Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Interview with Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE): U.S., Iran Set for Talks Amid Confusion Over What's in Ceasefire Deal; Oil Shipments Through Strait of Hormuz Remain Disrupted; Artemis II Crew to Splash Down in Pacific After Dangerous Reentry; J.D. Vance to Lead U.S. Delegation in Talks with Iran. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 10, 2026 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Their mascot, Tusky, took the first spin, which is only fitting. Timing could not be better. Utah clinched its first ever Stanley Cup playoff berth last night. I can see it now. Every NHL franchise is now like, we have got to step up our Zamboni game, guys.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

All right. We are standing by for Vice President J.D. Vance to expect to leave soon for talks that have the collective world holding its breath. Vance set to lead the U.S. negotiation with Iran this weekend, with growing questions of, is there even a ceasefire actually in place? Iran and Israel are still firing rockets, and the Strait of Hormuz is still closed.

We are also standing by for a critical report this hour, a new read on how much this war is costing Americans, how it's hitting inflation. That's ahead.

And will Congress act? The first lady is now publicly calling on lawmakers to renew their focus on the Epstein files and hold new hearings so survivors can have their say. An Epstein survivor will be joining us to react to all of this shocking twist here.

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, we've got major new questions leading up to scheduled peace talks in Pakistan between the United States and Iran. Vice President J.D. Vance leading the U.S. delegation. You're looking at live pictures from Joint Base Andrews, where the vice president is scheduled to depart any minute.

But there are these questions, big ones, like, is a ceasefire a ceasefire if there is still fighting? There are new strikes in Lebanon overnight. Of course, Israel says Lebanon was never part of the ceasefire deal with Iran. Iran says otherwise. Kuwait also says there were strikes there as well. Another question,

is a ceasefire a ceasefire if the key concession from Iran has not been met?

We're talking about the Strait of Hormuz. The president had insisted that Iran opened the Strait, that that was part of the ceasefire deal. But traffic there remains severely disrupted, barely a trickle, if at all.

With us now is Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware. He is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator, good to see you this morning.

What is your best case realistic scenario for these talks scheduled to begin tomorrow?

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Well, John, thanks for that question. Best case is one thing, realistic is another. From the beginning of this war of choice, this chaotic war, it's been unclear exactly what President Trump's goals are and exactly why the United States has spent more than $50 billion over more than 40 days.

Americans are seeing the price at the pump over $4 a gallon everywhere in the country. We're going to see inflation go up. The costs at the grocery store will be impacted.

Fertilizer will impact the growing season for farmers around the world. And as you just said, the Strait of Hormuz is not open. And if the goal was regime change, we have Ayatollah 2.0 in place, his son, more angry, more radical, more likely to be aggressive. Yes, we've sunk a lot of their official Navy. No, we haven't weakened their ability to shut the Strait of Hormuz. Yes, we've blown up a lot of ballistic missiles.

No, we haven't ended their ability to keep launching them every day. Iran clearly still has control of its country. It has control of drones and small fast boats and missiles that continue to strike and threaten American bases, American embassies, and our partners and allies throughout the region.

So it is unclear to me what's been accomplished. Of course, I wish J.D. Vance success, and I hope that there will be a negotiation, but maybe it can achieve a real ceasefire first, and then hopefully an accounting for the highly enriched uranium that we still don't have transparency or accountability into, and an end to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

BERMAN: The United States has stopped striking Iran inside Iran, Israel as well. Other than that, do you think it can be called a ceasefire, a two-week ceasefire?

COONS: It really can't if the core thing that Iran is doing, squeezing off world commerce through the Strait of Hormuz, is still happening, and frankly, if bombing is continuing throughout the region. So it's not a ceasefire yet, although the reduction in active hostilities is a positive thing. Look, President Trump's despicable Easter morning tweet, threatening to erase an entire civilization, is something that Americans need to think deeply about and that Republicans in Congress need to speak out about.

[08:05:00]

We've lost the moral high ground of being a country that fights for regime change, that delivers on its promises to try and help the suffering people of other nations, and instead, under President Trump's leadership, become a country that seems only focused on extracting oil from other countries, whether it's Venezuela or Iran.

He's weakened our alliance with NATO, most of which is angry at him for his mistreatment and disrespect of them, and it has encouraged and emboldened Iran, Russia, and China. This week, President Trump needs to decide whether to continue the sanctions relief that he's giving to both Russia and Iran, that has dramatically increased how much they are profiting off this war. I hope and pray that he doesn't.

BERMAN: What are your expectations for Vice President J.D. Vance? We're, again, waiting for him to depart Joint Base Andrews any second now. What are your expectations for him as a negotiator?

COONS: Well, look, he has very limited foreign policy experience. I'm at least relieved that he is leading this, not a former real estate developer from Manhattan who has zero international experience, a buddy of President Trump's who's been leading much of the negotiations with Russia and Ukraine, with Israel and the Palestinians represented mostly by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. So the representatives of the Trump administration in the two other most critical wars, conflicts currently going on, have been people with real estate development experience.

So my hope is that he will step up to this moment, that he'll be clear-eyed, and that he will narrow our goals rather than continuing to deliver to the American people a mess of conflicting and likely unachievable goals.

BERMAN: How much influence does the United States have over Israel right now if the United States struck this deal, if the president has been asking the Israeli prime minister to back off in Lebanon, and it's hard to tell that that's happening?

COONS: Look, President Trump calling Netanyahu and saying you must reduce your campaign against Lebanon was a positive step, and the United States has significant leverage if President Trump would use it. Part of what anyone could have predicted about this war with Iran is that when President Trump said it was a war of regime change, that the Iranians would use every weapon and tool at their disposal, including making it a regional war, bringing in a dozen other countries that they have struck. And so frankly President Trump has a lot of work to do to reduce the efforts made by Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has also tried to regionalize this war.

BERMAN: Senator Chris Coons from Delaware, we appreciate you being with us this morning -- Kate. BOLDUAN: First Lady Melania Trump calling out Congress, saying now is the time for public hearings for Epstein survivors to have their say. What more are we learning about the surprise address that she made from the White House, and we're also hearing from one of those survivors this morning.

Plus, Hawaii facing another major flooding threat right now, just weeks after a previous round of record-breaking rain.

And NASA's Artemis II crew is about to take on the riskiest portion of their moon mission, a fiery re-entry through Earth's atmosphere.

[08:10:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: I'm going to show you pictures from a live look in space. Today is a huge day for the Artemis II crew. They are now in the last stages of preparation for their final descent back to Earth tonight, about 8 p.m. after the historic mission around the moon.

This is without a doubt one of the riskiest portions of their entire mission. They will literally turn into a fireball soaring across the sky with temperatures outside the capsule possibly reaching 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit as they travel, about 30 times the speed of sound.

Joining me right now to talk about what this day could bring, will bring, aerospace analyst Miles O'Brien. It's good to see you, Miles. These astronauts, I mean they have been really busy in that capsule.

All the video coming in is there, it's like checklists and putting things here and moving things over there. I mean what is about to happen and what are they doing to prepare?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AEROSPACE ANALYST: Well they're busy stowing everything that they had out for this amazing mission around the moon. It's kind of like wrapping up a camping trip and in tight quarters, I might add. Four people in basically the size of two minivans, kind of always bumping into each other no matter what they tried to do.

But all the cameras, all the gear, all the checklists, all the things that were associated with the spaceflight now need to be stowed and then they have to bring out their pressure suits and wiggle their way into them to get ready for the re-entry. So it's a busy time for the crew and a lot of joy as they called it. Moon joy will now be replaced with focus on the task at hand.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. The task ahead -- let me play with the lead flight director actually said just at the NASA press conference about what is about to happen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF RADIGAN, ARTEMIS II LEAD FLIGHT DIRECTOR: It's 13 minutes of things that have to go right is the way I think about it. I have a whole checklist in my head that we're going through of all the things that have to happen. You know, the forward bay cover has to come off, the drogues have to come out, the main chutes have to deploy, the reefing systems have to cut, and we have to get the touchdown angle alignment correct and then hit the water correctly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: That sounds like a lot. I mean how does this -- how does this actually work?

O'BRIEN: No problem, right?

BOLDUAN: Exactly.

O'BRIEN: What could go wrong with this? Kate, it's a scary time.

[08:15:00]

There's so many things have to go right at the right time in the right sequence that it might be best not to think too much about it. But yes, from that moment when it first the capsule first enters the atmosphere right around 400,000 feet of altitude and begins to heat up and goes through a scenario where right past the peak heating kind of skips off the surface of the atmosphere if you will or the edge of the atmosphere to bleed off a little bit of speed like skipping a stone. That is going to be a very nail-biting time.

There'll be a period of time from about 7:53 Eastern Time all the way to the splashdown at 8:02 or just before it where the air molecules outside the capsule will be so hot they will split apart creating what we call plasma, and this will make it impossible to communicate with the crew. So there's going to be this long six-minute moment where no one's going to know what's going on out there and I think all of us will be holding our breath.

BOLDUAN: Wait that sounds crazy in like the coolest sense. It's so hot that the that the air molecules are splitting and making plasma. That's amazing.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: I want the controller to throw up the image of the Artemis 1 capsule. This was the unmanned Artemis 1 mission beforehand and that what you're looking at outside of the capsule and what was talked about a lot was the damage that the heat shield had sustained upon re- entry. What did they see in this and what didn't as NASA said that they've now changed because of it if anything?

O'BRIEN: Well you know, Kate, I don't think you have to be a rocket scientist to look at that in that hole there that you're looking at right there to determine that's not the way it should look. The heat shield is what we call -- it's ablative. It's designed to burn away but in a very even way.

This is how Apollo capsules return from space. It's kind of unlike the shuttle which had those fragile tiles designed to be reused. This is kind of a one-use heat shield, and you want it to burn evenly. But as you can see in this, some gases kind of got underneath it and inside it and so it burned unevenly causing these hot spots, if you will.

And so it did not perform to spec. They changed the way they applied this so-called Avcoat material, and they're slightly changed the flight path. You know, the only way to test it, however, is in about 12 hours with people on board. So let's just hope they got it right.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. It's always great to see you, Miles. Thank you so much. What a day today will be.

We are just minutes away from the release of a key inflation report. We will bring that to you. This is the first one since the Iran war began. We're going to bring you those numbers as soon as they come in.

And an officer is rescued after falling more than 20 feet in the woods. What happened and how she is doing this morning.

[08:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: This morning Hawaii bracing for a major flood threat with storms expected to peak and this follows the worst flooding in two decades. Let's get right to meteorologist Chris Warren for the latest on this. Good morning.

CHRIS WARREN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hey good morning to you, John. And we are still watching on the satellite here a lot of moisture streaming into Hawaii but there is this back edge to it. This is the satellite. I want to show you the radar because the radars we look at for where there could be imminent or threats that are about to happen here.

What we would look for here is the yellow and the orange. Not seeing a lot of orange or red which is getting that higher rainfall rates. When you look at the hilly and even mountainous terrain of Hawaii you can see a lot of water draining out.

Fortunately we're not seeing a lot of that heavy rain. Not a lot of the orange red and very little yellow. So we've got that going for us at the moment.

What's not going for us and what's keeping this flood threat on going, the fact there are still flood watches through a good part of the day today in Hawaii. So we've already seen a lot of rain.

These streams are swollen already. It won't take a whole lot more. Some areas almost or even more than a foot and a half of rain so far with this event.

Here's the timing. There is that back edge to it. So today should be the day when the threat will diminish considerably as the majority of this moisture will be moving off.

But still the potential is there with the future radar. Similar idea with the colors, the orange and the red showing where some of the heavier, more likely to flood kind of rain and pretty much every island is in the threat zone for more heavy rain, which of course could lead to what we've already seen, John, as being devastating flooding with the past couple events.

BERMAN: Those rainfall totals are really, really impressive and not in a good way. Chris Warren, thank you very much for that.

We are now just moments away was looking at the clock minutes now from a key inflation report. Analysts suspecting a big jump fueled by the war in Iran.

And then a driver arrested, charged with neglect after a train hit a school bus full of students.

[08:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Vice President Vance speaking before he leaves for Pakistan.

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If they're going to try to play us, then they're going to find that the negotiating team is not that receptive. So we're going to try to have a positive negotiation. The president gave us some pretty clear guidelines and we're going to see.

So I hope you guys have a safe flight. We'll certainly take some questions later on. But for now, let's get on the plane and hit the road.

Thank you all.

BERMAN: There goes Vice President J. D. Vance. He will board the plane and leave presently for negotiations in Pakistan.

With us CNN Political and Global Affairs Analyst Barak Ravid of Axios. Barak, great to see you this morning. Let me just give you the latest from President Trump, where he wrote overnight.

"Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable, some would say of allowing oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz. That is not the agreement we have."

So to what extent are the sides meeting their ends of the bargain here, Barak?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, I think that until now, pretty partially. And this will be, I think, the big challenge in this round of negotiations in Pakistan. Because the ceasefire is, I mean, to say that it's fragile is the understatement of the century. And to say that there are still gaps between the parties on, you know, on the understandings of, you know, what was exactly agreed on and what is going to be discussed.

The gaps are pretty big, and there's still a lot of confusion. But, but taking all that into consideration, this is still, and I think this is important because this is still the high -- the most high level meeting between Iran and the United States of America since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

I'm not saying that we're on a cusp of a peace deal. Not at all. But I'm just saying that this is a very important moment in history.