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Talks Between Israel and Lebanon on Thursday; Team Departs for Talks in Pakistan; Retail Sales Rose in March; Blanche's Audition for Attorney General; Ben Collins is Interviewed about The Onion Taking Over InfoWars; Gunman Shoots Tourists in Mexico; Parents Fight for Online Safety. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired April 21, 2026 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:32:45]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Any moment now, Vice President J.D. Vance is expected to depart Washington. He's expected to lead the U.S. delegation in Islamabad for a second round of talks with Iran, as a ceasefire expires by tomorrow night.

We do have a confirmed second round of direct talks between Israel and Lebanon as well. That meeting is scheduled for Thursday in Washington, D.C. This all comes after their first bilateral meeting in 40 years just last week.

Important to note here, Lebanon's president has said his country's peace talks with Israel are separate from any negotiations on resolving the conflict with Iran.

CNN's Oren Liebermann is live in Jerusalem with the very latest.

What are you hearing, Oren?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF AND CORRESPONDENT: Sara, this will be the second level of direct talks between ambassadors from the countries, from Israel and Lebanon. It's not quite what President Donald Trump was pushing for, a meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Washington, D.C., but it is the Trump administration pushing forward with what they view as a potential diplomatic track, not only for a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, but potentially even a broader peace agreement.

Aoun, the Lebanese president, made clear what's at stake here and how significant this is. He has already taken some steps against Hezbollah and accused them of working at the behest of Iran. He has also outlawed Hezbollah's military activity in Lebanon. Now he goes a step further. In a post on social media he said yesterday, "the upcoming negotiations are separate from any other negotiations because Lebanon faces two options: either the continuation of the war with all its humanitarian, social, economic and sovereignty repercussions, or negotiation to put an end to this war and achieve sustainable stability, and I have chosen negotiation, and I'm full of hope that we will be able to save Lebanon." A very significant statement from Aoun there about the potential for what these talks could bring about.

But there is still a long way to go here. Take a look at this map from the Israeli military. This is the territory in southern Lebanon that Israel still occupies. And at least based on statements from the Israeli government, there isn't an end in sight to this, at least not in the immediate or medium-term future here. Israel occupies a significant part of the southern portion of Lebanese territory, including some 55 Lebanese towns and villages.

[08:35:04]

And that makes diplomacy between these two countries all that much more difficult, Sara.

SIDNER: Oren Liebermann, thank you so much, there live for us from Jerusalem.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're also soon expecting to see Vice President J.D. Vance and others departing for Pakistan for this second round of in-person talks with Iran, just as Iran has continued to keep the world guessing if it's still as to whether Iran's negotiators will show up. But let's talk about this moment.

Joining us right now is CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen.

It's good to see you, Peter.

You're skeptical, many are, that this administration, J.D. Vance and others will be able to hammer out such a big deal on such critical things in such a short period of time. Why are you skeptical?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, thank you, Kate, for having me on.

Well, look, for a start, it's a 14-hour direct flight from D.C. to Islamabad. So, that's 14 hours out the window right there where J.D. Vance is not negotiating. So -- and that's without refueling.

Secondarily, he gets to Islamabad and then, you know, the clock is really ticking. It took 18 months at least for the Obama administration to negotiate the last nuclear agreement with Iran. And that was also, by the way, negotiated with very close American partners, Britain, France, Germany, and even Russia and China. So, here we are in a -- you know, with both sides having major differences on the three things that are the most important for this negotiation, which is much more complicated than the 2015 negotiation. We see them on the screen here. The uranium stockpiles, the curbs on enrichment and reopening the Strait of Hormuz. I mean both sides have said very different things about all these issues.

And then, by the way, there's other issues subsidiary to this, including Iran's ballistic missile program and also its support for terrorist groups in the region, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, which are other points that the Trump administration has said they want to deal with.

So, look, I mean, there's no negotiation in history that was settled in 24 hours. Now, maybe they can come out of the meetings of the Serena Hotel in Islamabad with some kind of framework for an agreement or an agreement to have further talks or something that would allow President Trump to extend the ceasefire further. But it is his ceasefire. He's already extended it once. And if J.D. Vance walks away with absolutely nothing, it would seem to me that he would be under some degree of pressure, self-induced, to do something on the military side to kind of respond.

BOLDUAN: You raised something that I think is important in talking about where the pressure points really are and who has -- and who has the leverage in this moment. The president is speaking right now, doing an interview on CNBC, and he just said on Iran, "they have no choice but to send people. I think we'll end with a great deal." The president also saying, "we," the president, "are in a strong negotiating position."

But yesterday -- and yesterday, Peter, the president posted on social media that, in his view, he is, quote, "under no pressure whatsoever" to make a deal. Do you believe that?

BERGEN: I don't, Kate, for several reasons. First of all, you know, I mean, we don't need to talk about gas prices, et cetera., et cetera.

BOLDUAN: Right.

BERGEN: And the effects on the American economy.

There's another clock ticking here, which is May 1st, which is Congress has to vote on this war on May 1st. Now, there have been some resolutions in Congress which have failed, but this is a more serious one. It's the '73 War Powers Resolution Act, and you have to go to Congress to authorize military action within 60 days. Now, the fact that it -- these kinds of things have failed in the past, I think this is a more serious block on the commander in chief. And there may be one or two Republicans in the House who sort of might decide that the war is costing them politically, or they're looking at a November election for a lot of House members and certainly this is the least popular war at its inception of any American war since polling began. We're at a 67 percent disapproval rate, which is pretty high. And the president's popularity is the lowest it's ever been.

So, like, do the math here. I think the time, of course, the Iranians have their own issues and they have an economy in freefall. They have, you know, arrested population. But they've taken, you know, they've put -- the people now in charge spent a long time as young men fighting in the Iran-Iraq War, which went on for eight years, in which a million people died and basically was a stalemate. So, this is not a group of people who are -- are not, you know, can -- they can take some pain. Not forever. But I would say the clock -- the political clock for the president and certainly the Republican Party in general, is ticking pretty loudly. BOLDUAN: Yes, you put it -- you -- and you put it all together so

well.

It's great to see you, Peter. Thank you so much.

And we're also getting more information in from the president's interview. And on the idea of resuming bombing if no deal, if the ceasefire does lapse, the president just said, "I expect to be bombing. We are ready to go."

[08:40:07]

Sara.

SIDNER: All right.

Well, breaking just moments ago, we've got some new numbers for you. New data showing retail sales actually spiked. They rose sharply last month. Why?

Well, CNN's David Goldman is joining me now.

Look, everyone's talking about how expensive everything is. And you'd think that those sales would go down. But what's the trick here?

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes. Well, gas prices, right, because --

SIDNER: So, that's included.

GOLDMAN: Exactly. So, what we've been talking about for the past month that's been lifting retail sales because in the report from the Census Bureau, you get a report on how much people are spending at gas stations. And that was up 15.5 percent over the past month, 18.8 percent over the past year.

So, that means that it boosted that monthly number that we've been seeing kind of tepidly rise over the past several years. In fact, this was the largest gain in retail sales in three years, all because of gas prices.

Now, I have good news, which is that we like when retail sales are going higher because two-thirds of the U.S. economy is made up of sales.

SIDNER: Right.

GOLDMAN: And most people are buying that at stores.

SIDNER: Consumerism. Yes.

GOLDMAN: Exactly. So, that is undoubtedly good news that people are still spending. And if you strip out gas prices, people were still spending a little less than one percent more last month than they were the month before. OK, that's the good news. The bad news is that if this continues, people are spending their money on gas and not on other things, then you could start to see that fall a little bit. We're not there yet, thankfully. But some good news for the overall economy, but maybe not such great news for people's wallets.

SIDNER: I was going to say, look, this administration, and many administrations, like to talk about, oh, things are going in our favor. They're going well. What's the danger in doing that with this particular scenario?

GOLDMAN: Well, I mean, the danger is that if prices continue to rise, you have to make really, really difficult decisions about your spending. So, if you have, you know, if gas is at $4, that's $4 that you're not spending on something else.

SIDNER: That's right. It's a really good way to put it.

David, it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much.

GOLDMAN: Thank you.

SIDNER: Appreciate it.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: There is new CNN reporting just in about how acting Attorney General Todd Blanche went to Florida to meet with the new prosecutor handling a case that has become very important to President Trump, the investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan.

CNN's Paula Reid has this new reporting. She's joining us right now.

And, Paula, tell us much more about what you are learning here.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: So, we talked to over a dozen current and former administration officials, people who advise the administration, people who really understand what's at stake for Todd Blanche here. And they agree on two things, Kate. One is that this is Todd's job to lose. He's not getting this as a courtesy or temporarily. The president really likes him and trusts him. But in order to keep this job, he has to deliver on what President Trump wants. And what he wants more than anything else is to see the people he perceives as his political adversaries, he wants to see them prosecuted.

And this is something that has proven challenging because there are grand juries and judges that you have to make your case to in order to actually bring charges against someone. And so far, that has proven difficult for this Justice Department. We've seen that with Letitia James. We've seen that with James Comey, cases they tried to bring against a group of Democratic lawmakers.

It's interesting, though, the second in command at the Justice Department, Stanley Woodward, a longtime associate of Todd Blanche, he said -- he told us, quote, "it's incumbent upon us not to simply label those travesties," so they're referring to investigations into the president when he was out of office, "as weaponization, but to prove it and go find the evidence of weaponization," he said, "and that takes time."

Now, we've seen the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, he was, as you said, he was down in Florida yesterday. He was meeting with the folks who are overseeing that investigation into Trump critic and former CIA Director John Brennan. It's not clear, though, if they're going to be able to bring that case. But clearly he's showing the president that he is focused on this priority.

He's also, in his first roughly two weeks in office, he has released a much-anticipated report about anti-abortion protesters and prosecutions that happened under the Biden administration. He's also worked to, you know, try to vacate convictions of some of the January 6th defendants who were convicted and had their sentences commuted. But they still have those convictions. I mean, these are things that really appeal to the president and his base.

But he also has a lot of the same problems that the former attorney general had, right? He has the Epstein controversy, the handling of those documents. That is something that has plagued this Justice Department. And also low morale.

[08:45:04]

There's also the fact that, Kate, even if you can keep this job, even if you get the job permanently, all of Trump's attorneys general have either been fired, replaced, or resigned.

BOLDUAN: Paula, thank you so much and always thank you for your reporting.

Still ahead for us, The Onion reaches a very real, very serious deal to take over Alex Jones' InfoWars with this new agreement. What it means now for the billion plus dollars that Jones still owes Sandy Hook families, and what The Onion now has planned for the conspiracy theorist's site.

And terrifying moments at one of Mexico's most popular tourist sites. A shooter opening fire atop a historic pyramid. One person is killed, several others are injured.

We'll be right back.

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BOLDUAN: Some good stuff for you this morning.

[08:50:01]

A former teacher in Anchorage, Alaska, just turned 100 years old. Phyllis Sullivan was surrounded by family, friends and former students for this celebration that ended up turning into this delightful walk down memory lane. One man remembering being just ten years old when she took him in, along with his six siblings, after flooding and forced their family from their home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DAVID SOLOMON, STAYED WITH PHYLLIS: It touched our heart because they did -- they bought us a lot of stuff that we needed because we lost a lot of stuff during the flood and we stayed there for over a year.

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BOLDUAN: And Phyllis also, of course, got to see so many familiar faces that she had not seen, she says, in years.

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PHYLLIS SULLIVAN, FORMER TEACHER TURNED 100: It's impressive that this many people are here. I am impressed. Some of them I hadn't seen for quite a while, and here they are. Isn't that nice?

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BOLDUAN: I'm sorry. We need to check. Is she really 100 years old? Because she is doing amazing, sounds amazing, and is clearly an inspiration. It had quite an impact on so many.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, The Onion has come up with a new plan to take over InfoWars, the website started by far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, that he used to repeatedly attack the families of slain children at Sandy Hook.

This Onion deal could finally mean some accountability for Jones, who has been ordered to pay more than $1 billion in damages to the families of Sandy Hook. Jones, for years, falsely claimed the 2012 school massacre that killed 20 children and six adults was a hoax. He was found liable for defamation in 2022, but so far has not paid a single cent of the money he owes the families. His assets were put up for sale. And that's where satirical website The Onion comes in, winning an auction for InfoWars parent company. A judge had initially halted the sale, but now there's a new agreement.

Joining us live this morning is the CEO of The Onion, Ben Collins.

All jokes aside, Ben, what does this deal mean, to take over InfoWars, and what are you going to do with it?

BEN COLLINS, CEO, THE ONION: Yes. First of all, it's been eight years and four days now since the Sandy Hook families filed a suit against Alex Jones, and they have not received a penny yet. And we're going to start getting them some pennies, hopefully more than that, pretty soon.

You know, our deal hopefully starts at the beginning of next month. And, you know, our goal at The Onion is always to make fun of the way people take in all their information. We have the paper, which is one of the five biggest newspapers in the United States right now, which you can get at theonion.com. But also, you know, we have The Onion News Network, which is a parody of you guys. No offense. It's not -- it's not -- it's not personal. And then we have -- we have things like ClickHole, to make fun of BuzzFeed.

Now, the way people get their information now is through grotesque weirdos who tell you who -- they're like one enema away from fixing their whole life. Look, those people have been unmade fun of for far too long. We have a moral obligation right now to, you know, go after that sort of thing. And what better way than to use the place that started it all, which is infowars.com.

SIDNER: You know, what's crazy is that these days The Onion headlines sometimes write themselves because you can't tell what's true or what's satirical, what's real or what's fiction these days. But the truth is, is that this comes from a very serious, really devastating place where Alex Jones, you know, found liable for the lies that he told about the families of Sandy Hook who were literally just trying to grieve their children who had been gunned down at school. He really took their pain and weaponized it.

Can you give me some of an example of what you are going to say? Like, what will this be about? How will you kind of bring people in, in a satirical way?

COLLINS: Sure. I think everybody at this point has a friend that they've lost to the idea that, you know, they saw something on Instagram and they're -- they are going to get an Instagram -- or they're going to get a supplement and it's going to fix their whole life. Probably the Michael Jordan of that is Alex Jones. He was able to make millions and millions of dollars off the back of fear and grief.

A thing that is shown, actually a research study just came out that the louder Alex Jones spoke about stuff on his radio show, the louder he screamed, the more stuff he sold. And the stuff that he talked about was always downplaying tragedies.

And I will say, in the 17 months since we originally came to this deal and now, you know, Alex Jones could have changed his ways. And after Renee Good was shot in January, the next day he had Kyle Rittenhouse on his show. And Kyle Rittenhouse was saying that Renee Good was putting cigarettes out on her kid, and that's why she had her kids taken away.

[08:55:03]

And that he had read this on X, so it must be true.

And that's when I realized that this was never going to stop unless somebody stepped in. We had a lot of, in those 17 months, a lot of scary things happened. The administration was filled with Alex Jones fans and truthers, lifers. And a lot of those people have cycled out, thankfully.

But, you know, we remained the whole time because we knew that the financialization of the tragedies of American life, that just can't keep going on. We have to be better people. We have to look to our better angels for this. And I can tell you, whatever website we come up with, whatever service

video that you will see across all of your social media accounts, it will be a much brighter spot in the world and it will be considerably funnier.

SIDNER: We need both of those things, brighter spot and funnier. The satire is -- sometimes it does make you chuckle. And we do share. We do tend to share those things because we need that levity, a little bit of it, after seeing such -- feeling such disgust at what Alex Jones did to these families who were literally just suffering and trying to survive all this.

Ben Collins, do appreciate your time. Good luck with it.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes, a brighter spot in the world. We could all use much more of that.

SIDNER: Very much so.

BOLDUAN: So, good on The Onion once again.

This morning, we are learning new details about, not a bright spot, a shooting rampage at one of Mexico's most popular tourist destinations. And it was caught on camera.

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BOLDUAN: There is -- you can hear shots ringing out in a different piece of this video, as people then ran and tried to duck for cover. One woman from Canada was killed, many others were wounded.

Let's get the very latest on this from CNN's Valeria Len. She's on the ground there for us.

Valeria, what are you picking up?

VALERIA LEON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the place remain closed, as you can see here. This is a measure that Mexican authorities took after yesterday's shooting.

And what you see there is the Pyramid of the Moon. This is the exact place where yesterday the attacker climbed the stairs and opened fire to the thousands of tourists that were here yesterday morning, killing one Canadian tourist. And he was killed in this site afterwards.

He's already identified by the Mexican authorities. He's a 27-year-old man and Mexico City resident. But we don't know, still, what made him open fire in the middle of the morning in the second most visited and iconic archeological site in Mexico.

And we also -- we don't have a clear timeline for reopening. And what kind of surprised us this morning is that we didn't see security forces, not Mexico's national guard, police officers surrounding this place. We saw a couple of workers lined up this morning here at this gate waiting for, you know, have an entrance here at this site. But this is raising concerns, not only because this is an iconic archeological site that just last day -- last year received 1.6 million visitors, but also because Mexico gears up for the World Cup in less than two months and will receive around five million visitors. So, this has also raised a lot of concerns about what happened yesterday.

BOLDUAN: All right, Valeria Leon, thank you so much for being there on the ground for us.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, today, dozens of families are going to Capitol Hill to try and pressure lawmakers to demand stricter controls on big tech companies. Parents want federal online child safety protections. But for years, their efforts have been stalled. Now, amid growing concerns about A.I., there's a renewed urgency.

CNN's business tech reporter Clare Duffy is joining us now.

I mean, first of all, what are parents hoping that they're going to see here? Because there isn't much, if -- very little if at all, legislation that really kind of puts social media kind of in its place.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS TECH REPORTER: Yes, I mean, it has been years since we have seen online child safety legislation passed, and the internet has changed so much since then. Social media really didn't exist when that legislation was passed. So, these parents would like to see more comprehensive youth safety legislation passed, in particular forcing these companies to make changes to some of the features that parents feel are especially addictive or harmful to kids. Things like late night notifications or endlessly scrolling, algorithmically-driven feeds.

[09:00:02]

Parents have really sort of rallied around the Senate's version of the Kids Online Safety Act. That would impose a duty of care on these tech