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Supreme Court to Hand Down Final Decisions of the Term; Senators Divided on Impact of Iran Strikes After Briefing; Secret Diplomatic Push to Restart Iran Talks; Defense Will Give Closing Argument in Sean Diddy Comes Trial; Interview with Rep. Ami Bera (D- CA): House Classified Briefing on U.S. Strikes on Iran. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired June 27, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: ... there, but it's just such a beautiful expanse. The nine justices will take their seats up on the mahogany bench, and then Chief Justice John Roberts will start to announce who will be reading the opinions. And he's going to go in reverse seniority, so that means that the biggest opinions will end up with him and Justice Thomas, the more senior justices.

And I'll be watching for who's in their guest seats, which spouses are there, what kind of guests they have, because it's a big day not just for the country with the rulings, but it culminates this term.

Once a justice reads his or her majority from the bench, we sometimes get, at this time of year, Kate, a dissent from the bench. And that's when a justice feels so strongly about the turn that the court has taken that he or she wants to orally dissent. And that also brings a lot of drama.

You put up those cases on the screen there about the major ones, but let me just focus on one, the birthright citizenship one. This is going to be a big test of how this court reacts to Donald Trump's effort to lift birthright citizenship, which we've had in this country for more than 150 years.

And the key there is what kind of power the Supreme Court will allow lower court judges to block troublesome, potentially constitutionally problematic policies of Donald Trump, for example, in the birthright citizenship effort that he has to lift that. But however the justice's rule could actually affect not just that part of Donald Trump's policy, but other policies of Donald Trump -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Much more to come. Big day, Joan. Thank you so much.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning, our House in the next hour or so. Let's see. Yes, it's eight o'clock. House lawmakers will finally receive a classified briefing on the U.S. strikes in Iran as senators remain divided over how much damage was done by those strikes and what it all means for Iran's nuclear program going forward.

And exclusive this morning for you from CNN, we've learned about secret diplomatic efforts by the U.S. to get Iran back to the negotiating table, considering a number of incentives, including easing sanctions and giving them money.

And after weeks of stunning testimony, juries in the Sean Diddy Combs trial could begin deliberating as soon as today, after the defense team delivers its closing arguments.

Plus, new reporting on the noticeable difference in Combs' body language during the prosecution's closing remarks.

I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Bolduan. John Berman is out today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

Less than an hour from now, House lawmakers will begin hearing classified details on the U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. The briefing in the House comes as senators remain divided after being briefed in the same room, presented with the same information, but leaving with a very different assessment.

Many Republican senators in line with the White House, no surprise, they now say they believe it will take years for Iran to build up their nuclear capabilities again. Some even echoed the president's description of total obliteration.

Democrats, meanwhile, say the attacks, while damaging, only set back the Iranians by a few months.

CNN's Annie Grayer joining us now this morning. What happened in yesterday's briefing? And furthermore, we're expecting the House to get a hold of this information as well.

ANNIE GRAYER, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: That's right. The House is finally expected to get its classified briefing in less than an hour after a long delay since the strikes happened last Saturday. They're expected to hear from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Now, this is the same group who briefed senators yesterday, where Republican and Democratic senators came out of the briefing with different opinions about how successful the strikes were and what the future of Iran's nuclear capabilities are. Take a listen to a sampling of those opinions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): I walk away from that briefing still under the belief that we have not obliterated the program. The president was deliberately misleading the public when he said the program was obliterated.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I can tell people in South Carolina, nobody is going to work in these three sites anytime soon. They're not going to get into them anytime soon. Their operational capability was obliterated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRAYER: So this just raises questions of how senators who were in the same room being briefed by the same people could come out with, as you see, such different opinions here.

[08:05:00]

And this comes as President Trump is claiming that he wants to limit what classified information can come to Capitol Hill going forward. So this just raises questions about what lawmakers are going to have access to in the future.

SIDNER: It also raises questions about whether they should be making these big pronouncements when they know that this is preliminary, very preliminary intelligence. We will see. Annie Grayer, thank you so much for your great reporting this morning -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Now to our CNN exclusive reporting. New details are emerging about secret U.S. diplomatic efforts to try and restart talks with Iran. The reporting is this behind the scenes effort has been going on -- going on both before and after the U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. President Trump says U.S. and Iranian officials are set to meet next week, will meet next week. But according to Tehran, they have no plans to return to the negotiating table.

CNN's Zach Cohen, who is part of the team who broke this story, joins us right now. Tell me more about what you're learning about these secret diplomatic efforts now.

ZACH COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Kate, we're learning that this intense diplomatic effort really picking up in the immediate lead up to those U.S. military strikes earlier this week. And they have continued in the days since then. And we're told that key players from both the U.S. and the Gulf partners have been in touch with Iranian officials in the aftermath of those U.S. military strikes.

And this is all about drafting a proposal that is intended to try to draw Iran back to the negotiating table. And it's really interesting, the timeline here, because we're told that there was this secret meeting that happened at the White House on Friday, one day before the U.S. military dropped those massive bombs on three Iranian nuclear sites.

And at that meeting, Steve Witkoff, Trump's top Middle Eastern envoy, worked with Gulf partners to come up with some terms, including incentives, that might help bring Iran back to the negotiating table, knowing full well on Witkoff's end that a military operation could be coming as soon as 24 hours later. And subsequently, those key interlocutors, mostly the Qataris, have also helped facilitate back- channel conversations between the U.S. and Iran.

So, some of the conditions that we've learned are in these draft proposals, which Trump officials stress are preliminary and are evolving, include giving Iran access to up to $30 billion for a civilian nuclear energy program. They also have floated the idea of easing sanctions against Iran and freeing up billions of dollars in restricted funds.

But all with, on the U.S. side, the one non-negotiable is no enrichment of uranium for Iran. That is a consistent thing that they have stressed in the lead-up to those military strikes and continue to emphasize in conversations since then.

As you mentioned, Donald Trump has said that he wants to talk to the Iranians. He's saying that a meeting could happen as soon as next week, the Iranians saying that there is no meeting on the books, and that's something that's been echoed to us by other U.S. officials. But it remains to be seen if Iran and the U.S. will ultimately sit down to discuss the future of Iran's nuclear program, because regardless of the effectiveness of those military strikes, I think there's a consensus concern amongst U.S. and Middle Eastern partners that a future of Iran with no nuclear weapon must be solved diplomatically.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Zach, great reporting. Thank you to you and your team for this.

Let's start with that and bringing in right now, CNN military analyst, retired Major General James Spider Marks. It's great to see you, Spider.

You have this diplomatic effort happening in the background, but you also have the president very publicly this week downplaying the need of a diplomatic effort, if you will, the need for another nuclear deal.

The way he said it is that such an agreement was not necessary. I don't care if I have an agreement or not. I mean, if Israel controls the skies, if the U.S. has damaged the centrifuges and conversion facilities and more, does a military threat negate the need for a diplomatic solution?

MAJ. GEN. JAMES SPIDER MARKS (RET.); CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Of course not. The only way out of this thing is a diplomatic solution. But the conditions have been set by the application of force, kinetic force.

Look, what you see on both sides are leaders that are dealing with bluster. On the Iranian side, clearly they have been humbled on a global stage. And so in order to regain some type of bluster internally, they have to speak very belligerently.

And it's a domestic message that we're never going to sign a deal and everything's fine here. You know, it's the man behind the curtain. Don't pay any attention to that. We're great. And on the U.S. side, the president is correct to say, look, we beat

the heck out of these guys irrespective of the term, whether it's obliterated and we can get into all the wordsmithing. But words, as we know, Kate, are incredibly important here to describe what our next steps need to look like.

But there is an absolute necessity to have a deal. And the deal must be very specific.

[08:10:00]

We cannot have a Mideast version of a North Korea, which is a rogue nation with a state that has had no guardrails over the course of about 20 years and have developed nukes at the early stages.

We have to assess that the North Koreans have been able to put missiles, reduce the weight of the missiles, get it on a warheads, get it on a missile, et cetera. We cannot afford to have that in Iran. And Iran knows that.

I mean, their incentive to go to the table is that if there are indications that they're going to enhance their enrichment, reignite this process. They're going to get the heck beat out of them again.

I mean, is this the process that the Iranian people want? I don't think so. So we can't talk about regime change. I mean, that's up to the Iranian people. But the evidence is going to be very clear. Look, this regime is not taking care of the social contract, which is to protect us.

Let's go to the table. Let's have a talk. Commercial use of nuclear power is great. Let's do that. And the United States ostensibly is going to facilitate that if a deal can be reached.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Let's talk about these briefings on Capitol Hill. House members are getting a briefing next hour on the strikes. Yesterday, when the senators left the briefing, they were sharply divided over the scope and success of the U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Let me just play a wee bit for all of you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): I believe that this mission was a tremendous success and that we have effectively destroyed Iran's nuclear program.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): I think obliterated is much too strong a word. Certainly there was serious and perhaps severe damage done. But as to how much damage was done, we really need a final assessment.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I don't want people to think that the site wasn't severely damaged or obliterated. It was. But having said that, I don't want people to think the problem is over because it's not.

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): I just do not think the president was telling the truth when he said this program was obliterated.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: From your perspective, Spider, and in your role, you've had to deal with many a politician over the years and how in their interpretation of military events, how and why do these leaders come out of the very same briefing with two very different takes on the same classified information?

MARKS: Well, we know the answer to that question, Kate. I mean, it's along party lines. Intel, I mean, in the world that I was a part of, when the intelligence crossed the Potomac, it became politicized. I mean, it was inevitable.

So you sit through these hearings, these classified hearings, and you kind of roll your eyes. You maintain your decorum and you're polite, but you want to go look here.

Here's what we're seeing. Not only are there facts, but there are assessments tied to those facts. And that's what affects based operations. That's what we're really talking about. You know, what effects are you trying to achieve? Not I just want to collapse that building or I want to take out that bridge. It really is an assessment of a capacity.

And so there's going to be a disagreement within the intelligence community. Different thoughts are going to come forward as intelligence comes in. Over the course of time, more than just Maxar imagery, we're going to have human intelligence, signals intelligence. We're going to get into websites. We're going to listen to people. We're going to watch people chat. We're going to we're going to have human intelligence. The Iranians have been penetrated by the Israelis. That new process is vulnerable. So the picture will become clearer over time.

But what we saw yesterday from the on the Senate side, not surprising, it'll happen on the House side. It'll be more vociferous and volatile on the House side. That's what makes it fun.

BOLDUAN: Fun. Your version of fun, Spider, we're going to have to talk about that in the commercial break. It's great to see you, Spider.

MARKS: OK.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much -- Sara.

SIDNER: I shall also weigh into that conversation about what Spider Marks thinks is.

BOLDUAN: I mean, he's also one of the nicest men on the entire planet.

SIDNER: It is true.

BOLDUAN: So any version of fun that I'm ready for.

SIDNER: You're on board.

BOLDUAN: Yes. SIDNER: All right. Coming up this morning, Sean Combs defense team will deliver their closing argument in his sex trafficking and racketeering trial after the seven week trial. We are live outside the courthouse.

Plus, a rule in President Donald Trump's mega bill is setting off alarm bells. Details of the measure that could make regulating A.I. very difficult.

And the man accused of murdering a Minnesota state lawmaker and shooting a state senator and his wife due back in court this morning as Representative Melissa Hortman, her husband and their dog, will all lie in state today.

[08:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Next hour, the defense team is set to deliver its closing arguments in Sean Combs' federal racketeering and sex trafficking trial. For nearly five hours yesterday, the government summed up its case against Combs, describing the disgraced music mogul as the leader of a criminal enterprise and also saying he used power, violence and fear to get what he wanted. CNN's Kara Scannell is outside the courthouse, has been inside that courtroom all throughout.

Another very big day as they wrap things up here. What is expected, Kara?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Kate, I mean, this is going to be Sean Combs' lawyers first time to address the jury and tie what they believe is their best argument for why Combs should not be convicted. Their argument is expected to be that he was not the head of any criminal enterprise -- that he was not part of any criminal enterprise.

Sorry, Kate. They're going to argue that he was not part of any criminal enterprise, that he was not involved in any group activity that was illegal and that the sex at the center of this case was not forced sex.

[08:20:02]

So that it was consensual sex between two adults that Combs' former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, as well as his former girlfriend who testified under the pseudonym Jane.

Now, their closing argument follows nearly five hours by prosecutors yesterday where they told the jury that Combs was the head of this kingdom and that everyone that worked for him were his foot soldiers. They also, you know, kind of created this roadmap for the jury to find the evidence that they would need to find Combs guilty of a number of crimes, including that racketeering conspiracy involving bribery, arson, witness tampering, as well as the sex crimes at the center of this case. They say that even if there was just one time that Cassie Ventura or Jane participated in a sex act with a male prostitute by force or fraud or coercion, that is illegal. That is sex trafficking.

The prosecutor telling the jury up until today, the defendant was able to get away with these crimes because of his money, his power, his influence. That stops now. It's time to hold him accountable.

The prosecution will have one more time to address the jury after Combs' lawyers give their defense. Then the judge will issue his instruction on the law. And then if there's time today, the jury will get the case and deliberations will get underway -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Wow. It's been a big trial and it's all about to wrap up and be now in the hands of jury. Kara, thank you so much for that.

Still ahead for us. Soon, lawmakers are going to be heading into a classified briefing on the U.S. strikes in Iran.

Sources tells CNN, the White House is secretly behind the scenes trying to spearhead an effort to get Tehran back to the negotiating table, to a diplomatic negotiating table.

And we are just minutes away from getting a new read on the economy with a new inflation report. Here's a look at market futures right now. Markets are poised to potentially open in record territory today.

[08:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: Next hour, the defense delivers its closing argument in Sean Combs' federal racketeering and sex trafficking trial for nearly five hours. Yesterday, we will -- we will bring you the latest on that. We're going to hear from the defense today and then move on from there.

Just half an hour from now, House lawmakers will get their turn to get briefed on the U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. It comes a day after senators left their own briefing sharply divided, as you know, mainly -- not surprised here -- along party lines and just how far those went to set back Iran's nuclear program.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Ami Bera of California. Thank you so much. I know it's early there. Thank you for getting up early for us with your on California time at times. But you're in D.C. for us now.

I want to talk to you about this really quickly. After reports the White House may limit intelligence sharing because of the intelligence leak that he now blames on Democrats.

Do you think that you will get all the information you need to make your own conclusions?

REP. AMI BERA (D-CA), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: You know, I don't think we'll learn a whole lot in this classified briefing to the entire Congress. Hopefully, it's a chance for us to ask questions. I'm on the Intelligence Committee, so I've seen all the information and can't go into all of that. But for those of us on the Intelligence Committee, we have seen a lot of information.

SIDNER: Can you give me some sense of what you learned, what you can say and whether you think that, indeed, this was a mission that was worth it, regardless of just how damaged Iran's nuclear facilities are?

BERA: Yes, so what I can say, it's been pretty widely reported. This was probably a tactical success that our military took the mission that was in front of them, executed that mission with precision. So tactically, we can be proud of what our military did.

Two things can be true at the same time. It is really difficult to assess how far the setback was to the nuclear program. We already know that a lot of the scientists were eliminated by the Israelis.

We do know there's damage at these nuclear sites. It's hard to assess at this juncture, is there other enriched uranium? Was it still there at the site? Was it moved? I mean, that's going to take our analysts a while to go. I would urge the president to, you know, not use some of these declarative statements.

He's not obviously listening to me, but let's be measured in our approach. And then what I would hope is, if this is successful, getting the Iranians to the table, negotiating a ceasefire, what that looks like, this is going to be difficult, you know, then this probably was worth it. On the other hand, if this escalates into another war in the Middle East, nobody has any interest in putting troops back in the Middle East, getting involved in another long-term conflict in the Middle East. So then we would assess it from that direction.

SIDNER: So I'm curious to get your thoughts on some new reporting that we have and what White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said. She made a comparison between how Trump handled Iran and how Obama handled Iran. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The contrast in leadership could not be more clear. Barack Obama and Joe Biden sent pallets of cash, American taxpayer dollars, in a failed attempt to buy the Iranian regime's compliance with a weak and ineffective deal. President Trump sent a fleet of American warplanes to destroy Iran's ability to produce a nuclear weapon.

The United States and the entire world are safer because of this president's decisiveness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: So, following that, we have new reporting that there are secret talks and hours-long meetings between U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Gulf partners at the White House last Friday. And here are some of the things our sources said were discussed, possibly helping Iran access as much as $30 billion to build a civilian energy- producing nuclear program, easing sanctions on Iran, freeing up billions of dollars in restricted Iranian funds.

You heard what Karoline Leavitt said. Trump killed that Obama- negotiated Iran deal. And now it's being criticized once again by the White House. Do the details you just heard, though, that the Trump administration is considering sound anything like the Obama deal?

BERA: It sounds a lot like the Iran nuclear deal that I voted for and supported a decade ago. Now, Obama took a different approach. It was a negotiated deal. It wasn't perfect, but it was the best that you could do, and it would have set back.