Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Trump: U.S. And Iran To Meet Next Week On Nuclear Deal; Trump Takes Victory Lap At NATO Summit; Iran Arrests Hundreds Since Start Of Conflict With Israel; New CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee Holds First Meeting. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired June 26, 2025 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:25]

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, hello and welcome. I'm Becky Anderson, live from our Mideast programming headquarters here in Abu Dhabi. The time is just after 1:00 in the afternoon here.

Coming up, uncertainty remains over the fate of Iran's nuclear program as preliminary reports continue to piece together the extent of damage to its facilities. U.S. President Donald Trump says a nuclear agreement with Iran is now not necessary. Why? He stands firmly in that belief.

Plus, the president taking a victory lap after getting NATO members to agree to increase their defense spending. We will discuss what else came out of those crucial talks in the Hague.

And Iran arrests hundreds of people they accuse of being mercenaries of Israel as fears grow over the safety of those imprisoned. We'll speak with a member of Amnesty International, coming up.

(MUSIC)

ANDERSON: Well, it is 5:00 a.m. in Washington, where in just three hours, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to hold a news conference on the U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear sites.

Also today, the Trump administration will deliver the first of two classified briefings for members of Congress, but it plans to withhold some information over concerns about leaks.

Meanwhile, there are new assessments of those U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear sites. The CIA, Israel, even Iran using words like severely damaged, set back years and badly damaged.

President Trump lashing out at the media for reporting on the early intelligence assessments, which didn't align with his conclusion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The documents said it could be very severe damage, but they didn't take that. They said it could be limited or it could be very severe. REPORTER: Is there any indication from U.S. intelligence that Iran

was able to move any material?

TRUMP: No, just the opposite. We think we hit them so hard and so fast. They didn't get to move. And if you knew about that material, it's very hard and very dangerous to move.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, Paula Hancocks is joining me momentarily.

Meanwhile, President Trump says the U.S. will meet with Iran next week about a potential nuclear agreement. But he doesn't believe a deal is necessary because he says the U.S. destroyed Iran's nuclear capabilities. Iran's foreign minister is declining to confirm whether that meeting will happen.

Well, joining me now is CNN's Paula Hancocks.

And, Paula, it could, of course, take months to get a -- you know, a real assessment of just what happened on those sites. But it was very interesting to hear Donald Trump's perspective on what happens next.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. I mean, it's worth reminding ourselves as well that the U.S. and Iran were negotiating. They were in talks just as the Israeli strikes started. Some almost two weeks ago now.

So, he was asked about this inevitably in at the NATO meeting, and he was asked, will you meet? And what will happen when you meet? Let's listen to his response first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We may sign an agreement, I don't know. To me, I don't think it's that necessary. I mean, they had a war, they fought. Now they're going back to their world. I don't care if I have an agreement or not. We -- the only thing would be asking for is what we were asking for before about.

We want no nuclear, but we -- we destroyed the nuclear. In other words, it's destroyed. I said, Iran will not have nuclear. Well, we blew it up. It's blown up to kingdom come. And so, I don't feel very strongly about it.

So, the U.S. president there is effectively saying that he has moved on, that he believes the strikes have taken the place of diplomacy, that there's no need for a deal there. Worth pointing out as well, that it's not definite that Iran would even want to sit down with the U.S. at this point, given the fact that these strikes happened while they were carrying out this diplomacy.

And also, we don't know, for instance, if Iran is even going to be in negotiations with the un nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, that we've heard from, the head of that group, saying they've asked Iran to go back in so they can start inspecting these sites again, which is where we might get some definitive answers about what the damage was.

And they haven't responded at this point. We saw the parliament also voted that they shouldn't be cooperating with the IAEA. That hasn't been ratified at this point within Iran, but certainly there's no definite answer that Iran will even want to sit down with the U.S.

ANDERSON: Yeah. Meantime, inside Iran, the sort of human toll of what this as Donald Trump has described it, a 12-day war becoming clearer at this point.

[05:05:08]

HANCOCKS: So, 627 dead is the latest figure that we have from authorities within Iran itself. They don't give a breakdown of military versus civilians, but they have said that the majority are civilian and almost 5,000 have been injured. So, this is a population that is not used to being under fire, at least in recent history.

The Iran-Iraq war would have been the most recent, and that was back in the 1980s. So many people would not have gone through something like this before. We saw thousands, potentially tens or hundreds of thousands trying to get out of Tehran when the U.S. president said everyone should evacuate Tehran. So, a very terrifying 12 days for civilians within Iran itself. And of course, many of those we know the majority do not support this regime that is currently in power in Iran.

But there does appear, according to many experts, to have been some kind of unity created because of what has happened.

ANDERSON: It's good to have you, Paula. Thank you.

Well, President Trump says he is with NATO all the way after the alliance agreed to increase its defense spending during its summit in the Netherlands. Trump said it was very big news that NATO members, with some exceptions, pledged to raise their spending goals to 5 percent of GDP annually, up from the 2 percent that they currently have a long-time demand. It has to be said of this U.S. president, and he reaffirmed his support for NATO's collective defensive pact, which is known as Article Five.

He said he would not have attended the summit if he didn't believe in Article Five. A day earlier, he hedged on his answer about Article Five, saying it depends on your definition. But as he departed the summit, the president suggested he is leaving with a more positive impression of NATO.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Without the United States, we couldn't -- they couldn't really have NATO. It wouldn't work. It wouldn't work. It will in the future, because now they're paying much more money. But it wouldn't work. It was great.

And I left here differently. I left here saying that these people really love their countries. It's not a rip-off and we're here to help them protect their country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, President Trump also met with Ukraine's president for almost an hour on the sidelines of that summit on Wednesday.

Let's get you more. CNN's Salma Abdelaziz is live in London with the latest.

And, you know, it has to be said, I mean, the sort of fulsome and hearty support for Donald Trump personally and for his operation in Iran may have helped him to be persuaded that NATO was an organization, that he still wanted to do business with.

Salma, let's talk about what was achieved there. I've just said that he met with the Ukrainian president. Ukraine not importantly, on the actual official communique. So just what's the story there?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, NATO entering a new era with this ironclad commitment to up that spending to 5 percent. And very much this was a summit, as you said, that was catered to President Trump to meet his goal and his objective of 5 percent. At one point, of course, the NATO secretary general drew criticism for calling President Trump daddy. That's how much he was kowtowing to him as he described President Trump resolving the crisis between Iran and Israel.

And in all of this, of course, President Zelenskyy was trying to draw back attention to the conflict in Ukraine. In the 48 hours leading up to that NATO meeting, dozens of Ukrainian civilians were killed by Russian firepower. Russian aggression on the ground seems to be increasing. There seems to be an uptick there as well.

So, President Zelenskyy appealing for the focus of the United States and European leaders. But as you mentioned, it would have been deeply concerning to him that the war with Russia was not mentioned in the final statement. Still, of course, there were rhetorical overtures in support of Ukraine.

Take a listen to what the NATO secretary general said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK RUTTE, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: I think the message that comes out of this summit is clear. NATO's commitment to Ukraine endures, and it is now in the summit declaration with a clear link to the money. And I think that is important for the next 5 to 10 years, not that we expect the fight to take so long, but that whatever is necessary, we will keep you in the fight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABDELAZIZ: Now, there were some wins, of course, for President Zelenskyy, who was able to sit down with President Trump for the first time since April. They had a 50-minute meeting, which President Zelenskyy described as a long and substantive. President Trump described it as nice. And when you consider, of course, the outbreak between those two leaders earlier this year, that is positive.

[05:10:00]

He also got mention from President Trump of the possibility of using or sending Patriot missiles to Ukraine. So, there are signs there of that continued commitment that continued support. President Trump also saying that he was going to speak to President Putin, even seeming to criticize him, calling him misguided at one point.

And we're going to hear again from President Zelenskyy today, who is supposed to be speaking to the European Council Summit via video link. You're going to hear him yet again, Becky, of course, trying to draw the focus of European leaders back to that conflict in Ukraine.

ANDERSON: Thank you, Salma.

Let's bring in Alexander Khara, who's the director of the center for defense strategies and a former adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, joining us this hour live from Kyiv.

And it's good to have you, sir. Thank you.

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy posting this after his meeting with the U.S. president. It was long and substantive, covering truly important issues, including how to protect our people. Donald Trump may have given some insight into that plan in his NATO press conference. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They do want to have the anti-missile missiles, as they call them, the patriots. And we're going to see if we can make some available. You know, they're very hard to get. We need them to we were supplying them to Israel and they're very effective, 100 percent effective. Hard to believe how effective. And they do want that more than any other thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: And that was in response to a young Ukrainian reporter who asked what the U.S. was prepared to provide at this point. So, let's be quite clear about this. What does Ukraine need and what signs have we seen over the last day at The Hague that it that the U.S. is indicating that they are prepared to provide it.

ALEXANDER KHARA, DIRECTOR, CENTRE FOR DEFENSE STRATEGIES: Well, first of all, we would love to see the shift of thinking in Washington and Trump to acknowledge that there is no appetite in the Kremlin to agree to a ceasefire, let alone the long and lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia.

And with this shift of thinking they might be a different course of action of this administration. We are facing the Russian terror each and every day. The Russians sending up to 500 drones overnight, plus missiles, and they are destroying civilian infrastructure. And certainly, we need the air defense system. And actually, it was one of the key priorities for our president to talk to Donald Trump during the G7 Kananaskis summit.

But unfortunately, it was abrupt. And Trump didn't meet with Zelenskyy then unfortunately, there was a meeting, and I believe it was pretty successful. I think that partially because the previous meeting with the Atlantic Council, the alliance agreed on this substantial increase of their defense spending on this positive note, Trump met with Zelenskyy, and that's why there were no, lets say, rivals between them.

So, we would love to see change of thinking. And then, course of action. I don't like the West, the Western leaders repeating mantra that there is no military solution to this conflict, but there only diplomatic one.

People in the Kremlin think in different way. They try to launch a counter, offensive this summer. They are not interested in any ceasefire. And Putin de facto rejected many appeals of Trump to have that. And the goals of Russia to destroy Ukrainian statehood and to subjugate Ukrainian nation is there recently, during the Saint Petersburg Economic Forum, Putin said that they are not -- they don't have a plan to annex Sumy region. But if they succeed, they will do that.

And finally, he said that wherever the foot of Russian soldiers sits, its Russia. So, he clearly indicates the genocidal and expensive new imperial intentions towards Ukraine. That's why we need to change -- to have the change of thinking in Washington and Europe.

ANDERSON: And that's that -- that would be my next point. A change of thinking you want both in Washington and in Europe, this NATO summit final declaration did not include a condemnation of the war. For the first time since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Now, I know you told our producers you would have wanted stronger language, but and I quote you here, but we recognize the new political reality.

Can you just explain to me what you mean by that new political reality?

[05:15:02]

KHARA: Well, when Donald Trump was elected, even before talking to Putin and Russians in general, he ruled out our membership in NATO. And actually he blames NATO for starting this war, which is a nonsense. When the Russians attacked Ukraine back in 2014, Ukraine was non-blocker country and majority of Ukrainians didn't want to join NATO.

So, it's not about the expansion of NATO, it's about the desire of Putin to expand its empire over Ukraine now, and then it will be Moldova, Georgia and some other countries.

Secondly, yes, we are disappointed that there is no strong language condemning the Russian illegal and unprovoked invasion. But fortunately, we see that NATO in general and the United States particularly recognize that Russia is a direct threat to its security. And actually, all those expenditures that were agreed during the summit aimed to deter Russia in the future, which is which is good, and we are part of that. Some countries will, lets say, count their expenditures with Ukrainian assistance as well.

Secondly, or thirdly, we are not happy that there is no word about Ukraine's future membership. But from the other hand, there was a consensus of NATO alliance back in 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine and Georgia will be members of NATO. Then there was a Vilnius and Washington declarations where there was an irreversible path of Ukraine towards.

So, there is not -- nothing -- nothing has changed in terms of the consensus and readiness of other allies to see Ukraine there. And now, it's important for us to get defense material to, to protect ourselves and to degrade Russian capabilities.

ANDERSON: OK, Alexander. Thank you. Your perspective is crucial as we continue to report on what came out of the summit and what happens next. Thank you, Alexander. Alexander Khara is in Kyiv.

KHARA: Thank you for having me.

ANDERSON: Still ahead this hour, a newly appointed panel, the CDC, is set to review current U.S. vaccine recommendations for kids. But protesters worry some of them have an anti-vaccine bias. More on that, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON: Well, the American Academy of Pediatrics says that the new advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are, quote, an embarrassment. The comments came after the seven-person committee met for the first time on Wednesday.

CNN's Meg Tirrell has more now on what they discussed and why the group is so controversial.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So this is a committee of outside advisers to the CDC who has advised on vaccine policy in the United States since the 1960s, and this has traditionally been a very influential panel, not only do their recommendations guide what doctors do, but they also hold sway for how insurers cover vaccines, as well as state policy toward vaccination policies.

And so, when this entire panel was wiped out by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this month, he dismissed all 17 members. That alarmed the public health community. The secretary then replaced those members with a smaller panel of hand-picked members, many of whom the public health community has expressed concerns about for their approaches toward vaccines.

So, day one of this began with an acknowledgment by the new chair that there had been this pushback from the public health world and an insistence from him that they are not anti-vaccine. Then, he said that they are going to establish some new working groups focused on established vaccine guidelines that really set off some red flags. Among the vaccine expert community.

One is that they said they are going to reexamine the childhood immunization schedule. Looking at the cumulative safety effects of giving vaccines together, that is something that public health experts say is continuously monitored for safety. And they point out the vaccine schedule is responsible for protecting children against a lot of really dangerous diseases.

They also announced plans to reexamine giving a dose at birth of the hepatitis B vaccine to protect against that virus, something that the American academy of pediatrics says is a life saving intervention.

On day one, there also was a protest of former CDC employees outside and supporters of the CDC, one of whom had this to say.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I'm concerned because many of them have very little experience with vaccines or immunization programs or technical advisory groups like this that they're going to continue to promulgate the sorts of anti-vaccine messaging that many of them have done over the past decade or two.

TIRRELL: An HHS spokesperson said in response that Secretary Kennedy, quote, has appointed some of the most highly qualified individuals to serve on the ACIP committee. Now, day two will include a vote on immunization for babies, for respiratory syncytial virus, which will give one of the first views, really, about how this new committee is expected to vote on these kinds of issues.

They also are expected to discuss some of the more controversial topics that were added recently to the agenda. One is a preservative that was largely removed from vaccines about 25 years ago, called thimerosal. It was removed as a precautionary measure. No evidence of harm had been seen around it, but nonetheless, there have been some focus on whether that preservative could be linked to things like autism. Dozens of studies since then have shown no link, but there is expected to be a presentation about that on the second day as well.

[05:25:05]

There also will be a discussion of the measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox vaccine. So, experts are watching this very closely. But already, you have groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics and others saying that they are no longer going to participate with this panel in the same way because they don't believe that it is based on science in the way it usually had been.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON: Well, still, to come, Iran's state media reports hundreds of people arrested for supposed links to Israel. Now, Amnesty International is calling for their protection. I'll speak with a representative from the organization after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Becky Anderson.