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Any Moment: House Receives Classified Briefing On Iran Strikes; Trump Staying In DC This Weekend To Keep Pressure On Senate GOP; Supreme Court To Hand Down Final Decisions Of The Term; Defense Gives Closing Argument In Sean Combs Trial. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired June 27, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): It's quite a comparison.

JUDITH JOSEPH, PSYCHIATRIST: Well, personally, in 2020, I was going through a period where I was pathologically productive. I wore this mask of everything looks great. And on the outside, it did look great. You know, I was running my lab, had a small child at home, looked like the perfect family, getting all these awards, always on TV. But I was struggling with anhedonia, a lack of pleasure and interest.

But because society really shows us that happiness is having checking all those boxes, it really doesn't prioritize joy.

SIDNER (voice-over): She was performing but couldn't access joy anymore. And when she began revealing her symptoms on social media posts, millions of people responded.

JOSEPH: There's a disconnect between research and the real world. People are finally realizing that a lack of joy, it may not be a crisis in terms of medical sense, but it is an existential crisis. We are built with the DNA for joy.

So if you're lacking joy, there are ways to infuse it back into your life. And guess what? Joyful people have better health, better relationships. They're more likely to be active in their communities to create positive change.

So, we should invest in joy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: All right. At any moment, members of the House will be briefed on the damage done to Iran's nuclear facilities by U.S. airstrikes.

Senators heard the exact same classified information, but they cannot agree, largely along party lines, as to the assessment.

Plus, the President is sticking around Washington this weekend to keep pressure on Republicans to pass his sweeping mega bill, even as their efforts hit a big roadblock.

And a multimillion-dollar extravaganza underway now in Venice.

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez ready to say I do in front of a crowd of their rich and famous friends. CNN is live with a look at the celebrations and the expected protests.

John Berman, out today. I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Bolduan. This is "CNN News Central."

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This hour, a classified briefing for House lawmakers will begin on Capitol Hill about the U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.

The House briefing comes after senators were briefed on this very same intelligence by the leaders of the Pentagon, State Department, Joint Chiefs, and the CIA on this very same thing just yesterday. All walking, many walking away, though, with very different impressions. Democrats saying critical questions are still unanswered and that the nuclear program was not obliterated.

Many Republicans, though, saying the opposite, that what they heard was that the nuclear sites were obliterated and the program set back by years.

CNN's Lauren Fox on Capitol Hill as this House briefing is about to take place.

And Lauren, what are you hearing?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on-camera): Yes, I mean, there's a lot of expectation and anticipation, especially from House Democrats going into this briefing today, in part because they were supposed to receive this earlier in the week. And of course, got postponed. So, they are now six days out waiting for some of these answers.

Now, as you noted, senators were briefed yesterday by this same group of briefers and Republicans and Democrats coming out of that briefing with slightly different views of exactly whether or not the Iranian nuclear program was, quote, obliterated.

Here is just a sense of that contrast between Lindsey Graham and Senator Chris Murphy, a Republican and a Democrat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Obliterated is a good word for me to use. 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.

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): I walk away from that briefing still under the belief that that we have not obliterated the program.

The President was deliberately misleading the public when he said the program was obliterated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX (on-camera): Now, I did talk to Senator Chris Coons after that Senate briefing yesterday, and he characterized the briefing as constructive. He said he did learn new information. But like many other Democrats that I talked to yesterday, he made clear that he does believe further investigation has to take place to truly understand the full scope of the damage that was done to these nuclear facilities in Iran.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Lauren Fox, thank you so much on Capitol Hill for us.

Also new this morning, it is going to be a working weekend for President Trump. He was set to spend time at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, but instead a White House official says that he will be staying in Washington so he can keep up ramping up the pressure on Republicans to pass his sweeping policy agenda bill.

[09:05:07]

He wants to sign -- he wants that signed. He wants to sign it rather by July 4th. But it comes also as this bill just now has started to face a major roadblock in the Senate.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is at the White House covering this one for us.

Kevin, President staying in D.C., what's going to happen?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER (on-camera): Yes, and it gives you a sense of the pressure he's facing to get this bill across the finish line. You know, for the last couple of weeks, he's been so focused on foreign policy. But this bill actually contains almost the entirety of his domestic agenda.

And the fate of it right now is pretty uncertain. It's facing those procedural hurdles. But there are also some Republicans in the Senate who have not yet gotten on board.

And that is the reason that the President will be here at the White House this weekend, to try and continue twisting arms to get those Republicans behind this package. And just to describe for you a little bit of the procedural hurdles, there's this position called the parliamentarian in the Senate, something of an obscure job. She's essentially the referee.

And she's been ruling this week on whether some of the provisions in this bill meet the requirement to pass it with a simple majority vote, which is what Republicans will have to do to get it across the finish line. Democrats are not going to vote for it. And they'll need to pass it with a simple majority in order to overcome a potential filibuster.

What the parliamentarian has found is that some of the language, including on cuts to Medicaid, don't meet a requirement for a simple majority budget bill. And so, there's an open question of whether this is kind of the death knell for this package or whether it's sort of a temporary hurdle. And when you listen to the Senate Majority Leader John Thune, when you listen to the White House, they say that this will be something that they can fix relatively quickly. But that's only one of the problems that this bill faces.

The other issue are these Republicans, including some Trump loyalists like Josh Hawley from Missouri, who do have some real concerns about the cuts to social safety net programs, including Medicaid. Those cuts are necessary in order to pay for the other part of this bill, which is an extension of the Trump tax cuts.

They have a lot of issues with it. It could have some serious effects, particularly in red states, issues like rural hospitals that a lot of patients rely on. And so that's something that the President and Republican leaders in the Senate are going to have to figure out before this bill gets across the finish line.

Now, yesterday, President Trump was here at the White House. He was up in the East Room trying to promote this package. He was focused specifically on the provisions that would help working class Americans, things like eliminating taxes on tips.

But he did go after some of the Republicans who are opposed to some of the measures in this bill. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: I shouldn't say this, but we don't want to have grandstanders where one or two people's raised their foot. We don't know. And they do it to grandstand. That's all. Not good people. They know who I am, who I'm talking about. I call them out. But we don't need grandstanders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK (on-camera): The President has set a very ambitious deadline to get this bill passed. He wants it on his desk by July 4th. That's one week from today.

Remember, after the Senate passes the bill, it will have to go back to the House where members there will have to vote on some of the changes. So, there's a lot to get done in that week time span.

But yesterday, President Trump said that at least he hopes he will still be able to do it by July 4th. Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right. We will see.

Kevin Liptak, thank you so much from the White House for us this morning.

Let's get back -- let's start with and get back to that classified briefing about to take place for House lawmakers.

Joining us right now is Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell of California.

Congressman, thanks for coming in. You're about to head into this thing.

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Of course.

BOLDUAN: What do you want to ask in this briefing?

SWALWELL: I am.

BOLDUAN: Do you leave open the possibility that it could change your mind about this mission?

SWALWELL: Well, I don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon, period. I actually think words rather than war, dialogue over destruction has proven to work in the past.

But I always want our military to succeed if they've been given an order by our commander in chief. And what most of my colleagues want, Republicans and Democrats, is just be real with us. You know, we've heard conflicting reports about what happened.

If the mission was not a success, that's not a knock on the troops or the airmen who flew this mission. We just want to know, is this capability gone? Because if it's not gone, does that mean that we risk another attack on a country of about 100 million people?

So really just shoot straight with us. That's all we're asking.

BOLDUAN: Lauren Fox was kind of laying out how when the senators were briefed, they emerged from the briefing with somewhat different views. Some would say on some issues starkly different views on their interpretation of what they heard from the briefers. You're going to be briefed by the very same people.

I'm curious about one big lingering question, which has been what happened to the stockpile of enriched uranium in Iran? The chair of Senate Intel, Tom Cotton, he was asked about this yesterday.

[09:10:07]

Let me play what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have some sense of where the enriched uranium is at this point? Has the intelligence community figured that out at this point?

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): I don't have a comment on that. I will say it was not part of the mission to destroy all their enriched uranium or to seize it or anything else.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: What do you think of that? Since the President continues to say he thinks all the uranium was down there, none was moved ahead of time.

SWALWELL: Yes. So, then what was the mission if they weren't trying to take out the capability? And the bigger question to me, and this is why I think dialogue over destruction, words over war at this point, is how imminent was this threat? And was it even a threat to the United States? They have not been able to answer that. The last time the President sent someone to Congress, his director of intelligence said that they were a long ways away from having a nuclear weapon.

So that's a big question as well, because when we start sending planes over Iran and dropping bombs into their country, you have to be able to justify to the United States citizens that this was an imminent threat to us, and I haven't heard that yet.

And that's why I think having a dialogue that brings them to the table, executes a deal similar to what we had in the past that really constrained them, that would have been better.

BOLDUAN: You had some, that may have actually been a question that may have come up during the Pentagon briefing yesterday about what changed and what lead up. You had some harsh words mocking the defense secretary for his, I'll call it an emotional speech during the Pentagon briefing.

What is your take on why the defense secretary is handling questions about the mission the way that he is, and berating reporters for accurate reporting?

SWALWELL: He's very thin skinned. For someone who likes to thump his chest and thinks that he can define who a warrior is and isn't, and has tried to remove women from combat roles, he has shown himself to be quite unstable at these briefings, and that's probably because he's quite unqualified.

Now, thankfully, we do have a number of qualified leaders in our military, and that's who I think should be forward facing, front facing to the public to answer these questions, not a weekend news anchor from Fox News.

BOLDUAN: Disparaging news anchors is never a good way to win my, get in with me.

SWALWELL: Weekend -- weekend Kate. Your prime time. You have a big show.

BOLDUAN: We are moving on to more serious commentary here. Something that Democrats do really need to contend with, and something that is quite serious for the party right now, is Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist who beat Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic nomination in the New York mayoral race.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says there is a bigger message in his nomination. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): We have a choice to listen to that message that people are sending us or not.

This isn't just about Mr. Mamdani as an individual. This is about the message that the people of New York City are trying to send to our party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: What do you think the message is?

SWALWELL: People want to be able to afford to dream, and they want a government that bets on them.

So if you're going to work hard and bet on yourself, your government, your country should bet on you, bet on your kids' education, as AI threatens to change everything. Bet on your health care and make sure it's affordable. Bet on your career and make sure that if you work hard, you do better and dream bigger.

And frankly, stylistically, and I'm not a socialist and I don't associate myself with what he has said about the Jewish people, but stylistically, he was always on and he was everywhere. And I've been encouraging my colleagues. We have to be in more spaces, more places and always be on in the way that we communicate.

And also, when you're always on, you're always honest. And that clearly came true.

BOLDUAN: Yes. A lot of questions still to be asked in that mayoral race and far beyond.

Thank you so much for coming in, Congressman.

Heading into this House briefing right now --

SWALWELL: Of course. My pleasure. Thanks, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Off course (ph).

SWALWELL: Off to work.

BOLDUAN: Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Blockbuster day ahead.

Speaking of work at the Supreme Court, we are standing by for major rulings on birth right citizenship and LGBTQ+ books in schools that and those decisions could come down any moment now.

And this morning, the defense will give their closing arguments in the case against Sean Combs, what prosecutors laid out for the jury yesterday.

Also, a look at futures this morning ahead of the opening bell markets expected to open in record territory.

And there's a new report out. We will have that as well. We will bring all of that to you live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:19:36]

BOLDUAN: Very soon this morning, the Supreme Court will begin their final day of the term handing down final decisions.

It is set to be a blockbuster one with major decisions on about a half a dozen high profile cases. The justices expected to weigh in on big issues like birthright citizenship, LGBTQ books in schools, and age verification to access porn sites.

[09:20:00]

CNN's Paula Reid is live outside the Supreme Court as they're about to get underway in just about an hour, a little hour plus possibly.

Paula, what are you watching for?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (on-camera): All right, Kate, this is the last day of the term so traditionally the justices, they always leave their biggest decisions to today. We're expecting up to six cases, they're all significant, but there were three in particular that we have been watching very closely.

The biggest case that we've been watching is related to President Trump's effort to limit birthright citizenship, the idea that if you are born here you are a U.S. citizen, something that has been recognized for well over a century. And while this case is focused on President Trump's effort to limit that right, really the big question for the judges, justices here, is about judges. It's about if a single judge anywhere in the country can block a policy for the entire nation while it's being -- while it's being litigated.

These so-called nationwide injunctions have plagued every modern president, but because President Trump does so much through executive action, he has faced the greatest number of these injunctions.

So this is something that I'm told the Trump lawyers are watching very closely. They tell me this is the ballgame for them, because if the justices are willing to limit this power, that'll really help the President push forward with some of his agenda items through executive action. But if they don't win, they're going to have to rethink their approach.

Two other big cases we're watching, one has to do with religious exemptions for parents who want to opt out of instruction or curriculum related to LGBTQ issues. Now, this is specifically focused on books, but if, if the justice is signed with these parents, that might open the door to other exemptions. And we've seen this conservative super majority increasingly expand religious protections.

Another case we're watching really closely, it's a really interesting one out of the state of Texas, where the state was trying to limit the access that minors have to pornography online. Something that folks on both sides of this case agree is a good thing, a noble pursuit.

But in order to do that, they require identifying information from adults who want to access those sites. And it has been argued that that is a violation of the First Amendment and anything that infringes on free speech, it gets a very high level of scrutiny from the justices. But even though that is the case at arguments, it seemed like the justices might be willing to side with the state of Texas.

So, we're watching all of these cases. In addition to a case related to Obamacare, another one related to redistricting. These will start rolling out at 10:00 a.m. And we'll bring all of the breaking news to you live.

BOLDUAN: Paula, thank you so much. Looking forward to seeing what all comes down today. Really appreciate it.

Sara.

SIDNER: A lot for the court to decide there.

All right. We have just gotten word that court is back in session this morning in the Sean Combs federal racketeering and sex trafficking trial.

And now it's the defense's turn to deliver its closing arguments in this case. The government summed up its case that went seven weeks almost against Combs yesterday, spending nearly five hours describing how the disgraced music mogul acted, as they put it, the leader of a criminal enterprise who used power, violence and fear to get what he wanted.

Now, joining me, defense and trial attorney Misty Marris.

All right. So almost five hours you were in the courtroom. First of all, is that an unusual amount of time and hard for the jury to sort of take all that in?

MISTY MARRIS, DEFENSE & TRIAL ATTORNEY: It's definitely a very long time, Sara. I was in the courtroom. Prosecutors had said they were going to take about four hours and then it kept being extended. They didn't have an obligation to keep it to four. Went to almost five hours.

Yes, it was very, very long. And towards the end, especially when we're going through some of the more tedious elements --

SIDNER: Yes.

MARRIS: -- it did get a little bit maybe over the top, maybe a little boring.

However, it really needed to be that way. And what I think prosecutors did a great job of yesterday was simplifying these very complicated concepts, especially RICO sex trafficking and making it very digestible for the average person to understand. No legalese layman's terms. They used a lot of images. They had slides that put all the elements of the and tried to apply what we heard during the trial, the evidence to the law.

So, do you think it was effective? Keep in mind what we had here, 30 plus witnesses, a lot of documentary evidence, seven weeks of trial. And today they know what the jury is going to hear, like 50 pages of jury instructions. So the idea is that prosecutors and now the defense, when the jury is considering that verdict sheet, looking at those elements, they want them to hearken back to what they heard during the close.

So overall, very effective.

SIDNER: Yes. I think some people were kind of surprised that the defense had not put on a single witness. They are not required to in any way, shape or form. But it seemed that they really tried their case through cross-examination of all of the witnesses that you just mentioned in all of the six weeks of testimony.

What are you expecting the defense to do here? And how important is their closing arguments being that their case was very short?

[09:25:02]

MARRIS: The closing arguments are going to be incredibly important. So the defense didn't put on a case. I wasn't really surprised.

SIDNER: Yes.

MARRIS: Number one, that's a risk-averse strategy to a certain degree for a defendant because they don't have to. And the other part of it is very strategic. They had a lot of goals that came out during cross- examination of some of the prosecutions witnesses for different reasons.

Some of it was extreme credibility issues. Maybe somebody they're saying they're lying but also perhaps they don't remember. This is 10 plus years ago.

They also were able to get a lot of testimony from prosecution witnesses that would tend to refute some of the elements of the crimes as charged. We know their RICO six trafficking and those are different than maybe a domestic violence case would be.

So I think what the defense is going to focus on going to focus on that credibility, prosecutors really laid their case out as if it were fact, right? They're going to say jury, you're the one to decide about credibility. You can actually choose to disregard some of this testimony if you so choose.

And also, I think you're going to see a lot of those text messages that tend to show the mindset of the victims and others his employees during that time frame. And then you're going to hear Sara about why prosecutors did not fulfill their burden on the critical elements of the case.

SIDNER: I am curious from your perspective is your you were in court, you know every day just watching all of these details. There were so many of them.

How difficult this is going to be for this jury after six weeks of testimony and all of these mountains of evidence of the prosecution put forward to have to go through all that.

MARRIS: Yes, Sara today, the judge is going to read those jury instructions and they're going to be confusing to, it's going to be their roadmap, but they're going to have to really digest all of that in addition to all of what we heard in the courtroom.

I think it is going to be difficult. You know, the jury may get the case today. They can choose to deliberate depending on what time or they can come in fresh Monday. We've got the 4th of July holiday, right?

SIDNER: Around the corner.

MARRIS: And we know that you get that Friday pressure usually. Now you got that Friday pressure on steroids because of that holiday weekend. I don't think we're going to see a quick verdict, but given all of those factors who knows I do think it's going to take them a lot of time to work through this case, especially when you have the complicated RICO statute to really get into.

SIDNER: Yes, you do mention something. I know you guys you lawyers often see is that as a holiday gets closer --

MARRIS: Yes.

SIDNER: -- the pressure gets on and often juries make a decision before that holiday, but you never know what this one there is a lot for them to go through.

Misty Marris, it is a pleasure. Thank you for bringing us all of that.

MARRIS: Thank you.

SIDNER: Great analysis.

All right, still ahead quote, they betrayed the negotiations in the middle of the process, Iran saying they have no plans to resume nuclear discussions after the President said talks will happen next week.

How the White House can bring Iran back to the negotiating table when we return.

Plus, the stock market set to open in record territory this morning. A look at futures there. Everything is up just slightly.

We'll catch that bell, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)