Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Old Pan Am Crash Wreckage Found; New Trump Tariffs?; Iran War Widens. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired July 21, 2026 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:00:58]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The Trump administration wants money. Lawmakers want answers. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth heading to Capitol Hill to make the case for more funds, as the war with Iran widens and the U.S. death toll mounts.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus: not done yet. One day after President Trump hits Canada with a 50 percent tariff on most imports, his top trade rep hints that more action may be ahead.

And found at sea -- 74 years after a Pan Am flight was lost off the Puerto Rican coast, a Discovery Channel team locates the long-lost wreckage.

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

KEILAR: We are breaking news on the Iran war.

President Trump just issuing a new warning for Tehran during a meeting with Lebanon's president at the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're not finished at all, but if we left right now, it would take them a long time, years, years to rebuild. But we're not leaving right now. Honestly, they haven't seen anything yet. We have been nice. We have been nice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: The president also downplaying a threat from Houthi rebels to effectively close the Red Sea and vowing even more strikes on Iran after 10 straight days of trading attacks.

We're also learning some more about the third U.S. soldier who was killed last weekend in Iraq during a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian drone. His name is Sergeant Michael Emmanuel Swinton. Swinton was 30 years old and was from Fayetteville, North Carolina. The president is expected to attend a dignified for tomorrow for him

and three other service members.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is live for us at the White House with more on what the president said -- Kristen.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And President Trump has clearly been angry about these deaths of U.S. troops, vowing revenge on Iran.

And that is not just President Trump. It's also U.S. officials saying that Iran will have to pay for the death of these troops. So he's going to attend the dignified transfer for fallen soldiers tomorrow. It was technically -- it was originally scheduled for tonight, but instead is tomorrow.

He said during this meeting that it was an honor for him to do that. Now, two of the service members that you see up there, the First Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan and Private Isabella Gonzales, were killed on a base in Jordan. And President Trump seemed to allude to a failure in Jordan's defense systems for their death.

Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They did slip something through in Jordan.

And if we had other operators, it would not have happened, unfortunately. But we -- because we have the best equipment in the world. We've stopped almost everything. But when you let other people do your job -- with the United States, we let other people do the job. And, sometimes, it doesn't work out so well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So this brings the number of people killed to 18 during the last five months. And it comes at a time in which we are learning that the Pentagon was slow to report injuries from this war.

In fact, yesterday, they announced that nearly 100 service members had been hurt during the war in Iran. They described most of those injuries as minor concussions. But, again, this is exactly why those on the Hill are asking for answers.

If more American troops are going to be put on the ground or put onto these ships that they're sending into the Middle East, Congress wants to know how they're going to be kept safe.

KEILAR: All right, Kristen Holmes, thank you for the latest from the White House -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Meantime, several Gulf states are bearing the brunt of Iran's retaliation. So far today, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan have intercepted new waves of aerial attacks, Kuwait adding that Iran is specifically targeting water and power plants. Let's go live to Jerusalem now with CNN's Nic Robertson, who has more.

Nic, what is the latest that you're hearing from these allies in the region?

[13:05:02]

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, they are concerned about the way that this war is going. The Kuwaitis, in particular, are heavily dependent on their desalination plants for clean water in the country; 90 percent of the water they use comes from there.

So they have said this is the fourth day that those desalination plants have been targeted, Bahrain coming under strikes today, and Jordan, again, missiles incoming, three intercepted by the Jordanian army in the afternoon, early hours of the afternoon today.

So they're all coming under attack. The point that I think they all look to at the moment is, where is President Trump going with all of this? And, to that, they will have listened, of course, to his press conference today in Jordan probably with consternation to hear that the president was implicitly making clear his feelings that somehow it appears that the Jordanians may not have done a good enough job on manning air defense systems.

He didn't name them as a nation, but, of course, they were the host nation where those service members were killed over the weekend. That -- you -- I don't think we're likely to hear a sort of a public rebuke coming from the Jordanians, but it's this sort of thing that will worry and concern allies as they try to figure out President Trump's next move.

And his talking today about the potential for escalation, the potential for strikes deep into Iran at Pickaxe Mountain, where Iran, according to the Israeli officials here or Israeli sources here, believe that Iran has now buried their highly enriched uranium, and that will be a tough target to crack.

SANCHEZ: Yes, President Trump saying that the U.S. is planning very powerful strikes on Pickaxe Mountain, this underground facility, and that Iran can do nothing about it.

Tell us more about the Israeli intelligence on which this assessment is based that Iran is moving centrifuges and other nuclear equipment there.

ROBERTSON: Well, they're moving it there because it's believed that it's a much harder mountain to bomb.

If we think back to last summer, when those B-1 bombers were able to essentially drop bombs down the sort of air ventilation that sort of went vertically from the mountaintop down to the facilities beneath, this is believed to be -- Pickaxe Mountain would -- is believed to be a harder mountain to get into just because of the way that the tunnels are constructed. You would have to also, to reach there, defeat any air defenses that

Iran has in place. And I think when we look at where the strikes have been along the Strait of Hormuz, along the very Western edges and in the north of Iran., we haven't seen many strikes go deep into Iranian airspace.

And it is widely believed by experts in this field that Iran has been reconstituting its air defenses over the past few months. Of course, they were decimated in the early part of the war back in March, and that made it easy for bombing runs or easier for bombing runs to reach deep inside of Iran.

The situation may be different now, particularly if more sophisticated air defense systems are in place, and that will be a concern. So, all -- so getting to Pickaxe Mountain will be particularly difficult, and then defeating the granite of the mountains to penetrate below again another big challenge.

SANCHEZ: We will see how the administration moves forward with that effort.

Nic Robertson, thank you so much for the latest from the region.

Still to come: The self-described tariff man is back, the Trump administration suggesting that new blanket tariffs are coming for U.S. trading partners, as the president's current 10 percent tax is set to expire.

Plus, a 75-year-old aviation mystery is solved, as a missing Pan Am flight is finally found. We will tell you where it was located and the answers the discovery revealed.

And, later, some brand-new CNN reporting, how Trump is quietly attempting to rewrite a rule that would make it easier for him to change historic architecture.

We will discuss in just moments on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:13:50]

KEILAR: New developments today after President Trump announced these huge 50 percent tariffs on many Canadian goods. Canada's prime minister says he spoke with Trump this morning, and both sides -- quote -- "agreed to intensify negotiations in the coming weeks."

The talks are happening as Trump's 10 percent blanket tariffs are set to expire this week. But the administration is now signaling that a new round of tariffs is on the way, impacting a long list of U.S. trading partners.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: The "F.T." reports that this would be much broader than just a small number of countries, that this would be a significant expansion. Is that not right?

JAMIESON GREER, U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE: Well, it covers 60 countries, 6-0, and about 99 percent of our trade. And that actually illustrates the scale of the problem we're facing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: I want to discuss this with business columnist Rick Newman.

Rick, thank you so much for being with us.

First, I want to talk kind of big picture here about what we just heard from the president's trade rep there, saying -- talking about a new round of tariffs on the way. Are we in for another all-out trade war?

RICK NEWMAN, BUSINESS COLUMNIST AND PUBLISHER, THE PINPOINT PRESS: I think we are, sorry to say. So, what's going on here is, we remember back in February the Supreme Court overturned many of the tariffs Trump imposed last year. Those were the so-called emergency tariffs. So those went away.

[13:15:12]

And the average tariff on imports went down by a lot. But Trump has been telegraphing he wants to replace those tariffs that he can't use with another set of or a whole different set of tariffs that take longer to roll out. You have to do reports that justify these tariffs, and that's what we're now seeing.

So the first one is this 50 percent tariff on certain imports from China, and we are going to see a raft of new tariff announcements for most of the other countries that were covered by those emergency tariffs. These might not be as draconian. There might be -- the tariff rates might not be as high.

There will be lawsuits, just as there were before. Some of them might not make it to the finish line. But Trump is just determined to use tariffs, and it looks like he's going to do this for most of the next 2.5 years he has in office.

KEILAR: So, looking back to Canada here, Trump is saying now that these huge tariffs have nothing to do with the wildfires. He says it was a response to Canada being very, very tough on the U.S. over the years, for many years.

How are you seeing that negotiating tactic?

NEWMAN: I believe Trump for once on this one, and the reason is, this is actually sort of act three in a tariff spat that Trump himself started last year.

So what happened last year is, Trump imposed some new tariffs on Canada. Canada retaliated by doing things like saying -- I think there were a couple of provinces that said we're going to stop buying American whiskey. And what Trump is doing now is retaliating against Canada's retaliation.

So this is basically round three. Now, these tariffs are not in effect yet. There is a 30-day period, which means they won't go into effect until August 19. There could be a deal in the meantime. I mean, that's a pattern we have seen. Canada could make some concessions. Trump might want to find a way out of this, and sometimes he does start out with a very high number that he doesn't really intend to impose, but that's a negotiating ploy.

So these 50 percent tariffs are not a done deal yet.

KEILAR: Rick, I think we're all very sick of paying a lot for a lot of things. And I wonder, as you're looking sort of broadly at what we're discussing here, do you think the American consumer can really stomach what the fallout of this will be?

NEWMAN: I think Americans are clearly very fed up with high prices, and it seems like they have come around to the idea that Trump was never serious about affordability.

Obviously, the Iran war, which cannot -- he cannot get to an end point, is pushing gasoline prices up over $4 a gallon now. Diesel prices are going up. That means food prices will go higher. And now Trump is just layering tariffs on top of all this, when we are, what, less than four months from an election.

I mean, if Trump ever cared about affordability, now would be the time to show it, right before voters go to the polls and maybe change control of Congress, but he's not doing that. I mean, he just loves tariffs more than he loves voters, I guess. And he's just unrelenting.

We're going to have more tariffs for the next 2.5 years.

KEILAR: Yes, it's a tough road for people as they're looking to just pay for the stuff they need to get by.

Rick, it's always great to have you. Thank you so much for being with us. Really appreciate it.

NEWMAN: Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: Thank you.

All right, the crash of a Pan Am flight in 1952 led to the mandatory in-flight safety briefings that all of us sit through today on airplanes. Well, now, 75 years later, the wreckage has finally been located. Next, we're going to talk to the host of the TV show that found it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:23:28]

SANCHEZ: A 74-year-old aviation mystery has finally been solved. The wreckage of a Pan Am flight that crashed off the coast of Puerto Rico in 1952 has been located by a team of explorers with the Discovery Channel.

Here's a peek of what they found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we're right, we're about to be the first people to see Clipper Endeavor in over 74 years.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There we go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, God. Oh, look how...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's so detailed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's aluminum. You can see how shiny it is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am, like, not prepared for how detailed this is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Notably, everyone on board survived the initial impact, but passengers had not been briefed on emergency evacuation procedures or how to use the plane's flotation devices. And, as a result, 52 people were killed. Just 17 were rescued.

The disaster actually led the U.S. government to mandate the preflight safety briefings that all passengers sit through today. The full discovery is going to be revealed this fall in an episode of "Expedition Unknown." And the host of "Expedition Unknown," Josh Gates, joins us now.

Josh, thanks so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us.

Why did you want to go searching for this wreckage?

JOSH GATES, HOST, "EXPEDITION UNKNOWN": Well, this is an incredible story, first of all. It's tragic, it's harrowing, but it's also a story that most people don't know.

We all sit through this preflight safety briefing. We all have heard it, and we don't realize that it wasn't always there. And so Pan Am Clipper Endeavor, this flight and this tragic accident really changed aviation, fundamentally changed it forever.

[13:25:08]

And we're all safer because of this accident. And so I think we owe them a real debt of remembrance.

SANCHEZ: It was captivating watching the discovery in that clip. I wonder if you could share what was going through your mind, what that moment was like when the first images came back. GATES: It was incredibly emotional. This is an effort that was led by

an organization known as Air/Sea Heritage. We worked with them along, with Deep Sea Vision, who provided an incredibly advanced underwater sonar unit.

And that sonar vehicle, which is autonomous, went down to almost 2,000 feet below the surface, and it came back with a hard drive filled with sonar readouts and photographs. And when we first saw the sonar imagery and saw the outline of that plane, it just took our breath away.

SANCHEZ: Tell us more about that drone, because this is technology that's typically used to search for gas and minerals. And I understand that you had just about two days to work with it.

What was the process of actually finding the wreckage like with this tool?

GATES: Well, it's -- we went looking for this wreck in 2024 using a different sonar system, and it was really tough. Waters off the north coast of San Juan there are very rough. It was really hard going.

And since then, we found a lot of material in the archives that helped us narrow down our search zone even more. And then, by pure chance, a research vessel known as the Fugro Brasilis was transiting from Trinidad into the Gulf of Mexico and passing right through this search zone with one of the world's most bleeding-edge sonar systems on board.

And so they agreed to stop for 48 hours to do sonar surveys. This vehicle is rated to 20,000 feet.

SANCHEZ: Wow.

GATES: It is a huge missile-shaped object. It can go down on its own for up to four days autonomously. It went down for about 30 hours...

SANCHEZ: Yes.

GATES: ... and scanned the seafloor in our target area, came back to the surface, and there it was.

SANCHEZ: Yes, I have seen reports that some of the survivors were contacted after the discovery. Have you had any contact with them?

GATES: There are only two known survivors that are still alive today, a woman who is 102 years old.

SANCHEZ: Wow.

GATES: She was in her 20s when the plane crashed. She was a nurse. She actually was instrumental in opening the aircraft door to let a lot of the passengers out. The other survivor was a baby and was found floating on the surface of the water and was resuscitated by rescuers.

They have both been informed that the plane has been found, and I know they were both really emotional and gratified that this wreck has finally been located.

SANCHEZ: That is just incredible to hear.

I also wonder what you hope the families of those lost will take from this discovery.

GATES: There are a lot of families. You know, 52 people drowned in and around this wreck, and so that story really echoes through time in Puerto Rico. Especially, most of the passengers were from Puerto Rico flying up to New York for Easter weekend in 1952.

I hope that the discovery can give them some measure of peace, you know, these stories where aircraft vanish or slip below the waves and are not discovered, there is with those stories a real sense of an openness, a lack of closure.

And so I'm really hopeful that now that we know where the wreck is and we're able to tell this story and I think share with the public, the flying public, just how much we do owe to the events of this accident, I hope that can bring them some measure of closure, because, as I said, we are all safer today because of Clipper Endeavor.

SANCHEZ: Josh Gates, a really incredible find. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing that story.

And a reminder, Discovery Channel intends to cover the finding in an "Expedition Unknown" episode that will air later this year. Discovery Channel, like CNN, is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.

Josh, thank you again.

So, we are awaiting what is sure to be an intense hearing on Capitol Hill, as top U.S. military officials are preparing to testify, pushing senators for tens of billions of dollars in additional funding for the war in Iran. This will be the first time we hear from them since a group of service members were killed in the Middle East over the weekend.

Stay tuned. We will bring that to you in just moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)