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Karen Read Acquitted of Murder Hurricane Erick Threatens Mexico; SpaceX Rocket Explodes at Texas Site; Debate Over Iran's Nuclear Facilities; Trump Says Iran Can't Have a Nuclear Weapon. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired June 19, 2025 - 04:30   ET

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

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BECKY ANDERSON, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and around the world. I'm Becky Anderson in Abu Dhabi.

MJ LEE, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm MJ Lee in Washington. And here are some stories we are watching today. Israel's Emergency Services say at least 65 people have been wounded in the latest Iranian strikes. A ballistic missile hit of residential neighborhood in Tel Aviv causing major damage. Israel also reports a strike on a hospital in the southern city of Be'er Sheva.

In the U.S. State of Minnesota, people joined Governor Tim Walz and his wife Gwen to pay their respects at a candlelight vigil at the state capitol on Wednesday. They honored Representative Melissa Hortman and their husband Mark, both were shot and killed over the weekend in what has been called a politically motivated attack.

And for a third time, President Trump is extending the deadline for TikTok to find new owners or face a U.S. ban. The company's previous lifeline was due to expire today, but the White House says the president will now give TikTok another 90-day extension.

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And Karen Read, the Massachusetts woman, accused of killing her police officer boyfriend in 2022 has been found not guilty of second-degree murder. She was convicted of drunk driving. CNN's Marybel Gonzalez report.

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MARYBEL GONZALEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With a smile on her face, Karen Read walked out of a Massachusetts courtroom Wednesday saying, I love you in American Sign language. She was met with a crowd of cheers from her supporters.

CROWD: Free Karen Read. Free Karen Read.

GONZALEZ (voice-over): Who have echoed her claims of innocence during both of Read's murder trials. KAREN READ, ACQUITTED OF SECOND DEGREE MURDER: No one has fought harder for justice for John O'Keefe than I have. Than I have and my team.

GONZALEZ (voice-over): Read was accused of drunkenly striking John O'Keefe, her then off-duty police officer boyfriend, and leaving him to die in January, 2022. But following four days of deliberation, a jury acquitted her of second-degree murder and of leaving the scene.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What say you? Is the defendant found guilty or not guilty?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not guilty.

GONZALEZ (voice-over): The jury did find her guilty of drunk driving. During closing arguments, both parties laid out their case.

ALAN JACKSON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: This case was corrupted from the start and most fatally, it was corrupted by a lead investigator whose misconduct infected every single part of this case from the top to the bottom.

HANK BRENNAN, SPECIAL PROSECUTOR: Anger, although not necessary in any of these charges, anger can be inferred for somebody to come back that hard, that fast, that reckless, that obvious likely to create a plain and strong likelihood of death.

GONZALEZ (voice-over): Read will serve one year of probation for the conviction of drunk driving, but no jail time.

I'm Marybel Gonzalez reporting.

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LEE: Forecasters say Hurricane Erick is now an extremely dangerous category 4 storm in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. It is expected to make landfall around Acapulco, Mexico in the coming hours. The potentially deadly storm has winds of 145 miles per hour, and it could bring rainfall of up to 16 inches, that could trigger flashfloods and mudslides across Mexico's southern coast. Besides hurricane warnings, tropical storm warnings are in effect in other coastal areas as well.

An explosion did much more than rattle the SpaceX Starbase facility in South Texas on Wednesday night. Check out the tremendous fiery blast when a Starship rocket was blown to smithereens. It even created, you see here, a mushroom cloud. The company in its understated way, called it a major anomaly. The rocket was on the stand for its 10th flight test. All employees are accounted for and no injuries were reported, according to SpaceX. But the cause of the explosion and the extent of the damage are still unclear.

SpaceX says its team is working with local officials to secure the site and surrounding areas. The facility is the main location for developing and testing the Starship rocket meant ultimately for missions to Mars. And now, to a major shakeup in professional sports. The longtime owners of the Los Angeles Lakers have agreed to sell their majority stake in the NBA team, that is according to a source familiar with the agreement. The Buss family led by Jeanie Buss will sell their stake in one of the most storied franchises in all of sports to Mark Walter, the owner of another celebrated franchise, the Los Angeles Dodgers. The landmark deal is valued at about $10 billion, a record figure for a professional sports team. Walter has owned a minority stake in the Lakers since 2021.

And after a quick break, we'll head back to the Middle East next with more on the debate inside the intelligence community over just how close Iran was to having a nuclear weapon. Of course, the justification for Israel's preemptive strikes.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. Too much devastation and they'd use it. You know, I believe they'd use it. Others won't use it. But I believe they'd use it. So, that's it. It's very simple as far as I'm concerned. They can't have a nuclear weapon.

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ANDERSON: President Trump there drawing a clear line when it comes to Iran's nuclear capabilities. That argument preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon is the very same justification that Benjamin Netanyahu has used for launching Israel's preemptive strikes in the first place.

The Israeli prime minister has claimed Iran was so close to building a nuclear bomb that it became a threat to Israel's very existence. The question of how close is very much up for debate, as CNN's Tom Foreman now reports.

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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amid showers of missiles and thundering exchanges, the claims are growing louder. Israel and its allies insist the already sweeping attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities need to be decisive.

ISAAC HERZOG, ISRAELI PRESIDENT: If you want this war to deescalate, get the nukes out of Tehran's hands.

TRUMP: It's very simple, not complicated. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

FOREMAN (voice-over): For decades, Iranian leaders have been building a nuclear program, which they say is for research and to generate electricity. Indeed, just days ago, Iranian leadership reiterated they have no intention of building a nuke. But intelligence and military analysts say Iran has long been stockpiling refined uranium, developing more powerful missiles and mining the technical knowledge of allies including Russia, with hopes of someday becoming the world's 10th nuclear armed nation.

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COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: The Iranians are definitely much closer than they were five or 10 years ago, and it is certainly true that they've gotten a lot closer to deploying a weapon of this type than they were even a year or two ago.

FOREMAN (voice-over): How big would an Iranian nuke be? Some analysts suspect it would pack about two-thirds of the explosive power of some bombs developed by the U.S. in the 1940s and '50s. U.S. intelligence predicts a viable weapon could still be years away, but the Israelis argue it might come much quicker.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We decided to act because we had to. We saw enough uranium, enriched uranium for nine bombs, and all they had to do was weaponize them.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Netanyahu did not offer specific evidence. The Israelis have made such claims before and the complete equation is more complicated. Any Iranian nuke would have to be miniaturized enough to be carried by a missile, plane, or other delivery mechanism. It would need to evade Israel's robust detection and defense systems and it would have to work. But if just one made it through --

LEIGHTON: It could obliterate a large portion of a major city. It could make a port unusable.

FOREMAN (voice-over): -- it could cripple communications, shut down electricity, and poison the land with radioactive fallout. And so far, plenty of analysts note a lot of Iran's nuclear infrastructure is deep in the ground where Israeli bombs can't reach it.

REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT): Right now, Iran, if they were left alone, could reconstitute their program very quickly.

FOREMAN: Again, the Iranians say they have no plans to produce a nuclear weapon, even as the Israelis say they just can't take their word on that. Can't afford to be wrong about the nuclear aspirations of their old foe, not even once.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

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ANDERSON: Well, Darya Dolzikova is a senior research fellow with the Proliferation and Nuclear Policy Program at RUSI, which is the Royal United Services Institute. She joins me now from London. It's good to have you. Let's talk about what we are just learning. Israel as had a new site, Arak. We have a file satellite image of that facility. No major damage reported. The IDF saying, quote, "The strike targeted the component intended for plutonium production, in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development." Darya, just explain what they were targeting and what the risk may be after that strike.

DARYA DOLZIKOVA, ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE AND SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW, PROLIFERATION AND NUCLEAR POLICY, RUSI: Sure. So, when we look at the production of nuclear weapons, there's sort of two different pathways, broadly speaking, that a country could take towards the production of a nuclear warhead. One involves -- one is the uranium, I guess, pathway. So, that's the fiscal material that you would put inside of a nuclear warhead, just enriched uranium. The other option is to do it through weapons grade plutonium. So, two different pathways.

The Iranians, most of the folks on the Iranian program has been looking at stopping the uranium pathway. That's been the most advanced for the Iranians. That's where the uranium enrichment comes in, which is why the Israelis, the first few days, were targeting Iranian enrichment facilities, the production of centrifuges, which is the equipment you would use to enrich uranium.

However, they do also have -- the Iranians do, have this reactor that at the moment is under kind of -- they're refiguring it. They're reconstructing. It's not fueled at the moment. So, it's not operational. But there were some concerns because the design of this reactor, that the reactor could potentially be used for the production of weapons grade plutonium. You would need much more than just the reactor. Like I said, it wasn't operational yet, but the idea is that the Israelis are now looking at how do we take out other options for Iran to develop the fiscal material that they would need to go inside of a nuclear weapon.

ANDERSON: Yes, this is really important detail. For context, of course, this site has a heavy water reactor. That was a key focus of the 2015 nuclear deal because there were fears then that the site could provide Iran with a second potential pathway to a bomb beyond enriched uranium. So, to your mind, did this make sense as an Israeli target?

DOLZIKOVA: It's not a surprising target, I wouldn't say, no. Again, the reactor was ways off from being able to produce weapons grade plutonium. And again, it wouldn't have been sufficient to just have the reactor, the Iranians would've had to have also a conversion facility to extract the plutonium from the irradiated fuel, to then build it into potentially a nuclear weapon.

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So, it's not a surprising attack. But again, the site would've been a ways off from actually being a threat.

ANDERSON: Fordow is the facility that we have been focused on and the world will now be familiar with in terms of U.S. involvement. Can you just describe what the environmental and human impact of striking that facility with something like a bunker -- a busting bomb would be?

DOLZIKOVA: Sure. I mean, it's a little bit hard to say because we don't know what the attack would actually look like and the impacts of any kind of release and the extent of any kind of release material would be very dependent on, again, what the nature of the attack would be.

But essentially, so Fordow is, as you say a deeply buried facility. It is a used for uranium enrichment. So, it would've contained -- it does contain uranium hexafluorides inside, enriched to not quite what we would consider weapons grade but quite close. That's an important site for the Iranians.

If that facility was attacked, again, hypothetically speaking, if the facility was penetrated using munitions and you had some kind of release into the environment, first of all, because the facility is so deep underground that release would most likely stay underground. That material would probably stay localized. But again, I'm speculating a little bit because it depend on what the attack would look like.

But when we're talking about the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle, so anything kind of before the fuel is produced and put inside of a reactor and irradiated, so, which is where the Fordow facility falls, it's in the first, in the front end of the fuel cycle, there, the concern is primarily when it comes to material release, primarily chemical, not radiological, which doesn't mean it's not concerning, but it would be primarily a chemical concern.

ANDERSON: Yes. Your organization had previously posted this, quote, "Following any military strike on its nuclear sites, Iran not only has the requisite indigenous expertise, but will also have increased incentive to rebuild and to rebuild deeper and more hardened facilities."

In fact, last week after the resolution by the IAEA ahead of Friday strikes, Iran said it would begin secret enrichment. This could be interpreted as a warning. What do you think Iran will do if the U.S. joins Israel in targeting these sites, briefly?

DOLZIKOVA: Again, we're sort of in speculation then because we're not sure that the Americans will necessarily join the attacks and, you know, it's hard to say how the Iranians might react. But you know, I think if the Iran -- if the Americans were to get involved in strikes on Fordow or other facilities, obviously American assets in the region, which most likely come under risk from Iranian attacks.

And yes, I think whereas Israeli attacks have been degrading the -- I guess the practical, the technical and the expertise, those components of the Iranian nuclear program. On the flip side, the incentives and the threat perception and the incentives for potential weaponization of that program for Iran, the impact is the opposite of that, right? So, they're looking that they're -- they see that they're being attacked, that they're being attacked extensively. So, my concern is that the calculation then switches for the Iranians to the assumption that to really defend themselves, to deter future attack, they need to push for the ultimate deterrence to actually move towards a nuclear weapon.

ANDERSON: I just want to flag some CNN reporting that our viewers can find on digital, online about the sort of sense of anxiety around the Gulf region. Very -- you know, very keenly keeping an eye on what is going to happen given the, you know, closeness to Iran, even though Iran is a very big country. I mean, there was real sort of anxiety about what happens next and the impact that any U.S. involvement might have on the wider region.

I'm broadcasting of course from CNN's Middle East programming hub in Abu Dhabi. This piece explains what people across the region from expats to officials are concerned about. And there is -- you know, we're talking about nuclear contamination, about reprisals from Iran, about contamination, environmental contamination. Very briefly, what do you say to those who are feeling anxious at this point?

DOLZIKOVA: Yes. I mean, I'm not in the region. So, it's obviously very different for me to speak from London than if I were to be in the region. But I mean, more broadly, this is -- of course, this is a concern. These are concerning developments and I think there's still a lot of room for escalation, which is why a lot of people are urging restraint.

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And that, you know, there is still a way forward for a diplomatic resolution, at least on the nuclear question. But I mean, there's no way around it. It is concerning and there still is room for further escalation.

ANDERSON: Darya, good to have you. Thank you very much indeed for joining us.

I'm Becky Anderson in Abu Dhabi from our Middle East programming headquarters here. Thank you for watching this hour. Do stay with us. I'll be back with more breaking news out of the Middle East after this very quick break.

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