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CNN News Central
Norway's World Cup Star Brings Home a Stuffed Raccoon; White House Nominees Grilled About Election Security; Trump Reverses ICE Pause on Traffic Stops After Fatal Shootings; U.S. Military Says Blockade Redirected Two Commercial Vessels; Trump Doesn't Rule Out Ground Campaign in Iran; Kathy Ruemmler Denies Wrongdoing or Knowledge of Epstein's Alleged Abuse. Aired 2-2:30p ET
Aired July 15, 2026 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:00:00]
JULIE NEWPORT, CO-OWNER, WILD BILL'S WESTERN STORE: -- amazing and then he honed in on the raccoon.
(LAUGH)
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": He hones in on the raccoon, and now everyone else is honing in on the raccoon, because there's this iconic photo of Haaland holding that taxidermied raccoon holding the whiskey bottle, and was that originally -- so that was like a store decoration or a floor sample? What?
NEWPORT: Now, we actually sell these in the store, and they don't move fast because, you know, of their higher price. But we caught on to this a couple years ago and we have an assortment of squirrels and a couple of raccoons, in fact, we had a t-shirt made from the first raccoon which was smoking a cigarette and hooking a beer.
(LAUGH)
NEWPORT: This is our second.
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Well, I can't imagine you expected that one. I imagine sales are boosted now. I can't imagine you'd expect it would come from a Norwegian coming in for the World Cup. Just what has been the response from folks since he's been there, since the visit. What have you been seeing from the people there?
NEWPORT: So within 45 minutes of him posting the video on Instagram, people were coming in to grab the shirt. I didn't realize he'd already posted it.
JIMENEZ: Wow.
NEWPORT: So yeah, it was like minutes, literally minutes, within an hour. So we saw that right away, and then we saw sales boom overnight domestically and then, a slew of emails asking when we were shipping international (inaudible). So took me about three days to get us locked and loaded and ready for international delivery and since July 3rd, we've been shipping international. And we wake up every morning to several hundred orders.
(LAUGH)
NEWPORT: Between shirts and the cowboy hats that he was wearing and then he bought the boots and now (ph) this guy.
KEILAR: It's wild I mean, what does it feel like that he's not only really brought such a spotlight to your store, but just to Dallas with his love of Dallas?
NEWPORT: So I've been saying, I think Dallas did an amazing job. The businesses, the organizations involved in the World Cup nailed it. You know, the southern hospitality, the welcoming of all the different countries and cultures, we've had such an amazing time and I think Dallas just really turned up well for this.
So I think that was a testimony to that.
JIMENEZ: Well, you look the part, rep in (ph) Texas well, raccoon in hand and now Erling Haaland taking something back to Europe with him that will remind him of his time in Dallas. Julie Newport, really appreciate you taking the time with us here today.
(LAUGH)
JIMENEZ: Good to see you.
NEWPORT: Thanks, guys. Have a good day (ph).
KEILAR: Thank you.
JIMENEZ: You too. A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.
KEILAR: Showdown on Capitol Hill, three high-profile nominees answering questions from lawmakers, but many weren't satisfied with what they heard, especially when it came to the upcoming election.
JIMENEZ: And not so fast, after ICE paused traffic stops following fatal shootings in Houston and Maine, President Trump is ordering the agency to resume those stops again despite Maine's Democratic and Republican Senators saying the pause was the right move.
KEILAR: And turned aside, the U.S. military says its blockade forced two ships to change course. The president is also making new threats if Iran does not return to the negotiating table. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."
We do begin with Breaking News on the Hill as major Senate confirmation hearings take place for several of President Trump's key nominees. His pick for Attorney General, Todd Blanche, the Acting Attorney General, facing tough questions from lawmakers about his plans to oversee DOJ. When asked about putting federal agents at polling places, Blanche said he would follow the law, but he stopped short of promising not to deploy them. Jay Clayton was also asked about election security during his confirmation hearing to become Director of National Intelligence. He was pressed repeatedly by Democratic Senator, Jon Ossoff. Clayton refusing to say outright that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Clayton was also asked about former DNI Tulsi Gabbard's appearance at an FBI raid on a Georgia election building earlier this year.
CNN's Brian Todd is following this. Brian, what else stood out during this hearing?
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was extraordinary, guys, for a number of reasons. Really what stood out was, he repeatedly refused to say Joe Biden won the 2020 election. We're talking about Jay Clayton here. He was asked by four different Senators, one Independent and three Democrats, flat-out, did Joe Biden win the 2020 election? Four times, he evaded that answer.
There was one particularly heated exchange between Jay Clayton and Democratic Senator, Jon Ossoff of Georgia. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JON OSSOFF, (D-GA): It's a simple question, Mr. Clayton.
JAY CLAYTON, NOMINEE, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: And I've answered that.
OSSOFF: Who won the 2020 presidential election?
CLAYTON: I've answered it.
OSSOFF: You're here asking for the support of Senators to lead America's intelligence community.
[14:05:00]
We've established that you have an obligation to be honest and forthright with this committee and with the American public. But you refuse to answer a simple matter of fact about the 2020 election. Is that right?
CLAYTON: No, that's not right.
OSSOFF: Then answer the question. Who won the 2020 election?
CLAYTON: I have answered the question.
OSSOFF: Answer it. What is your answer?
CLAYTON: I've given you my answer.
OSSOFF: What is your answer? You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election --
CLAYTON: No, I -- OSSOFF: -- but you ask to lead America's intelligence community? Isn't it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president's delusions?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TODD: Again, just extraordinary. He would not say flat out that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. He was asked by four different Senators, Democrat Mark Warner, Independent Senator Angus King, Democrat Mark Kelly, and you just heard it, Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff. Four Senators asked him flat out, did Joe Biden win the 2020 election? He wouldn't say flat out that he did.
What he did say was that Biden was certified, that he won the majority of the electoral votes, that he went through the processes, but he did not say flat out that Joe Biden won the election. Another really extraordinary exchange came when Ossoff asked him about the trip by his predecessor, former DNI Tulsi Gabbard, to Georgia in January to kind of oversee a raid of files pertaining to the 2020 election.
Jay Clayton basically said that he didn't know anything about that incident until Jon Ossoff told him in his office shortly before the hearing. Guys, really extraordinary. He knew nothing, according to him, about the Tulsi Gabbard trip to Georgia, which made so much news at the time.
JIMENEZ: Yeah.
TODD: And that was his predecessor who did that, right? I guess, they didn't prepare him for those questions about Gabbard, and really extraordinary that he did not say that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. And we know why he didn't, because he knows that his possible future boss is not going to like it one bit if he came out and said flat out, Joe Biden won.
JIMENEZ: Significant moment over the course of that hearing. Brian Todd, really appreciate you bringing that down for us. We've been following a lot of hearings on Capitol Hill over the course of today. For one, the Senate confirmation hearing for President Trump's pick for Attorney General, Todd Blanch just wrapped up. And Blanche had been fielding questions on a range of topics, which include the DOJ's handling of the Epstein files and that controversial $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund as it's been described.
Listen to this exchange between Blanche and Democratic Senator Peter Welch about the fund.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. PETER WELCH, (D-VT): I mean, that is truly bizarre that the chief executive gets his appointed person, who was formerly his personal attorney, to negotiate on his behalf where, at the end of the day, taxpayers are going to pay. So I'll just leave it at that.
BLANCHE: The other thing I'll correct, though, is you used the word as if I negotiated. I wasn't part of the negotiation, which I've said before. So --
WELCH: Your department is. You had to sign off on it.
BLANCHE: Yes. That's true.
WELCH: That is your signature.
BLANCHE: Yes, that is my signature.
WELCH: So whether -- I mean, look, you're at the top of the pile here.
BLANCHE: Yes.
WELCH: So you don't get involved in all the phone calls and all the details. But at the end of the day, you have to do due diligence and satisfy yourself that you in good faith can sign off on the agreement.
BLANCHE: Correct.
WELCH: And you did.
BLANCHE: Yes.
WELCH: So that is your responsibility, and I'm sure you --
(CROSSTALK)
BLANCHE: I do have responsibility for it.
WELCH: That's right.
BLANCHE: I agree with that. Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: We've also seen Blanche attempting to navigate being the head of federal law enforcement, but having previously served as Donald Trump's personal lawyer. Take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY, (R-LA): Are you and President Trump friends?
BLANCHE: I'm his lawyer, was his lawyer, and now I'm the deputy attorney general.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: We're joined now by CNN Legal Analyst, Elliott Williams. How has he done so far?
(LAUGH)
ELLIOTT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: He has done as well as someone, Brianna, who has a very significant conflict of interest for the role that he's interviewing for. And that's it.
The United States has a long tradition, stretching back to Watergate, of some separation, formally and informally, between the Justice Department and what happens at the White House. And his having served as president's attorney, it's not disqualifying. I want to be clear. He can serve in the role. But in terms of the relationships that past attorneys general have had with the White House, this ought to be alarming to many people.
But in terms of how he's answering questions, he's answering them just fine.
JIMENEZ: You know, Blanche has emphasized multiple times that anti- weaponization fund that --
WILLIAMS: Yeah.
JIMENEZ: -- people saw as essentially a slush fund for Trump and his allies, he said that it's dead. And Senator Cornyn of Texas told CNN that he was dissatisfied with Blanche's ability to say the proposal wasn't statutorily enforceable. I believe that's the phrase in there.
Can you just put that to English? I mean, is saying under oath that it's dead enough or is there still wiggle room?
WILLIAMS: It ought to be. But there is so much wiggle room, certainly, in how the president and the attorney general have talked about the fund and so on.
[14:10:00]
He has been clear that it's dead. He said that it's dead, but seems unwilling to put that in writing for some reason. And I don't quite know why. It certainly wouldn't have less legal weight or more legal weight to do so. And so, for the good of perhaps getting Senators to vote for him, he could give that assurance.
But needless to say, he said it's dead. Perhaps we can take him at his word there. I just don't know.
KEILAR: What did you think about the Epstein aspect of the questions? Because that obviously was a big focus of it, from him -- multiple lawmakers emphasizing that he needs to talk to counsel of victims or he needs to talk to victims. There were questions where Blanche was saying there's no closed investigations. He said if we learn of new material, we'll most certainly review it.
What did you think?
WILLIAMS: Right. It is a continued thorn in the side of both Todd Blanche and the president and the White House and so on. Largely on account of how his predecessor, Pam Bondi, handled it. It's sort of -- by leaving open questions as to whether there was a list or not a list, or whether there were investigations or not investigations, fueled sort of the Internet conspiracy theories that are now out of control around this issue. And putting that toothpaste back in the tube is going to be exceptionally difficult for him. He -- so, you know, he's got a problem that is going to continue to dog him if he is confirmed for this role. You know, he's in a little bit of a tough spot in that he can't speak about open investigations if they do exist. However, on multiple occasions, he's spoken about open investigations that do exist in other circumstances.
He went on Sean Hannity and did so. And so, you know, Senators to some extent are trying to hold him accountable for those kinds of inconsistencies. But this Epstein issue is going to continue to plague the Justice Department, certainly for the immediate and maybe in the future.
JIMENEZ: A lot of Senators ring (ph) a lot of things right now on the other side of what we've seen from this hearing.
Elliott Williams, always good to see you, though.
WILLIAMS: Great to be with you (ph).
JIMENEZ: Yeah. All right. So to come for us, ditching the directive, President Trump overturns the pause on ICE traffic stops. And we're now hearing he was furious about the change to begin with.
KEILAR: Plus, President Trump does not rule out a ground campaign in Iran. Michigan Senator, Elissa Slotkin will join us about that potential escalation of having troops on the ground. We have that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:16:56]
JIMENEZ: We're following President Trump's decision to overturn the DHS suspension of traffic stops by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Just yesterday, the stops were paused in the wake of two deadly ICE shootings in Texas and Maine. Then, in a Truth Social post, the president called the stops an "important and effective crime- fighting tool."
And Border Czar, Tom Homan said the suspension would have just been a short pause. I want to bring in Scott Shuchart, the former Head of Policy for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Good to see you. Thanks for being here.
Look, President Trump is arguing that the traffic stops were essential. His Border Czar, Tom Homan seemed to downplay them at one point as well, saying there are other ways for ICE to do its job. I mean, just point blank, how important and effective are traffic stops for ICE agents to do their jobs?
SCOTT SHUCHART, FORMER ICE HEAD OF POLICY: Well, for most of the last 20 years, they haven't been important at all. It's not been how ICE does their work. Traditionally, ICE has targets. It works up a targeting worksheet. It stakes out the subject's home often, doesn't arrest as they come out of the apartment building or the home first thing in the morning.
This thing that they've been doing lately, where they aggressively run cars off the road, these are unmarked police cars, right? They don't have sirens, where the drivers don't necessarily even know that ICE is law enforcement until somebody's gotten out of the car with a gun.
It's a very dangerous tactic. It's not something that the agency is thoroughly trained or has been, you know, long practiced in doing. And one thing I noticed in the president's post, immigration enforcement is civil enforcement. It's not crime control. These are people who have committed a civil immigration infraction. They may have also done something else that's criminal.
And so, what ICE is doing here has to be done under the constitutional limits and the laws and everything else that apply to civil law enforcement. This is not pulling over armed robbers.
JIMENEZ: Is there -- you know, I take your point in this being, you know, sort of a departure from how things are typically done.
Are there ways though to, if it is to be done, because it seems like they're going to continue this regardless, are there ways to improve how these traffic stops might go down or is it just -- does it just invite chaos by doing it in a manner by which they're doing?
SHUCHART: Well, they seem to be using unsound tactics. The, you know, police industry has standards and norms and professional groups. Most police agencies don't pull over subjects in this way. Just ramming, like in Houston, ramming their car with an unmarked SUV.
So if ICE wants to get people out in the field in cars, of course, they could try to learn from the safer tactics that normal police agencies use. They could use loudspeakers to tell people you are under civil arrest by ICE. They could identify themselves, in other words, earlier in the encounter.
They could follow existing policy on de-escalating encounters. They could follow existing policy, which implements the Constitution that says force shall not be used solely to prevent a subject from fleeing. And they're just not following those policies, so of course, there's another way.
[14:20:00]
JIMENEZ: You know, sources have told CNN that neither men in Houston and in Maine, for those situations, they weren't the targets of the operation. And is there a policy change or training protocol that could help agents avoid engaging with non-targets, or is it just an intelligence failure? I mean, how do you see it? What's your reaction?
SHUCHART: Well, I mean, I would start with it's illegal for them to unjustifiably shoot anyone, whether they're the target or not. So I don't want to say that's a distinction without a difference, but it wouldn't solve things if they were illegally murdering subjects.
But there are things that they could do, you know, to, again -- what they used to do was more staking something out, having adequate forces deployed to really, you know, thoroughly close off, you know, somebody's ability to exit the scene. It seems that they're operating in relatively small teams because they're under so much pressure, maybe, to drive arrests.
You know, the number of arrests that they've been doing are up to 2,000 a day, higher than they've ever been. And so maybe they're spread thin. And so it may be that if they did things in a more thoroughly staffed way, they could do it more safely, I would speculate.
JIMENEZ: It's a dynamic we've been following for quite some time now. I mean, obviously, the ICE tactics and immigration enforcement tactics have been under increased scrutiny this year. These last two major flare-ups part of those examples. Scott Shuchart, appreciate it. I guess I can shake your hand. He's in person. He's in person. Good to see you. Thanks for being here.
SHUCHART: You too.
JIMENEZ: All right. Coming up, a former White House attorney testifies behind closed doors about her ties to Jeffrey Epstein. We're going to have brand new details on that.
Plus, smoke is drifting south from wildfires in Canada, leading to air quality alerts for millions of Americans. We'll tell you where and how long it might last.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:26:33]
JIMENEZ: Behind closed doors today, on Capitol Hill, attorney Kathy Ruemmler said she regrets interacting with the late convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.
KEILAR: The former Obama White House counsel claims she only had a professional relationship with Epstein. Hundreds of email exchanges reviewed by CNN showed discussions of his legal battles and reputational problems, but also some more personal communications.
CNN's Annie Grayer is following this closed door interview. Annie, tell us what you're learning.
ANNIE GRAYER, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, we are learning that Democrats and Republicans are asking Ruemmler some pretty pointed questions about her relationship with Epstein over the years because we know that Ruemmler was a key lawyer in Epstein's orbit, who helped him prevent legal battles and helped him protect his reputation.
And we also know that from the Department of Justice release of the Epstein files that there were hundreds of messages between Epstein and Ruemmler, and a lot of those got pretty personal, where Ruemmler sometimes signed those messages XOXO. At one point in 2017, she talked about maybe taking a day trip to Epstein's Island, and we're told that that didn't happen. But in her opening statement that I obtained, Ruemmler talked about how she regrets ever having been connected with Epstein.
I'm going to read for you a portion of that where she says, quote, "If I knew then what I know now about who Epstein really was, I never would have accepted an initial meeting with him. It was a mistake to deal with him and I regret it. But many people assume that given everything we know now about Epstein, everyone who dealt with him before his 2019 indictment must have known on everything then. In my case, that assumption is completely wrong."
And Ruemmler also talked about, in her opening statement, how she became connected with Epstein back in 2014 and said that Epstein did tell her about his 2008 conviction, but clearly, she says that he lied to her and misrepresented how serious it was.
JIMENEZ: And you know, Democrats are also pushing for answers about efforts by Goldman Sachs CEO to retain Ruemmler months after she said she would resign. Do we know anything about that?
GRAYER: That's still an open question. So after all this reporting came out about Ruemmler and she came under scrutiny for her ties to Epstein, she announced that she would be stepping down on June 30th. But then it was reported that Goldman was going to keep her on in some capacity and Democrats have sent a letter probing the status of Ruemmler's employment. And we know that both Democrats and Republicans are going to be pressing her on that in her closed-door interview today.
KEILAR: All right, we'll be looking for that. Annie, thank you -- actually, Annie, stand by. Let's go to President Trump. He's speaking now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible).
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I don't like giving deadlines, but they pretty much know. They know the story. They better behave.
(CROSSTALK)
KEILAR: All right, that was -- we're going to try to re-rack what we had there because we don't know what he was saying beforehand. So we're going to try to get that together so that we can share with you what he was saying there. He had just landed in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and obviously got into the Beast right after we were able to take it.
We'll get in a quick break and we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
