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D.C. Gets Ready for the White House UFC Matchup; First World Cup Game Kicks Off Soon in Mexico City; Trump Says Final Points of Iran Deal Approved, Cancels Strikes. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired June 11, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

GEORGES ST-PIERRE, FORMER UFC WELTERWEIGHT & MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPION: I'm thrilled and very excited to be part of this and, yeah, it's an historical event. I don't think we're ever going to see that in our lifetime ever again, probably not. So, for athletes like us, it's better to take that opportunity and advantage of it while it's there.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": No doubt. Today, Secretary of State, Marco Rubio and Dana White are going to sign a partnership to promote sports diplomacy to grow MMA worldwide. I wonder how you think MMA can help bridge gaps in diplomacy.

ST-PIERRE: Well, I can say martial arts saved my life. I started first because I was bullied at school, then it turned -- from a self- defense perspective, it turned into a passion, and then it turned how I earned a living. So it helps me. And I think the values of mixed martial arts, like respect, discipline, is something that our society can take advantage of and learn from.

SANCHEZ: GSP, before we go, I know you said you're Canadian. You may not be as familiar with the history of U.S. presidents, but I wonder, if you had to pick one president in U.S. history to coach in the Octagon, who do you think would have the most success?

ST-PIERRE: Hey, that's a hell of a question. I would need maybe a young, hungry man, very athletic. I think he would be the best candidate.

SANCHEZ: Legend has it that Abraham Lincoln fought in 300 wrestling matches and only lost once. So you may want to go with honest Abe.

(LAUGH)

ST-PIERRE: That's right. Lincoln would be the man. That's right. That's right.

(LAUGH)

SANCHEZ: GSP?

ST-PIERRE: I didn't want to offend anyone, but I think he would be the perfect candidate, yeah.

SANCHEZ: Tall and Lanky, he could probably beat somebody up. GSP, Georges St-Pierre, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate you.

ST-PIERRE: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: And good luck on Sunday. The World Cup officially kicks off in about 90 minutes. Fans are packing the area in and around the stadium in Mexico City for the tournament's opening match. We will take you there live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:35:35]

SANCHEZ: We have Breaking News to CNN. Let's get straight to Kristen Holmes live at the White House. Because, Kristen, President Trump just posted to social media that, despite having planned very powerful, expansive strikes against Iran tonight and threatened to take Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, he's now decided to call them off.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. So, our whole discussion 30 minutes ago about will he, won't he, is he willing to go that far? Well, it looks like we've ended in won't he. President Trump's saying he's called off the strikes. I want to pull up the Truth Social. This is what he writes.

He says, "Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, canceled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening. Discussions and final points have been in both concept and great detail approved by all parties involved, including the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and others. The naval blockade will remain in full force, in effect, until this transaction is finalized, time and place of the signing to be announced shortly."

HOLMES: Remember, what we are talking about here, what we believe we are talking about here, but we're reaching out to the White House, is this memorandum of understanding, which is essentially the beginning of the end of the war in Iran, the beginning of a peace deal.

Well, they would sign this and then work to hammer out some of these details. The last we had heard about the back and forth between the two sides was President Trump rejecting the language, but just the language on a couple of points from this MOU, this Memorandum of Understanding, sending it back to Iran, asking for tougher language when it came to reopening the Strait of Hormuz, among other things.

This was seen as mostly assurances for the U.S. Now we saw strikes, we saw a lot of back and forth, and now it seems as though this MOU, which is what we believe he's speaking about here directly, has been approved, something he was lamenting yesterday, saying they just need to sign it, and is moving forward, meaning that the ceasefire will continue.

Just one point to make here, Boris, one of the things that we had discussed at length with his threats to take over Kharg Island, with his threats of more and more bombs, particularly the fact that he had expressed that he was furious that people weren't taking his strikes the last two nights seriously, was whether or not he wanted to continue with this military operation to ramp that up, or if he was still going to look for a diplomatic off-ramp.

It certainly appears, as though we have our answer now, that he is looking towards this diplomatic off-ramp, and the strikes are off.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Help us understand, Kristen, because there's been a war of words as well as these strikes that Iran and the U.S. have been trading here, right? The president threatening to strike very hard tonight, and yet Iran has also said, we will make the aggressors regret it if they are to strike.

He said that the strikes that have been ongoing, this is from senior Iranian officials, multiple saying different things, that the strikes have rendered the ceasefire meaningless said one, ineffective said another, and they do seem to understand that the president really wants to project progress, wants to minimize the chance of a conflict, even as he really threatens that there is going to be amped-up military action, which he is now backing off of it. How are you seeing all of these complicating factors?

HOLMES: Well, we've heard Iranian officials in the past refer to President Trump as erratic. We also know that just today, a top Iranian official was telling our CNN reporters that this claim that President Trump was going to take over Kharg Island, that Iran would retaliate with crushing and painful response if they in fact did that.

Now, I think two things can be happening at once. I do want to remind you of what we had heard from U.S. officials several days ago when these strikes first started after that Apache helicopter went down, which was that they didn't believe that this initial round of strikes was going to impact the negotiations. One of the things you are seeing here is a lot of bluster and a lot of talk from both sides.

I'm hearing this from the White House for quite some time, this idea that Iran is saying very publicly that they are going to come after the U.S., that they are stronger than ever, that they don't want a deal. But U.S. officials still telling us that behind the scenes, they were negotiating. We've also seen the same with President Trump, essentially saying he was walking away from the table, that they didn't have enough time.

[13:40:00]

Just yesterday, at one point, he was saying they were going to have to pay the ultimate price because they didn't make a deal sooner. It is unclear that anything has changed from when President Trump first put out this memorandum of understanding and now, meaning, what does that actually mean, that they would pay the ultimate price or pay a big price because of the fact that they waited so long to sign it.

Again, a lot of this, particularly now in light of this last Truth Social, seemingly bluster from both sides and even while President Trump was saying this, we were hearing that negotiations were ongoing. One of the things that we've been told and it's been hard to really decipher, what U.S. officials are telling us, from the truth, just given how prolonged this has been, but U.S. officials saying that they were still cautiously optimistic about negotiations despite everything that we were seeing play out publicly.

Now, clearly, that was correct in the sense that this memorandum of understanding, if that is -- if this is right, that they are going to sign this, both sides, to move forward with the beginnings of a peace deal, that those U.S. officials had the right to be cautiously optimistic. It's been a difficult situation to parse through here, particularly given both sides, the amount of bluster, the strikes we've seen going back and forth, and just the fact that President Trump for so long set these kind of arbitrary deadlines of two to three days, two to three weeks, and then would pass through those.

But it does seem now as though they are in the place where, at least according to President Trump, they are going to be signing some kind of document here with all of the negotiating partners, all of the regional partners on board, as they move forward and at least towards a nuclear deal that would have certain ramifications. We have not heard anything about that enriched uranium, but also towards a peace deal overall.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, President Trump's latest remarks were that he would want the U.S. to go in with the help of the international community and with the permission of Iran to eradicate that buried enriched uranium. Kristen, I want to point to what markets are doing right now, because after a tough day yesterday, the Dow appears to have rebounded. And you can see that green line shooting up right around the time of this announcement from President Trump.

There has been some concern, Kristen, that the White House has tried to manage the expectations of markets as, of course, we saw oil prices spike after hostilities began toward the end of February and the beginning of March, and you see that the green only keeps going further up.

I wonder whether you have gotten the impression from officials at the White House that this is something the president considers when he puts out statements like this.

HOLMES: I think we should keep in mind that President Trump is always considering the markets. He said so himself publicly and privately. One of Scott Bessent's main jobs, at least as far as he sees it, as Secretary of Treasury, is to manage the markets. This is incredibly important to President Trump. He sees it as an indicator for the economy, and that's also partly why you've seen so much frustration from him around the affordability conversation, because when the markets are doing well, he doesn't understand that that doesn't necessarily mean money in people's pockets, that they feel more comfortable, that the cost of living feels more comfortable for them, and that is part of the frustration that you see from President Trump.

So the idea that he is watching the markets, that is absolutely a hundred percent true. But in this case, we have a lot of other regional partners as well as Iran themselves, who we will wait to hear from to see what exactly is happening in those behind-the-scenes negotiations. But of course, you're right, Boris. This has been long speculated that President Trump has timed his announcements based on the markets, but I will tell you the one thing we know for sure is that he always has the markets in the front of his mind.

KEILAR: Yeah, Kristen, thank you so much. If you can stand by as we are watching the markets here rally after the president has announced that discussions with Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, and because of that he's canceling the scheduled strikes and bombings on Iran this evening. He'd earlier threatened to hit Iran, all caps, he'd written, VERY HARD tonight. So that is no longer happening and he's now talking about what appears to be a deal, although he's not calling it that, he's calling it a transaction.

He's saying that these are discussions that have been approved, discussions and final points in both concept and great deal that have been approved. So there's a lot to work through here. Where exactly is Iran on this? Is this a deal? Does this deal with the crucial issues of the nuclear program, the Strait of Hormuz, and also these Iranian assets that Iran wants unfrozen? There's a lot of questions as we try to dig through this and the markets respond.

We'll be right back after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:49:02]

SANCHEZ: Let's get right to the Breaking News with former Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta. Secretary Panetta, we are following this update from President Trump that he has called off planned strikes on Iran that he was promising were going to be more powerful and more expansive than any in the conflict thus far. Also, he had threatened to take over this critical oil hub in the Persian Gulf of Kharg Island, something that may have required American boots on the ground.

Now, the president posting that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level and that all that is left now is for this agreement to be finalized, and the time and place of the signing will be announced shortly. What is your reaction to this news from President Trump?

[13:50:00]

LEON PANETTA, DEFENSE SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I think, frankly, you can't trust anything that the president says and you can't trust anything that the regime says at this point. This whole negotiation has turned into a kabuki dance, and you're not quite sure who's up and who's down. So I guess, my position would be hold on because within a few hours, this thing could change again.

KEILAR: Yeah, I mean, that's really the question here, right, because we tried to dissect what he's saying. He's talking about discussions with Iran being brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved. He's saying discussions and final points have been in both concept and great deal approved by all parties involved. He goes on to talk about all of these U.S. allies in the region. He says until this transaction is finalized, the blockade will remain in effect, and he says the time and place of the signing to be announced shortly.

So he doesn't say deal but then in the end, he's getting to this idea the time and place of the signing to be announced shortly. If there is not actually a breakthrough here, if it doesn't actually deal with these key issues of the nuclear program, the Strait of Hormuz, Iran wants obviously a lot of assets unfrozen, then where does that leave us?

PANETTA: Well, you know, this has been the most screwed-up set of negotiations I've ever seen when it comes to trying to end a war. These negotiations have been going on in the dark. We've been going through intermediaries, with Pakistan and Qatar and others, and they've exchanged one sheet documents to try to summarize some kind of framework but there really is no hard-line negotiations going on between the parties.

They're kind of, you know, sending signals one way or another but you're not looking at each other in the eye and so you're not really negotiating what you're hoping for and I think this is the problem. I think what you're hoping for is that the other side is willing to blink and compromise, and I think that's what Iran's hoping from the United States and I think that's what the United States is hoping from Iran, and that's why, frankly, these negotiations have gone nowhere. I'd be very surprised if what the president says today in fact happens.

SANCHEZ: Going back to at least April 17th, the president has claimed multiple times, that was eight weeks ago, the president has claimed multiple times that Iran has agreed to everything, we've bridged all significant differences, we're going to get a deal in the next day or two, it'll all happen relatively quickly. That has happened something like 30 times since then.

What does that kind of messaging that -- I see you laughing. What is that kind of messaging repeatedly in the middle of a conflict like this due to not only the U.S. negotiating position and leverage, but also to the way that Iran interprets messages coming from the White House?

PANETTA: Well, look, the bottom line is that you can't trust anything that anybody is saying about what will happen. The president has been saying almost every week, in the next few days, we would get an agreement, by this weekend we would get an agreement. And now, he's saying, you know, in a few hours, we'll get a signed document. But it doesn't happen.

And so you've got parties here that you're not sure they really know what is taking place in terms of the elements of an agreement. Now, we know that there's been some discussion about trying to open the Straits of Hormuz. The problem I have is you're dealing with a very hard-line regime. If they maintain control of the Straits, there's no guaranty that the Straits will remain open. The other part of this is some kind of negotiating period to try to resolve the nuclear issue.

But once you go into a long-term negotiation, my view is that the regime will drag it on for a long period of time. So I just don't know, right now, what are the elements of an agreement here that can bring this war to an end. Everything we have heard is subject to question, and is subject to change, and is subject to the instincts of both players waiting for the other side to blink.

[13:55:00]

That's just not going to happen here. So I'm just not very confident that we're going to see any kind of agreement that will end this war.

KEILAR: Yeah. Obviously, a lot of questions considering all of the back and forth that we have seen on the messaging about what's happening and then turns out not to be happening, so big questions here that we need answered. Leon Panetta, thank you so much for being with us.

PANETTA: Good to be with you.

KEILAR: We have much more on our Breaking News ahead. President Trump canceling strikes that were planned, he said, for tonight against Iran. We'll have more after a quick break.

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