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Hegseth Warns Iran; Iran and Pakistan Meet; Rep. Brad Sherman is Interviewed about Iran; Ex Virginia Lieutenant Governor Killed in Murder-Suicide; RFK Jr. Testifies on The Hill; Abuse Allegations at Children's Shelter. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired April 16, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's start this hour off.

The new warning from the defense secretary to Iran as the ceasefire remains, but talks have stumbled, "choose wisely."

And happening this hour, HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. will be back in the hot seat on Capitol Hill.

And a first look as well this hour at a new Val Kilmer movie. One the late actor never acted in. It's all A.I.

Sara is out today. I'm Kate Bolduan, with John Berman.

This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, breaking this morning, just moments ago, we heard a briefing from the secretary of defense at the Pentagon. The first since the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports began this week. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned the United States is ready to restart combat operations and will maintain its blockade unless Iran's leaders, quote, "choose wisely."

This is some of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: You, Iran, can choose a prosperous future. A golden bridge. And we hope that you do for the people of Iran.

In the meantime, and for as long as it takes, we will maintain this blockade. Successful blockade. But if Iran chooses poorly, then they will have a blockade and bombs dropping on infrastructure, power and energy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The chair of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Caine, went into detail about the blockade, calling it a success. Caine said the military has not been required to board any ships as of yet. The temporary ceasefire is set to expire next week. The White House

says it feels good about the prospect of getting a deal.

And while we have heard rumblings of a second round of talks, possibly soon, there has not been any announcement yet.

So, let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene, live at the White House, for what you are hearing this morning.

Alyana.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, John, I mean, what we essentially heard from this Pentagon briefing this morning is that they're kind of in this wait and see posture. You heard from Hegseth, and you played that clip of them saying that the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz is going to continue. You heard the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, Dan Caine, essentially say that the United States armed forces are postured and ready to resume major combat.

But a lot of this, I think, shows that right now the focus really is on diplomacy. And that's kind of what you could, you know, reading between the lines of what they said this morning is also the posture that they are taking. Another notable thing was from the U.S. Central Command chief, Admiral Bradley Cooper, who said that the troops that are in the Middle East at this moment are using this opportunity, this ceasefire, to rearm and prepare in case they need to engage in combat once again.

But I will tell you, John, from all of the conversations I've been having with White House officials, officials throughout the Trump administration, is that they really do want diplomacy to succeed. They do not want to resume military operations if they can do that, you know? And, of course, that puts so much onus on these negotiations that are happening.

Now, as for those talks, we did hear from the White House publicly yesterday. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt kind of giving this cautious optimism as it relates to the negotiations and also confirming the reporting that we've had, which is that they are working toward this second round of talks and hoping that they can have the same group that was in Islamabad last weekend for that 21 hour marathon session when they sat down face to face with the Iranians. Same type of people that would likely go again, including the vice president, Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff.

But, of course, there is still a lot that is being worked out on the front end. From my conversations, part of the reason we're seeing, you know, them not wanting to commit to the second round of talks is because there's so much work that needs to be done on the front end here and really making sure that they have the contours of what a potential final agreement could look like, because sticking points -- really big sticking points, which have been issues for, you know, decades now, still remain, this idea of nuclear enrichment and how long the Iranians will suspend that, this commitment that the U.S. is looking for, for them to never build a nuclear weapon. And so there's still, of course, a lot of areas of disagreement. But

really the focus right now, particularly on the White House side, is really to have diplomacy be the prevailing option here.

BERMAN: Yes, I think the major open question is if and when a new round of negotiations will take place. Everything else really just contributes to that as of now.

Alayna Treene, thank you very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: And let's talk more about this. Let's get over to Nic Robertson -- CNN's Nic Robertson, live this morning in Islamabad, Pakistan, where those possible talks could possibly then resume.

Nic, what are you hearing?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, look, the focus right now has to be on those talks of the Pakistani negotiators. Their top negotiator, the most powerful man in the country, Field Marshal Asim Munir, the interior minister, went to Tehran yesterday.

[09:05:03]

They met with the foreign minister last night. Now, the foreign minister was the number two in the Iranian negotiating team. So, they met with the sort of deputy lead of the Iranian team last night.

And I think what is interesting here, and it really speaks to their effort and the belief that diplomacy is the way forward at the moment. And it speaks to the fact that the ceasefire is holding, that this high level delegation that flew to Tehran last night, and by the way there, they say that their aircraft, their civilian aircraft, got a fighter escort from the Iranians as it came into Iranian airspace.

But when they woke up this morning, they continued their talks. That speaks to possible success last night. But when they continued their talks today, they're speaking with the lead Iranian negotiator, the speaker of parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. So, they are talking right now, again with the same man they were in the room with here in Islamabad last week.

And, of course, the core issue is what Vice President J.D. Vance put on the table what is left, the U.S. best and final offer. Iran needs to give a much clearer accounting of its uranium enrichment capabilities and intention going forward. No way to have a bomb.

So, the details here are, of course, going to be about ending those highly enriched uranium facilities, deconstruction of them, who deconstructs, who's on the ground, where does the material get taken away to, to which country, and what are Iran's commitments going forward? The moratoriums we've talked about, 20 years. I've heard about ten years here. Five years has also been a number that's come up. That's the kind of detail. So, I think what comes out of these talks that are going on right now

in Tehran by chief mediator from Pakistan and the top negotiator from the Iranian side, that's going to determine what we'll likely hear from D.C. I would anticipate that, you know, Pakistan is unlikely to speak before , President Trump puts his views forward.

So, I think, you know, it'll finish in Tehran and eyes will switch to Washington.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely.

Nic Robertson, in Islamabad, Pakistan, for us. Nic, thank you so much.

John.

BERMAN: With us now, Congressman Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California. He is on the House Foreign Relations Committee.

Congressman, great to see you this morning.

We just heard from General Dan Caine, the chair of the joint chiefs, talking about the U.S. blockade on the Strait of Hormuz on any vessels leaving Iranian ports or carrying Iranian oil. And he said it's basically 100 percent successful. How much pressure do you think this puts on the Iranians?

REP. BRAD SHERMAN (D-CA): It puts pressure in months, not weeks or days. Iran has, according to the St. Louis Fed, $34 billion in cash and bitcoin reserves. That's enough to tide them over for many, many months. Whereas we're focused on how many days will it take for oil prices and gasoline prices to go down. I think that this whole attack on Iran was not planned out well.

BERMAN: So, there is some speculation that maybe there will be a new round of negotiations, maybe in Islamabad. What would a good deal be to you? What would be successful at this point, forward looking?

SHERMAN: I think an acceptable deal would be one where we go back to where we were in February. That is to say, their 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium is deep underground at Isfahan and is being monitored by the United States and the Strait of Hormuz is open. Now that puts us in pretty much the position we were in in January, except the Iranian munitions have been pretty much exhausted. And some of our munitions have been exhausted.

I hope that we could do better than that and require that the 970 pounds be exported to any of the nuclear states. And I think if we get that, then we've done what we said we did back in July of last year.

BERMAN: How important is it to get a promise of no enrichment?

SHERMAN: A promise of no enrichment is perhaps worth the paper it's written on, perhaps not much more. The ability to enrich is something that was very substantially reduced back in July. We can take other action to interfere with enrichment. The most important thing is the stockpile. That would take very little additional enrichment to be weapons grade for about 11 bombs.

[09:10:00]

We -- getting that out of the country, it would be a very important step for the United States. Unfortunately, what we haven't done is nurture armed resistance to this regime. Talk about regime change. We haven't armed any of the groups that might actually make it happen. This regime is not going to be overthrown by a crowd in the streets by itself because they'll machine gun the crowd in the streets.

BERMAN: President Trump sent out a social media post that a lot of people read as depicting himself as Jesus. He said it was a medical worker. Looked an awful lot like Jesus. We just heard from the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, comparing people who question the president to basically the pharisees who undermined Jesus. Why do you think there is this religious, so much focus on religion and these biblical references in the administration?

SHERMAN: I'm not a Christian theologian. I think politically it's a -- basically shut up or you're not Christian. Shut up or you're contradicting the Bible. If you can't win an argument any other way, you tell the other side to shut up. And if you can add a religious element to that demand, so be it.

BERMAN: Congressman Brad Sherman from California, appreciate you being with us this morning. Thank you.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: We are tracking some breaking news. Really troubling breaking news coming in about the former lieutenant governor of Virginia, Justin Fairfax. He has now been identified as the shooter involved in an apparent murder-suicide.

Let's get over to CNN's Dianne Gallagher.

The -- all the details are still coming in, and all of them just so tragic.

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And, Kate, I'm going to go with what we know right now.

Police just finished briefing the media on this, that former lieutenant governor of Virginia, Justin Fairfax, they say, shot and killed his wife, Serena, inside their home, before running upstairs to a bedroom and then using the same gun to shoot himself. Now, again, that's according to police. Their two teenage children were inside the home at the time. And their son, the older child, called 911 shortly after midnight.

Now again, this is still under investigation. But police noted that the couple had recently had been going through divorce proceedings and that some paperwork had recently been delivered, indicating when Fairfax was supposed to appear in court in those proceedings.

Take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN DAVIS, CHIEF OF POLICE, FAIRFAX COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT IN VIRGINIA: This has been an ongoing domestic dispute surrounding what seems to be a complicated or messy divorce.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: So, we have no information on the gun at this time from authorities. In January of this year they say that Fairfax called police saying that his wife had assaulted him. But during these divorce proceedings, it appears that she had had cameras put up all throughout the house. They reviewed those cameras, determined that he had not been assaulted at that time, said the claim was proven to be untrue.

Justin Fairfax served as lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2018 to 2022. In 2019, the Democrat was accused by two women of sexual assault in 2000 and 2004. He denied those allegations, calling it a smear campaign. He also ran for governor of Virginia in 2021, but finished fourth in the Democratic primary.

Kate, Serena was a dentist in the northern Virginia area. And police say, again, they are still trying to investigate what happened here. Their children are with family.

BOLDUAN: I mean just unbelievable. The children were at the home at the time and the son is who police say ended up calling for help.

Thank you so much for your reporting though. Unbelievable.

John.

BERMAN: That is just horrifying.

All right, very serious allegations of abuse at a shelter housing migrant children. We have a CNN exclusive.

And goodbye shoes, hello A.I. Footwear company Allbirds. I had a pair for a long time. They are making an extreme pivot to technology, like a complete one.

And then happening now, Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. on Capitol Hill. He is testifying before Congress. This is the first time we've heard him face questions in a long, long time. We'll tell you what he said.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:19:18]

BERMAN: All right, happening now, we have some live pictures from Capitol Hill. That is Massachusetts Democrat Richy Neal questioning Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., who is answering questions to House lawmakers for the first time in a long time. CNN medical correspondent Meg Tirrell has been watching every second

of this.

Bring us up to speed on what you're hearing, Meg.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, John.

Well, they're just getting underway this morning. And this, of course, is the first of an expected seven hearings from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over the next week alone. We haven't heard from RFK Jr. in front of lawmakers since September, during a very tense hearing where he was questioned on a lot of the things that they were doing, for example, on vaccine policy. And since then, they've done a lot more, but also been stopped by an order from a federal judge.

[09:20:03]

And so, there's bound to be a lot of questions about that.

Ostensibly, this is a hearing about the budget request for the Department of Health and Human Services. The White House has requested about $111.1 billion in funding for the next fiscal year, and that's a decrease of about 12 percent. So, that includes cuts to agencies like the National Institutes of Health, funding scientific research, also trying to create a new agency that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has championed called the Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA. That hasn't come to fruition yet despite them proposing that last year. Of course, it's Congress who decides where the funding actually is, and they haven't gone along with a lot of the proposed cuts to scientific research funding.

And so, John, we're really curious to hear what tact Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes this morning, because, of course, we have heard that the White House is trying to get him to talk less about politically unpopular issues, like upending vaccine policy, and focus more on things like nutrition and bringing down drug prices. And in statements published ahead of today for what the secretary plans to say to lawmakers, it appears that he's going to be focusing on those issues.

But no doubt, John, we are going to get questions about that. And also, of course, about the vacancies atop major health agencies, including the CDC, where we haven't had a permanent director in a long time. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the NIH, has kind of been playing a dual role there. Also, the turmoil of the CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee, which is in complete limbo after that federal judge's order. Also at the FDA, we don't have a vaccine's chief. The current one is leaving. We don't know who's going to replace him. The surgeon general has not yet had a vote scheduled for her confirmation, the nominee, Dr. Casey Means.

So, a lot of things up in the air, John. We're going to see how this goes this morning. There's another one this afternoon. Another one tomorrow. Four more next week. So, a lot to bring in.

BERMAN: A lot of questions. We'll see if we get any varied answers.

Meg Tirrell, thanks so much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: We also have some new exclusive reporting into CNN this morning.

CNN has learned that a New York shelter that once housed migrant children is now under federal review over allegations of disturbing physical abuse.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is digging into this one.

You're bringing us this reporting. Tell us more about what you're learning.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate.

And this is a shelter called Children's Village. One of their locations houses unaccompanied migrant children. But that stopped happening in late January over significant child welfare concerns. That's according to a federal agency document that I reviewed.

Now, let's walk through these allegations. These are allegations that primarily stem from the treatment of teenage boys by what they called the specials unit. That's akin to a security team. And according to many sources that I spoke with and documents I reviewed, that includes beatings, one teen described being thrown to the floor and hit. That's according to an account that was shared with CNN. Restrained at times for longer than is protocol for the safety of children. And they were placed in isolation in a so-called red room. It got that name because the room is small and the floor, as well as the walls, are lined with red. And that was a form of punishment. Children were taken there involuntarily, again according to the sources that I've spoken with.

Now, again, we're talking here about a facility that housed unaccompanied migrant children. Those are children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border alone or were swept up in an ICE operation in the interior of the United States and they are taken to these shelters.

Now, the Health and Human Services Department funds these shelters, and they are charged with their care until they are released to a so- called sponsor in the U.S. That could be a parent or a guardian. And over recent months, they have spent more and more time there because of restrictions put in place by the Trump administration that has made it harder for these parents or guardians to retrieve their children. And some child welfare experts say it's been exacerbating the issues in these shelters.

But here at Children's Village I am told that these issues predate the Trump administration. They happened over recent years and persisted in recent months, to the point that there was an ad hoc monitoring visit that occurred in January of this year by federal officials. And they found, again, those significant child welfare concerns and decided then that they would stop placing children there. And any children who were there were going to be transferred out and sent to other shelters in the country. Now, to give you some numbers here, there were around 50 migrant

children or fewer there over the last year. They could accommodate up to 187 migrant children.

Now, a spokesperson for Children's Village said they, quote, "have zero tolerance for any form of punishment." They went on to say, quote, "allegations of employee misconduct are deeply distressing and if received, we make an immediate report to the authorities. We will take all necessary steps to ensure that any staff member found to have engaged in misconduct is addressed appropriately and without hesitation."

[09:25:00]

The Health and Human Services spokesman, Andrew Nixon, similarly said in a statement, quote, "ORR takes all allegations of misconduct involving children in its care extremely seriously. Upon receiving an allegation related to this facility, ORR acted immediately to transfer all unaccompanied children to other locations and referred the matter to the appropriate federal investigative authorities. The safety and well-being of children in ORR care is a top priority, and any credible concerns are addressed swiftly and thoroughly."

I will also add that I have been told that the New York authorities were also made aware of this, so we have also submitted record requests to them.

BOLDUAN: Priscilla, thank goodness for your reporting and that there is, it appears to be, a review and action being taken against these -- what is these allegations. Thank you so much.

Man, the news today, a lot of heavy news.

Let's turn to this. The Pentagon is reportedly asking Detroit now, or the big three, to help restock America's arsenal. And what we're learning about the request and the conversation with America's biggest three automakers.

And a sticky situation nearly cost a six week old kitten his life. Now, after a four-hour makeover, he's ready for a new home.

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