a ceasefire to be negotiated. Too early to tell yet, but certainly many hoping, including here in Israel, that that might be a next step, Erin.

BURNETT: All right, Clarissa, thank you very much. As we're seeing just some of those explosions that were in Tehran earlier as the ceasefire was taking effect from Israeli strikes this morning. Let's talk more about all of this. Joined now by Retired Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, former Assistant Secretary of State for Political and Military Affairs under President George W. Bush, of course, oversaw operations here in the Middle East as well.

And General, I'm glad to have you back. Look, there was an exhaustion in this conflict, clearly, and it had metastasized and spread to the Gulf where airspace was disrupted, serious hit to the economy in the United Arab Emirates. People running for shelter in Doha, the situation had escalated to a perilous point. Now we have a ceasefire, but you have Israel saying that a significant phase is over. And General, then they're saying, but their campaign against Iran is not. What do you hear when you hear that?

BRIGADIER GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Well, the first thing I heard is that, for the first time in my lifetime, a U.S. president who used foul mouthed and visceral language to talk to Israel and Iran, for that matter, like there were a couple of little boys having a fight. I'm not sure that type of language is taught in the School of Foreign Service or in our embassies, but it seemed to work.

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And I think part of that is because President Trump takes this personally. He is the personal guarantor of what he thinks is his peace deal, and he's going to make sure it sticks. Now, how does it affect Israel? Well, I think Israel is a little bit chastened, a little bit humiliated for the first time in public, and I think they're going to think twice about believing that they have carte blanche to start this up again. And I hope that Iran feels the same way.

BURNETT: Yes. In Iran, we're seeing a lot of outreach by the president of Iran today, as I said, to the rule here in the UAE, to the Crown Prince in Saudi Arabia, clearly, reaching out to foes in the region to be more partners and perhaps a sense of how weak the situation is in Iran. And General, what do you see as the situation there? What we have today is the Iranian president, and I'm emphasizing that's who's talking, we haven't seen a post from the supreme leader. We have not heard from him.

We understand from Iranian State Media that there are people on the streets, perhaps organized by the regime, we don't know, but who are out there with his image up and marching on his behalf and for their armed forces. But just as Trump says, oh, I actually didn't mean it about regime change. We're looking at some of these images now with the Iranian flags. These are images out of Tehran from our CNN Turk Affiliate, General. But what do you see as the stability, right now, of the regime in Tehran defined by the religious leadership?

KIMMITT: Well, I think the first thing is to address the words that the Ayatollah used. I think in contrast to President Trump, the supreme leader will continue to use his Axis of Resistance, face- saving we're still a strong nation rhetoric to make sure that, number one, the people of Iran feel that they have stood up and have not been a failure here. Number two, if he doesn't use that kind of language, he may create the regime change that he doesn't want to see.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is the keeper of the revolution, and we haven't seen it happen yet. But the IRGC keeps the military in check, the Basij in check, and the population in check. And candidly, if they think the grand Ayatollah -- the Ayatollah is starting to slip and cotton to the West, they -- we may see regime change and it may be the worst kind of regime change where we go from a theocratic dictatorship to a military dictatorship.

BURNETT: And of course, as you point out, sometimes what you know you know, the known unknown, I suppose is what you're referring to. General, so as you assess the situation right now and the risks that are there, we are in a context of the administration we understand abruptly and without explanation at least delaying, but canceling for now, classified dual briefings that were supposed to be held today on what happened in the U.S. strikes. Right?

What happened? What did they destroy? What do they know? What were the battle plans? All of that was supposed to happen today. It has now been sort of abruptly canceled. Why do you think that is? And how -- do you think we're going to get the answers, true answers to what was destroyed, where things are in Iran, in terms of that enriched uranium? Are we going to get answers to all of this?

KIMMITT: Well, I think you will, but I'm not sure you want to be doing this post-operational analysis while the operation is still going on. We don't have the bomb damage assessment. We don't know how much Fordow had been disabled, destroyed, dismantled. We don't know the intentions of the Iranians. So I think fundamentally, this is not a matter of hiding anything from Congress. It's just saying let us develop our picture. We're in the middle of a firefight. Hopefully it's slowing down, but there will be time to do the postmortems on what happened. It's probably not the time to do it right now.

BURNETT: All right. Well, General Mark Kimmitt, I appreciate your time and thank you so much, General, for being with us. And still to come this hour, President Trump does say Iran's nuclear program was obliterated. But now, a top Iranian nuclear official says that his country did take action ahead of those strikes and protected its program.

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[14:19:18]

SANCHEZ: President Donald Trump continues to dismiss any questions about just how much damage Iran's nuclear site sustained from U.S. strikes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Iran will never rebuild its nuclear -- from there? Absolutely not. That place is under rocks. That place is demolished. The B-2 pilots did their job. They did it better than anybody could even imagine. They hit late in the evening, it was dark with no moon, and they hit that target with every one of those things, and that place is gone.

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SANCHEZ: We should note what the president later on Air Force One actually said that building a nuclear program was the last thing on Tehran's mind. But today, the Head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said the nation took steps to ensure there would be "no interruption to our nuclear program and industry."

[14:20:00]

Another official previously said that the equipment at the Fordow and Isfahan facilities had been moved in anticipation of Israeli strikes.

Let's discuss with Laura Holgate. She's a former U.S. Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. She also served as the Senior Director for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Terrorism, and Threat Reduction on the National Security Council. Ambassador, thank you so much for being with us.

LAURA HOLGATE, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY: Glad to be (ph) with you.

SANCHEZ: I think what everyone is waiting for right now, not just in the United States, but across the world, is an assessment of where Iran's nuclear program stands right now, the extent of the damage that these strikes did. How difficult is it going to be for the IAEA to sort that out?

HOLGATE: Well, that is the question on everyone's mind, and it is the most important question right now. The IAEA has inspectors on the ground, ready to go whenever the government of Iran allows them to. That's going to be the key question, is what does Iran allow. Iran has said they had protected --

SANCHEZ: Right.

HOLGATE: -- this material. We've seen trucks in the overhead imagery suggesting that it's been moved before the major attacks, the bunker buster bombs were dropped, and the Tomahawk missiles. So at this point, since it's not under safeguards, it's anyone's guess where that might be. And so, it's going to take the cooperation of the Iranian government to -- for the IAEA inspectors to be able to go look at it, assess the amount of it.

SANCHEZ: Right.

HOLGATE: Make sure it's the same material that we've been watching now for all these years and months.

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

HOLGATE: And then understand where it is and what its destiny is.

SANCHEZ: Right.

HOLGATE: Is it in a place that's secure, first of all? Is it in a place that -- is it -- it's going to have further enrichment? There's a lot of questions even once they find it.

SANCHEZ: Right.

HOLGATE: -- about what's going to happen next.

SANCHEZ: I also wonder, and the estimate is something like roughly 900 pounds. It's 880 pounds to 900 pounds of enriched uranium. Some of it enriched up to 60 percent, I read. What can Iran do with that material?

HOLGATE: Well, the common understanding is that weapons, usable material is up to the 90 percent range. And so, if they have hidden centrifuges somewhere, either already or the components to make them, that they could reconstitute into a centrifuge hall and re-enrich it, it's a very short period of time. And this is what we've been saying, what the IAEA has been saying for months now, is that from that 60 percent to 90 percent, it's a few days in a fully like industrial scale facility.

SANCHEZ: Right.

HOLGATE: The challenge is how quickly -- do they have such an undeclared facility?

SANCHEZ: Right.

HOLGATE: -- in being. The centrifuges, we saw them moving maybe equipment, but the centrifuges will not stand a move. They're super fragile.

SANCHEZ: Interesting.

HOLGATE: And once they are kind of knocked off balance, they won't function. They're essentially broken.

SANCHEZ: Would it be easy to track if say, North Korea, Russia, China, some of Iran's allies may try to provide centrifuges or enrichment equipment to the Iranians?

HOLGATE: They could. I'm not sure that Iran would really want that. They have the capacity. I mean, you can't bomb knowledge. They have the scientists; they have the supply chain for these centrifuges that's entirely domestic. They have the capacity to rebuild. That's why so many people have been arguing all these years that a military attack will not end the program forever.

SANCHEZ: Right. HOLGATE: The people and the supply chain still exist. And so, the question is, what does Iran want to do with it? Does it want to say, OK, IAEA, here's the material, look at it, inspect it, satisfy yourselves that it's the stuff you saw earlier. Let's park it somewhere that it's safe and let's enter negotiations about the destiny of the material and all the other bits and pieces of the program that may still exist. What to do with the scientists who understand all this stuff.

SANCHEZ: I do wonder, because if you enter negotiations, there's this question of trust and we talked about enrichment of a nuclear-grade weapon having to be at 90 percent. I believe the estimate for what you need for commercial use for nuclear power plants is something like 3 to 5 percent. So there is this distrust of what Iran was doing --

HOLGATE: Absolutely.

SANCHEZ: -- enriching uranium to at least 60 percent. Is there a clear picture of why they were taking part in that?

HOLGATE: Well, I think what they've been doing is using their enrichment level to communicate to the West, to communicate we could go for a bomb. We haven't decided to.

SANCHEZ: A tacit threat, essentially.

HOLGATE: A tacit threat. And like, just like going up to the edge of that cliff without yet stepping over. And so, the question is now that they've proved, the world has proved, or Israel and the U.S. have proved that the edge of that cliff was not a safe place for Iran, do they jump off the cliff and go for a weapon, or do they back away from the cliff and go for some kind of a negotiated solution? Those are the choices before them at the moment.

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SANCHEZ: Quickly, I understand that part of the proposed U.S. solution or argument to Iran was that they could sort of decentralize their nuclear program and have some of the enrichment of uranium located in other countries and then it would be shipped into Iran. That way they could still maintain some of their nuclear power plants. How logistically sound is that idea and how feasible is it that the Iranians at this point might actually bite?

HOLGATE: Well, it's logistically quite sound, enrichment -- enriched uranium for power plants is shipped all over the world every day. There's only a few places that it is enriched for commercial purposes and Iran gets all of their nuclear material, their fuel for their existing power plant in Bushehr from Russia. So, they really don't need a domestic enrichment program. They don't have reactors that need to be fed. They claim to be worried about the security of that Russian fuel supply chain. That was the kind of cover for this enrichment program to begin with.

SANCHEZ: Ambassador Laura Holgate, very much appreciate the expertise. Thanks for joining us. HOLGATE: Great to be with you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Appreciate it. Still plenty more news to come this afternoon. There are new signs today that Iran looks to move past this conflict with Israel. We have a report from Tehran as the ceasefire is still holding.

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