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Iran Media Says Tehran Halts U.S. Talks Over Israeli Strikes On Lebanon; United Airlines Flight Makes U-turn Over Bluetooth Device; Meteor Over Massachusetts Causes Explosion Reports, Sightings; Ebola Recoveries Bring Signs Of Hope In Democratic Republic Of Congo. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired June 01, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:33:53]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": We continue to follow Breaking News on a major setback in the effort to bring an end to the U.S. war with Iran. Today, Iranian state media says that Tehran is suspending peace talks with the U.S. in protest of Israel's attacks on Lebanon.

President Trump responded to the announcement, telling NBC News that he thinks Iran going silent would be very good, adding, I think I can wait as long as they want. Let's discuss with Kian Tajbakhsh. He's an Iranian scholar and also spent more than a year in an Iranian prison. He's now a Professor of International Relations at New York University.

Kian, thank you so much for being with us. I want to let you and our viewers know that President Trump just posted to social media confirming that he had a, quote, "very productive call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel," saying there will be no troops going to Beirut and any troops that are on their way have already been turned back.

He said that "through highly-placed representatives, he had a very good call with Hezbollah as well. They agreed that all shooting will stop." How significant is this post, Kian, given that the reason Tehran wanted to halt negotiations was over Israeli strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon?

[13:35:00]

KIAN TAJBAKHSH, IRAN SCHOLAR, FORMER IRANIAN PRISONER: I think it's very significant. I think it's an indication of the leverage that the Iranian regime has and continues to wield over these, you know, over these negotiations. It's an impasse, and it's actually quite remarkable that the Iranian regime has managed to pressure President Trump to put pressure on Israel to, you know, cease hostilities in Lebanon.

But of course, Israel is saying that it will go ahead anyway, but we'll have to see. But I think the important thing is it indicates to me the strong leverage that the Iranians have currently over President Trump's desire to exit this war.

SANCHEZ: Does it surprise you that President Trump said that through highly-placed representatives there was communication with Hezbollah and that Hezbollah agreed to stop its attacks on Israeli territory?

TAJBAKHSH: Well, I mean, it doesn't surprise me because there is a lot of hyperbole in President Trump's public communications. A lot of them just, you know, are hard to believe. They're hard to square with facts on the ground. For example, his repeated claim that there has been regime change inside of Iran.

And you know, and so it doesn't surprise me that he would say this, but it does surprise me that he would go out on a limb to make, essentially, a concession to the Iranian demands as part of these talks. And I think that, you know, it just indicates, it seems to me, from the Iranians' point of view, it indicates clearly, that President Trump is on the back foot and they can go and they can push further for greater concessions and greater gains.

SANCHEZ: So this comes, obviously, as we learn that President Trump wanted certain amendments to the agreement that we've been hearing for days now the administration say is closer and closer to being finalized. We don't know the specifics, but our understanding through our reporting is that President Trump was going to ask for additional language and assurances when it comes to the future of Iran's nuclear ambitions and its reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Do you think this is a sign that perhaps there is skepticism on the U.S. side that they would get them without President Trump trying to, at least on the surface, broker some sort of standstill in Lebanon?

TAJBAKHSH: I mean, look, the reports about President Trump editing the wording of the MOU and the deal, it just strikes me as a level of unreality. You know, this is not an issue right now about, you know, parsing or refining words, which you would do at the end of a protracted negotiation when both sides have agreed to the substance and to the fundamentals of the agreement, and then you, you know, you kind of, you know, refine.

It just seems to me that this kind of demand by President Trump indicates either a sense of panic or a sense of trying to persuade his base back in domestic U.S. politics that he's doing his best not to end up in an endless war. But the fact remains that the Iranians can see this, and they have just come out yesterday or today and have said they will not relinquish the Straits of Hormuz. It will be under Iranian control, and it makes perfect sense when President Trump is, in a sense, you know, working, I think, at the wrong level. He's working at the level of words where they haven't actually got to the basic agreement at all.

SANCHEZ: So what level do you think he would need to work on? What would the U.S. need to do to secure the kind of leverage that would lead to Iran conceding on those two main points on the future of their nuclear program, on reopening the Strait of Hormuz? Is that still even a possibility at this stage? TAJBAKHSH: Well, it seems to me, I mean, we should recall that President Trump went into this war with what I consider to be understandable and reasonable war aims. They focused on enrichment, missiles, and proxies. And incidentally, people talk about the Straits of Hormuz, but I think it's important to understand that the Straits of Hormuz problem is really a subset of Iran's drone and missile capabilities.

[13:40:13]

TAJBAKHSH: So Trump went into this war with those three aims, and consider where we are now. He is actually saying that we -- that the United States is pursuing simply opening the Straits of Hormuz and then kicking the can down the road and putting even enrichment, the question of missiles and proxies, to at the end of this 30-day or 60- day memorandum of understanding.

But there is no commitment from the Iranian side, and they see that President Trump is in a weak position in the current context. Look, the Iranians have done an end run around the United States military. They have found the U.S.' weak points, particularly the use of drones. And the U.S. was very slow in adopting anti-drone interceptor technology.

And essentially, the Air Force artillery defense failed in the Gulf. It didn't prevent U.S. bases from being attacked. It didn't prevent U.S. allies from being attacked. So I mean, I think at this point, the Iranians are pushing. They see an ability to actually say, we will open the Straits of Hormuz, but it will be under our control.

That would be a true strategic setback for the United States. It's true we have a blockade. The U.S. has a blockade. But at the moment, it's an impasse. And I think that I don't see the Iranians giving up any concessions at this point.

SANCHEZ: Understood. Kian Tajbakhsh, thank you so much for the perspective. Appreciate your time.

TAJBAKHSH: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course. A certain four-letter word was enough for a flight bound for Spain to turn around and make its way back to the U.S. We'll explain what led to a midair correction. See if you can guess the word. Next.

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[13:46:57]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": A United Airlines flight headed for Spain forced to make a U-turn because of the name of a Bluetooth device. After crew members repeatedly asked for all the Bluetooth devices to be turned off, two devices remained on, and a certain four-letter word raised some serious security concerns. Here's what the flight crew told passengers.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to be returning back to Newark at this time, unfortunately, because of one person who doesn't want to comply with the instructions and because of the foolishness of this one person that wants to make joke, and it's not funny, and it's compromising the integrity and the safety of not only this crew, but all the other passengers.

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KEILAR: CNN Aviation Correspondent, Pete Muntean is following this story. All right, what happened here?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: You can call this kind of an absurd overreaction, but it's important to remember that aviation security on the airlines still remains top of mind nearly 25 years after the 9/11 attacks when planes were used as weapons.

Remember, this latest incident ultimately led to a 10-hour flight delay. Every passenger had to get off the plane, have their bags screened again, and federal authorities then had to sweep the plane before it could continue to Spain. United Airlines says the crew of Flight 236 from Newark to Palma de Mallorca turned around Saturday because of a Bluetooth device name that raised concern.

United tells me the device was discoverable with the word "Bomb" in the name. Might sound absurd, but you have to put yourself in the shoes of the captain. You're halfway across the Atlantic, you have nearly 200 passengers on board, and you're trying to decide whether to continue to turn around.

Nobody wants to be the one that ignored a potential warning sign. One more point to consider here. This happened less than 24 hours after a United flight diverted to Madison, Wisconsin, when the crew reported a passenger tried to get into the cockpit.

Two incidents obviously not related, but they underscore the same thing. Airlines not really taking any chances here. There's also this unintended consequence of the post-9/11 flight deck. The reinforced cockpit door keeps threats out, but it can also make it harder for pilots to really fully understand what's unfolding in the passenger cabin.

Better to err on the side of caution and divert and to be safe than sorry, and go back and land someplace and figure things out on the ground, let law enforcement sort it out rather than figure it out in the air.

KEILAR: Wow, what a mess, though, this caused. Pete, thank you so much, Pete Muntean.

MUNTEAN: Anytime.

KEILAR: A sonic boom in the U.S. Those explosions heard across New England this weekend had everyone asking, what was that? Well, now we know. A meteor about three-feet wide pierced the atmosphere over the Boston area. From Delaware to Montreal, people reported hearing and feeling the impact of the meteor breaking up.

[13:50:00]

NASA says it released energy equivalent to about 300 metric tons. Remnants fell into Cape Cod Bay.

Still ahead, some new concerns when it comes to the spread of Ebola. There are several suspected cases emerging outside of Africa. We'll have details next.

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SANCHEZ: The World Health Organization says several people infected with the deadly Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo have recovered and call that an encouraging sign that with early medical care, the disease can be survivable.

[13:55:00]

Four nurses who were being treated for Ebola were recently discharged, bringing the total number of recoveries to five. New suspected cases outside Africa, though, are under investigation in both Brazil and Italy. Let's discuss with Ambassador Samantha Power. She's a former USAID Administrator under the Biden administration and was also the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. during the 2014 Ebola outbreak. And at the time, Ambassador, you called out alarming gaps as you described them, in the collective risk. You were assessing the response.

SAMANTHA POWER, FORMER USAID ADMINISTRATOR UNDER THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: I'm extremely nostalgic for the response in 2014, because President Barack Obama resisted the calls to shun American health workers who were actually working in the eye of the storm, treating Ebola patients in West Africa.

And indeed, as you might remember, President Obama sent 3,000 U.S. troops to build Ebola treatment units and build the infrastructure that will allow individuals who've been infected to isolate from their communities. And that's what helped turn the tide on something that could have killed hundreds of thousands, if not more, people living in West Africa and could have, of course, spread to the United States and all around the world.

Today, with the dismantlement of USAID, we've lost our early warning systems. We've lost investments in surveillance, in lab capacity so that people can get tested and turn those results around. The good news is those investments were pretty recent.

Elon Musk and Donald Trump destroyed USAID last spring, roughly, and before that, hundreds of millions of dollars had been invested in teams who could go around, spot Ebola when it flared up, get the warnings that that had happened to capital, get it to the USAID mission, for example, in Congo, cooperate with the World Health Organization and other countries to try to tamp down these outbreaks.

And that's what happened between 2014, the really bad outbreak in West Africa, and the outbreak earlier this year. In dismantling USAID, we lose so much of that field game. And in pulling out of the World Health Organization, we lose the ability to get information back channel before it is available publicly and also to make our contributions in a manner that also enables us to leverage those contributions to get other countries to chip in.

So it isn't just the United States carrying the lion's share of the load of prevention. But again, the good news is it was only last year that USAID was dismantled. The systems, the surveillance, the partnerships, there's still some muscle memory there. And it looks as though, despite a very late start, that in some areas, the fatalities numbers are going down, which is really welcome news.

But if we are lucky enough, if the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda are lucky enough to get out of this with minimal loss of life, I just pray that the Trump administration learns the lesson that these investments are worth their weight in gold.

SANCHEZ: From the view of the administration, they have said through Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, that the U.S. cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States. The U.S. and Kenya apparently, now pushing ahead with plans for an Ebola quarantine treatment facility in that nation. Kenya, we should note, doesn't yet have any recorded cases of Ebola. Do you disagree with that plan? Do you think it's a good plan?

Ambassador, can you hear me?

POWER: You're in and out a little bit, but go ahead.

SANCHEZ: I was just asking about --

POWER: Yes.

SANCHEZ: -- the U.S. plan to install this facility in Kenya and not allow, as you alluded to, any Ebola-infected or Ebola-exposed Americans to enter the United States. It appears that this is now moving forward in Kenya, which I said a moment ago, doesn't yet have any recorded cases of Ebola. Is this a good plan? Do you oppose it? What do you think of it?

POWER: Well, the most important thing is that people who are doing God's work, risking their lives to help people with Ebola get the urgent medical care that they need if they contract the virus. The precautions that USAID and the infrastructure with CDC that was in place before, those systems are pretty good. But things happen, people get infected, and they need to get care rapidly.

When you say that those people who are acting in the U.S. national interest to try to prevent an outbreak from becoming an epidemic, that they can't come back into the United States, that's not exactly encouraging people to be involved in the response.