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Reflecting Pool to Undergo Another Round of Repairs; Trump Says Thursday Speech Will Focus on Free and Fair Elections; U.S. Military Set to Reimpose Blockade of Iranian Ports at 4 P.M. ET; Fed Appeals Court Revives More Than 500 Lawsuits Linking Tylenol to Autism; Trump Replaces 20 Percent Strait of Hormuz Fee With Investment Deals; Life- Threatening Flood Warnings Issued in Texas. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired July 14, 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]

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- you would normally have? Is that to blame? As long as you keep saying it is all about vandals, then you kind of don't have to address that issue.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Also, I'm not a pool expert, but just having read about this, it was also the fact that part of the renovation didn't include something that had attempted to be renovated before, which was --

FOREMAN: Right.

SANCHEZ: -- some of the piping and the filtering to get the algae out. It was seemingly a done deal when that wasn't addressed, that there was going to be additional algae --

FOREMAN: Yeah.

SANCHEZ: -- because the water would flow there and wind up --

(CROSSTALK)

FOREMAN: And there's been talk about that very issue. And also some inclination along the way to say, well, and the algae too, that had something to do with vandals.

SANCHEZ: Right.

FOREMAN: And there's just no evidence of this. Whether people support President Trump or not, all these claims about the pool, so far we have nothing to back it up.

And as the water goes down, we don't see anything to back it up, other than they're going to repair it. The company that did the work has basically said, whatever's gone wrong is just a natural thing, part of the warranty. They're going to fix it and then move forward.

So maybe they'll fix it. Maybe they'll refill it. Maybe there won't be any algae. But that still doesn't answer the question as to why we got here in the first place after a $14 million job. SANCHEZ: Hopefully, it sticks this time. Tom Foreman, thanks so much for that reporting.

So President Trump is now promising a "very big announcement" concerning elections during a primetime speech Thursday. What we know about his planned address, right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:35:27]

SANCHEZ: Primetime presidential speeches typically are rare and until last hour, we didn't know much about what the president has in store for Thursday night, but he gave us a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It's really big news. It's really, really big news and our country has to shape up but that's -- what we're going to be talking about Thursday is it doesn't get bigger because without free and fair elections, you don't have a country. We'll be discussing other things too, but it's going to be a very big announcement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: We're joined now by Jonathan Swan He's a White House Reporter for The New York Times, also the co-author of the bestseller, " Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump."

Jonathan, great to see you. Thanks so much for joining us. What are you hearing about why the president wants to dedicate a primetime speech to this issue of election security?

JONATHAN SWAN, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, I should say I haven't seen a draft of the speech and I make a practice of not trying to forecast Donald Trump's speeches. But he has been obsessed with re-litigating the 2020 election and he's been pushing his team to try to come up with evidence that the 2020 election was stolen.

This was a big part of Tulsi Gabbard's efforts when she was Director of National Intelligence. Bill Pulte who's currently there is involved and others are as well. So, look, I haven't seen the intelligence or whatever he claims to have, but I wouldn't be surprised if you see them try to build or try to make a case that there was foreign interference in 2020 and for Trump to try to use that as -- for him to make the case that the election was stolen. Of course, we've seen no evidence that it was.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, how much of that is related to the upcoming midterms and perhaps some concern from Trump about Democrats taking over Congress and any personal or familial risk that he will face because there will be investigations not only of Trump, but his family and their business, if Democrats win. SWAN: So strangely, we, Maggie and I, found in our reporting for the book that it's not that Donald Trump doesn't care about the midterms, of course he does and you see that, you know, evidenced by the fact that his team is trying to get every advantage they can, gerrymandering and what-have-you. But it's more driven by his team that it is by Donald Trump and what you find if you talk to Trump advisers is often, they're Frustrated that he doesn't care -- seem to care as much as they do about what happens in the midterm elections. And they would like him to be more alarmed and more exercised. This is very retrospective when it comes to 2020.

SANCHEZ: That is fascinating. So as you talk about the administration and Republicans gaining every advantage that they can, you mentioned efforts to gerrymander, he keeps pushing the SAVE America Act even --

SWAN: Right.

SANCHEZ: -- refusing to sign this Housing Bill, bipartisan Housing Bill that is seen as an achievement by this very divided Congress. He fired the board of the Election Assistance Commission, installed Pulte as DNI, which you mentioned. Do you see the administration planning to try to influence the way that elections are carried out, in a way that is atypical of the federal government during the midterms?

SWAN: Yeah, of course. I mean blatantly, you know, it's right in front of our faces. They're trying to squeeze out every single advantage they can and to try to, you know, remove as many pickup opportunities they can for Democrats and make it harder to vote by mail and all the rest of it. What's interesting though is, you talk to some of Trump advisers, they're not sure that some of these more restrictive voting efforts will actually benefit them politically.

Remember in 2024, a lot of their voters were people who don't normally vote --

SANCHEZ: Right.

SWAN: -- and low-propensity voters. So does making it more difficult to vote actually help Republicans? I'm not sure that's such an easily answered question.

SANCHEZ: Fascinating. I want to ask you about the war in the Middle East because after his administration touted the memorandum of understanding with Iran as historic, he's recently downplaying it, saying that it was merely a test. Has the president expressed any concern that you're aware of that the U.S. is not getting to some kind of a resolution in this conflict?

SWAN: Yeah. Well, I mean one thing that has become really evident in the last couple months is just how frustrated Trump is. I'm not sure and we sort of write about this in the book, about COVID and him being a little bit at sea not knowing what to do. This is the closest I've seen to that.

SANCHEZ: Wow. SWAN: Is Trump really not seeing a way out of this situation and I've talked to senior people in the administration and none of them can really see a clear way out. He's gotten himself into this situation based on false assumptions.

[13:40:00]

He thought this regime would fall very quickly. You know, we have reporting in the book that leads up to the decision in Iran. He thought this war was going to be over very quickly, just at a gut level, which the intelligence did not support. And now, he's seeing that they've got way more leverage than he ever imagined.

SANCHEZ: Do you think he still has confidence in his negotiating team on this and in Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner?

SWAN: His actions would suggest not, right? He's very frustrated. He's veering from one thing to the next, and they haven't delivered him a durable deal yet. I'm not sure he thinks that a deal is possible with the Iranians at this point.

SANCHEZ: Wow. Jonathan Swan, thank you so much for joining us. Congratulations on the book. It is fantastic. If you haven't read it, I highly suggest you give it a chance.

SWAN: Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Still plenty more news to come. Fewer than 24 hours after announcing the U.S. would protect ships in the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a 20 percent fee, President Trump now says no country should be allowed to charge a toll in the critical waterway. Why the reversal? We'll discuss in just moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:45:41]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": At 4 p.m. Eastern, the U.S. military says it will resume its naval blockade of Iranian ports. Overnight, the U.S. again struck targets across Iran. It was the third straight night that the U.S. and Iran have traded strikes as they battle for control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Today, President Trump abandoned his controversial plan to charge a 20 percent toll on all ships passing through this critical waterway. Now he says that revenue will be raised through investment deals with Gulf nations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I don't think anybody should be able to charge a fee for the Strait or for any other Strait relationship in terms of other sections of the world. I don't think anybody should be really in that position.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: This latest escalation is sparking a surge in oil prices. It's casting even more doubt on the possibility of ending the war soon through negotiations.

Trump now calls the memorandum of understanding with Iran a test that didn't mean much. Let's discuss with Alan Eyre. He's a former State Department official who was a key member of President Obama's negotiating team for the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA. He's also a Fellow at the Middle East Institute.

Alan, thank you for being with us. And you've been hearing what the president says each day. He had said yesterday, the U.S. would be the guardian of the Strait, as he put it. It would charge a 20 percent toll. How are you reading his flip-flop a day later?

ALAN EYRE, MEMBER OF U.S. NEGOTIATING TEAM WITH IRAN UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: I'm reading it, Brianna, as normal. I actually don't pay too much attention to what President Trump says at any given time as an indication of U.S. policy just because there have been so many inconsistencies and contradictions. So I sort of wait for facts on the ground when I try to figure out what's happening.

And what seems to be happening is a clash over the Strait of Hormuz.

KEILAR: How are you seeing the memorandum of understanding? He's obviously heralded it when it was -- there was the agreement. Now he's sort of diminishing its importance. How did you see it then? How do you see it now?

EYRE: I saw it then as a chance to create a window by institutionalizing the ceasefire. It created an opportunity for the two sides to roll up their sleeves and negotiate. But given the severe absence of bilateral trust and goodwill and the massive ambiguities inherent in that one-and-a-half-page MOU, Brianna, Article 5 is what doomed it because Iran is not going to let go of operational control of the Strait, which it sees as a strategic deterrent. And the U.S. wanted to press the point.

So that's why we're back to these limited hostilities with the U.S. targeting coastal military assets threatening the Strait, and Iran responding against Gulf countries.

KEILAR: And as you see this, we're sort of, the clock is ticking towards it, this blockade commencing again, what are you watching for?

EYRE: Well, you know, as your previous guest said, we don't have a strategy. The U.S. is strategically flailing. By releasing the blockade as part of the ceasefire, that allowed Iran to regroup, export a lot of stuff, drain its storage. So it's sort of setting the clock back to zero in terms of pressure on Iranian ports. So I don't think this blockade will have significant damage.

We're in this cycle. And again, unless and until the two sides decide to negotiate in good faith, we're going to keep seeing these sporadic ongoing military attacks from one side to the other. The key thing I'm watching is whether the U.S. can force through enough ships through the Strait to lessen the economic catastrophe of a closed or constrained Strait. That's the key variable.

KEILAR: Yeah, certainly something to watch. And Trump also said in the Oval Office that he doesn't regret temporarily easing those Iran oil sanctions you mentioned before the military action resumed.

He said, quote, "I wanted to give them a chance at making a deal." You touched on this a little bit, but maybe you can expand on that. How did Iran use that chance, as he put it, that they were given?

EYRE: Well, in two main ways, Brianna. One, it exported a lot of its oil and oil-derived products and got hard currency for that because they were getting dollars in exchange for what they sold.

[13:50:00]

And two, drew -- in the same time, drew down its reserves. So even though there's a blockade now, Iran has a lot more ambient storage to store the oil, the gas, the refined products that this blockade will prevent them from exporting.

KEILAR: And last night, the president defined this renewed bombing campaign. We're seeing, obviously, a few days now in a row of Iran and the U.S. trading strikes. U.S. allies in the region are seeing incoming. The president has called it a military skirmish.

So he's trying to stay away from having this be seen as some new prolonged stage in fighting. How do you see the labeling of this, yes, but more importantly, what it may actually be able to accomplish or not?

EYRE: Well, when President Trump speaks about this war, he's either trying to calm the markets or terrify the Iranians. We've seen the Iranians cannot be terrified by his talk. They largely discounted at this point.

We'll also see to what extent the markets believe what he's saying. But what's going on right now is just whether the U.S. can sufficiently degrade Iran's ability to project power against ships that try to hug the Omani coast and exit the Gulf in a way that Iran doesn't want.

I don't think so, because it takes so little military power for Iran to threaten those ships. So what's going to determine how this goes is the maritime insurance industry and ship owners saying, is it worth it risking running the Strait when Iran is targeting ships?

KEILAR: Yeah. Certainly we'll be looking for that as some of them have taken some incoming and we've seen most of them do not want to risk that. Alan Eyre, great to speak with you. Thank you so much.

EYRE: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: Boris?

SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour. A federal appeals court will allow more than 500 private lawsuits against the maker of Tylenol to move forward. The suits were filed by parents who claim a link between autism and attention deficit hyperactive disorder in their children to Tylenol use during pregnancy. In a 64-page decision, the court said a trial judge improperly excluded testimony from three doctors offered by the plaintiffs who were expected to testify about a link.

The ruling comes after President Donald Trump and HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., warned last year that pregnant women should avoid taking acetaminophen, Tylenol's active ingredient, without offering any scientific proof of a link to autism. Tylenol's maker maintains the drug is safe.

Plus, 30 beluga whales that had been stranded at a shutdown marine park in Canada finally getting rescued. The whales have been stuck at Marineland, a park in Niagara Falls, since it shut down back in 2024. Park officials warned the animals could be euthanized because the park wasn't able to provide them long-term care.

Last week, officials approved an emergency plan to get them out. 28 of the whales will be moved to accredited aquariums across the U.S. CNN affiliate, CBC is reporting the other two are going to be relocated to Spain.

And the House is expected to vote this week on a bill that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent across the country, essentially ending that biannual clock change. Supporters of the Sunshine Protection Act argue that the time shift causes sleep issues and greater likelihood for workplace injuries.

They also believe brighter evenings would spur more economic activity during winter. Opponents say it would make winter sunrises too late. Kids would wind up starting school in the dark. The bill, we should note, has the backing of President Trump.

We are following potentially catastrophic flooding in Texas. We've got the latest with your forecast next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:58:29]

KEILAR: Happening now. Parts of Texas Hill Country are under multiple flash flood warnings after six to 12 inches of rain fell overnight. Video captured this truck stranded in rushing water before being mostly submerged. Emergency crews responded to several water rescues on Monday night.

Let's bring in CNN Meteorologist, Derek Van Dam. So Derek, these storms, they really have the potential to dump an entire summer's worth of rain.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, that's right. So in Uvalde County, these areas, they average about 8.5 inches of rain during the months of June, July and August. We have totaled over a foot in some locations, unfortunately, sparking swift water rescues that are currently underway. I want to show you these rainfall totals because these are impressive and it is still likely to rain tonight across the Texas Hill Country.

That's a radar accumulation of 13 inches, much of that has fallen within the past 12 hours, and that is why we're seeing the flooding roads that you saw just a moment ago on your screens. Radar very, very active from the Interstate 10 and Highway 90 corridors This location across the Rio Grande Plains into the southern Edwards Plateau as well as that U.S. 90 corridor. This is the area that we're concerned about tonight.

We've had the foot plus rainfalls, but we have model guidance that suggests that we could see anywhere between widespread two to six inches to potentially upwards of 10 to 20 additional inches of rainfall in localized areas. That's why the National Weather Service is using words like significant to locally catastrophic flash flooding possible tonight once the rain starts to ramp up again.

We've got a very rare high risk of flash flooding across that area and this is part of a --