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Death Toll From Venezuela Earthquakes Rises to 188; Trump & Johnson Meet Amid GOP Stalemate Over Priorities; Supreme Court Sides with Trump in Two Major Immigration Cases; Supreme Court: Trump Admin Can Turn Away Asylum Seekers at Border; Team USA Preps for Final Group Play Showdown Against Turkey; USMNT Looks to Keep Momentum in Group D Match Against Turkey 3-3:30p ET

Aired June 25, 2026 - 15:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shout out Stitched by Mitch.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is it MSG?

GEORGE KITTLE, SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS TIGHT END: I have no idea.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, we don't know.

KITTLE: I actually asked Travis last night and he laughed at me, so.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're excited.

KITTLE: I'm half expecting there just be a jumbo jet on a runway and they put us on a plane somewhere. I don't have expectations, but I know it's going to be amazing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: So, even George Kittle doesn't know. They may have even broken an NDA there by spilling any of those wedding details. But look, if it is at MSG, let me tell you why this does make sense, because there's no windows there and there's parking underground, which keeps a secure and private event for the world's most famous couple. So, we will see. Lots more questions. Lots more information to come in the coming days, Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Or is it a decoy? The mystery continues. Elizabeth Wagmeister ...

WAGMEISTER: It could be a decoy.

SANCHEZ: It could. It could. We'll see. Thank you so much, Elizabeth.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: A desperate search for survivors, rescue teams in Venezuela combing through the rubble left behind by devastating earthquakes, listening closely for any signs of life. At least 188 people are dead and a toll they're likely to rise. High stakes at the high court, the Supreme Court delivering two wins

for President Trump on immigration. The consequences of those opinions could be felt by millions of people living in the U.S.

And red, white and overdue. The U.S. men's team sets its sights on a third straight win at the World Cup.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

The death toll from Venezuela's back-to-back earthquakes, it is growing. This official number has now jumped to 188. More than 1,500 people are injured and hundreds more are still unaccounted for. Many are believed trapped or missing under mountains of rubble. There is dramatic video showing the moment that buildings collapsed as these powerful quakes ripped through the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Foreign language) ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: You can see just fear and panic. People there running for their lives while the powerful 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes turned thriving neighborhoods into scenes of devastation in a matter of seconds. And take a look inside the country's main airport.

Ceiling panels crashing to the floor there, debris raining down as panicked passengers scrambled for safety. And Stefano Pozzebon is in Colombia nearby. Stefano, what are you learning?

STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, we're learning from the Venezuelan authorities, Brianna, that these number unfortunately seems only destined to grow in the coming hours because we heard from the Venezuelan government -- Venezuelan government spokesperson Jorge Rodriguez, who told us that there are still at least 157 people unaccounted for.

And he was quite emphatic in that many of those people are still believed to be alive but trapped under the rubble as first responders and emergency services are frantically trying to -- to excavate and to put as many people as possible into safety. Right now, the death toll is 188 Venezuelans killed by these two double earthquake that hit yesterday afternoon, but unfortunately we do believe that this is only destined to grow especially because the ground in Venezuela is still shaking.

Jorge Rodriguez told us that they've reported more than 140 aftershocks in the 15 hours following those initial devastating quakes that hit the country around 6 P.M. on Wednesday afternoon, 7.2, then 7.5, which is a significant increase in the Richter scale, and then dozens of further aftershakes that have only made the situation even worse for the Venezuelan people on the ground, Brianna.

KEILAR: I mean, we're seeing pictures of people putting rubble in buckets so that they can move it away. I mean, they're in a desperate situation here as they're trying to get to people who are buried. As you're talking to people in Venezuela, what -- what are they telling you?

POZZEBON: I think they are frightened and afraid. Yesterday it was more the horror when we were trying to speak with them. We have, by the way, Brianna, two teams in Caracas. One is in the city center. The other one is closer to the coast and the airport, which as you can see from the introduction that you have made, has seen the brunt of the damage.

[15:05:07]

And they were able to speak with people who are really terrified, afraid of what could happen in the future. One, for example, told our -- to our cameras that they were not able to get back into the buildings because they were -- they thought that the buildings could collapse again with all those aftershocks coming and going all the time. They just spent the night sleeping, or made half of a joke saying who could sleep overnight with -- with the ground still shaking, spending the night on benches in the public square, still trying to piece together the magnitude of this tragedy.

Jorge Rodriguez, the Venezuelan government spokesperson, told us that this is the worst natural disaster hitting the country in three decades, but also trying to look at the future, and in the future there is only right now despair and little hope. Hopefully, as aid is starting to drip in, coming today and tonight, perhaps there can bring some relief to the terrified Venezuelan people in the city of Caracas, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, and they've been dealing with all these aftershocks. Stefano, thank you for the latest on this. Boris.

SANCHEZ: Turning now to a stalemate that's paralyzing the Republican agenda on Capitol Hill. Right now, President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson are meeting at the White House. The President demanding that his party pass the SAVE America Act, something that the Republican controlled Senate so far has been unwilling to do. The bill would overhaul election rules just months before the midterms. The President and some hardline members of his party are now refusing to budge, threatening to block other legislative priorities until the bill is passed.

Let's go live to the White House with CNN's Kristen Holmes.

Kristen, we already saw the President call off a bill signing ceremony yesterday. This bipartisan achievement of a housing bill over this election legislation. Any word on how this meeting with Speaker Johnson is going so far?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No details, but we have reached out. It is still ongoing. We saw Mike Johnson arrive, and yet he has not departed. But there is a number of things that they need to talk about, because for Johnson, he needs to make a couple of things clear. He has to take seriously President Trump's priorities, particularly of getting SAVE America passed, but also try and get the President's help. He needs these -- these hardliners to really work in the right direction, because right now, as you noted, almost every House agenda has been ground to a halt with these hardliners saying they're not doing anything until SAVE America is passed.

There's also hanging over all of this is that housing bill. Remember, you noted, this is a bipartisan bill, one that everybody on the Hill wants to see passed. So, can Mike Johnson convince President Trump to just let that happen and continue -- and they will continue their work on the SAVE America Act? It's unclear, because right now, President Trump believes that he has some sort of leverage over the entire situation.

Now, the other thing that they are likely to discuss is GOP leadership handing over that bill to the White House. As far as we know, it has not actually been given, the housing bill, given to the White House. And this matters for a very specific reason, because if President Trump doesn't sign it once it's handed over for 10 days, then it will become law.

That itself is going to be a very specific point for all of the parties involved. And again, we are not clear that he's actually been given this bill, and that 10-day period has started.

So again, Mike Johnson right now having one of the most difficult jobs in Washington, trying to get his constituents on board with what he needs to get done in the House, and trying to get President Trump on board. And of course, and I have to mention this, because I just saw the end of your show, President Trump is also likely to be very fixated on what's going on with Travis and Taylor's wedding. Because if there's anything we know that he really cares about, it's New York, Madison Square Garden, and he does have kind of a fixation on Taylor Swift.

SANCHEZ: Do you know? I mean, we saw what happened in 2024, so I don't -- I -- I don't think this is the case. But do we know, Kristen, if he happened to have gotten an invite?

HOLMES: I feel like that's probably unlikely at this point, just given the aggressive nature of his social media posture towards Taylor Swift.

SANCHEZ: Right.

HOLMES: But if he didn't get one, I'm sure he wishes he would be there.

SANCHEZ: Well, I -- I guess mine got lost in the mail. Not sure about yours, Kristen Holmes at the White House ...

HOLMES: Mine too. Can you believe that? I cannot ...

SANCHEZ: ... same (INAUDIBLE), thanks so much for joining us.

Still to come, the Supreme Court handing the Trump administration a pair of major wins on immigration, though critics say it's one -- one of the rulings could have catastrophic consequences for thousands of people.

Plus, no relief for Europe as scorching temperatures keep breaking records. A look at how people are coping with sweltering heat and no AC.

And later, we're speaking to the world's loudest man. You heard that right. The loudest man on the planet. All that and much more coming your way on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

[15:10:01]

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[15:14:24]

KEILAR: The White House is hailing two big wins from the Supreme Court today, both involving President Trump's hardline immigration stance. The court first ruled that the administration can restart a policy that ultimately allows border officials to turn away people who are seeking asylum. The justices then handed down another opinion that opens the door for hundreds of thousands of potential deportations. CNN Chief Supreme Court Analyst Joan Biskupic is back with us now.

All right, Joan, walk us through what happened. You were there.

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Right. And, you know, the Trump administration is right to be saying, wahoo, look what we got, because it's two big wins for the Trump administration and against immigrant rights advocates and spilling out in the courtroom.

[15:15:09]

Very tense. You know, we're already with a very difficult term because you've seen the fault line of six conservative justices in the majority versus the three liberals. But it really burst through when Sam Alito was announcing these two decisions. And let me tell you first what they said.

The first one that essentially -- essentially revives this policy that would allow metering -- a metering policy at the border that would limit who could come over. It goes to the -- this federal statute at issue, talks about who has arrived and can actually seek asylum. And the test was in that word, arrive.

And Justice Alito for the majority said an individual who's trying to cross the border has to physically have crossed the border and be on U.S. soil before he or she can actually seek asylum. Can't be -- you know, at the threshold, can't be near the port of entry. Read it very, very narrowly. And that prompted Justice Sonia Sotomayor to say, you know, this is going to lead to absurd results. There will be people who will be close -- who legitimately are seeking asylum because of persecution in their home countries, who will not be able to be screened and processed because border agents under this policy could actually be stepping into Mexico and blocking their entry, as I said, right close to it. And she dissented from the bench in that part. And as you know, that's

a step that the dissenters take only when they feel really passionately about something. Normally in the Supreme Court, only the majority has read excerpts are read during that.

Well, Justice Alito was apparently caught off guard. In fact, he suggested he had been blindsided by her reading this.

KEILAR: Like he didn't know she was going to do it at all, or he didn't know how extensive it would be?

BISKUPIC: Well, he -- he had paused after he delivered that first opinion. So, he must have been told, like, right as they were coming on the bench, she might have said, you know, Sam, I have something I'm going to say. Because he -- he -- she didn't have to interrupt him as she read it. But then she reads it and she goes on for 10 minutes, which was like three times as long as he had done just to deliver, you know, an excerpt of the opinion.

And he -- says this is really unusual for him to show his anger that much. He tends to have zero poker face. But in this case, he just let the whole anger spill out. And he said, if I had known what the dissent was going to do, I would have added much more to what I, you know, said about why we ruled the way we did. So, he steels himself and moved on to the second -- the next opinion.

But that is really unusual for that much emotion and anger to be just displayed from the bench. The second ruling he had, which is really very consequential for hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. right now, people who are already in America -- in America, Syrians and Haitians who had been protected by something referred to officially as temporary protected status that the administration, past administrations had given because of conflict in their home countries or the earthquake, for example, in 2010 in Haiti. That's when Haitians here were given the protected status. So, they didn't have to return home to a country that wasn't really ready to receive them. Same thing with Syria, with the armed conflict.

But what the court said was that the administration can make these choices without any kind of judicial review. And so, it was -- it was a major ruling. And then separately did say that even though the immigrant challengers had said, but in the case of Haiti, the administration has shown animus because of remarks that Trump had made about Haiti. And Sam Alito said, no, it doesn't matter. And he had the majority.

So, he prevailed and he could have been happy, but he was very angry today.

KEILAR: What a day. Joan, you are a busy, busy woman. We're going to be seeing a lot of you. Thank you so much for taking us through that.

BISKUPIC: (INAUDIBLE) ...

KEILAR: Team USA sprinting toward the knockout round. What fans can expect from tonight's final group game against Turkey. We're live outside the stadium in Los Angeles.

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[15:23:46]

SANCHEZ: World Cup excitement is growing ahead of tonight's Team USA match against Turkey. The Americans already have the Group D win in the bag, but they need and want to win this one in a history-making victory to keep their momentum heading into the knockout rounds. Kickoff is tonight at 10 P.M. Eastern at SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles. That's where we find CNN's Andy Scholes.

Andy, even though this game isn't exactly high stakes, the tickets don't really reflect that, do they?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Not at all, Boris. You know, so many fans want to be a part of this run. I mean, a nosebleed seat, Boris, right now, still going for more than $1,700. People just want to be in the stadium for a United States World Cup game at this point. But it -- this is going to be the first match ever, really, in U.S. history in the group stage where they're going to take the pitch and then go out there and they can kind of just chill and relax because the U.S. has already won Group D. They know they are going to the round of 32 where they will likely going to face Bosnia and Herzegovina in that first match in the round of 32. That's not for sure yet, but it's looking like it's going to be the case.

No matter what, that match is going to be Wednesday in Santa Clara. And the ticket prices for that one, they're also bonkers, over $2,000 to get into that match.

[15:25:05]

But here today against Turkey in Los Angeles, you know the goal is for the squad, no injuries. And, of course, they want to keep up that incredible momentum that they have after taking care of Paraguay and Australia in their first two group stage matches.

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ALEJANDRO ZENDEJAS, USA WINGER: Just because we're through doesn't mean we have to let our foot off the -- off the pedal. We have to keep on going with that same confidence, same rhythm, and keep showing each other and the world what this team is made of.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's definitely a belief we have within ourselves. There's up to maybe 15, 20 guys who would put their life on the line, you know, for -- for a win, for a result, you know, to block a goal. And when you have that sort of mentality, I feel like you're always going to give yourself the best chance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Now, don't expect to see Folarin Balogun or Tyler Adams or Chris Richards or Antonee Robinson, for that matter. Coach Mauricio Pochettino said that all of those guys that are sitting on yellow cards are going to sit out this match in order to not get a second yellow, because if you were to do that, you'd have to miss the round of 32 game. But after the group stage, all those yellow cards go away, so we wouldn't have to worry about that. But, again, don't expect to see those four guys on the pitch today.

But we will likely see Christian Pulisic make his return -- Captain America. He missed the second half win over Paraguay and the entire match against Australia with that left calf injury. But Pulisic says he is fit to play and he hopes to get in at some point in this match against Turkey. How many minutes he will play, we will have to wait and see.

But Pulisic also said that, you know, he's always believed that anything is possible with this team, Boris, and they don't need a miracle to make a deep run in this World Cup. Now, as I mentioned, their round of 32 game likely going to be against Bosnia and Herzegovina. After that, if they win that one, Boris, they will then go to Seattle, where they are a perfect 7-0 at Seattle Stadium. So, a path to the quarterfinals is actually looking quite nice for Team USA at this point.

SANCHEZ: Hey, we are awaiting a miracle on the pitch. We hope that it happens. Andy Scholes, we will be watching. Thank you so much from just outside Los Angeles.

Millions in Europe are now getting a taste of what it's like on a typical summer day in Miami with sweltering heat and extreme humidity, but the infrastructure there is not set up for that. So, there is a huge risk for folks. We have a live look at people in London, how they're coping despite their homes not having AC.

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