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Trump Speaks from G7 Summit; Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is Interviewed about the Iran Agreement; Numbers on Trump and Newsom; DOJ Investigating Newsom's Wife; Amos Hochstein is Interviewed about the Strait of Hormuz Opening; Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired June 16, 2026 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Questions, but --

REPORTER: What should we expect from the second stages of the negotiations from this memorandum?

TRUMP: I don't know. It's a 60-day period or so. I think it's going to happen fairly on time. We've been both involved. I think they're going to want to get it done. Iran wants to get it done. They have to get back to business. And the relationship is now normalized. So, I think it's going to go pretty quickly, this thing. Could go faster. It could take longer too, but it could go faster.

REPORTER: There's so much interest in the text of the document. Why not -- why not release the talking points (ph)?

TRUMP: Well, I will.

REPORTER: Why not release it before Friday?

TRUMP: Well, because they -- I'd like to get a formal setting first before we do that. But I have no problem with that. It's a great document. Here's what it says, Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. That's what it says. It won't have one. To buy, to develop, they will not have a nuclear weapon. And I would say that's about 99.9 percent of what I wanted, because we couldn't let that happen. You couldn't let that happen. And they won't have a nuclear weapon.

Now, in addition to that, the Strait is going to be open, toll free. And it's toll free beyond the 60 days. It's not -- somebody said, oh, it's toll free for 60 -- no, no, it's toll-free period. When it opens permanently, it'll be toll free.

I want to congratulate our Navy because the naval blockade was unbelievable. But I will -- actually, I'll not only release it, I'll probably have a press conference and read it to you word by word so that the press covers it accurately, because it's a -- it's a very important document. And, unlike Obama, who could have destroyed the Middle East with a horrible JCPOA, it is the worst agreement. That was a road to a nuclear weapon. Mine is a wall against a nuclear weapon. I mean, I see these people who said, but we already had one. That was

the worst. He paid a fortune for it. We pay nothing. We don't pay. There was some statement, we're going to spend $300 million. No, we're not. We're allowed to go and invest if we wanted to some day in the future. We have no obligation whatsoever.

It could be that Iran will turn out to be successful one day. They have oil. But if we left a week ago, just left, before the last two attacks, it would have taken them 20 years to rebuild Iran. So -- but I'll go over the document with the media in a couple of days.

REPORTER: Mr. President, a few weeks back you said you'd like to see other nations join the Abraham Accords, much like the UAE has. Has there been any discussions with Arab leaders about that?

TRUMP: About what?

REPORTER: Joining the Abraham Accords like the UAE has?

TRUMP: Yes. Well, I'd love to have them. This is a man who's very advanced. He was early in. And he's done very well with them. The whole -- the Abraham Accords.

No, it's -- I think -- I think they should happen. The big -- the big impediment to the Abraham Accords, we have our original countries, very smart countries, every one of them. Do you notice that even during that period of conflict, nobody dropped out. Nobody said, oh, gee, I'm going to drop out. Nobody. I think they're all going to come in now into the Abraham Accords.

The only conflict was a place called Iran. And I understand that. You know, it's a little bit tough when people were afraid of Iran. So -- but I think they're going to all start coming in there.

Good question, actually. Yes.

REPORTER: Mr. President, what do you say to Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham, who is skeptical of the MOU? To --

TRUMP: Lindsey is skeptical?

REPORTER: Yes.

TRUMP: I'll have to talk to Lindsey. He'll be in big trouble. Lindsay's good. Lindsey's fine. He's not skeptical. He's just fine.

Look, this agreement covers something very nicely. We're not paying for anything. We're not doing anything. The markets now are higher than they were when we started. Remember that, the stock market now is 2,500, maybe even more than that, points higher than it was when we start (ph), so it's pretty amazing.

This agreement's about one thing, that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. Never, ever, ever.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, never, ever, ever President Trump saying what he got -- stating, once again, what he says is in the MOU, this framework deal to now kick off the pave the way for actual nuclear negotiations. A lot said here. Let's get to it.

Joining me right now is Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. He sits on Senate Armed Services, Judiciary, many, many of the relevant committees here.

Senator, thank you for sticking around, listening to that with us.

This memorandum of understanding, the president now says that he's going to hold a -- and brief the press and read it word for word to the media it sounds like before you guys even get briefed.

[08:35:09]

Do you think you are going to get briefed on this?

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): What's striking here, Kate, is the secrecy. No one in the United States Congress, not even his closest allies, like Lindsey Graham, or the majority leader of the Senate, have received any briefing. When he says he's going to read this document, certainly he might well because J.D. Vance, the vice president, yesterday told Jake Tapper, it's a page and a half long.

Now, you can't sell your house with a contract a page and a half long. I've settled cases as a prosecutor and litigator for the most minor kinds of disputes, and they require way more than a page and a half. The JCPOA was hundreds of pages long.

So, what we have here essentially is a reopening of the Strait with talks vaguely designed to be ended in 60 days, but no clear path to stopping a nuclear armed Iran, let alone toppling the theocratic regime or annihilating the missile capacity or other military capabilities of Iran, or stopping it from funding the malign proxies like Hezbollah. And after all of the costs, after all of the taxpayer burdens and the increase in gasoline and grocery prices, for what?

So, this kind of magical thinking, I think, is going to arouse a lot of skepticism and opposition, because the everyday American cares less about the stock market than what they are paying at the pump or at the grocery aisles.

BOLDUAN: The president said that the -- this agreement, and he says the great part about this agreement, this framework, is that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. Right before we came away from that, he said, never, ever, ever have a nuclear weapon. And is -- he's obviously highly critical of the nuclear deal that President Obama's team negotiated in 2015.

In the JCPOA, the Obama nuclear deal, if you will, it states very clearly the following, "Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons." What does the president here need to have in this agreement to show you or get you comfortable that this is better than the JCPOA?

BLUMENTHAL: Well, first of all, he'll have to come to Congress if there's going to be any kind of binding deal. And what he'll have to show members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, is that there is airtight inspection and verification, which was, for me, in the JCPOA, one of the major sticking points, because Iran has resisted the international agencies that do inspection and verification.

Point number two, access to the hundreds of billions of dollars in frozen assets. Iran is saying it will have access right away to those frozen assets that it could use to fund the malign activities of proxies like Hezbollah or Hamas, not to mention rebuilding its own nuclear capacity. The president and the vice president are completely vague on that point. But frozen assets, release of them, also a potential sticking point.

Now, let's be clear, Kate, the Iranians have said again and again and again, in multiple documents, in many different forums and venues, that they have no ambition for nuclear weapons. As President Reagan once said, trust but verify. In my view, distrust but verify.

BOLDUAN: You mentioned, Senator, Hezbollah. I want to play for you something that President Trump actually said earlier about Israel and its military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. It's quite something.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you're looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they're not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you. And I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah, because to be honest with you, I think they'll do a better job of doing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Senator, would you support Syria taking the lead in targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon?

BLUMENTHAL: I think that idea is absolutely absurd. Remember Syria's record on human rights and its acting as a proxy for Russia. But most important, Israel cannot, in any way, depend on Syria to be in charge of its own defense.

[08:40:04]

And Hezbollah is continuing to attack Syria, which is the reason why Israel has been very standoffish about this whole agreement.

It is under fire. And that's the reason that it's taking action against Hezbollah. Lebanon's new government, under General Aoun, was supposed to dismantle Hezbollah's armaments at the border. It has failed to do so. The key is to give that government in Lebanon the tools it needs and the support, but also, Israel will never surrender its own defense to Syria or any other country.

BOLDUAN: Yes, it's quite a statement.

Senator Blumenthal, thank you very much for coming in today.

A lot of breaking news this morning. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:45:24]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: The Trump-Newsom feud is entering a new phase, beyond the meme wars and the war of words. Now, Newsom says the Trump administration is sicking the DOJ on his wife. The DOJ says that is not the case. This is not politically motivated. But the perception is, of course, certainly there.

And now new polling is offering clues about how voters view this political clash between Newsom and Trump and what it might mean for 2028. CNN's Harry Enten here now with predictions and data.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Predictions and data. I'll tell you this much, Gavin Newsom wants to be going after President Trump, and he wants President Trump going after him from a political point of view because Democrats hate Donald Trump and we -- or excuse me, yes, Democrats hate Donald Trump.

SIDNER: No, you got that right.

ENTEN: I got it right. I got it right. And you could just see it here. Look at this, Google searches for Gavin Newsom since, of course, he held that little spiel yesterday, since 3 p.m. on Monday. Look at this, up like a rocket, up 635 percent. A three-month high. When Gavin Newsom goes out and is talking about Donald Trump and Donald Trump potentially attacking him, that generates energy from the Democratic base. It motivates folks to look up Gavin Newsom. And when you're doing a presidential bid, press is oxygen. Oxygen that allows it to grow. And he's, right now, got oxygen because a lot of folks are looking up Gavin Newsom.

SIDNER: That oxygen, name recognition, a big thing as well.

ENTEN: You got it.

SIDNER: Look, Democrats have been really clear that they want someone who will fight against President Trump and any of those who back him. Is that working for Newsom here?

ENTEN: Yes, I mean, this is exactly right, Sara Sidner. What Democrats want is they want a fighter. They want someone to take on the president of the United States. And they don't think that Democrats are doing enough of that, right? Dems who say they want Dems in D.C. to stand up to Trump more.

You know, back in 2018, during Trump's first term, right, it was 63 percent. Look at where it is now. It's 93 percent. It's 93 percent. Basically, uniformity across the Democratic base, they want Democrats who are going to Washington, D.C., to stand up to Donald Trump more. And that's exactly what you saw Gavin Newsom trying to do yesterday, saying, I am going to stand up to Donald Trump. And, of course, it's not the first time he has done that.

SIDNER: It isn't the first time. How has this sort of fight worked out previously? Because this -- they've clashed before, many, many times. And we should be clear, Donald Trump won't be on the ballot in 2028. But --

ENTEN: But --

SIDNER: But --

ENTEN: But this is a formula that works for Gavin Newsom. Because remember, this again is not the first time it's happened. And take a look. Choice for the Dem nominee Gavin Newsom. Pre and post June 25th, remember that Los Angeles ICE surge, right? You know, back in April of 2025, before that happened, Gavin Newsom was lingering in the single digits in terms of the Democratic primary polls. But then post that, look at that, his support went up threefold, went up support threefold. In August of 2025, 21 percent. Now it's 19 percent. Kind of leveled off a little bit, but still very much in the top tier.

Gavin Newsom has used Donald Trump as a foil to catapult himself up to the top tier. And what we saw yesterday, in my opinion, is something that Gavin Newsom, at least politically speaking, is hoping will keep him up in that top tier and perhaps elevate him further because he knows that going after Donald Trump is a winning formula if you're running for president in 2028, which I don't think you have to be that tuned into politics to know that Gavin Newsom very much wants to do so.

SIDNER: It -- all the signs are there.

ENTEN: All the signs. All the --

SIDNER: If it doesn't happen, it -- but all the signs are there. Yes.

ENTEN: The signs are there that like, just like I would lose in a quiet contest, the signs are there.

SIDNER: Harry Enten, we like your loudness.

ENTEN: Thank you.

SIDNER: You are welcome any time.

ENTEN: Thank you very much.

SIDNER: You are very welcome.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, with us now, senior congressional reporter for "Punchbowl News," Andrew Desiderio, and Washington bureau chief for "The Boston Globe," Jackie Kucinich.

Kind of a notable, weirdly ironic incentive structure here for Gavin Newsom, Jackie, when you talk about his wife being investigated, yes? JACKIE KUCINICH, Washington BUREAU CHIEF, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": Yes, I mean, this -- Harry's right, this is basically an in-kind donation to Gavin Newsom if, in fact, the DOJ is going after Gavin Newsom's wife or Gavin Newsom himself. And as we've seen, if it -- if the pattern bears out that these investigations don't really go anywhere, and it won't end up being a distraction, say, going further into 2028 because something actually real is unearthed, this just makes Gavin Newsom look like a threat to Trump and his ideas, because he's not going to be on the ballot in 2028, which is, if you're a Democratic candidate for president, all the better.

[08:50:07]

BERMAN: So, we're talking about the politics of a legal investigation. Andrew, I want to talk with you about the politics of the war with Iran, because you write this morning, basically, that Republicans are more or less praying, praying the White House uses whatever the agreement is with Iran that we may or may not see one day as a way to turn the corner. Explain.

ANDREW DESIDERIO, SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, "PUNCHBOWL NEWS": Well, its twofold, John. Number one, Republicans are desperate for the president to pivot to the midterms in the sense that they want him to talk about the issues that voters care about. And as we know, the number one issue that voters care about and that they're voting based off of and that they're expressing backlash toward Republicans about in particular is affordability and the cost of living.

The president doesn't talk much about that these days. Republican leaders on Capitol Hill are really frustrated, for example, that the president doesn't actively talk about the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act, which, you know, it included all those tax cuts, tax incentives, et cetera. Democrats talking about it in a -- in a completely different way, obviously, when you talk about the Medicaid cuts, things like that. But they really want the president to be able to get out there and talk about this more and not be so focused on this war in Iran, which, by the way, is perpetuating those very same cost of living and affordability issues that Republicans are worried about.

And the reason why I say it's twofold is because there are Republicans who are worried that the president is sort of rushing into a deal for the sake of the politics here, and that it could be a bad deal along the lines of what Republicans viewed as a bad deal under President Obama in 2015.

BERMAN: On just that note, just before we came to air, I was going through Twitter because you can find comments from conservatives, you know, within like 10 seconds being very concerned about what the president is doing in Iran. And Erick Erickson, you know, conservative podcaster, you know, had a radio show, also just a nice guy, he writes, "the Iran deal for Trump is shaping up to be like the Harriet Miers nomination for Bush." And, Jackie, those of us who were alive during that knows that Erick does not mean that in a nice way at all.

KUCINICH: Throwback. No, that is -- that is something that had to be withdrawn actually if we all remember that, you know, ages and ages ago at this point.

But, right, there is a lot of nervousness. And you heard during that Q&A with the president someone bring up Lindsey Graham, who has been, you know, a close ally of the president. President Trump was notified that Lindsey Graham is skeptical of this. And the president said he needs to talk to him.

But I think it's not just Lindsey Graham that he needs to have that conversation with. It's members of -- Republican members of the United States Senate who are very nervous about this because they know, I mean, I don't think it's a secret that, at this point, Trump wants this war to be over with because of the political fallout that he just can't get out from under.

BERMAN: Andrew Desiderio, Jackie Kucinich, appreciate you both being with us this morning. Thank you very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thanks, J.B.

The most tangible aspect to President Trump's agreement with Iran so far might be talk of reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The way that the president is talking about it is that it is already open. I want to play for you what he said just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The ships are starting to move now. We're going to have it fully open by Friday. The ships are starting to move nicely. Oil is starting to go. And the prices are coming down rapidly. Stock market is going up rapidly. A lot of good things are happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: The president insists that it will also be toll free, period, is what he said this morning. But Iran says otherwise, suggesting fees are exactly what the country is planning for ships moving through this key shipping channel.

Joining us right now is Amos Hochstein. He's a former Biden White House senior energy advisor. He's now managing partner at the investment firm TWG Global.

It's great to see you.

AMOS HOCHSTEIN, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: Good to see you too.

BOLDUAN: Thanks for being here.

So, the Strait is going to be fully open on Friday. That's just some of what the president has said. Do -- does the market, do shipping companies, do insurance companies agree with that? HOCHSTEIN: Well, first, they want to see what happens on Friday. We're

on Tuesday, and in this conflict everything has happened. We also have a deal where we essentially have three deals that have been announced. Three MOUs. One that's been briefed by the president and the vice president and others, one that's been briefed by Iran, which is different, and the one that is actually, according to the vice president, a page and a half that nobody has actually seen. It's pretty remarkable to have a secret deal that is days later we still haven't seen anything. So, I think the shippers are going to -- they're already saying, look, we will wait to see what it actually says.

[08:55:01]

I fully expect that the agreement will be signed and the Straits will be open. The question is, do we keep some kind of premium -- risk premium in the region because this MOU doesn't solve any of the problems that were underlying for the years that have led us to where we are now.

BOLDUAN: What -- just from your experience, I mean in being involved in this space, working to negotiate the JCPOA, what do you make of the fact that this page and a half, if that's what it is, has not been released? No one has been briefed on it. What do you make of that? I don't --

HOCHSTEIN: I think they're still trying to iron out some issues.

BOLDUAN: You do?

HOCHSTEIN: And I think there are things that -- when you have a page and a half, there's a lot that's not covered. So, here's what we know. We know that the Straits will open because the blockade from the United States will be lifted, and the Iranians will stop to -- stop threatening with mines or drones.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

HOCHSTEIN: We know the Iranians will get some money. I know the vice president said yesterday they won't get American money, but they will get unfrozen assets of some sort, $6 billion, $12 billion. They'll be able to sell their oil. They'll get about $1 billion a week in revenue. So, they're going to be flush with cash.

We know that the negotiations over the next 60 days or 600 days, because there's really no end time --

BOLDUAN: Right.

HOCHSTEIN: Will not include ballistic missiles, will not include support for proxy terrorist groups like Hezbollah, the Shia militia groups that were firing at the gulf and Israel just recently in southern Iraq, or the Houthis. So, they can fully rearm them and re- support them. And we know that, quote, they will not seek -- Iran will not seek to acquire or develop. But as you have said on this show, that's literally the preamble of the JCPOA. So, we went to war, and what we got is maybe back to where we were

five years ago. And that's a maybe. And so, in this page and a half, the reason that nobody trusts it so much, because nobody really knows what's in it. And when you only have a --

CORNISH: But what progress it achieves?

HOCHSTEIN: Correct. And in the 60 days, if things go wrong, what happens then? What if Iran says, no, we never agreed to any -- to release the -- to ship out the enriched uranium. Does the Trump administration then get stuck in a bind and it has to do something in the Straits again?

BOLDUAN: Yes.

HOCHSTEIN: Either a blockade again or something like that. So, I think that everybody's going to be cautious about how they handle this for the next 60 days. The market will have some exuberance now, and the prices are down to around $80. But remember, we were at $60 before the winds of war started to blow in January.

BOLDUAN: A couple of the things that were said just really I think even just all today is what I took note of involving nuclear negotiations, that you were involved in last time, which is Trump saying, well, first, that the second phase of the -- that he's about to negotiate is going to be easier when it comes to nuclear details. But declarations that he made today is, had we not canceled JCPOA, you would have had them having a nuclear weapon five years ago. He said that Obama -- the Obama deal was a road to a nuclear weapon and Trump is creating a wall to a nuclear weapon. And he said, if they have a nuclear weapon, they get blown up. In his deal, the Obama deal, they were allowed to have a nuclear weapon. This is just -- this is definitely a narrative that is not -- has already started and will continue throughout this now 60-day period. Can -- what's your perspective on that?

HOCHSTEIN: My perspective is this. Look, they announced an MOU. It immediately became clear that this is not actually a deal. It's just an MOU to have a deal later. They were staring down the barrel of economic -- real economic hardship hitting the market sometime in early mid-July because the gasoline, the diesel, jet fuel and crude oil inventories were running very, very low. And once you get there, you can't come back from it so easily. So, they had to do something, so they got an MOU. It got criticized. And now they're spinning a new narrative that somehow this was better than the -- or the JCPOA was going to lead to a nuclear Iran. It was not. The whole point of it was that it reduced the level of enrichment. And, yes, it had a sunset 15 years later. But at that point of 15 years, we could have negotiated an extension of 15 years.

And mostly, there's no difference between the one, what he's trying to achieve now. It's a commitment by Iran with maybe some verification that will be negotiated over the next 60 days. And we don't know what that will look like. If we're really threatening to go back to war at the end of the 60 days, then the market should be very concerned. I don't think he wants to, which means this plays into the Iranian hands of just negotiate these 60 days into 100 days.

BOLDUAN: Into oblivion.

So fascinating. It's great to have your perspective. Thank you so much for being here.

HOCHSTEIN: It's good to be with you.

BOLDUAN: Thank you. Sara.

SIDNER: All right. On our radar for you this morning, in Washington state, a Marine jet crashed into a mountain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God! Oh my God!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Yikes. You can see the fireball there. The pilot safely ejected before the crash and only had minor injuries. A wildfire was reported in the area shortly after the jet, an FA-18 Hornet, went down.

[09:00:03]

Fire crews deployed a helicopter to put out the flames. The Marine Corps says it is investigating this incident.