Return to Transcripts main page
CNN News Central
Officials Say Threat of Vapor Explosion Risk Over, but Incident Not Under Control; U.S. & Iran Signal Progress in Negotiations to End War; Trump Calls on Arab Nations to Sign Onto Abraham Accords; Pope Leo Calls for A.I. To Be Disarmed; Millions Packing Highways, Airports Amid Surging Fuel Prices. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired May 25, 2026 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:32:31]
VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- out right now. For now, 50,000 people are still forced out of their homes. We understand about four evacuation sites, four evacuation centers and shelters. Those are full. People have been having a hard time finding hotels on this holiday weekend, so a lot of people wanting to go home and it should come as no surprise there's already been a lawsuit filed against the company, GKN Aerospace, who has put out a statement apologizing saying they are working with authorities to try and mitigate this crisis.
Back to you. Boris, Brianna?
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Yeah sounds like a lot of critical questions still to be answered. Veronica Miracle, live at the command post there in California for us, thank you so much.
Still to come, President Trump says the nuclear deal he's negotiating with Iran will be the exact opposite of the one made by former President, Barack Obama. How that promise tracks with the framework we're told is currently being discussed. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:35:00]
SANCHEZ: Today, President Trump says negotiations with Iran are "proceeding nicely" and Iran's foreign ministry says a, quote,"degree of understanding has been reached with the U.S. on many issues, but an agreement still is not imminent."
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": We have learned that the proposed framework deal includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz, although Iran says it plans to continue to charge ships to pass through the critical waterway. It doesn't describe those fees as tolls, claiming instead that therefore providing services like navigation and environmental protection. Other parts of the framework include gradually ending the American blockade of Iranian ports, commitments by Tehran to not pursue a nuclear weapon in the 60-day period for negotiations to resolve remaining sticking points on Iran's nuclear program. We're joined now by retired Air Force Colonel, Cedric Leighton. And Cedric, it's that last part, these sticking points on the nuke stuff and the timeline of that, because Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu says, he and Trump agree any final agreement with Iran must eliminate the nuclear danger and that means dismantling Iran's nuclear enrichment sites and removing its enriched nuclear material from its territory.
In light of that, how are you seeing this 60-day timeline?
COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yeah, Brianna. That's a very optimistic timeline -- a very rigid timeline. You know, when you compare with the JCPOA, which took 18 months to negotiate and then all of a sudden you have a 60-day timeline from this point forward or at least when they'd get this a memorandum of agreement signed to that point, it's optimistic. The language between the two sides is better than it has been, I think, in the recent past. So that's a positive sign.
But there are a lot of details that are going to have to be worked out here. What kind of inspection regime is there for the nuclear side of things? You know, how are they going to handle the highly enriched uranium because that was a major war aim, was to get rid of the highly enriched uranium whether it was by force or diplomatic means and that's something that I think we don't really see right now, at least we don't have those details.
SANCHEZ: And you're hearing from some Iran hawks, including Republican Senators, that are concerned explicitly about that. You had Senate Armed Services Chair, Roger Wicker saying that cutting a deal instead of continuing the fight risks the perception of weakness. We also heard from Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz on this. Do you think restarting military action, at this point, would generate a better deal in the U.S.' view?
LEIGHTON: It's unlikely I think, Boris, and so this is the really the conundrum when you have a situation where you've got Senator Wicker making those statements and in some ways, he's right because you want to get the most advantageous position from a negotiating standpoint. You also, of course, want to make sure that your country doesn't show any weakness, especially on the negotiating table and certainly militarily.
But the problem is this, our forces are in the Middle East. They are at risk of being overextended. And if that's the case, then the weaknesses really begin to show and that becomes a real problem. So you have -- on the one side, you have a military readiness issue on the U.S. side. You also have an economic issue for the Gulf States if things are not solved, especially the Strait of Hormuz issue, and the flow of tankers and cargo ships through that area, if that is not solved, those economies are going to tank and that is going to be a significant problem. And I think that is the one of the main pressure points on Trump right now. KEILAR: The president is demanding that Middle Eastern countries sign the Abraham Accords if a deal with Iran is reached. What kind of hiccups could we see there?
LEIGHTON: Many.
(LAUGH)
LEIGHTON: Many hiccups, Brianna. And part of the problem is that these countries are basically not ready to sign the Abraham Accords or any kind of relationship with Israel, the outlier being the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Those countries established Abraham Accord relations with Israel before all of this happened, but the problem is October 7th and what happened afterwards. October 7th itself would not have stuck, but it was the Israeli response to it and the way in which they've dealt with this.
And in fact, Saudi Arabia has basically said, if there is no Palestinian state, we cannot support being part of the Abraham Accords. So that I think is going to be a major hang-up right now and it's, in many ways, wishful thinking and it makes sense from a strategic standpoint to get Iran on our side eventually, which is part of what Trump is looking at. But we're not there yet and certainly to get the Arab nations to agree to be part of the Abraham Accords and to recognize Israel at this particular point in time, that might be a bridge too far.
KEILAR: All right countries to watch there. Colonel Cedric Leighton, thanks for being with us.
LEIGHTON: You bet, Brianna. Thank you.
KEILAR: And next, a modern Pope for modern times. Pope Leo comparing artificial intelligence to the Tower of Babel in his first major manifesto. His concerns right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:44:13]
SANCHEZ: Pope Leo has issued a sweeping warning about artificial intelligence in the first major theological document of his tenure. The text calls for the disarming of A.I. by preventing it from dominating humanity.
Regarding its use in warfare, the Pope says A.I. should be subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POPE LEO XIV, HEAD OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: Decisions about technology must never be separated from conscience and responsibility. Let us not sleep as others do, admonished the Apostle Paul, but let us keep awake. Such vigilance is necessary today.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SANCHEZ: Let's bring in CNN Vatican Analyst, Katie McGrady. She hosts "The Katie McGrady Show" on SiriusXM's "The Catholic Channel." That channel is operated by the Archdiocese of New York.
[13:45:00]
Katie, great to see you as always. So help us understand the Pope's concerns about A.I., why he's putting an emphasis on disarming it.
KATIE MCGRADY, CNN VATICAN ANALYST: Well, it's his favorite word. Disarm is something he's used from the moment we met him and A.I. has clearly been on his mind. He referenced artificial intelligence in this new revolution just a couple of days after he was elected. In that very same seat we just saw him speaking from, he references his namesake's seminal document, Rerum Novarum, as addressing concerns at the turn of the century.
And so now, here we are in 2026, time to address the concerns of the moment. And to disarm A.I. isn't to get rid of it. It's not to say that we're never going to use it. It's not to say that it's caused endless amounts of evil. It's to say, when it's weaponized and when it manipulates and when we don't recognize its own limits, we are potentially harmed. And so the Vatican is engaging in this very necessary conversation.
SANCHEZ: What is his sort of prescription or recommendation to lawmakers, to policymakers on A.I.?
MCGRADY: You know the central part of the text, so Chapter 3, he gets into some of the specifics and it's very clear that he writes after having listened to the people who have built these platforms. And so he brings up the idea that automation, specifically that which allows us to be more efficient, isn't always what's best for us because then there's not a human behind everything from deciding who gets a job or who gets admitted to a college, all the way to who gets droned, who gets bombed.
And so he really wants to ensure that there are policies in place that maintain the human connection to big decisions, especially. He also really cautions us about how especially some of these Learning Language Models and some of these A.I. Generative type platforms, once they're coded and kind of set free, we don't even know how they work anymore.
And in fact, Anthropic's co-founder mentioned this and so he really cautions us. What are we actually crafting and is it Babel or will we build a civilization of love?
SANCHEZ: It's a huge question. I also wonder about his mention in this encyclical about the Church's Just War Theory. He makes the case that it's outdated. It's notable given that we were discussing the Just War Theory a few weeks ago when he was under criticism by members of the Trump administration over his comments regarding the war with Iran.
MCGRADY: Yeah, if you're not careful, you might have missed that little throwaway line of, hey, Just War Theory might not hold these days because can any war be just if it is being decided by code and not humans? If it's being crafted by this efficiency model and it's not deeply considered? I was talking to a priest friend of mine earlier. He said we have to consider this moment of the Holy Father in the Vatican talking about A.I. as if the Pope had picked up the phone during the Manhattan Project.
(LAUGH)
MCGRADY: And said, hey, let's talk about what you're about to do. And I think it's really, really important that he's addressing democracy. He's addressing media. He's addressing social media, education and war, nothing is untouched by artificial intelligence. And here's the Pope recognizing the second this came out, it was kind of outdated because A.I. is constantly developing.
But we can look at some eternal things and say, these are the things that need to address that which is ever-changing and Just War Theory is something he is taking up as we have to disarm our world, war is bad. No more war, the popes have been saying that for decades. I'm not surprised he said that, a lot of people are going to be wrestling with it though.
SANCHEZ: Katie McGrady, always appreciate the perspective and expertise.
MCGRADY: Yeah. Thanks for having me. Good to see you.
SANCHEZ: Of course. Still to come, despite surging costs, a record number of Americans are traveling for Memorial Day. We'll take you live to the airport.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:53:22]
KEILAR: Right now, Officials say threat of vapor explosion risk over, but incident not under control at a GKN Aerospace facility in Garden Grove, California; U.S. & Iran working to resolve language disputes on nuclear issues, sanctions; Pope warns of A.I. fueling warfare in major theological document; Millions of Americans are heading back home this Memorial Day and paying some of the highest fuel prices in years.
CNN's Pete Muntean is live at Washington National Airport. People still flying despite these high prices, Pete.
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, you know it's not just car gas prices, it's the fuel for airlines that is really causing airfare to spike. The latest from travel site, Going, is that airfare for the Memorial Day weekend for domestic trips up 20 percent compared to last year and the Hold (ph) Going theory according to economists who focus on the airlines is that that is going to stick around for a while. They call it the ratchet effect. People are proving that they will pay those high prices.
Just look at the TSA numbers. TSA screened 2.98 million people at airports on Friday. That's only 5 percent off from the all-time air travel record. Today, also a huge day, 2.78 million people anticipated at airports. Here is the rep. The weather on the East Coast, not so good. Take a look at the Departures Board here at Reagan National Airport. The yellow denotes flights that are delayed. Oklahoma City, Omaha, Orlando, Raleigh, Durham, Seattle, Tulsa, all delayed right now. There was a ground stop here at Reagan National Airport, which ended about 1:45 Eastern Time. The good news is that is over.
But the Federal Aviation Administration Command Center in Warrington, Virginia, warning about delays not only here in D. C. but also New York, some of the most delay-sensitive airspace in the country. Also in San Francisco, a huge hub for United Airlines, big international hub. And in Atlanta, the biggest hub for Delta Airlines. So we are not totally out of the woods yet.
[13:55:00]
We're seeing some delays being put in place for Boston and Philadelphia. Those are just popping right now, so it won't be an easy go for the millions of people traveling by air today. It's really a tough one and they're paying a lot more for it.
SANCHEZ: Yikes, the --
KEILAR: Fun.
SANCHEZ: The ratchet effect with Pete Muntean, live at DCA. Thanks so much for being with us, Pete.
(LAUGH)
SANCHEZ: A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
