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Trump's Sculpture Garden Likely to Not Be Ready by July 4th; Sources Say Vance is Expected to Head to Pakistan for Iran Talks; U.S. Military Fires at and Seizes Iranian-flagged Cargo Ship; Titanic Life Jacket Sold at Auction; Trump Administration Begins Process to Refund $166 Billion in Tariffs; Humanoid Robot Shatters Human Record for Half-Marathon; China's Army Trains With Robot Dogs and Attack Drones. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 20, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: -- clear if any sculptures out of the 250 that he had wanted to be unveiled will be there when they potentially do a ribbon (ph) cutting of some sort.

I spoke with foundries and artists across the country that applied to have their sculpture built. No one has heard from the White House that I've contacted and these sculptures takes months and months to build. So the fact that they're three months out from potential delivery is a problem.

It also has not gone through the proper approvals. The two D.C. commissions here in Washington that need to approve these sculptures, that has not gone through the proper protocols and approvals. And they have not importantly announced a location where the sculpture garden is going to go.

Now, sources tell me the White House is zeroing in on West Potomac Park. It's along the Potomac River. That's something that Trump said. He likes that location, but no announcement has been made. So here we are three months before potential unveiling and it's still an open question, what if anything will be in that park?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": It's pretty incredible. We're not just talking about one statue or two. I mean, we've got a lot that would need to get done. Sunlen Serfaty, appreciate the reporting. Good to see you.

SERFATY: Thanks.

JIMENEZ: All right, a new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Talks or no talks, that is the question. President Trump saying top U.S. officials are headed for the Middle East for negotiations with Iran. Tehran denying that any talks are scheduled and the Strait remains closed for now. Show them the money, businesses that paid the president's tariffs can finally apply for a rebate after shelling out $166 billion, but it may not be quite that easy.

And faster than the human race, a Chinese robot just ran a half- marathon in less time than any human runner ever. Very strangely though, what do these rapid advances in robotics mean for our future? We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

This hour major questions over what comes next in the U.S. war with Iran. Today, in an interview with Bloomberg, President Trump said the two-week ceasefire will officially be over on Wednesday evening and he said it's highly unlikely that he would extend the truce further if no detail deal is reached.

This comes as sources tell CNN that Vice President, J.D. Vance is set to head to Pakistan for a second round of peace talks. Iran though has not confirmed that it will participate. Tensions shot up over the weekend when American forces fired on and seized this. It was an Iranian-flagged cargo ship known as the Tosca after it tried to break the U.S. blockade.

U.S. Central Command sharing footage of the capture that you see here. It shows U.S. Marines arriving on helicopters. They rappelled down and boarded the vehicle. And we're joined now by CNN Political & Global Affairs Analyst, Barak Ravid. As we're looking, Barak, at this video of this moment that has been pretty momentous here, how is the U.S. seizure of this Iranian-flagged cargo ship influencing the run up to these talks that do appear that they could happen in Pakistan?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL & GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, at the moment, I think the whole issue of whether there will be talks or not is still very much up in the air. And the main reason for it is an internal fight inside the Iranian system between the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guards Corps, their commanders and the civilians in the Iranian system, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Speaker of Parliament Ghalibaf, and several others.

And I think that this example of the taking over this Iranian ship is one of the things that the IRGC use in the internal Iranian debate to say, you see, we told you. You can't trust the Americans. They just took over one of our ships. And I think this debate is still ongoing.

Sources tell me that the person everyone are waiting to hear from and he'll make the decision is the Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, that until now at least and last time I heard was 30 minutes ago, there's still no clear answer from him or no clear guidance from him what to do, whether to go to those talks or not.

KEILAR: OK, so very much up in the air from your reporting there. You've spoken to the president, President Trump, a number of times throughout this war. You spoke with him on Sunday and he told you the concept of the deal is already closed. Is it clear to you that the Iranians see it that way? RAVID: No, it is clear they don't, but that doesn't mean that there are no -- that the parties are not narrowing the gaps. I think they are narrowing the gaps every day.

[14:05:00]

They get to, I think, everybody is involved in those negotiations, at least from the U.S. side and the mediators, think that a deal can be done. It might take time, but a deal can be done. I think there is narrowing of the gaps on the issue of how long the moratorium on uranium enrichment that Iran will voluntarily take upon itself, how long is it going to last?

I think there is narrowing of the gaps when it comes to the stockpile of the enriched uranium that Iran has, or what to do with it, how to get rid of it. Doesn't mean that there's a deal yet, OK? There are still gaps, things that are still loose ends, but the parties are getting closer.

I think the issue that is, at least at the moment, the main sticking point is the situation, the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. naval blockade. The main problem was that when Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi announced and issued a statement the other day that the Strait is now open, the IRGC didn't really open it.

Therefore, the U.S. kept its naval blockade. What I hear from U.S. officials is that if Iran would really open the Strait and not only talk about it, but take action to open the Strait, then most likely the blockade will be gone too.

I think now that's the discussion, whether this is really going to happen. The second issue that's on the table right now is that even if there will be a meeting tomorrow or the next day, there will have to be an extension of the ceasefire in order to get a deal.

I think that's one of the things that the Pakistani, Egyptian, and Turkish mediators are trying to do at the moment, to try and first get some sort of a deal on, OK, there will be a meeting, but there will also be an extension of the ceasefire. I think this is what is going on right now behind the scenes.

All right, Barak Ravid, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us. We really appreciate it. Omar?

JIMENEZ: CNN's Jeremy Diamond is live from Tel Aviv for us and joins us now. So Jeremy, what is Iran signaling when it comes to peace talks with the ceasefire, in theory, set about to expire in the coming days?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's right. I mean, right now, what we're seeing from the Iranians is a lot of bellicose rhetoric and a lot of uncertainty about whether or not they will actually attend these negotiations in Islamabad. That's not altogether surprising.

We saw very similar rhetoric and mixed signals from the Iranians in the lead up to the last round of negotiations that ultimately produced the two-week ceasefire that is now about to expire, unless, as Barak was saying, it is renewed and extended by both sides.

We heard today, most recently, from one of the senior advisers in Iran who sits on the supreme leader's advisory board, and he says that any miscalculation from the United States will result in a, quote, "Final chastisement from Iran," saying that Iran is wary of allowing diplomacy to become a cover for a potential wartime strategy by the United States.

We also heard rhetoric from the Iranian President, Pezeshkian, who said that Iranians will not submit to force. So that is some of the rhetoric that we're hearing. But at the same time, what we've also heard in recent days from the Iranians and from other sources in the region is that they are getting closer and closer to a potential agreement here.

We've heard that both from sources close to the Iranians as well as sources close to the United States in recent days. And it seems more likely than not that the Iranians ultimately will attend these talks and there will be substantive negotiations. But there is also in the background of all this, still that situation in the Strait of Hormuz.

And that does seem to be some of what led to a wrench being thrown into this process that seemed to be getting -- where both sides seem to be getting closer to a potential agreement, especially after we saw Iran vow to open the Strait of Hormuz following the ceasefire in Lebanon that was agreed to as a large result of pressure from the United States towards Israel.

But because the United States did not lift its naval blockade in response to that lifting of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran shut the Strait again. We saw those Iranian ships fire on vessels that were crossing the Strait. And then subsequently, the United States firing at and ultimately seizing an Iranian-flagged container cargo ship that was in that Gulf as well.

And so, all of that is very much impacting the likelihood of success at these negotiations and ultimately, the questions of broader stability right now.

[14:10:00]

The ceasefire in Lebanon for its part, the one that we were just talking about, it is still holding, but there is uncertainty there as well. And that's why we heard today from the Lebanese President, Joseph Aoun, saying that he believes that these are two separate issues, effectively hoping that even if the broader ceasefire between the United States and Iran collapses, that the ceasefire in Lebanon will hold, as will those negotiations expected between Israel and Lebanon, which are set to resume on Thursday. Omar?

JIMENEZ: Yeah. A lot to learn over the next 24 to 48 hours. Jeremy Diamond, appreciate the reporting, as always.

All right, still to come for us, companies can now request tariff refunds. We're going to break down the process, how much is owed, and if consumers could get any help after paying those higher prices. And new today, prosecutors now charging rising star D4vd in the case of a missing teen found dead in the trunk of his Tesla. We'll tell you what we're learning this afternoon.

And later, an artifact from an infamous shipwreck. We'll tell you the huge amount this Titanic life jacket you're seeing on your screen there, it just sold at an auction. Bringing you details of that and much more, coming up on "CNN News Central."

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[14:15:44]

KEILAR: Starting today, business owners can start applying for tariff refunds. American importers are owed more than $160 billion plus interest. The U.S. government launched an online portal today, two months after the Supreme Court struck down President Trump's most sweeping tariffs.

CNN's David Goldman is with us now on this story. All right, David, how much is at stake and how does this process work? You just go, put in the amount you want, and they just give it right to you, don't they?

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Oh, if only it were that simple. Yeah, no, it's about $166 billion that are owed to importers, but that's the key word. It's importers, not consumers. We'll get to that in a second.

But, you know, if you brought in something that got a tariff and it was an illegal tariff, right, the ones that the Supreme Court struck down, not the other tariffs that are still legal, then you might be due a refund and it could take 60 to 90 days to get that money back.

Why? Because some of those tariffs were legal. And so they got to sort out, the government does, what was paid illegally, what was paid legally, could take a long time. So, yeah, we are due a lot of money, but it's to companies, right? Bunch of companies sued, FedEx, Costco, a bunch of other companies that said that they wanted their tariff money back.

It's going to go back to them, right? Or maybe not even them. Maybe the company that imported the goods and then sold to a Costco or a Kawasaki or a Bumblebee or so on and so forth. If you're the consumer and you paid all that extra money, that's not necessarily going to be something that you get back.

Some companies like FedEx said that they're going to try to do that. But good luck. It's going to be a long, complicated process.

KEILAR: That does sound long and complicated. So I don't get like extra samples if I go to Costco or anything? I don't -- like, do I get anything? Do we consumers get anything?

GOLDMAN: You do. You do. They always give you the extra samples. But for the rest of us, no, not necessarily. Right? So the problem is, is that those costs didn't 100 percent filter down to consumers. OK, so what are we talking about? When we were talking about higher prices because of tariffs, a lot of that was eaten by the businesses themselves.

And that's why inflation, which was predicted to skyrocket, never really did. And so if you're a business, you say, well, wait a minute, we've been paying a lot of this tariff cost. We didn't raise our prices necessarily. So why are we going to give a consumer back that money?

Well, some consumers actually did end up paying a little bit more. On average, the Tax Foundation says about $1,000 per family and added tax expense because of the tariffs last year. That's not nothing. It's just complicated to get that back. And other than extra free samples at Costco, which I love, I don't think that we're going to be getting a lot of treats lately. Sorry.

KEILAR: Yeah. I like my sample idea, though. I'm just going to put that out there.

GOLDMAN: It's a great idea.

KEILAR: Right?

GOLDMAN: Next time I go, I'm going to let them know that they owe us.

KEILAR: Yeah.

(LAUGH)

KEILAR: Put that in the suggestion box. David Goldman, thank you so much for taking us through that. We do appreciate it.

And still to come, a very close call, moments after a plane took off from Nashville's airport. We have the harrowing details of this one.

Plus, a humanoid robot just ran a half marathon faster than any human ever has. What this fast machine could mean for the tech world moving forward. We'll have that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

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[14:24:00]

JIMENEZ: All right, move over, Arnold Schwarzenegger. There's a new running man in town. Except, it's not a man, it is a robot, and it just shattered a human record. China held its annual humanoid robot half marathon. That thing is flying. You see that there, yesterday in Beijing.

Yes, this is the thing, where machines race alongside hundreds of humans on a 13-mile course. They've all got their phones out while doing it. A Chinese android, aptly named 'Lightning,' outran the entire field with a time of 50 minutes and 26 seconds, which happens to be more than six minutes faster than any human has ever run a half marathon.

I want to bring in CNN Contributor and Tech Journalist, Jacob Ward. He's the host of "The Rip Current" podcast. Thanks for being here. Can you just help us understand what was actually achieved here and why it's so significant?

JACOB WARD, CNN CONTRIBUTOR & TECH JOURNALIST: Well, I think, Omar, the thing that is so significant about this, I mean, you know, like 10 years ago, I took a camera crew to a raceway in Florida to try and watch something like this. And in that case, robots were trying to open doors and drive Jeeps and so forth.

[14:25:00]

I thought it was going to make great TV, and it was a disaster.

(LAUGH)

WARD: I got in huge amounts of trouble for it because they just failed and failed and failed. The most simple tasks used to elude robots. Now you have, as you're seeing in this footage, a robot able to run faster than a human, yes, but also more than an hour faster than it did just a year ago at the inaugural race.

And so why this is such an important thing, I mean, this company Honor that makes this robot, it's a phone company, is talking about converting this into something like an industrial scenario, right? So there go huge numbers of factory jobs if you have a bipedal robot that can fit into human spaces and work with human tools.

And then, you know, don't forget here, Omar, right? The pipeline between this and the military use of something like this is a very short one. That's where the funding tends to come from. And China dominates the market in bipedal and quadrupedal robots. And so this is not just a, you know, a fun thing to watch, although it is, it's also got enormous geopolitical implications here, Omar.

JIMENEZ: And so that's the thing, like, yeah, if you're just watching this video, you know, hate to put down people's progress, but a part of me is like, all right, so what many machines can run faster and move faster than humans.

Plus, it's not like these robots will be competing with humans in terms of racing. Now, you point out that industry, there could be a whole different set of competition here, but just broader, more broadly speaking, what does this sort of set up? Now that you've seen these results, robots running faster, moving more efficiently, what is sort of the next step here?

WARD: Well, it raises two questions for me. I mean, the first is, right, how quickly do you then have an entire industrial base in China where humanoid robotics steps in for human work and puts out products at an incredibly faster pace than we've ever seen?

I mean, I've already been to demonstrations in which you're seeing the combination of robotics and the Large Language Models, the ChatGPT style interfaces, where suddenly you can just say to a robot, hey, go over there and pick up the blue box and bring it to me.

You don't need technical skills to do it. So we're at this paradigm suddenly where this thing is truly a coworker in a whole new way. That could be transformative for jobs and I'm not sure necessarily in a good way, at least in the short term.

And then there's the larger philosophical question, right? Just because this thing can run a marathon faster than a human does, should it, right? I mean, there's going to be so many things I think coming up where we are basically entering a period of history where the limits on what robots can do is no longer going to be the issue.

It's going to be a question of what we want to reserve for ourselves. Just because robots can make art better than we can or run a marathon faster than we can, does that mean we stop making art? Do we stop running for fun? All of this stuff I think is going to sort of pose a fundamental question to the human species in a way that we are not prepared for here, Omar.

JIMENEZ: Yeah, I am not prepared for it, for one. But look, progress moves faster than comprehension sometimes. Before we let you go, I want to stay in the world of robotics and ask about one of our colleagues, CNN's Will Ripley did a report on China training robot dogs and attack drones.

And I just wonder, when you look at sort of where the world of robotics is used next, is that as much as where things are going in terms of military as it is industry, like working at a warehouse?

WARD: Yeah, it is absolutely the place that so much of this winds up, not least because that's where the funding comes from.

JIMENEZ: Yeah.

WARD: The Office of Naval Research here in the United States is one of the major funders of robotics. And certainly in China, that is true. There is a continuum between the industrial base of China and the military use of this stuff. And we've seen, I mean, as recently as last year, we saw the PLA scientists talking about, in China, talking about putting, you know, enormous munitions onto robotics.

And so I think we're entering a world, yeah, where we -- with that question we were asking each other right about, should robots make art? Should robots run marathons? Suddenly, we're in a place where, should robots make war? And if we cheapen the cost, the human cost of making war, on the one hand, that's a good thing.

On the other hand, the political tolerance for sending robots into war, waging war, is a lot higher than it is for sending humans in. And suddenly we're in a whole other question where, do we want robots making war if it's going to cause us to make it more often than not?

JIMENEZ: Jacob Ward, appreciate the time and perspective. I'm just sad to know that I can no longer outrun a robot. So I think the day is here.

WARD: Yeah, the day.

JIMENEZ: Can't do it. It's done. Appreciate you being here.

All right. Still to come for us, the U.S. sending negotiators to Pakistan to broker a deal with Iran. But who will they be talking to? A member of the House Armed Services Committee will tell us what the U.S. needs to hear from Iran if the Iranian negotiators show up. Stay with us.

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