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Judge: Trump's IRS lawsuit Sought to Manipulate Judicial Process; Harris County DA Pursuing Independent Probe into ICE Shooting; Oil Surges After Trump Reinstates Blockade on Iran Ports; Interview with Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ): Trump Formally Notifies Congress that Military Action Has Resumed in Iran; U.S. Military Preparing to Reimpose Blockade of Iran Ports; South Carolina Governor Names Replacement for the Late Sen. Graham. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired July 13, 2026 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: A federal judge ruled today that a controversial DOJ lawsuit against the IRS sought to manipulate the judicial process and that the president acted in bad faith by bringing it. This is the case that led to the creation of the now-defunct $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund for the president's allies. Now the judge has ordered sanctions against the attorneys involved.

CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez is here with more. Evan, the judge just blasting DOJ on this. And sanctions are not something we see very often.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: No, and neither are statements from a judge calling out bad faith and manipulation, which is what she said was happening here. So this lawsuit was filed in 2026, more than the two years statute of limitations under which the IRS is supposed to be subject to these types of lawsuits. So the president brought this lawsuit against the IRS.

And the judge is calling out the fact that the people who he appointed, his former personal attorneys, including Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, were the ones who were negotiating with the president and his legal team. And she's saying essentially there was no adverse parties, which is one of the major basic tenets of having a lawsuit fought over. You need to have two sides.

And I'll read you just a part of what she called him out for. She said that this was "The nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the parties in the council make plain that this was an attempt to use or to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to the people and entities affiliated with the President." And essentially saying that what he was doing was trying to use the courts as cover for a deal that they had already worked out behind the scenes.

And one of the things she did was she referred Todd Blanche and a couple of other administration lawyers to the bar associations in New York where they have their licenses and also a couple of the lawyers for the president on the private side to the bar association in Florida to look at whether or not there should be disciplinary proceedings.

KEILAR: Wow. I mean, you don't want that if you're a lawyer, to be clear.

PEREZ: No, it's bad news.

KEILAR: You don't want to be dealing. It's bad news. So what does this mean for the other part of the settlement, which involves immunity to people and entities affiliated with President Trump?

PEREZ: Well, she's saying that because there was no adverse proceeding, this settlement, quote unquote settlement, doesn't really exist. And so she is banning the president and his legal team or anyone from actually using the terminology that this was a settlement. She's saying this entire thing was a farce.

And so therefore you cannot use this as a term of art as being a settlement. Now, the importance of that is this, that in the future after President Trump's term is over and let's say there are investigations of some of the activities, the crypto and some of the other things that have caused so much controversy, the president and Eric Trump and the Trump Organization, they cannot cite this and claim that they're immune because of this quote unquote settlement. She's saying that doesn't exist.

And so therefore they cannot use that.

[15:35:00]

Now, we don't know whether or not that will work. But certainly I think this is on the record now from the judge.

KEILAR: Yes, really interesting. Evan, thank you so much.

New today out of Houston, the Harris County district attorney says he's launching an independent investigation into the deadly shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who was killed by ICE agents last week while on his way to work.

The D.A. accused federal authorities of not coordinating with local officials, telling reporters federal investigators have not invited us in as they examined the moments leading up to the shooting. Protesters have demanded answers, but the district attorney says his own investigation could take many, many months to complete. CNN's Josh Campbell is joining us on this.

And Josh, talk about the credibility issues that ICE is once again facing after one of their officers shot and killed someone.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is another example, the one in Houston last week, and obviously when reporting on the breaking news of yet another shooting today in Maine by immigration officers, they've largely become Rorschach tests for trying to assess the credibility of what ICE actually says. And that's because there have been multiple instances in the past where ICE leadership, they've come out very quickly in order to try to explain the narrative about what occurred. But then once we start to gather additional information, including video, a lot of those narratives simply crumble.

Now, what we're talking about here in Houston is that authorities say that on Tuesday, and we see some of the surveillance video that CNN was able to obtain, you have this man who was being followed near Houston. He was driving in a van. He's trailed by immigration officers in these unmarked vehicles, which has been a staple of Trump's enforcement operation.

You obviously have a lot of these unmarked ICE vehicles, sometimes rental cars. And then at one point, it appears that he stops and then backs up and then continues. And you can actually see ICE agents on foot coming after him.

The department says that an officer opened fire. But one thing Brianna, about this case, is that we don't have any video of the actual incident itself. And so this has largely become yet another example of competing narratives.

I'll read you what ICE said in their statements. They say that this man, "Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer, and in an effort to protect himself, his fellow officers, and the general public, the officer discharged his weapon in self-defense." That seems to be somewhat of a copy-paste that we've seen from past incidents as well.

The problem here, and I want to stipulate that the job of an ICE agent can be extremely dangerous in certain circumstances. But here what we've seen, for example, you look at the shooting of Rene Good in Minnesota earlier this year, the shooting of Alex Pretti earlier this year. In both cases, the department came out very quickly and claimed that these people were trying to kill immigration officers, calling them both domestic terrorists.

But as the video surfaced, again, that narrative just crumbled. So this is certainly raising a lot of questions about what actually occurred and why we continue to see ICE come out very quickly before an investigation is actually complete. Final point I note is, as you mentioned, local officials in Houston are imploring federal officials to please cooperate with them.

I'll have you listen here to the Houston mayor saying that they still have not had any access to the information in this investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR JOHN WHITMIRE, (D) HOUSTON: They have the evidence. In this instance, the van, the passengers, the deceased, and they're tightly controlling it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL: Now, why is this important? Because so much of this is about public confidence. If you had federal and local officials doing this together, if they ultimately cleared the agent, that would go a long way.

If it's just the feds saying the officers did nothing wrong, there's something that's going to look like they're circling the wagons, Brianna.

KEILAR: And there's long been a public cry for ICE officers to have these body cameras. Kristi Noem pledged that they would have body cameras, and yet none of them were wearing them here. Why not?

CAMPBELL: Well, it appears neither in Houston nor in the episode today, the incident in Maine, did officers actually have body worn cameras. And, you know, you hit the nail on the head. This is not something that's new.

We've heard these cries for DHS to equip its officers. The department has blamed the recent government shutdowns on not rolling this out across the field. They say about half of their field offices actually have cameras.

But this is so critical. I mean, this could actually help show exactly what happened on the scene. And by the way, I talk to law enforcement officers all the time.

A lot of police and federal agents prefer to have body cameras because they can help refute bogus claims of police brutality or actually depict when an officer themselves is actually facing a threat. Nevertheless, here with ICE, we see that a lot of them still don't have those cameras. Final point I'll note here is that this isn't just a leadership thing.

[15:40:00]

I mean, I'm talking about on the ground. I've talked to sources before, for example, who say that when the FBI was heavily involved in these immigration task forces, sometimes ICE would not invite the FBI agents to come with them because the FBI has body cameras. And these ICE agents would tell the FBI agents, according to my sources, we don't want this filmed.

So there's a lot of way a long way to go here culturally in order to try to help change the sense of transparency. But again, the main law enforcement officers across the country tell me body cameras in the end actually do them a service when it comes to controversial cases.

KEILAR: Yes, then we know what happened. Josh Campbell, thank you so much. Really important story. And you can read more of Josh's analysis on CNN.com.

President Trump says the blockade of Iranian ports is back on and the U.S. will now charge shippers for cargo that crosses the Strait of Hormuz. We're going to discuss with Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [15:45:00]

KEILAR: Not only is the U.S. ramping up attacks on Iran, the American naval blockade on Iranian ports is about to resume, and President Trump says other ships will pay the U.S. a fee for safe passage through the Strait. The president making that announcement today after the U.S. military says it struck dozens of targets in Iran overnight, after Iran attacked a cargo ship over the weekend. This is new CENTCOM video showing a one-way sea drone attacking an Iranian port for the first time since the war started.

All of this is pushing oil prices higher. It is up more than 8 percent today. Just moments ago, President Trump announced he plans to address the nation in a primetime speech Thursday night.

That development coming just minutes after we learned that Trump formally notified Congress on Friday that U.S. military action against Iran has resumed. So let's talk about this now with New Jersey Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer.

Sir, thank you so much for being with us. I do wonder what you're expecting.

REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-NJ), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: Yes, thank you so much for being with us. It's a very critical day, I think. Big developments here.

What are you expecting to hear from the president on Thursday, and what are you making of the president formally notifying Congress of a military action resuming and framing it as defensive and limited?

GOTTHEIMER: Listen, I think from day one, this should have been the approach. You go to Congress, you brief Congress on the conflict, and you go to the American people and keep them up to date on about the situation in the Middle East here. That should have been the way this was approached.

It wasn't. And you know, many of us, including those of us on the Intelligence Committee, have not, as most of Congress and the American people, gotten the information along the way briefing of what's going on here of the threats that Iran, the government Iran, poses to the United States of America and to our national security, whether it's a nuclear threat, their ballistic missiles, their drones, or their terror program. That's continued, and now we're dealing, of course, with an added threat, which is the Strait of Hormuz, right? Twenty percent of the world's oil flows through that strait, and right now we have a huge problem there where it's being cut off once again, and that means that people are paying more at the pump.

KEILAR: So the U.S. charging for passage of the Strait, as the president is saying they will, what dynamic is that going to cause?

GOTTHEIMER: Listen, Iran, after having this MOU in place, which, of course, a lot of us had questions about aspects of its certain ambiguity, in which, of course, the Iranians are now claiming they got to control the Straits. We have a different perspective on that. But now, listen, what happened?

What did they do? They decided to attack commercial ships to break whatever agreement was in place, and I think they clearly aren't living up to the spirit of whatever they agreed to, and so I think if you attack, we have to respond, and I believe the most important thing right now is how do we get the Strait open, how do we make sure oil gets through, and also you can't let Iran just have its way. Their banner, remember, is Death to America.

These are not friends of democracy or freedom. They haven't been all along, and they've never been a trustworthy partner, ever, to us, to our allies, and so you are where you are in dealing with a regime that's made it clear.

KEILAR: But do you support the U.S. charging, the president's talking about a 20 percent of the cargo fee for passage. I mean, do you agree with that?

GOTTHEIMER: I think he's just responding and saying, hey, if they're going to charge, which they're saying they're going to, then we'll charge, but that's not the outcome.

KEILAR: It's holding itself to the Iranian standard, right? I mean, is that acceptable considering that traditionally the U.S. has wanted there to be free and safe passage?

GOTTHEIMER: No, I think the acceptable outcome is free and safe passage, but the bottom line is we're going to have to be tough, and you can't just let them run us over, and you can't let them toll the Straits. So I think right now we're in a situation where on behalf of the American people, on behalf of freedom, we're going to have to be tough, and that's obviously the position we're in right now given the posture Iran has taken.

But there's no --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Can you explain to me, though, how is it tough on Iran if you're blocking Iranian traffic, but you're charging all other traffic 20 percent?

GOTTHEIMER: Well, listen, the president, as you know, just says, I haven't seen the details of how this would work. I think he just said it to make the point that if they're going to do this, we're going to make sure we respond in kind. We're not just going to get run over here.

I think we've got to get the details, but the bottom line remains they cannot control the Straits. You can't allow that as an outcome here.

KEILAR: So if you're talking about how, you actually achieve that, when we speak with former government officials who say they haven't dealt with this exact situation, but they have game-planned it in the past for how you would overcome Iran controlling the Strait, and it involves U.S. boots on the ground seizing quite a bit of land into Iran and then boots on the ground to hold that land and secure the Strait indefinitely.

[15:50:00]

I mean, do you see any way around that at this point?

GOTTHEIMER: I'm not going to hypothesize right here about the best way forward. I assume the president will outline for us what he sees the best way forward on Thursday.

KEILAR: You talk to officials. Are you expecting, when you're talking about something that's actually effective, whether what he goes with or not, when you talk to people --

GOTTHEIMER: I'm expecting -- yes, yes, yes.

KEILAR: Isn't that your expectation?

GOTTHEIMER: I was going to say, I'm expecting --

KEILAR: Because when I talk to our military experts, they say it includes boots on the ground, and I think we should talk to the American people about what's really expected here. Is that your understanding, or do you understand something different?

GOTTHEIMER: That's not what -- obviously, I can't discuss what I've been briefed on from a classified setting --

KEILAR: Well, that's not what I meant.

GOTTHEIMER: -- but I'll just tell you what I believe. Well, I know. No, but strategically, if you're asking, broadly speaking, strategically, what I think is that you're going to have to be aggressive.

And you're asking, what does that specifically look like? I think the answer is, what's going on right now is not working, and you can't expect Iran to just play ball because they never have, right? They've always -- this has been their M.O., and what they've done, even in the last weeks, is continue to develop their ballistic missiles, continue to be tougher, and to, instead of looking for a way forward, they keep upping the ante. So I think the bottom line is, given the fact that they're still there on the nuclear program, on their ballistic program, on their terror program, and now the Straits, we're going to have to be aggressive, but that should be no surprise of who we're dealing with, of who they've attacked us, they've attacked our bases, attacked our allies. Just in recent days, they've attacked bases of our allies -- you know, our bases in Gulf-allied countries. So the bottom line is, you can't just allow that to happen.

You've got to respond and deal with it. And, of course, we'll see what the commander-in-chief says in terms of specifics. But the bottom line is, we can't just sit here. KEILAR: Yes, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan are dealing with all of that incoming, they say. And I just wonder, as we see this war heating back up, and you even hear Iranian officials' warning of a regional war here, and there's obviously, I think, a more broad concern outside of Iran about that happening. How are you seeing this point that we are at in this war? And as the president has notified Congress, do you see that as a new timeline from what the initial war was?

How are you seeing all of this?

GOTTHEIMER: Well, I think you're asking me what's the strategy, and part of the frustration is it's unclear what the strategy is, which is what many of us have been saying all along. What exactly is the strategy? How do you move forward here?

And if you are, you've got to come to Congress and the American people and lay out what the map is. And I think that's exactly what I want to hear from the president, and I'd like to get briefed on. I've asked for briefings to that end.

I think it's very important we understand exactly how you move forward to reach your objectives with a regime that has been very clear of what their objectives are. It's not our freedom. It's not to support our democracy.

It's to support Hamas and Hezbollah and terrorist organizations. It's to further their Death to America banner, and it's to develop a nuclear -- you know, continue their nuclear program and their ballistic missile program and their drone program. That's a threat to the United States of America, right? A threat to our freedom, and I think we have to understand what the way forward is here.

That's what we need to hear from the administration.

KEILAR: Congressman Gottheimer, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it.

GOTTHEIMER: Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: And we'll be right back.

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Any moment, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster will reveal the interim replacement for the late Senator Lindsey Graham. We just got a look at his seat on the Senate floor, draped in black cloth.

You see it there, flowers as well. Graham died Saturday at the age of 71 from the sudden onset of a rare heart emergency, an aortic dissection, which is an aortic tear.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny is with us now. Jeff, let's talk about the politics of this. What do you know about the potential pick here? JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Look, we do believe that Governor McMaster just momentarily is going to name Lindsey Graham's sister Darlene to fill out the rest of his term in the Senate. That would be until early January. You can see the family is gathering there in Columbia, South Carolina.

And Darlene Graham Nordone is more than his sister. She's really his only family. And their parents died when she was about 13 years old or so.

So he became her legal guardian so she could have his benefits from the military. So they are as close as you can possibly get. She's also starred in a lot of his campaign ads talking about how he helped raise her and protect her.

So she's expected to be named here. The president spoke with the governor this morning. He said he was in support of it.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune did as well. So this also allows a bit of a caretaker position for what's actually happening behind the scenes right now, some jockeying among Republican House members and others who's going to run for the seat long term. Of course, Lindsey Graham just won his primary last month.

He was set to likely win a fifth term, South Carolina, obviously, a Republican state. But in the short term, his sister will likely become the next senator from South Carolina as a tribute to her brother, Senator Lindsey Graham.

KEILAR: And this is his family there, you're saying?

ZELENY: Yes, this is his family. We believe, I'm not exactly sure who's speaking now, but his sister is expected to be announced by the governor as the senator, and she could be sworn in as early as this week. So this is very emotional.

I mean, we just saw the flowers on the desk there. I mean, to imagine that she works with children with disabilities, to imagine that she would become the U.S. senator is an extraordinary and terribly sad turn of events.

KEILAR: It's incredibly shocking. Just really quickly, in thinking of her taking this over under these circumstances, is this expected then to be something that would just be brief?

[16:00:00]

ZELENY: It would be brief. I mean, until his term ends in January, early January. And again, there'll be an election that is being held. That's supposed to be August 11th, a special primary election.

KEILAR: Some critical votes that she would be taking.

ZELENY: Sure.

KEILAR: So we should keep our eye on that. Jeff, thank you so much. ZELENY: Sure.

KEILAR: Really appreciate it. "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

END