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Sources: Commanders To Brief Trump Today On New Iran Military Options; Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) On Iran Supreme Leader Saying Foreign Foes Belong In "Depths" Of Persian Gulf; How Voting Rights Ruling Could Affect Midterms And Beyond. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired April 30, 2026 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:31:42]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So is the U.S. on the brink of resuming strikes on Iran? That is a real question today because of new reporting that the head of U.S. Central Command is briefing President Trump today on fresh military options that could either be conducted by the United States to help break through the stalled talks with Iran or hit them with one final blow before ending the war. CNN has previously reported that the U.S. military had been developing plans to target Iran's defenses along the Strait of Hormuz if the current ceasefire fails.

But also this is just in, a new message that has been released attributed to Iran's new supreme leader saying that the Americans have no place in the Persian Gulf except "the depths of its waters." The message also adding that Iran will be safeguarding its nuclear and missile capabilities.

All of this as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is returning to Capitol Hill today to testify before the Senate after yesterday's very combative House hearing.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is live at the White House following all of this. We know that the White House is following testimony from Pete Hegseth very closely but also, they now have a new statement attributed to the supreme leader to contend with.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Right, and I think it all sort of adds up to a war that, at this point, does not have a certain end. You know, the president seems to be digging into this strategy of trying to inflict as much economic pain as possible on Iran and trying to get them back to the negotiating table. Trying to get them to cave to some of the president's demands when it comes to the nuclear program.

But it's evident that strategy also comes with some risks for President Trump himself as you see this volatility in energy markets as the cost of the war is adding up. You know, we heard that officials say yesterday that so far it has cost the United States $25 billion, but our sources say that that's actually a lowball estimate. And so it all I think adds up to a degree of uncertainty.

You know, President Trump is telling his advisers to lay the groundwork to extend this blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. American officials say that they have reviewed intelligence that says that the longer the strait is closed, the closer the Iranian economy comes to collapse, in part due to the unsold oil causing damage to its energy infrastructure.

Now, the Pentagon is making preparations if the president decides to resume the bombing campaign. As you said, he will receive an update on those options today. But the president has long indicated that his preference is diplomacy, and you do see the wheels of the negotiating table continue to turn. The Pakistani mediator saying that they expect a proposal to come back from Iran as early as today or potentially, on Friday with their latest negotiating position.

Meanwhile, President Trump, yesterday, held a 90-minute phone call with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and Putin offered to help in this in some way, potentially even taking shipment of Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium,

President Trump was asked yesterday whether or not the Iran war would end first or the Ukraine war. He said that he thought they were both on the same timetable, which I think will raise some alarm bells given that the Ukraine war shows no sign of ending.

[07:35:05]

It all adds up I think to continued questions about how long this war will go on and continued political fallout for President Trump.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely.

Kevin, thank you so much. It's good to see you -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: With us now Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware. He is on the Senate Foreign Relations committee. Senator, good to see you this morning.

You will not have the pleasure of Secretary Hegseth's company --

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE) (via Webex by Cisco): Great to be on with you.

BERMAN: -- when he testifies -- when he testifies before your colleagues in Armed Services just a little while from now.

But this is what he told the House yesterday -- listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless, and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans. Your hatred for President Trump blinds you to the truth of the success of this mission. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What do you say to that, Senator?

COONS: Well, I'd say that our love of the American people makes it clear for us that is -- this is a war that President Trump had no idea what he was doing when he got us into it and has no clear path to get us out of it, and that Secretary Hegseth blaming all of the questioning by Democrats and a blind hatred of President Trump is misplaced.

That what I'm hearing from my constituents in Delaware is alarm about the soaring cost of gas, concern about deployments of our National Guard as well as our active-duty forces to the Middle East, and the lack of any clear path out of this conflict in Iran.

I'll remind you John when President Trump ran for office, he promised to lower everyone's costs, to make America healthy again, to release the Epstein files, and no new stupid foreign wars, and I don't see he's making progress on any of those. He also said he'd end the war in Ukraine on day one and it's no closer to being concluded with a just and lasting peace today than when it started. That's just rooted in what's happened, not in any dislike for President Trump.

BERMAN: Gas prices soared, really, to $4.30 a gallon overnight, up seven cents from yesterday. They're now at their highest level in four years.

I do want to read you a statement we just got in a few minutes ago. This is from the new supreme leader in Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei, who put out a statement. I should say it's on paper. It's a paper statement. We still have not seen him for the entire duration of this conflict. But he talked about Iran entering a new stage on the Strait of Hormuz.

He said, "We and our neighbors across the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman share a common destiny, and foreign actors who come from thousands of kilometers away with greedy intentions have no place here except in the depths of its waters. This chain of victories achieved by the grace of God and through the policies of resistance and the strategy of strong Iran, marks the beginning of a new regional and global order."

What do you think he's saying here, and what does it mean for the next weeks, months, years in the Strait of Hormuz?

COONS: Look, the goals of this war in Iran were not clearly set from the beginning. President Trump talked a lot about regime change. And instead, by killing the ayatollah, what he's got is ayatollah 2.0, his son, angrier and more determined to resist, and a more repressive IRGC rather than regime change.

And what the new ayatollah's statement is suggesting is that they now know they've got a new weapon. Their ability to close the Strait of Hormuz and impact the economy of the world, not just the United States, is every bit as powerful a weapon in the hands of the ayatollah and his repressive and brutal regime as would be a potential nuclear weapon.

So he's threatening Donald Trump. He knows that we don't have the capacity to withstand months and months, maybe years of oil soaring and of the other costs that the closing of the Strait of Hormuz are imposing.

It's spring planting time. Fertilizer costs are going up. Helium is necessary for semiconductor manufacturing. That also critically comes through the Strait of Hormuz.

John, the ayatollah is flexing his muscles and even though President Trump thinks that they've been beaten and declares this war over and a military success, the ayatollah is making it clear that his regime intends to resist. It's, frankly, alarming that they are determined to continue to resist but utterly unsurprising.

BERMAN: One question is how long can Iran resist when it comes to the blockade of Iranian ports and the seizure of vessels that are transversing those ports? And I should note President Trump last night on his social media network -- he re-tweeted or whatever you call it, a picture of the strait and it says, "The Strait of Trump."

But there are analysts who say, Senator, that Iran really can't survive a blockade for that much longer because their wells can't pump. They have nowhere to put the oil.

[07:40:00]

What do you think of the possibility of success of this blockade?

COONS: Well look, John, that's right. That's a cost that's going to be imposed by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz not just on Iran but on our partners and allies in the region as well. Eventually when you shut off oil wells where there's no more place for you to store or to ship the oil it causes a longer-term closure. That means that the price of oil on the global markets will go higher.

So the real question is who can last longer? Can the American public stand gas at $5.00-$6.00 a gallon for months and months or can the Iranians, who don't care about the suffering of their people, withstand months and months of harm to their economy? I'd rather not have us playing this game of chicken.

And John, in the end, I think President Trump is going to be forced to accept a diplomatic deal that is far weaker and far less lasting than the one that Barack Obama secured with Iran that Donald Trump tore up on his first day as president back in 2017.

BERMAN: All right. Well, we will see where negotiations go. Oil prices, after hitting $1.26 (sic) a barrel overnight are now dropping. They're down a few percent today. We will see where they end up as well.

Senator Chris Coons, appreciate your time this morning. Thank you -- Kate. BOLDUAN: So the man charged with trying to assassinate the president at the White House Correspondents' dinner returns to court today. In a new court filing prosecutors are laying out why they want Cole Tomas Allen to remain in custody while he awaits trial.

The filing also includes a selfie of Allen that he alleged took in his hotel room shortly before the attack and in it you can see at least four weapons.

Additionally, The Washington Post has reviewed a new angle of the incident if you will -- a high-quality -- like, high-res version of the security camera footage. And according to The Washington Post, the video does not show the suspect firing a weapon as he ran through that security checkpoint but does show, according to their analysis, a Secret Service agent firing his gun at least four times in Allen's direction.

And now days after that attack the Justice Department is looking to roll back some gun safety measures. The ATF now proposing 34 changes it announced. The administration is actually calling this and billing it as the most comprehensive regulatory reform package in the history of the ATF.

Among the changes, a narrower definition of who must be a licensed gun seller. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, in a press conference about this announcement, signaled also that the administration would be stopping pursuing gun restrictions on non-violent offenders -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Overnight, new rain fell in Mineral Wells, Texas after a tornado nearly flattened a 2 1/2 mile stretch there. And this morning major storms are threatening the South.

Let's get right to CNN's Derek Van Dam in the weather center for the latest on the forecast today. Good morning, Derek.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, John.

Now the cleanup continues after this weeklong stretch of severe weather. It really was difficult into the Mineral Wells area seeing that path of destruction but there are other areas that are cleaning up. This is Clinton County, just east of St. Louis. You can see some of the damage from strong winds and apparent tornadoes that moved through this region over the past week.

Now we can all take a big sigh of relief because the severe weather threat has largely diminished. Really, just a marginal risk right along the Gulf Coast states through the course of this week into the early parts of the weekend.

And this was all thanks to a cold front. You can see it on the map here marking the temperature difference between let's say Atlanta and Indianapolis -- about 15 degrees difference. There it is. We drawed -- drew it on the map there.

Plenty of waves of moisture though moving across this region bringing beneficial rains to the drought-stricken southeastern U.S. But sometimes a bit too much of a good thing can be a problem, right? So we talk about the potential of flooding today. So that located across south central Texas. But look at tomorrow. It expands into Louisiana, southern Mississippi, and then even into portions of Georgia and Alabama where we have the potential for at least two to three inches of rain.

But mind you -- and I just got back from this location -- the fires that are still burning across southeastern Georgia -- the Pineland Fire, the Highway 82 Fire -- under exceptional drought that has plagued the southeastern U.S. We have gotten some much-needed rainfall. Check the latest update from the authorities on the ground across southeast Georgia. They reported no additional fire spread overnight and it means that the firefighters here are actually gaining some ground on containing these rampant fires.

Thirty-three percent containment with the Highway 82 fire. That is good news because, wow, before this rain that came in, John, it was significantly dry like a tinderbox out there.

BERMAN: Getting some of the relief that they need.

All right, Derek Van Dam. Thank you very much --

VAN DAM: Yes.

BERMAN: -- for that.

VAN DAM: Yeah.

[07:45:00]

BERMAN: All right, a dramatic rescue near Fort Worth, Texas and some ingenuity. Police used jumper cables to save a mother and her three children from the raging floodwaters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I need something to get wrapped around her so we can pull her. Hey, Wiseman coming. Give it. Come on.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm trying.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to give you some cables. Just -- I'm going to wrap them around you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So they looped the cables around the mother's arms and kept her secured until crews were able to hook a chain to the car and drag it out of the water, getting everyone to safety. I mean, it's using what you have there. And just so people know, the cables weren't plugged in. I keep on hearing, like, jumper cables. They used jumper cables.

BOLDUAN: Jumper cables? What? BERMAN: Yeah. They weren't plugged in, but they used them to rope them out.

BOLDUAN: But ingenious and thank God for it.

BERMAN: Absolutely.

BOLDUAN: My God.

All right. So there's also this. There's new fallout nearly a year after 10 inmates broke out of a New Orleans jail. You'll remember this story. Now the sheriff of Orleans Parish and her chief financial officer are facing felony charges tied directly to that embarrassing jailbreak.

Sheriff Susan Hutson is due in court this morning. She was indicted on 30 felony charges, including malfeasance in office, filing false public records, and obstruction of justice. The CFO, Bianka Brown, faces 20 similar charges.

All 10 inmates -- remember this -- when this happened -- they were eventually recaptured but it was a terrifying ordeal. Thirteen people were charged with helping them escape.

Now, Hutson, who lost re-election, is currently finishing out the final days of her term. She's been out on bond since the indictment was handed down.

Ahead for us still, how the Supreme Court's decision on the Voting Right Act could turn the already brutal battles over redistricting from coast-to-coast now into an all-out war from coast-to-coast.

And a popular Twitch streamer is hit by a car while he's livestreaming a 3,000-mile walk across the country. How he's doing this morning.

We'll be back.

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[07:51:23]

BERMAN: All right. This morning the race to redistrict -- this brand new blistering race after the Supreme Court decision reshaping voting rights. The ruling in a case out of Louisiana opens the door for states to redraw maps that would eliminate majority Black or Latino districts.

With us now, CNN political commentator and our friend who we haven't seen in a while, Alyssa Farah Griffin. Congratulations to you, first of all.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Thank you.

BERMAN: So the Supreme Court made its decision yesterday really reshaping -- not scrapping but reshaping the Voting Rights Act. And now, like, the gates are open here.

What do you see happening now?

GRIFFIN: If you hated partisan gerrymandering, buckle up. It's going to get a whole lot worse. Folks smarter than me can speak to the legal implications but the political ones here are huge.

So we've already seen this kind of tit for tat with gerrymandering from Texas to California to Florida -- even the pressure in Indiana. And this kind of takes away any sort of restrictions that there might be on how states can redraw their maps. You already see Sen. Blackburn saying in Tennessee that they need to redraw their congressional maps.

Now the implications are probably bigger for 2028 due to the calendar than these midterms. But this is really a moment that if you're an American who is, like, the government is still partially shut down. It was shut down for months. My member of Congress isn't affected. Buckle up -- it's probably going to get worse.

BERMAN: I mean, I just want to remind people. So in Tennessee, if they redistrict that's one Democratic seat the Democrats could lose there. In Louisiana, where they have two Democratic seats, it could go down to one there. So you're losing a few single seats here and there in the south.

The implication of this though could move north too in a way that might benefit Democrats.

I want to read two quotes here -- one from, you know, Greg Meeks from New York, and one from Terri Sewell of California (sic).

Greg Meeks writes, "There's not just southern states, there's northern states. We can do it too. We haven't done it. We don't want to do it. But if they want to do it, OK, we're going to do it too."

And then Terri Sewell says, "I'd take 52 seats from California (sic). I sure would. And 17 seats from Illinois." She's from Alabama. I said she was from California.

But the point here is that there are majority-minority districts in New York --

GRIFFIN: Oh, yes.

BERMAN: -- for instance, where if you did away with that it would move Democratic votes into some Republican districts.

GRIFFIN: Exactly. And I'm paraphrasing her, but AOC essentially said the gloves are off. The Democrats need to fight fire with fire and look to Illinois, New York and elsewhere. California would be a huge one if in the future they redrew those maps again.

And what this means for folks at home who don't totally follow the gerrymandering fight is when you have a district that's, say, R plus 30, that means you basically can't vote that member out of Congress. They basically have to retire. Or if it's Dem plus 20 it's really hard if you're the minority to want to vote that person out.

Listen, Dems have gerrymandered in the past. Republicans have been doing it. But this makes it open season, and I would consider it a race to the bottom if you actually want Congress to function and to get things done and you want some degree of bipartisanship. It's a disaster.

BERMAN: I mean, you haven't seen anything yet. And again, I'm not celebrating this. I'm merely noting it. I mean, this is going to be the free market at work here in gerrymandering --

GRIFFIN: Um-hum.

BERMAN: -- perhaps in a way that we just haven't seen before. And no one knows where it will end up.

All right, I want to bring to your attention something I read in The Wall Street Journal today. Amazon -- which, of course, produced the "MELANIA" documentary -- The Wall Street Journal reports is considering a reboot of "THE APPRENTICE" maybe with a new host. And this is a quote from the article.

"People familiar with the matter said that executives at Amazon internally have discussed casting someone very close to President Trump as the host if they were to move ahead with filming new episodes: his oldest son Donald Trump Jr."

GRIFFIN: I'm just shocked they haven't thought of this sooner to be honest.

So honestly, people think of Donald Trump and they think of his real estate empire. But the thing he was actually most successful at before becoming a two-term president was television. "THE APPRENTICE" -- the spinoffs were hugely successful.

[07:55:05]

You've got about 80 million people who voted for Donald Trump. Even if a fraction of those are loyal to any project he's involved in, they're going to tune into this. Will I watch it? Probably not. But there are a lot of folks who are going to tune in because it's the Trump legacy and it's a show that was widely popular.

From a business standpoint it makes total sense.

BERMAN: There are -- there are some critics who look at this and say Amazon was trying to curry favor with the Trumps by producing the "MELANIA" documentary --

GRIFFIN: Well, that's very clearly happening there.

BERMAN: -- and here they go again now.

GRIFFIN: That's very clearly what is happening here but there is a market for it. That's just -- there's no question that at this point, you know, Donald Trump won the popular vote. I think a lot of executives are looking around and saying OK, so what do we do with -- how do we bring in some of those voters as potential viewers?

That said, I think a less polarizing person would maybe be Ivanka Trump as the potential host of this. Put somebody in who might have a little bit of appeal to people who didn't vote for him. But it's not the worst idea I've ever heard.

BERMAN: I mean, you did work, you know, in the Trump White House. Is it -- is it that easy -- is it this easy to curry favor with the president?

GRIFFIN: Television is a great way to curry favor with this president. Being supportive of him on television and putting his allies on television -- that's the quickest way to get through to him.

BERMAN: What do you think of the Trump passports?

GRIFFIN: Um, listen, it's very Donald Trump. It's vintage Donald Trump. He clearly wants to leave his mark on D.C. in the second term. I mean, from the Arc d Trump, as I'm calling it, to the Kennedy Center, to the Institute of Peace, and now this. He wants this face, his likeness, his name places. He wants to be as institutionalized in the history of Washington as Obama to George Washington.

So it's not shocking to me that this is the next move. I think it's a little silly. I think you want to see the face of the person that owns the passport but it's kind of classic Donald Trump.

BERMAN: Alyssa Farah Griffin, great to see you in person again.

GRIFFIN: Great to see you.

BERMAN: See you soon -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: A Twitch streamer is hit by a car while he is streaming in the midst of a fundraising walk while he was alongside a highway in Indiana. Isaiah Thomas -- he was in the middle of 3,000-mile cross- country trek from Philadelphia to California when this happened. He was raising money to help high school graduates access trade certifications.

And he tells CNN that what happened was one of his supporters was following him in a car to make sure he was safe when another car then rear-ended that supporter's car, which then hit him obviously in this middle of this livestream.

He went to the hospital and has since been discharged with minor injuries. He did suffer a concussion though. You can see he's posting video about it there. He says he plans to resume his journey as soon as he can.

Police in Las Vegas are cracking down on street takeovers. Here is some video, folks. Officials -- they released this video of spectators blocking traffic to allow a driver to do donuts and spinouts and whatever that stuff is called. It happened after an event at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. An air unit ended up following the -- that suspect's car until it crashed. The driver was arrested. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POLICE OFFICER: On the ground now. Get your hands out of your (bleep) pockets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Police say they actually made 77 arrests over that period -- over that weekend -- those three days.

And a dog name Pup is safe and back with her owner after surviving nearly two days trapper beneath tornado debris. Her owner says they sheltered in a closet as the EF-4 tornado tore through town and destroyed their home in Oklahoma. When the storm passed Pup was just gone. Rescuers eventually did find her alive, buried under rubble -- again, two -- nearly two days later. Pup, the dog -- the dog, the pup -- all of the pups we're told is doing well.

A car detailer in California is on a mission now to help replace a stolen e-bike for an 81-year-old man living in an RV park. Here's the backstory. Lavalle Walker met Tim a couple of weeks back while working a job. They struck up a conversation and clearly a friendship. It turns out Tim had just celebrated his birthday and clearly, quite sharp still.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM: I joined a senior citizen dating service too.

LAVALLE WALKER: Oh, you find any hot ladies or what?

TIM: It's called carbon dating. We see you found a lady. We can't give you her number, but you can ask her. So I asked her and she said, "180 over 70."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Walker came back days later to then be nice and detail Tim's RV for free.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: He was getting emotional. He was like thank you very much. He was starting to tear up. He needed help and I can do it. So if I can do it, I might as well do it. He's a good individual. He keeps a smile on his face. I feel like light should be drawn towards him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Hmm.

So Walker posted the whole thing online and the videos racked up eight million views. Since then, Tim's e-bike -- the one that you see in the videos -- and it's the only way he also gets around -- it was stolen. And Walker now has launched a GoFundMe to help get him a new one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM: If you met a lady you wouldn't have to worry about meeting your parents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: And clearly, the fun continues with that hilarious man.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.