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U.S., Iran Peace Talks Resume, Trump Wants Deal by Next Week; Trump Sends Mixed Signals as Federal Court Stops $1.8 Billion Anti- Weaponization Fund. Aired 3-3:45a ET

Aired June 02, 2026 - 03:00   ET

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

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POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Hey, everybody, it is wonderful to have you with us. I'm Polo Sandoval, live in New York, and this is "CNN Newsroom."

Peace talks reportedly back on track after Iran threatened to pull out. What led to the walk back ahead in a live report. Also a Republican surging in the race to be California's next governor. And this is voters get ready to head to the polls in just a few hours. Plus a rare look inside a hospital on the front lines of Africa's battle with Ebola.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from New York, this is "CNN Newsroom" with Polo Sandoval.

SANDOVAL: And we do want to begin with a heated phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Sources are saying that Mr. Trump unleashed his anger with a series of expletives over Israel's plans to strike his bullet targets in Beirut, Lebanon.

And those strikes prompted Iran to call off negotiations with the U.S. earlier on Monday, according to Iranian state media. A regional source now says that those talks are back on.

President Trump telling ABC News that a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and extend the ceasefire with Iran is reachable, quote, "over the next week."

CNN's Paula Hancocks is live at this hour from Abu Dhabi with an update. Paula, clearly the Lebanon context is not just coming back into frame, but it also seems to be very relevant now, obviously, with the negotiations happening between the U.S. and Iran.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Polo, what we've really been seeing is that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not ready to have a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, that it wants to continue to strike in southern Lebanon.

We heard a statement from the Prime Minister and the defense minister just on Monday saying that they were going to have strikes in Dahieh, the southern suburb of Beirut as well, the capital. And this seems to have been the tipping point for this most recent disagreement between the U.S. President and the Israeli Prime Minister.

What that did is it sparked a response from Tehran, according to state media, Iran saying that they were going to be suspending talks. We heard from the foreign minister, Abbas Aragchi, saying that a ceasefire is a ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon. And if there is a violation on one front, it's a violation of all.

So trying to make sure that the ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. encompasses Lebanon as well. So what we saw was, according to White House officials and two people familiar with the phone call telling CNN, a heated discussion between these two leaders, President Trump not wanting this expanded incursion into southern Lebanon and also these increased strikes on the capital itself.

Now, we have heard from "Axios," for example, reporting far more, saying that it was a very acrimonious phone call talking about expletives between the leaders, or at least on the part of the U.S. President, calling the Israeli Prime Minister crazy, saying you would be in prison if it were not for me.

Now, the White House wouldn't be pushed on just how acrimonious the call was. But the upshot of it all is that we have now heard from Netanyahu that there won't be this operation in Beirut, but he has said that they will continue their operations in southern Lebanon, he said, quote, "as planned."

Now, we have been hearing from humanitarian groups alarming calls on the situation in Lebanon, given the fact this has gone on for so long. We have heard from the World Food Program, for example, that almost a quarter of the population is facing food insecurity, given the fact there are more than a million displaced, there are soaring prices, lost incomes. We're hearing similar alarm bells from the United Nations as well.

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So where we are at the moment is that President Trump says that the talks are back on track and that they could be completed within a week, although to put that in context, we have been hearing this optimism from the U.S. President for a number of weeks now, and there hasn't been this memorandum of understanding signed. We've also heard that the regional sources said that they are back on track.

What we haven't heard is from Tehran, whether or not they consider that these talks are back on track. Given the fact on Monday, they said that they had been suspended considering what was happening in Lebanon. Polo?

SANDOVAL: A possible deal over the next week. We know the President has made similar promises before. We'll see if he delivers on this one. Paula Hancocks, as always, appreciate your reporting from Abu Dhabi. And joining me now from northern Lebanon is Paul Salem. He's a non-

resident senior associate in the Middle East Programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Paul, welcome to the program, thank you so much for joining us.

PAUL SALEM, NON-RESIDENT SR. ASSOCIATE, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES-MIDDLE EAST PROGRAM: Thank you, Polo. Thanks for having me.

SANDOVAL: Of course, it's our pleasure.

I'm wondering if you could just start off by telling us a little bit about what you're hearing there in Lebanon right now. How do people there see this heated phone call potentially impacting Israel's offensive against targets near Beirut beyond what we've already seen? Do you think it could further restrain Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?

SALEM: Well, it certainly has restrained him for the moment from attacking the southern suburbs of Beirut, which is one of the main strongholds of Hezbollah. Yesterday, there was quite a panic, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets to evacuate that area to avoid that attack. So that apparently has been postponed.

This is not the first acrimonious phone call between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. There were similar phone calls in the recent past to talk about previous ceasefires, to drag Prime Minister Netanyahu to direct talks between Lebanon and Israel, and actually the fifth round of those talks are taking place today, later today in Washington, D.C.

The relationship is fraught because President Trump, his eye is on securing a deal between the U.S. and Iran relating to the Straits of Hormuz and all of that situation. Prime Minister Netanyahu's focus is to prosecute a war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has a lot of public support in Israel, and Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing a tight election campaign. So all of that factors in.

It's important to note that this is not a ceasefire. It's a limitation of military action.

Basically, Israel's saying, okay, for the time being we will not target Beirut, but otherwise operations in south of Lebanon, the area of the Beqaa Valley, are the largest, most sort of penetrating in many years, which have led to, as your correspondent mentioned, massive displacement, demolition of many villages. So the war does go on, simply not in Beirut for now.

SANDOVAL: We've heard from some of those humanitarian groups that are on the ground trying to assist in helping so many people in Lebanon with that humanitarian crisis. You mentioned that relationship between the U.S. President and the Israeli leader becoming fraught, as you put it. Looking ahead, Paul, do you think that that friction that we're seeing right now has potential to unravel, potentially even stick a wedge in between these two leaders long term? SALEM: Well, I wouldn't build too much on it. I mean, President Trump

has been the most pro-Israeli and pro-Netanyahu, I would say, President in recent history.

But yes, part of the problem is that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been used in the past to sort of pushing American Presidents around and getting them to do what he wants. That doesn't work with President Trump. But President Trump is very much aligned, I would say, with Prime Minister Netanyahu in general, with the Israeli right-wing.

He has been, obviously, the first American President to go all in on this U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. He has continued to more or less support Israel's policy on the Gaza Strip, has not obstructed what Israel is doing on the West Bank.

I think what we're seeing here is certainly, you know, a divergence of interests over the negotiations in Iran, but even more interestingly, simply a clash of, in a way, a clash of personalities. They both want to be the alpha males in the room, and Trump doesn't take kindly to somebody else trying to be the alpha male.

And I think that comes out in his loss of temper, his expletive. He wants to remind Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose boss, previous Presidents of the U.S., I don't think, had that capacity to push back that hard.

But I think they're still largely very much aligned. The relationship with President Trump and his administration is strong.

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The longer-term worry for Israel, of course, is that they've generally lost the support of the Democratic Party. There's huge fractures within the Republican base about Israel and about support for Israel.

Most young people in the United States are no longer in their majority supportive of what Israel has been doing. So I think the worries are more long-term. In the short term, Trump simply wants to deal with Iran. Israel wants to continue the war.

SANDOVAL: It is an extraordinary situation that the Prime Minister finds himself in, to please the U.S. President, at the same time facing various electoral pressures back home. Paul Salem, we are so grateful for your time and your insight, as always. Thank you.

SALEM: Thank you, sir.

SANDOVAL: Ukrainian officials now say that at least 13 people have been killed in a large-scale attack by Russia on the cities of Kyiv and Dnipro. And we're told that more than 100 people have been wounded. Ukraine's military says that more than 600 drones and dozens of missiles were involved in this assault, including hypersonics.

A ballistic missile threat had been issued earlier in the region. Multiple buildings were hit, including a clinic and a school, sparking some of these fires and multiple cars that were burned. And officials are saying that people have been trapped under the rubble of a residential building.

And all this comes after warnings from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that a, quote, "massive strike was possible." Russia's Ministry of Defense says that the massive strike was in response to, quote, "terrorist acts committed by the Kyiv regime."

And it could be anyone's race heading into California's gubernatorial primary later today.

A poll by the Public Policy Institute of California now finding the Democrat, Xavier Becerra, in the lead, but with less than 25 percent. On the Republican side, an endorsement from President Trump appears to be lifting Steve Hilton to at least within striking distance. The top two candidates will be advancing to the general election in November, regardless of their party.

And Los Angeles also facing a highly contested mayoral race, with a whopping 14 candidates on the ballot. Polls are now showing the current mayor, Karen Bass, is one of three frontrunners, along with City Council member Nidhia Rahman and also former reality show star Spencer Pratt. The vote is nonpartisan, but Bass is now facing competition from Rahman to her left and also Pratt to her right.

And we're also going to be watching elections in Iowa in the hours ahead. Two candidates facing off in the Democratic primary, each hoping for a chance to replace retired Republican Senator Joni Ernst. Here's CNN's Jeff Zeleny with a preview of that race.

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JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF U.S. NATIONAL AFFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: June is a very busy month of primaries beginning here in Iowa, where a key Democratic Senate primary will be taking place on Tuesday, as well as a race for governor and competitive House races as well.

Now, as Democrats try and work through this uphill challenge of trying to win control of the Senate and Republicans try and defend their Senate majority, Iowa is one of the states where people are paying very close attention to. And a primary playing out on the Democratic side is going to be very interesting as the votes are counted on Tuesday evening.

A state representative, Josh Turek, who's a two-time gold medal winning Paralympian in men's wheelchair basketball, is running against a state senator here named Zach Walls. Now, there are not many ideological differences, but this race largely has been driven by the power of the biography and electability, which Josh Turek says belongs to him.

JOSH TUREK (D), IOWA SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: I think that I have the unique ability, proven ability, to reach out and connect with independents and moderate Republicans that I think that my opponent would struggle to do. And that is what it is going to take to be able to win in a state like Iowa. ZELENY: And Turek's opponent, Zach Walls, disagrees with that

assessment. He says he is the most electable candidate. Now, whoever happens to win the Democratic primary, it is still an uphill battle. Iowa has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 2008.

That was Tom Harkin, of course, who served for about 30 years in the U.S. Senate. He has endorsed Josh Turek.

So, as all the math is falling together about the possibility of Democrats winning control of the Senate, Iowa is one of those places that they are building their hopes upon. We shall see if that happens. But, again, June, a very busy month for primaries. Next week is Maine. Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Des Moines.

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SANDOVAL: And on the way, the Trump administration's so-called anti- weaponization fund, facing some bipartisan backlash over the very latest reaction after a federal court paused that project. So what's next?

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SANDOVAL: There are mixed signals from the Trump administration over the future of the President's $1.8 billion so-called anti- weaponization fund. It was meant to compensate people who claim that they have been wrongly targeted by past administrations, which do include the January 6th rioters.

The fund was also created in part to settle President Trump's massive lawsuits against the IRS. On Monday, the Justice Department said that it disagrees strongly with the federal court's decision to temporarily pause the fund, but added that it will abide by this decision. The move has triggered a flurry of reactions on Capitol Hill as Democrats tried analyzing the administration's shift in strategy.

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SEN. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): So I think this is just Trump saying, okay, I'm not going to include it in this bill, but I'm not giving up on this idea.

SEN. TOM SUOZZI (D-NY): So right now it's paused. That's good. The people don't like it, the elected officials don't like it, the courts don't like it. But they may try and keep it going.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SANDOVAL: And the fund is also sparking reaction among some Republicans. This was former Vice President Mike Pence, what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MIKE PENCE (R), FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: It's deeply offensive to me that you could have a fund that could even possibly compensate people who assaulted police officers or vandalized the Capitol on January 6th. And I think that's broadly held by most Republicans and most Americans.

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SANDOVAL: A judge has set a hearing that's scheduled to happen in 10 days where he expects to hear arguments on whether to extend the pause on that fund.

Well, a protester is facing federal charges related to his involvement in protests just outside of an immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey. And that's according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

A 27-year-old Brooklyn man allegedly threatened to assault and murder an ICE officer as well as his family. According to that complaint, the same ICE officer had hit Nicholas Matthew Schoeffel twice in the leg with a baton during a physical altercation.

Well, on Monday, crowds gathered again protesting what they describe as inhumane conditions inside of that facility. As for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees operations there, that agency is denying those allegations.

Newark's mayor has imposed a 9:00 p.m. curfew around the building, hoping to diffuse the situation. But on the first night, several protesters refused to leave, leading to their arrests.

Still to come here on "CNN Newsroom," we take you inside a hospital treating Ebola patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We'll show you how this deadly virus is taking a toll on those infected, on their families, and also on those doctors that are rushing to try to help them.

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SANDOVAL: Welcome back, I'm Polo Sandoval and these are today's top stories.

Ukrainian officials say that at least 13 people are dead after Russia launched strikes on the cities of Kyiv and Dnipro. The country's military reporting that more than 600 drones and dozens of missiles were used in this attack, which damaged buildings, sparked fires, and caused power outages in the region. More than 100 people have been reported injured.

Talks between the U.S. and Iran are back on, according to a regional source. Iranian media reported earlier that negotiations had been suspended over Israeli strikes on Lebanon. But President Trump says that the talks are continuing at a rapid pace, and an agreement could be reached over the next week, he says.

Rescue crews in Laos are expected to continue pumping water out of a flooded cave network in their search for two men who have been trapped for nearly two weeks underground. They're looking for other ways to access the caves as they face flash flooding from monsoons. Five others who were trapped have already made it out, either on their own or with help from rescuers.

The World Health Organization is reporting that at least 43 people have died so far from an outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Nearly 300 confirmed cases of the virus are being treated, but experts suspect that there are likely hundreds more that are yet to be diagnosed.

CNN's Clarissa Ward gained extraordinary access to the so-called Red Zone at a hospital in the DRC, and she shares the heart-wrenching mix of grief, fear, and fading hope among those affected by this disease.

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CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is a surreal, but now all too familiar ritual. Health care workers painstakingly disinfect the coffin of the latest suspected victim of the Ebola virus at Bunia's General Hospital.

As family members look on in anguish, unable to get close to their loved one, torn apart by grief and consumed by fear. Oh my father, why God, this woman cries. Oh God, this is my only father. As the dead are carried out, new potential cases are arriving. At the entrance to the hospital, everyone's temperature must be taken.

WARD: So this is the room where they take people who are found to have a fever. There is a woman in there now. Obviously, they don't know if she has Ebola or not, but they're going to keep her here until they do more tests and get a better sense of what's going on.

WARD (voice-over): At a makeshift coordination center inside the hospital, Dr. Richard Cajon and his team are working round the clock to keep up with an outbreak they say is out of control. They agreed to show me and photojournalist Alex Platt what they're up against.

WARD: We are now getting ready to go into the so-called red zone of this hospital. That is the area where all suspected Ebola patients are put. And there is a lot of protective gear, unsurprisingly, that one needs to wear to go inside.

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WARD (voice-over): Bundibugyo is a strain of the virus that few were expecting. There is no vaccine and no cure. The doctors write our names on our backs so they can recognize us. And then it's time to go in.

At the moment, patients are treated in hastily constructed tents. 30- year-old Gloria is a lab technician, one of dozens of health care workers believed to be infected. WARD: She says it's difficult to breathe.

WARD (voice-over): Earlier, we met her sister waiting outside for news.

WARD (translated): I saw your sister. She's waiting for the moment she can hug you again. Do you want us to tell your sister something from you, a message?

WARD (voice-over): Do not be afraid, she says.

But it's impossible not to be scared. Some of the patients here are in very bad shape.

WARD: Having you stay strong when you've seen this.

DR. RICHARD KOJAN, ICU DOCTOR, ALIMA: For me, it's our humanity. Yes, it's our humanity. When people suffering like this, I feel it.

He's in coma. It's Ebola confirmed.

WARD (voice-over): Ten-year-old Meshak is still very weak. His mouth ravaged with blisters from the virus.

He asked the doctors for a banana, an encouraging sign.

Slowly, Dr. Kajan warns him. His condition is improving, but he has a long way to go.

WARD: He wants to lay down? Let's help him lay down then.

WARD (voice-over): They lay him down in the corridor while his room is disinfected. Nothing about this situation is okay. But these doctors are doing everything they possibly can.

As we walk to another ward, a familiar sound in the distance.

WARD: You can hear the cries of a family for claiming the body of their loved one. This is a scene that's playing out here multiple times every single day.

WARD (voice-over): This is a temporary ward for suspected cases. Patients lie waiting for test results that are taking up to a week to process.

WARD: So this is the situation that health care workers really want to avoid and are racing to put a stop to. You have five patients in the same room, all of them suspected of having Ebola. But doctors can't be sure.

They can't rule out the possibility that one person in here may not have Ebola. And then, of course, there's a strong chance they could contract it.

WARD (voice-over): Every exit from the red zone is as careful as the entry. Protective equipment must be sprayed down with chlorine and methodically removed.

WARD: We were in there for maybe half an hour, and I could barely stand up by the end. It's incredibly tiring, really hot.

You're sweating so much. You're thirsty. Help us understand the kind of stamina that you need as a doctor to be going in and out of that red zone multiple times every single day.

KOJAN: It's really hard. We have to stand strong for those patients. Otherwise, the situation will be really bad.

WARD: That 10-year-old boy, that's hard to see.

KOJAN: The first day, you know, it was really bleeding, a lot of diarrhea and shock. So you have to get a way to give I.V. fluid. It's not really easy.

And for me, you know, like an ICU doctor, when you have a situation like this, it's very hard to just say, I have to stop because I'm tired.

WARD (voice-over): On the outskirts of the city, the family we met earlier is burying their father, 72-year-old farmer Papa Babona Baudoin. The burial team forms a cordon around his grave. The mourners forced to grieve at a distance.

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The final cruelty of this vicious virus. Clarissa Ward, CNN, Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo.

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SANDOVAL: And welcome back. Here are your business headlines.

The state of Florida suing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, accusing the company of misrepresenting the safety of ChatGPT, which the lawsuit says has harmed children.

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Now the state is seeking damages up to billions of dollars, plus a court order directing the company to change how its technology interacts with young users.

Longtime "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley is accusing CBS News editor-in-chief of, quote, "murdering the network's flagship program." And that's according to a source who was at Monday's staff meeting where the remarks were made. Well, Pelley reportedly said that Barry Weiss and the show's new executive director, would never be welcome and are not qualified for their jobs, and this follows a massive overhaul of "60 Minutes" with controversial firings.

One of the most recognizable liquor brands struggling with consumers, particularly the younger ones, cognac brand Hennessy. It has seen a decrease in U.S. depletions, which is a key measure of sales from distributors to retailers. And this is consumers are moderating their drinking or shifting their tastes toward premium tequila.

Anthropic just announced that it has filed to go public, a move which could offer one of the clearest looks yet at the economics behind the A.I boom. CNN's business tech editor Lisa Eadicicco has more.

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LISA EADICICCO, CNN BUSINESS TECH EDITOR: Anthropic said on Monday that it filed plans for an initial public offering. And while it didn't say how many shares it will sell or what the price will be, it did recently raise around a funding that pushed its valuation up to nearly a trillion dollars, which could set this up to be one of the biggest IPOs.

And of course, that is very significant. And this IPO would be closely watched for that reason. But there's also a lot of context to dig into beyond the numbers.

By going public, Anthropic will provide a window into its financials that we simply haven't had before. Possibly sharing more insight about the business opportunity in A.I., how much money they're actually generating, how well their products are performing, how popular Quad really is.

A lot of signals that could really kind of determine where A.I. goes in the future and provide information about what consumers and businesses are actually spending money on at a time when there's been a lot of concern about whether the market is in an A.I. bubble.

And of course, there is an ongoing rivalry between Anthropic and OpenAI. They're both huge competitors in the A.I. services space.

And I do think that OpenAI, which is also expected to IPO this year, if these companies do go public, all of this data that we'll be getting will be showing exactly kind of where the market is going and provide a lot of signals that we simply haven't had before. So I do think it's not just about the initial money, which of course is massive, but the indicators that we'll get about where the market is going in the future as well.

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SANOVAL: Lisa Eadicicco, thank you so much for that.

And thank you for joining me, "World Sport" is next, then I'll be back at the top of the hour with more "CNN Newsroom."

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