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Trump On Deleted Online Post: "It's Supposed To Be Me As A Doctor"; Trump: Pope "Weak On Crime, And Terrible For Foreign Policy"; Oil Tanker Clears Strait Of Hormuz Despite U.S. Naval Blockade; Trump Says Iran Would Like To Make A Deal "Very Badly"; Swalwell Ends Campaign For CA Gov. Amid Sexual Misconduct Claims. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired April 13, 2026 - 15:00   ET

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

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: This past weekend, the saturated soils with the combination of the melting snow and the heavy rain that moved through portions of northern Michigan have caused washouts in some of the roadways. That's known as the tunnel of trees. If you've traveled this region just south of Traverse City, you know the area well. It's beautiful. But right now, they've had a little bit too much of a good thing. And unfortunately, the river gauges are representing that as well. So, two to three inches of additional rain in a saturated environment means flooding potential and the potential for some of these rivers to crest in major flood stage. So, we'll keep an eye on that, Erica.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR AND NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a lot to keep you busy. That is for sure. Derek, appreciate it. Thank you.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Divine Meme Deleted: President Trump addressing his now-removed social media post that shows him in a Jesus-like figure. The President saying he thought this image was depicting him as a doctor.

Plus, a U.S. blockade begins with a new threat. President Trump says that any Iranian ships that come close to the blockade will be eliminated the same way the U.S. has been taking out alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.

And Primate Problems: Hundreds of chimpanzees in Uganda locked in a rare civil war. What scientists say this conflict could teach us about our own human societies.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

We begin this hour with the backlash that President Trump is receiving over a Truth Social post that he ultimately deleted this morning. It showed him as a Christ-like figure in white and red robes with rays of light shining from his hands. One hand placed on the head of a man in a bed. And just off to the left, you see a woman's hands clasped in prayer.

A short time ago, President Trump confirmed that he sent this image out. He posted it, but he denied that he was depicting himself as Jesus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, it wasn't depiction. It was me. I -- I did post it and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross, as a Red Cross worker there, which we support. And only the fake news could come up with that one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN Senior White House Correspondent Kristen Holmes joins us now live from the North Lawn. Kristen, that interpretation that the President was trying to depict himself as Jesus wasn't limited to the press, which he often attacks. Some of his own supporters were calling this blasphemous.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, not just some, a number of his own supporters were really upset about this post, saying that it was blasphemous, saying that he was idolizing himself, that this was not something that you joked around about, interpreting yourself as Jesus Christ.

President Trump, of course, saying that he thought he was just being a doctor and helping people. But, of course, if you look at the hands in that photo, you see that these are deemed to be some kind of divine hands that are doing their own healing. And -- and also, the timing of all this, because it's coming at a time where President Trump has been in a tit for tat back and forth with Pope Leo, particularly over the war in Iran.

Pope Leo has become more outspoken, particularly about President Trump's rhetoric when he said that he was going to essentially extinguish an entire civilization. And President Trump has been lashing out at the Pope before he posted this image of himself as a Christ-like figure. And even today, he was asked if he should apologize to Pope Leo for his kind of screed against him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will you apologize?

TRUMP: No, I don't, because Pope Leo said things that are wrong. He was very much against what I'm doing with -- with regard to Iran. And you cannot have a nuclear Iran. I think he's very weak on crime and other things. So, I'm not. I mean, he -- he went public. I'm just responding to Pope Leo. And you know, his brother is a big MAGA person and he's a great guy, Louis. And I said I like Louis better than I like the Pope.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: I'm not entirely sure that it is in the Pope's job description to be hard on crime. And I'm not even sure where he would do that. President Trump started talking about crime in the United States, which would obviously not be Pope Leo's jurisdiction if he was at least to take that on.

But in addition to all of this, the one thing to really point out here is how quickly President Trump took it down. Goes to show you that he was hearing these calls from his supporters and likely getting some of these calls directly. Remember, the last time a controversial video was posted on Twitter, President Trump said it was done by a staffer. It was the racist video of the Obamas. And it took him a very long time to actually take that video down. This was done in just a number of hours as you noted, some of his strongest supporters were railing against him.

SANCHEZ: Kristen Holmes live for us at the White House. Thanks so much for that update. Erica.

[15:05:01]

HILL: Joining us now, Father Patrick Gilger. He's an Assistant Professor Of Sociology at Loyola University Chicago, also the director of the McNamara Center for the Social Study of Religion.

It's good to have you with us this afternoon. I'm sure you just saw as we walked through all of that, the image that the President says he in fact did post now saying that he thought it depicted him as a doctor. What do you see in that image that the President posted and then took down earlier today?

REV. PATRICK GILGER, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO: Well, I think this is characteristic of certain ways that our president has of speaking. Sometimes where his focus is really on who is in and who is out, who supports him and who doesn't support him.

And so, this kind of focus, those who are surrounding him and supporting him can distract from the kind of attention that I feel Pope Leo wants to give. His attention remains steadfastly focused, not on himself in fact, but on the poor, on the vulnerable, on the marginalized, those suffering the effects of war, those who are refugees and truly on Jesus.

HILL: And -- and to your point, the President is continuing to attack him as he is talking about, as he is -- Pope Leo is talking about that, as he is talking about the Gospel, talking about peace. It is clearly striking a nerve with the President. How much do you think that the -- that Pope Leo's message is getting through?

GILGER: Well, I -- I wish I could say better. You know, as a sociologist, I always want to have some data before I make too many conjectures, but I do think it's reaching a certain audience. It's certainly reaching me. One thing that I can say is that we're seeing increasingly that our national Catholic bishops are responding with a unified voice to this kind of invitation that we have heard from Pope Leo to respond to national problems from the level of the national Catholic church. And that's true all over the world. It's not just the United States of America, but to have, you know, our national bishops, including the president, Archbishop Coakley of the USCCB releasing a statement late last night, which is a -- a rare thing for an archbishop to do late on a Sunday evening.

It's very clear kind of where the American Catholic church is responding and that the bishops are responding. We will see whether or not, you know, American Catholics are willing to be formed by the kind of message that Pope Leo is proclaiming. I hope that we will be, I myself will be, and others will be, but that's the real question. That's an open one.

HILL: How much are American Catholics typically formed by what they hear from the Pope, whoever that Pope may be?

GILGER: I wish the answer to that question was completely and totally, but it's a -- it's failing. We fail in -- in living up to that, you know, often. So, one of the things we might say is that we can often think of the -- the kinds of media we're consuming and the things we read, the people that were surrounding us. These are the kinds of things that tell us who we really are, the kinds of practices every day that we're involved with every day.

So, if we're involved in, you know, reading social media that stirs up inside of us, rage, bitterness, resentment, fear, those kinds of things will be where our attention goes. One of the things I find most persuasive about Pope Leo these days, I mean, of course I find him persuasive. I'm a Roman Catholic priest, but at the same time, I find so persuasive that even in the midst of this conflict, which -- which may be a conflict, Pope Leo does not raise his voice. He does not address or criticize President -- President Trump by name. He continues to keep his focus where I want my focus to be, on those who are on the margins and on Jesus.

HILL: He doesn't take the bait, essentially. Which perhaps all of us could learn a lesson from, yet another lesson from the Pope.

Father Gilger, thank you for joining us this afternoon. Appreciate it.

GILGER: I'm very happy to be with you, Erica.

HILL: Still to come here, hours into the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, President Trump says Iran has called and wants to, quote, "make a deal very badly." What more we know about the negotiations.

Plus, we have also learned this afternoon the House Ethics Committee will investigate Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell over sexual misconduct allegations.

And later, authorities in Minnesota are now probing an ICE arrest of a U.S. citizen in St. Paul. And they say agents could face kidnapping and false imprisonment charges for that incident earlier this year.

All that and much more coming up right here on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:13:36] HILL: The breaking news, at least one ship has now passed through the Strait of Hormuz despite that U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports, which is now in effect. An oil tanker sanctioned by the U.S. as part of Iran's shadow fleet was able to get through the Strait, according to the trade flow platform Kpler. President Trump also saying earlier this afternoon Iran called his administration this morning wanting to, in the President's words, make a deal very badly. This after marathon negotiations in Pakistan came up short over the weekend.

Now, publicly, Iran remains defiant. Iran's foreign minister holding calls with Persian Gulf nations today about what he calls the risks posed by provocative U.S. actions. Joining us to discuss today is Dana Stroul. She's former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East.

When we look at where things stand this morning, so you have the President now saying, oh, look, they're calling, they want to make a deal very badly. How much stock do you -- do you put in that? Do you think we could be moving toward more negotiations soon?

DANA STROUL, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT DEFENSE SECRETARY FOR THE MIDDLE EAST: I think we're going to know in about 24 hours. So, we've seen the President say they want a deal, although a marathon 24 -- 21 hours this weekend didn't produce anything. The two sides still seem pretty far apart. Now, we have this U.S. naval blockade just coming into place, and let's see what the Iranians do. They could very easily play the next card, which is escalate again, and we're off to the races.

HILL: And we do know, we have certainly seen in the past -- past this prologue, the Iranians do love to drag things out when it comes to these negotiations. There is significance, though, to the fact that you had everybody in the room.

[15:15:04]

The fact you have the Vice President now as part of these negotiations and that the readouts, while there was not an agreement, were actually fairly positive in terms of the discussions and productivity in many ways. That's a shift.

STROUL: I think it's important that they did last 21 hours, and it's noteworthy that there were direct talks. But the two sides, as far as I can see from this weekend, didn't climb down from their max list positions. Usually, you would put the Vice President in as a closer at the end of extended technical conversations. Now, they're going to start with the Vice President, and again, we're going to see what comes of this in a couple days.

HILL: What does that say about who was doing that work prior?

STROUL: Well, I think it's interesting that apparently it was the Iranian delegation who wanted the Vice President there in Islamabad, and maybe that's because they lost confidence in what Witkoff and Kushner could do. But that also means the Iranians were dictating the terms of which members of the U.S. delegation were coming to Islamabad, which I don't read as a positive sign. HILL: So, when we look at how this is playing out today, right, so we

have the blockade that went into effect a couple of hours ago, and you're looking at the control was really -- so much talk about the leverage being the Strait of Hormuz for Iran. Who holds more leverage today?

STROUL: Well, first of all, we already see that President Trump has basically implicitly acknowledged that Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz. He's talked about maybe we could do a joint venture to manage traffic. There's now these rumors of paying Iran in cryptocurrency. I don't see anyone saying no, that's unacceptable. And now, we have this naval blockade where, again, it's all about what's coming or going from Iranian ports.

And so, this is where the Iranians hold that -- that trump card, and we know that their navy is sunk, but not these small boats. They could very easily turn up the pressure here.

HILL: You talk about cards. It's important to note the President said, right, they don't have any cards, that he's got all the cards. When we look at where things stand, we also heard from the President that the main -- the main point, I'm paraphrasing here, but coming out of this, that the main point now is to ensure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon. What is -- what is more important to Iran in this moment, to have that access to be able to enrich uranium or to control the Strait of Hormuz?

STROUL: Well, the most important thing for the surviving members of the -- of this regime is survival. And right now, they're standing. How they traditionally ensured their survival was the nuclear program, the missile program, and their terrorist network. And now, they have a fourth card, which is control the Strait of Hormuz, and so far they haven't given up any of those cards.

HILL: A lot to watch. Really appreciate it. Good to have you here. Thank you.

Still ahead, a resign or face expulsion, a growing course of Democrats and Republicans pressuring Representative Eric Swalwell to leave Congress following allegations of sexual assault. More on that fallout next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:22:11]

HILL: The House Ethics Committee is launching an investigation into Congressman Eric Swalwell just one day after the California Democrat quit the governor's race following allegations of sexual misconduct by four women. One of them is a former staffer who says Swalwell sexually assaulted her during a night of heavy drinking in New York after she had stopped working in his office.

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office is now investigating her claims. SANCHEZ: In a video message, the congressman acknowledged what he

calls mistakes in judgment but denied the allegations against him. Some fellow members of Congress, however, including some Democrats, are calling for his expulsion from the House. We're joined now by Chuck Todd, host of "The Chuck ToddCast."

Chuck, thanks for being with us.

Are you anticipating that Swalwell is going to resign from Congress or be expelled?

CHUCK TODD, HOST, "THE CHUCK TODDCAST": Well, look, I think we have a long way to go before expulsion. There is sort of a due process issue. We've never had a member expelled without an Ethics Committee investigation and all of that. I would expect resignation before going. If -- if expulsion is there, he's more likely to resign before expulsion for a variety of reasons.

But I -- I think people don't fully, you know, believe it or not, even members of Congress want -- will want due process. And I don't know if there would be two-thirds of the -- of the Congress that would be willing to throw somebody out based on uninvestigated allegations, right? They're not yet investigated.

HILL: The fact that they have opened this investigation, do you think that changes the calculus for him in this moment?

TODD: I -- I think none of us can crawl inside his head, but, you know, having young kids, going through what he's going through, boy, I know I would choose resignation, right? Like that, to me, rather than -- than going through this, because he's already not seeking re- election, right, because he filed for the -- for governor. Now, he's dropped out of that.

So, at this point, if you want to repair your reputation, I don't think you want the Ethics Committee to be -- to be doing all of this. So, I will be shocked if he doesn't resign by the end of the week.

SANCHEZ: I wonder how you think both Democratic and Republican leadership is thinking about Swalwell and Congressman Tony Gonzales at the same time. He's also under investigation by House Ethics.

Do you think there -- there might be more support for the expulsion of one if the other is expelled?

TODD: Well, and don't forget the other two, right? We have four members here ...

SANCHEZ: Yes.

TODD: ... that, in theory, you have Cherfilus-McCormick, and that's a -- that's a financial, and that's actually been investigated by the Ethics Committee. She's been adjudicated against. So, you know, in some ways, she meets the bar of expulsion, like -- for like with George Santos, and before that it was Jim Traficant. With both Congressman Mills, Congressman Gonzales, and Congressman

Swalwell, none of the three have been fully investigated yet by the Ethics Committee.

[15:25:03]

So, do I think it would be politically convenient that you have two Ds and two Rs, and do I -- do I -- could I make the argument that out of political convenience, so both parties could feel like they've washed their hands? Yes, I think that's possible, especially when you have the cloud of Epstein that's still hanging over Washington, right? That -- that's a part of this, too.

But again, I go back to the due process issue, and I think individual members of Congress are going to be uncomfortable. You need a two- thirds vote, and many of them will start thinking, there but for the grace of God go I, if you get my drift here. And so, I don't know if the votes are there for -- for these. I mean, for -- I know in theory it looks like it's an easy lift because it's bipartisan, but I'm not -- I'm not convinced because of this due process thing of it.

HILL: I'm sure there's some interesting conversations happening right now. That is for sure among members. You know, I do also want to get your take on the California governor's race. So, the fact that he dropped out, he was a top contender. That is a crowded field, as we know. What do you think the overall impact is on that race?

TODD: Look, it's a very -- you know, this has been a campaign that's been defined by people who didn't want to run, right? Kamala Harris said no. You had the lieutenant governor dropped out. You've had Alex Padilla, the senator, say no. There is no heir apparent to Gavin Newsom -- Rick Caruso, I could go through. They -- they list of people who decided not to run is as long as the list of candidates on the ballot. Tom Steyer, at this point, is probably the leading Democrat, along with former Congresswoman Katie Porter.

But I'll be honest with you, there's a whole group of Democrats who don't want to see either one of them be the -- the -- the next Democratic governor of California. And I'll be -- here's what I would watch for, you have five very powerful Democrats in California to keep an eye on. Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, right? The two current senators, Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi, need no introduction, and Gavin Newsom.

If all five of them endorse the same candidate, maybe Xavier Becerra, maybe Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose, most of them were supporting Swalwell, by the way. Not Newsom, but most of the -- the -- that -- that quintet that I just told you. If they move together in a, quote, stop Steyer Democrat or a stop Katie Porter Democrat, that's a possibility. But it's getting close enough to the primary, right? To primary day that, you know, there's also risk if you're trying to, quote, stop Steyer, you may lose. And then, Steyer is sort of almost a -- an independent operator, even if he is the next Democratic governor of -- of -- of California.

So, that's what I'm looking for this week. Do those five leaders in particular -- because Nancy Pelosi is who gave Swalwell a little bit of running room. Suddenly she decided to endorse him, shifted, and then he became, quote-unquote, "the chosen Democrat." So, that's who I would keep an eye on there as sort of the king- and queenmaker here.

HILL: We'll be watching it all. Chuck, good to talk to you. Thank you.

TODD: Thank you, guys.

HILL: Still ahead, the U.S. military blockade of Iranian ports is now underway. So, how could that impact the already soaring gas prices here in the United States? We'll take a closer look.

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