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Trump Appoints Federal House Finance Chief With No Known Intel Experience as Acting National Intelligence Director; Rubio, Mullin Face Lawmakers on Capitol Hill; Voters in Six States Head to the Polls in Key Primaries; the White House Correspondents' Dinner is Rescheduled to July 24th. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired June 02, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:40]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Grilled on the Hill. Three top administration officials facing tough questions from lawmakers today as the shadow of the war with Iran hangs over the White House and the nation.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": From building communities to running the intelligence community. President Trump's new pick to be the acting director of national intelligence already facing serious questions about his qualifications.

And it's primary day for some of the closest races in the United States. Voters heading to the polls in six states. We're going to break down what is at stake as we follow these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

We start this hour with President Trump tapping Federal Housing Official, Bill Pulte to take on the role of Acting Director of National Intelligence. The longtime Trump ally has played a leading role in stoking the president's retribution campaign against perceived political foes. He also has no known counterterrorism experience.

Moments ago, the White House was asked about concerns over his qualifications. This was the response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEHMET OZ, ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. CENTERS FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID SERVICES: Bill is a great guy. I know him socially. I've not worked with him in his current job, but I do trust the president's judgment. He is a very sharp and quick study of people, their emotional abilities and their ability to persevere in the face of hardship. So I have confidence in his decision.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just back to the question about Bill Pulte. Congressional statute says any appointee for the position of the director of national intelligence shall have extensive national security expertise. What extensive national security expertise does he have? OZ: Ma'am, you're asking me a question that's out of my lane. I'm so focused on making sure Americans are healthy that I have not been looking at what other agencies --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: That, of course, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Administrator of the nation's Medicare and Medicaid Agencies, who was leading the briefing today. Pulte, of course, is replacing outgoing National Intelligence Director, Tulsi Gabbard, who's leaving the role at the end of this month after her husband's cancer diagnosis.

Let's discuss with CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst, John Miller. John, let's first talk about the pick. What is your reaction to Bill Pulte being named as Acting DNI?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT & INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, Boris, one of the knocks on Tulsi Gabbard was she was a member of the military, she was a member of Congress, but had no intelligence experience. But she had those two things. You know, Tulsi Gabbard looks like James Bond next to Bill Pulte, who has been in the housing and housing finance, housing building business, and in the housing part of government, but no counterterrorism experience, no counterintelligence experience, no intelligence analysis, or even has a consumer experience, really. So that's a concern.

The question that the intelligence community is asking today, and I've spoken to some of my ex-colleagues there, is, well, what is the intent and then what is the capability at stake? What is the intent of putting someone who has developed the reputation of being one of the president's chief attack dogs against political or personal opponents? And what is the capability that he'll be able to access, which is really the machinery that collects and holds the most sensitive secrets of the United States of America? Could that be weaponized?

Those are the discussions that are burning up the wires today.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, this may come across as a dumb question, and I'm OK with that. How important is it to have experience in the role, intelligence experience? Again, Pulte has no known intelligence background. Is that really significant in that role?

MILLER: So it's not a dumb question at all because it was a question about his predecessor, but in this case, it's accentuated. So you have to ask, what does it mean to our foreign counterparts in the intelligence world, our intelligence partners in Europe and across the globe? Will they take this appointment seriously? Will they consider him a serious person? Will they be amenable to sharing the most sensitive information with a person of this caliber is one question? But then, how is it taken internally in the intelligence community?

[14:05:00]

The leaders of the NSA, the CIA, the DIA, the NGA, the entire alphabet soup of covert collecting intelligence agencies in the U.S. government. The DNI is supposed to be the respected leader of the intelligence community who sets policy for the agencies, who sets oversight for the agencies, and who is someone that they can look to for special projects, to do investigations if something goes wrong, to provide funding or guidance for something special, and they're talking to a home builder.

So that's going to be a little off balance for commanding the respect of the business.

SANCHEZ: John Miller, thank you so much for sharing your expertise. Brianna?

KEILAR: Happening now, we're following two key hearings on the Hill. Any moment, Secretary of State, Marco Rubio will face round two of questioning today. But we begin with today's other big hearing, and that is Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Markwayne Mullin. He's facing his former Senate colleagues for the first time since his confirmation in March.

CNN's Holmes Lybrand is with us now. Holmes, there are several controversial topics. Obviously, that kind of goes, I think, with the territory of the position that he's in, but also some of the things he's recently said. What are you expecting?

HOLMES LYBRAND, CNN REPORTER: That's right. And members of his team have told me he really wants to focus on funding ICE, funding CBP. He wants to focus on World Cup security. But as you mentioned, there's several things that he's going to have to address, including things that he has even proposed and said, like taking officers from international airports in Democratic cities where he doesn't agree with their immigration policies. That would cause huge problems for the World Cup as millions of people are coming in, as well as the billions of dollars of commerce that comes in through these airports.

So, I really expect Democrats to hone in on that and really, really kind of push him on what he's talking about, what that proposal actually looks like. And as Secretary Mullin has tried to be a little less flashy than the previous Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, he still has to deal with this issue at Delaney Hall, the New Jersey detention facility where protesters have been engaged in violence, and both from and to officers that are kind of protecting that private facility where officials have accused that private company of kind of, you know, human rights violations and there have been hunger strikes and things like that.

So all of those things that he really wanted to avoid, he's going to have to address during this hearing.

KEILAR: Yeah, and that issue of CBP officers at airports in these blue cities, you're talking to those who are surrounding him. Is that something that he sort of said off the cuff? Is that seen as a real possibility? Where does that stand?

LYBRAND: He said it in several different interviews. Now, he did back off of that as in New Jersey, in that facility, as local officials did step up and did start providing security for that facility, and the mayor has imposed a curfew. Now, the state is also still suing that detention facility, so it's really unclear how much of that threat he's willing to follow through. But he did back off a little bit, at least in New Jersey, once the state officials got in.

KEILAR: Interesting. Holmes Lybrand, thank you so much.

Right now, Secretary of State, Marco Rubio is testifying at his second hearing of the day. Earlier, Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee grilled him for the first time since the beginning of the Iran War. And Rubio has pressed many times about Iran's latest demand that the U.S. immediately release $12 billion in frozen funds if an interim agreement is signed. Here's what Rubio said.

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MARCO RUBIO, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: The reason why there are sanctions are because of the nuclear program. And so if they comply with what we're demanding on the nuclear side of it, you know, zero enrichment, get rid of the enriched uranium, if they're complying with these things, then I think that's the place where the frozen assets could be discussed.

The more they give, the more they would get. What they're not going to get is a down payment. They're not going to get it as a signing bonus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Rubio also suggested negotiations over Iran's nuclear program could take months.

Still to come, a new date for the White House Correspondents' Dinner and a new plan for security after the shooting scare in April. Plus, it is primary day for millions of voters in this country. We'll be taking a closer look at the races that could have a big impact on the midterms.

And then later, President Trump just signed an executive order focusing on artificial intelligence, why it was delayed for two weeks and what that can mean for the future of A.I. We have that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

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KEILAR: Right now, voters in six states are heading to the polls to decide critical primary races. In California, there's a high-stakes battle to replace Governor Gavin Newsom and take the reins of the world's fourth largest economy. The top-two finishers, no matter what party they are in, will advance to the general election in November.

The other tight race in the Golden State drawing national attention is the Los Angeles mayoral primary. The incumbent, Karen Bass is trying to secure a second term, but her leadership has been criticized on both sides over a host of issues including last year's devastating wildfires.

[14:15:12]

CNN Senior Investigative Correspondent, Kyung Lah is at a polling place in Los Angeles. Kyung, what are you hearing from voters?

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're actually seeing voters come in and out of this particular polling place. You can see, oh, this lady's walking in. She's got her ballots over here. She's going to be walking in to turn that in.

But voters have been coming into, oh, here we're going to slide in, into the polling place right here. And then they check in and you can see that there's a host of workers greeting people who are either turning in or voting in person.

And if you're voting in person, you can see all of these voting booths are being occupied by people. We've seen a good clip of people coming into this particular voting facility, this vote center. It's been in large part because of the hotly contested mayor's race that you're talking about.

The incumbent, Karen Bass, facing a challenger from the left and the right. And I want you to hear what a couple of these voters told us.

JAFFA MESHULAN, LOS ANGELES RESIDENT: He's a human person. He lives here. He knows what goes on. You know, what do they want? They want to milk us with taxes. Look at the gas prices. It's almost unaffordable to live here. And if you're on Social Security and you're dependent on that, how are you going to survive in this state?

LAH: What do you think about Pratt's unconventional approach?

MESHULAN I love it.

LAH: What is it that you love about it?

MESHULAN: He's another Trump.

DARIAN HATCHER, LOS ANGELES RESIDENT: Well, I wasn't going to vote for Spencer Pratt. I'm tired of reality stars into offices. And so Karen Bass, I just, I voted for -- actually, I voted for Caruso the first time. So this time I just voted for another change. I just want to see a change, that's all.

LAH: But not a Spencer Pratt kind of change?

HATCHER: NOT the reality TV star, never held a job kind of change, yes.

LAH: So he didn't say Donald Trump's name out loud, Brianna, but what we are certainly feeling here is that long shadow of the president of the United States in one of the bluest cities in the country, Brianna.

KEILAR: That's very interesting. All right. Kyung Lah, thank you so much for that snapshot of what's happening in Los Angeles. And still to come, Secretary of State, Marco Rubio is facing some more tough questioning right now on the Hill. What he's saying about talks with Iran.

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[14:22:31]

SANCHEZ: Today, the White House Correspondents Association announced that it will host a rescheduled dinner this summer. The organization's annual gala was halted in April when a gunman opened fire at the Washington Hilton in an alleged assassination attempt of President Trump. CNN's Betsy Klein joins us now.

So Betsy, there were real questions about whether this would ultimately happen, a rescheduled dinner. And now, it sounds like it's going to happen.

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: The show is going to go on, Boris. In the immediate aftermath of that shooting incident at the Washington Hilton, President Trump said that they would be rescheduling and rescheduling within the month. But then it really became unclear whether that was going to happen.

Today, the White House Correspondents Association President, Weijia Jiang announcing in a statement that it will be rescheduled to July 24th. She says that this is going to be a more intimate gathering. And she said that the decision to reschedule was not automatic. It happened after a lot of careful thought and discussion amongst the White House Correspondents Association, its leadership.

You'll recall that President Trump, Vice President Vance, other top officials were escorted abruptly out of that room. You and I were there. We saw so many reporters and other VIPs huddling under those tables in that chaos.

And there were a lot of questions after that about the safety protocols that were in place. So Jiang says that this time, there will be significantly enhanced safety measures at this rescheduled dinner. She also says, quote, "This dinner will not only be an opportunity to carry out our program, it will be a statement that violence has no place in American life and a free press will not be intimidated into silence. As all have demonstrated, courage and community can and should rise above."

Now, Weijia Jiang did not say what the programming is going to look like, but she did say that the association has raised funds to pay for the dinner and also to provide transportation for those scholarship winners to come back to Washington.

SANCHEZ: And Betsy, President Trump actually responded to this new date and noted that he may not make some of the nasty comments that he was originally planning to.

KLEIN: Well, the president had joked that he was going to have to rework that speech that he had that was going to be full of zingers. But he did say that he does plan to attend this event. He also revealed that it will be taking place at the Waldorf Astoria. That is formerly known as the Trump Hotel. Also, obviously, a Hilton property there, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, nasty statements, according to him. I wasn't trying to editorialize what he was going to say. Betsy Klein, thank you so much.

Still to come, concerns are growing on Capitol Hill over Bill Pulte's appointment to run the Department of National Intelligence. We'll look at the mounting questions about his qualifications when we come back.

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[14:29:39]

KEILAR: Back now with our Breaking News. President Trump just a short time ago announcing he's named Bill Pulte to serve as Acting Director of National Intelligence. Pulte has been overseeing the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He's played a huge role in pressing for federal investigations into some of President Trump's perceived political rivals. We're joined now by CNN National Security Analyst and former Deputy Director of National Intelligence, Beth Sanner. A very good person to talk about this indeed --