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New Study Finds Tiny Plastics Found in Oceans Likely Trapping Heat in the Air; Iran Warns Ships to Only Use Approved Route in Strait of Hormuz or Bet Met With Decisive Action; Iranian Missile and Drone Attacks Targeted UAE Civilian Sites on Monday; New Attacks in Strait of Hormuz Threaten Shaky U.S.-Iran Ceasefire; Fulton County Tries to Block DOJ Subpoena of Election Workers' Info; Five Democrats, Two Republicans Face Off in CNN California Governor Debate. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired May 05, 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]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": -- Bill Weir, thank you so much for that.

A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Straight strategy. Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth says the mission to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz is temporary and separate from the war, while also insisting the ceasefire is not over despite attacks by Iran.

Secret settlements, newly released records show taxpayers paid more than $300,000 to resolve sexual misconduct claims involving multiple members of Congress, the payouts raising questions about accountability on Capitol Hill.

And some new details about the arson suspect in the Palisades Fire. Prosecutors say he was angry at the world. The 29-year-old has pleaded not guilty to starting one of the most destructive fires in California history.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

Today, renewed warning from Iran to ships that are trying to sail through the Strait of Hormuz. Use the route approved by the Revolutionary Guard or face decisive action. That's a statement coming after the U.S. announced plans to begin guiding commercial ships through that essential waterway. That set off new skirmishes between the U.S. and Iran, and new drone and missile attacks by Iran against its Gulf neighbors yesterday.

Despite that flare-up, Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth says the ceasefire is currently not in jeopardy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PETE HEGSETH, UNITED STATES DEFENSE SECRETARY: The ceasefire is not over. Ultimately, this is a separate and distinct project, and we expected there would be some churn at the beginning, which happened, and we said we would defend and defend aggressively, and we absolutely have. Iran knows that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Let's go to the White House now where CNN's Kevin Liptak is. Kevin, give us the latest.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Right. You know, when you listen to the president today and he had a lengthy event in the Oval Office, he is not giving any indication that he thinks that this ceasefire has broken. He's not suggesting that he may be restarting the bombing campaign inside Iran. Instead he seems relatively optimistic that this diplomatic path will eventually yield results.

But at the same time, I think, you know, it's obvious to everyone that the firing has not ceased. You have seen Iran continue to target its neighbors, namely the United Arab Emirates, firing in their direction just today. You've also seen the U.S. continue to fend off attacks from Iran. The Joint Chiefs Chairman, General Dan Caine said in his briefing today that Iran had targeted the U.S. at least ten times, but at the same time, suggesting that the threshold for breaking the ceasefire has not been met.

Now when President Trump was asked in the Oval Office today, what actually it would take Iran doing to break this ceasefire, he responded without a lot of specifics. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do they need to do to violate the ceasefire?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, you'll find out because I'll let you know. They know what to do and they know what not to do more importantly actually.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: Now you've seen U.S. officials, really over the last 24 hours, kind of downplay what's been happening in the region. President Trump saying that he might be willing to look past some of these attacks, saying that there hasn't been much damage. But I do think at the same time, it's evident he's facing something of a decision point.

If these attacks continue, does he restart the bombing campaign? That's something a lot of his allies have actually been encouraging him to do to "finish the job" or does he allow this diplomatic path to continue? You can't I think separate some of the political context from all of this, obviously, the war, enormously unpopular. It's causing gas prices to rise.

It's now stretched well past the six-week mark that he initially projected. You also have the president going to China next week. Remember, he delayed that trip while the war was raging. It could be very complicated if the war has restarted again when he arrives in Beijing next week to talk to Xi Jinping. Brianna?

KEILAR: Yeah, no doubt. Kevin Liptak, at the White House, thank you. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Let's dig deeper on this with CNN Global Affairs Analyst, Kimberly Dozier. Kim, great to see you as always. Do you think that Operation Freedom so far has been a success? What would you need to see to qualify it as a success?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: It's too early to tell. We have only seen one ship today, a couple yesterday. We haven't seen a signal from the commercial shipping industry that they think it is safe enough to traverse the Strait despite the U.S. assurances that there's this red, white and blue dome of all sorts of different security watching from the eyes in the sky to the ships on the water for Iranian attacks.

[14:05:00]

It just takes, as the president himself has said, just one RPG rocket- fired -- shoulder-fired missile needs to get through, one image of one smoking ship, and nobody is going to move.

SANCHEZ: I wonder how you see the Iranian side of this and the way that the administration has described the IRGC going beyond what negotiators' desires are in the form of kinetic action. Is that the case, that we're seeing two factions respond to this move by the United States differently?

DOZIER: Well, this is exactly what the U.S. intelligence community predicted, that once you take out the old guard that could withstand pressure from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC is now ascendant and they are bullying their own negotiators.

We see it happening in Iranian social media and from Iranian official news outlets saying that the foreign minister isn't being tough enough, for instance. So, yes, every time the forces in charge hear a challenge from the Pentagon today, you heard the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs saying that Iran is just grasping at straws with some of its attacks in the south.

Right now, Iran is once again, this evening, in the Gulf, firing missiles, drones, at the United Arab Emirates. That's after the Pentagon said, oh, the ceasefire is still holding. How long are they going to stick to that, the ceasefire is still holding when an ally is under attack?

SANCHEZ: So, Tehran has suggested that these attacks on Gulf allies, including the UAE, are self-defense, yet they're going after energy infrastructure --

DOZIER: Yeah. SANCHEZ: -- on a nation that hasn't gone on the offensive against Tehran. How is that self-defense?

DOZIER: I can't walk you inside that logic --

(LAUGH)

DOZIER: -- beyond saying that they have seen the signals from the Pentagon this morning, from the White House, from Trump's Truth Social posts, he doesn't want to go back to an attack. He doesn't want to restart the clock and have to brief Congress. He doesn't want the markets to go haywire again.

So they're just, you know, poking just enough to challenge him, and also, they've warned all the shipping, if you take the U.S. word for it and try to go through that Strait, we have told you we're going to attack. And I just don't think commercial shipping is going to risk a multimillion-dollar vessel with a multimillion-dollar cargo aboard with those kind of odds.

I also don't think allies are going to be signing up to join policing of the Strait until they know they're not going to get shot at.

SANCHEZ: That comes as South Korea is pondering --

DOZIER: Yeah.

SANCHEZ: -- a potential effort to help the United States with this. I wonder, elsewhere in Asia, you heard Kevin there mention the fact that President Trump delayed a trip to Beijing last month. It's set for next week. It's notable because the Iranian foreign minister is visiting China today.

How do you see China sort of in the middle of all of this?

DOZIER: I believe, as China has already signaled, it's going to try to parlay this into some sort of China as peacemaker. Maybe it'll broker a short-term ceasefire or a longer ceasefire, or some sort of reopening of the Straits, but it's going to exact a price from the U.S. diplomatically. And that also signals to the world that China is the new power in town, which is something that Beijing has been trying to do ever since the second Trump administration took office.

SANCHEZ: Kim Dozier, appreciate the analysis. Thanks so much.

DOZIER: Thanks.

SANCHEZ: Still plenty more to come. Fulton County, Georgia asking a judge to quash a DOJ subpoena for 2020 election workers' personal information. County officials say the federal probe is political retaliation.

Plus, we're looking ahead to tonight's debate in a race for California governor. Will a candidate be able to stand out from a very crowded field?

And later, new details about the man accused of igniting the deadly Palisades Fire, an update in just moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:13:41]

KEILAR: New today, officials in Fulton County, Georgia are accusing the Justice Department of "outrageous federal overreach" after prosecutors demanded the names of every person who worked the 2020 election there.

It's the latest turn in the Trump administration's attempts to falsely disprove his election defeat to Joe Biden, which has been re-verified at least three times. Last January, the FBI seized 700 boxes of Fulton County election records as part of this DOJ probe. Let's bring in CNN's Gabe Cohen for more on this.

All right, Gabe, what specifically is DOJ looking for now?

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I will say, Brianna, first off, what's not clear in this grand jury subpoena is why exactly the Department of Justice is asking for all this information on potentially thousands of election workers who worked on the 2020 election in Fulton County. They have not said what this alleged crime might have been that they're investigating, what the wrongdoing is, and that's concerning to a lot of officials given that they are really asking for a long list of personal information.

They're not just asking for their names. They are asking for their phone numbers, their addresses, their e-mails, and a list of what their jobs, what their duties were during the 2020 election. And so Fulton County, lawyers for Fulton County, have filed this motion trying to block the Department of Justice and keep them from forcing the county to hand over all that information.

[14:15:00]

And they say in that motion that the Department of Justice, what they are trying to do is target, harass, and punish the president's perceived political opponents. They say this is grossly overbroad this subpoena and untethered to any reasonable need. And they say it cannot yield any evidence that could actually result in a criminal prosecution because, among other things, the statutes of limitations have expired for any purported 2020 election crimes.

They're saying the window to actually prosecute any crimes for 2020 have already closed, but we know that the administration has been trying to re-litigate 2020 especially in Fulton County. You mentioned that raid back in January. We don't know if these two are exactly connected, but that is when the FBI got a criminal warrant to raid a Fulton County election warehouse and confiscate all of these ballots from 2020 which is also being handled and fought in court right now, because the county is trying to get all those ballots back.

But one of the reasons that this is so concerning to a lot of folks is because election workers have already been under a lot of stress, especially in Georgia and in Fulton County. You remember Ruby Freeman's story, was attacked by Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies after 2020. A lot has been talked about across the country about the pressures that election officials are feeling, the threats they've gotten, the harassment.

And so there's a lot of concern about handing over all this information for thousands of these workers without knowing what exactly does the federal government want it for.

KEILAR: Could this have any impact on the midterms?

COHEN: Well, we don't know exactly and by the way, the administration has launched quite a few initiatives. I mean think about not just re- litigating 2020, but they're also suing dozens of states right now to try to get their unredacted voter lists that are current, even for 2026.

They are already trying to sort of push federal oversight or changes into the 2026 midterms and one of the concerns you'll hear a lot from voting rights attorneys or some election officials and leaders across the country is that what all of these steps do, the Fulton County raid and now this latest step is sow more doubt about previous elections so that after the midterms, perhaps the administration or Republican allies, congressional lawmakers can come in and say, you know what there's reason to doubt these results.

KEILAR: Really interesting. Gabe, thank you so much, so important to keep an eye on this.

Still to come, we take a closer look at how rising gas prices could be a key factor at the polls and then later, video shows masked ICE agents forcibly removing a handcuffed detainee from a hospital as protesters clash with the NYPD outside. We'll have details on what happened, coming up on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:22:31]

SANCHEZ: In just few hours, five Democrats and two Republicans will face off on this stage as they battle to become the next governor of California. They'll have to convince voters that they're the right person to lead the most populous state in the country as well as one of the most expensive to live in.

Let's bring in CNN's Chief Data Analyst, Harry Enten. Harry, of course, affordability a huge buzzword this election season. Let's start with gas prices which we've seen shoot up since the start of the war with Iran.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yeah. Unbelievable, Boris. Unbelievable. If you've ever been out to California, you know, the gas prices are high out there. But now, we are reaching heights that, oh my God, nightmares are made of. I mean, just take a look here, I mean, the price for a gallon of gas, the national average is $4.48, you know, way up since the beginning of the war. But look in California, look in California, look at the Golden State, we're talking about $6.13 a gallon. And of course, that's the statewide average. That's top in the United States.

There is in fact one gas station I was looking at earlier today, where it's near -- get this -- $10 per gallon, my goodness gracious. What was already high has become even higher and of course, Californians are really feeling that pain.

SANCHEZ: Harry, talk to us about how much of that $6.13 is gas taxes because Californians pay more than most folks in other states.

ENTEN: Yeah, in fact, they pay the most in the country. You know, our partner at USA Facts help provide me this data and you just see this right here. Look at this, the state gas tax and fees per gallon in California, again, it's top in the United States. We're talking about $0.71 per gallon. That is $0.38 more than the average state at $033 and you notice this $0.38 cent gap, I went back looking at the data and what we saw is in fact, this gap has been widening. It has been widening.

You know, you go back a decade ago, this $0.38 gap was only $0.11. So now, Californians are feeling the pain more and more and more, and you're seeing it right here in terms of these gas price differences. I mean, my goodness gracious, you're feeling the pain nationally, but you're really feeling in California. And I would say that Californians, a lot of them are just saying it's not worth it anymore because just take a look here, OK, California standards for energy and gas not worth the added gas cost. You see this with all voters out there, it is 57 percent. You'll look at independents, it is 61 percent.

[14:25:00]

So I'm going to be very interested, Boris, to see tonight on that debate stage, when those candidates are going back and forth, their answers about the cost of living, their answers about gas, whether or not they blame Gavin Newsom, the current Democratic incumbent governor, or whether they go after, of course, the President of the United States, the Republican, Donald Trump. I think it may depend on which party they belong to, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Most likely. Harry Enten, thanks so much for breaking that down for us. No matter what happens tonight, Democrats are virtually assured to receive the majority of votes in next month's primary, but that doesn't mean they're going to make it to the ticket in November.

KEILAR: Yeah. That's because California's primary is a nonpartisan free-for-all, meaning if Democratic votes are split between the five Democratic candidates and GOP voters unite behind one of the two Republican choices, we could be looking at a split ticket or even a possible, but less likely, Republican-only ballot.

Let's talk about it now with Marc Short. He served as the former Chief of Staff to Vice President, Mike Pence and as White House Legislative Affairs Director during the first Trump administration. He's currently Board Chair of Advancing American Freedom.

All right. This is going to be an interesting night, and I wonder what you are looking for and specifically from these two Republicans who are going to be on stage.

MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO VICE PRESIDENT, MIKE PENCE: Well, I think that there's been a lot of businesses that have fled California, and I think you're going to see them talk about the record of Gavin Newsom, and I think you'll see the Democrats try to indict the record of Donald Trump. And so that, I think, will be the dynamic.

I think there's some Republicans, as you said, that hope for the chance that you have two Republicans at the top of the ticket, particularly since Swalwell stepped out. But I think the chances are really, you're going to see enormous pressure after this on some of the lowest Democrats to get out of the race. And so, there's obviously more Democrat voters in California, and that will rectify itself for Democrats.

SANCHEZ: It is one of the bluest states in the country. What are the odds that if a Republican makes it on the ballot, it could actually flip?

SHORT: Well, look, it's obviously happened a few times in recent years with Governor Schwarzenegger in particular. There's I think a lot of blue states that have chosen to elect Republican governors. You look at Massachusetts, one of the bluest states, and whether or not it was Bill Weld or Mitt Romney or Charlie Baker, that has happened.

So some states look for a governor to come in to balance their state legislature when it's decidedly liberal. I still think that the odds in this midterm year are going to be pretty significant, that there's definitely, I think, going to be more energy on the Democrat side this November.

KEILAR: It really takes that force of personality, right? Like someone like an Arnold Schwarzenegger, for instance, someone who's very independent minded. Are you seeing that here?

(LAUGH)

SHORT: No. And I think it also requires not just a force of personality. It requires kind of a scandal on the other side, too. And I think that in a state when it's decidedly liberal, it would be vice versa, in a decidedly red state. It's the same dynamic.

You would need some sort of scandal to elect a Democrat, and absent that, I just think it's hard.

SANCHEZ: Excuse me, I got caught there.

(LAUGH)

SANCHEZ: More broadly, on the midterms, the White House Counsel's Office has been privately briefing top administration officials on how to defend themselves come November. It's obviously a difficult journey for any Republican, given the history, also given where gas prices are. Do you think that this signals that they sense desperation?

SHORT: I don't know if they sense desperation, Boris. I think that the reality is that you should anticipate that Americans don't like one party in control. And in the first midterm cycle, you would expect a shift of power. So I think it's appropriate that they're giving that guidance. But I think there's no doubt that Democrats will be looking to start the investigations as soon as they take control.

KEILAR: Yeah, it would be almost weird if they weren't preparing, right?

SHORT: I think that's right.

KEILAR: That they would have to do that. So if you're looking and thinking that there's going to be divided government, what is that going to mean for President Trump and how he governs? How is that going to change things?

SHORT: Well, it's not a surprise to you that he's not a doctrinaire conservative. So I think that you may see, if he's legacy building, looking for time, opportunities to actually partner with Democrats, which sounds crazy in today's environment. But for President Trump, I think, you know, he doesn't hold traditionally solid conservative positions.

And so, would he look to find something to partner with him on, whether or not it is immigration or something? Sure, I think he could. The bigger question is, will the Democrat base allow their membership to actually partner with Trump, which I'm skeptical they would. And so I think what you're going to see is similar to what we saw after 2018, a lot of investigations, a lot of partisanship, and not much happening legislatively.

KEILAR: Marc, it's great to have you.

SHORT: Sure enough.

KEILAR: It's going to be --

(LAUGH)

KEILAR: Thanks for that.

SANCHEZ: Uplifting, yeah.

(LAUGH)

SANCHEZ: Thanks so much.

KEILAR: Marc, it's great to have you, as always. And remember, tune in tonight for CNN's California gubernatorial primary debate. It will be hosted by Kaitlan Collins and Elex Michaelson. The faceoff will kick off at 9 Eastern, 6 Pacific. And you can also watch it on the CNN app.

Still to come, some new CNN reporting that raises questions about the impact of U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran's nuclear supply chain. What satellite --