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CNN Visits a DRC Rural Hospital Struggling to Contain the Ebola Outbreak; New York Outlasts San Antonio in Game One of NBA Finals. Aired 3-3:45a ET

Aired June 04, 2026 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

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POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Hello and thank you so much for joining me. I'm Polo Sandoval, live in New York and this is "CNN Newsroom."

Mixed messages from the U.S. and Iran, we have a live report from the region about the status of the negotiations.

Also ahead, we'll take you to the DRC where CNN has gained access to a rural hospital that's fighting to contain this Ebola outbreak.

Plus, a tech CEO made an appearance at the White House this week, while several industry leaders are now taking the lead on AI regulation.

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

SANDOVAL: All right, folks, first this hour, mixed messages over the status of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, with each side offering a very different take on where things actually stand as of this moment.

Iran's foreign minister said on Wednesday that there's been no significant progress in the talks over the past few days. He said, quote, "there is no formal negotiation process underway between Iran and the United States. However, messages continue to be exchanged."

But in Washington, U.S. President Trump says that his administration is negotiating a very powerful deal with Iran and that the talks are going, quote, very well.

And all of this is coming as Iran launched attacks in the region, including in Kuwait, you see here, where the Aviation Authority released this video showing an Iranian strike at the Kuwait International Airport. 63 people were reported injured in that attack, one of the highest injury counts among Gulf States hit by Iran since the fighting started.

President Trump was asked if this affects the ceasefire. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Mr. President, given Iran's attacks on Kuwait, this latest attack on Kuwait, is the ceasefire with Iran still on?

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Well, you know, there's a reason for everything. And we hit them pretty hard the night before and actually last night.

Some people would say they were slightly provoked because we took a strong action for a different reason. So they were reciprocating.

REPORTER: So how do you define ceasefire?

TRUMP: Pretty much the way it is. It's a different part of the world. You know, I'd say in that part of the world, ceasefire is when you're shooting in a more moderate manner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: CNN's Paula Hancocks is following this live from Abu Dhabi. Paula, it's great to see you again. I wonder if we could start with these conflicting messages from both sides.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Polo, if we look back over recent weeks, we really have been hearing some very positive tones coming from the Trump administration, in particular from the U.S. President Donald Trump. We heard just earlier this week, in fact, over the weekend, he said that he believed that this memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran could be done within a week.

Now, he has been saying very similar positive things over recent weeks, and yet we haven't seen the results of that. But what we have been hearing from Tehran is what you just mentioned there from the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, really pouring cold water on this optimism that we're hearing from Washington at this point, saying that, in fact, there are no formal negotiations at this point, although they are talking.

Now, we do understand at this point that the White House is still waiting for any kind of response from President Trump's request for changes to this memorandum of understanding, really wanting to strengthen the language, according to U.S. officials, when it came to reopening the Strait of Hormuz, when it came to talking about the nuclear program as well. And yet at this point, we have nothing concrete that we can talk about as to whether or not Tehran is going to respond to that.

So when you say mixed messages, we have to understand that, of course, both sides are also talking to a domestic audience, and that has to be taken into consideration. But there is nothing concrete that we can point to that shows that these talks are progressing in as positive a manner as we are hearing from the U.S. President. Polo?

[03:05:03] SANDOVAL: Yes, that last point, Paula, that is so important. In terms of the talks between Lebanon and Israel, I wonder if you can also update our viewers what's the latest on that front.

HANCOCKS: So what we have heard, this is significant, is that there has been a joint statement between Israel and Lebanon. We have seen a couple of days of meetings between the ambassadors of both of the countries in Washington. It's been mediated by the State Department.

And it is a joint statement where the two sides have agreed to, quote, "implementation of a ceasefire."

Now, of course, this is talks, it has to be said, between Israel and Lebanon. Hezbollah, which is currently firing against Israel and vice versa, is not part of these discussions. But the agreement does hinge on the complete cessation of Hezbollah fire and also the removal of all of Hezbollah operatives from southern Lebanon.

Now, it is being praised by the United States. It's being praised by Israel as well. We've just heard from the defense minister, Israel Katz, also saying that at this point, operations and fire in southern Lebanon will continue and that Israeli forces will be there for the foreseeable future, something we have heard consistently from Israel in the past.

But Iran has really tried to tie Lebanon into the wider U.S.-Iran deal, saying that if there is not peace in Lebanon and that if Israel continues to fire upon Lebanon, then that is going to derail the deal that President Trump wants to do, Polo.

SANDOVAL: CNN's Paula Hancocks with that live report from Abu Dhabi. Thank you.

So, the Strait of Hormuz, that is still one of the main topics being discussed in these ongoing negotiations. So, let's discuss that with retired Royal Navy Commander Tom Sharpe, who is a senior advisor at Qorvis. Commander Sharpe, thank you so much for taking the time to join us.

TOM SHARPE OBE, SR. ADVISER, QORVIS, AND RETIRED ROYAL NAVY COMMANDER: Thank you.

SANDOVAL: I'm curious if I can get your thoughts, though, on the situation as it stands now. Do you believe that the ceasefire is still in place, even if we're at this point growing accustomed to seeing this crossfire going back and forth? And, of course, you saw that latest strike in Kuwait.

SHARPE: Yes, there's definitely been an increase in strikes and counterstrikes in the last seven days. But it's not really a change in the status quo. I'm going to think labels like ceasefire and winning and all that sort of a little bit black and white for me.

What we're seeing is dueling blockades that we've had in place for over a month now with the U.S. blockade imposed over the top of the Iranian blockade, and both sides needing to enforce those and look credible in doing so, and that involves some strikes and therefore some counterstrikes. So, we're just seeing ongoing jostling. The risk is, of course, whilst the negotiations continue or don't, depending on which side you're listening to, the risk is one of miscalculation.

So, one of these strikes or counterstrikes flares into something that it wasn't intended to do, and what was a semi-controlled albeit violent environment rapidly escalates into something unfortunate.

SANDOVAL: Commander, on Wednesday, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson called on Gulf and NATO partners to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. From your perspective, what kind of ally support is the U.S. receiving, and do you expect it to make any difference?

SHARPE: In terms of forcibly opening the Strait, no, I don't. So long as Iran continue their intention of contesting the Strait through violence, then I don't think there's anything the combined local, regional, allied might can do.

The fact that the U.S. Navy aren't in there right now with their warships operating day in, day out, suggests that the risk is still too high. And the French task group that's heading that way with the British ship HMS Dragon attached to it is formidable, but it's not enough to force the Strait open. For the Strait to reopen, that requires a shift in mindset from Iran.

Now, when that happens, if that happens, and hopefully it does, although I'm nervous about it, but when it does, then all these other ships can help, and they can help with assurance and they can help because there's thousands at anchor now at either side, and that will need to be coordinated. So there is work to be done, but it is dependent on Iran saying, okay, we're not going to shoot anymore.

SANDOVAL: We've seen some of those aerial attacks from U.S. forces specifically going after Iranian targets for months now. So bearing that in mind, Commander, at this point in the war, what is your understanding of Iran's capabilities on and near the Strait? And what kind of assets does the U.S. maintain in the region?

You mentioned those Navy warships just a little while ago.

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SHARPE: So Iran has significant capabilities remaining in the air surface and subsurface domain. They've still got drones, they've still got missiles, they've still got fast attack craft, they've got the potential to use mines. I still don't think they have, but we can come back to that.

So they've got threats, the ability to exert threats in all three of these war fighting domains, as we would call them. The problem is it doesn't really matter if it's down, if that's at 50 percent of what it was at the start, or if it's at 2 percent. What matters is that they still retain the ability to do it.

Now the U.S. has significant capabilities to degrade these things. We've seen it, as you say, we've seen it over the months. They've got two carrier strike groups there. That is the equivalent of

most countries' air forces, if not more. They've got the USS Tripoli, which is an amphibious ready ship there, they've got nuclear submarines.

I mean, it is still a formidable fighting force. And then whatever Israel send in over the top, if the time comes to re-escalate.

But this is the problem. It doesn't matter how formidable it is, you can't write that threat down to zero. It's virtually impossible because Iran has configured themselves over many decades to make it impossible.

And that's why we're caught in the trap we're in. So you can be as impressive as you like. Your technology, your strike rate, your speed of attack can be as impressive as the Americans undoubtedly is.

And it doesn't change the overall metric, which is Iran able to exert pressure through violence that means that shipping goes, you know what, we'll just wait a few more days.

SANDOVAL: Commander Sharpe, pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much for your time and for your perspective.

SHARPE: Thank you.

SANDOVAL: Let's go to Capitol Hill now. A remarkable bipartisan rebuke of President Trump as the House passed a resolution to limit his war powers in Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RANDY K. WEBER SR. (R-TX), U.S. HOUSE SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: On this vote, the yeas are 215 and the nays are 208. The concurrent resolution is adopted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: On Wednesday, four Republicans crossed party lines supporting the measure, which must still be approved by both chambers. So it's off to the Senate, eventually the White House. Two of those Republicans who voted to curb the President's war powers are defending their votes.

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REP. BRIAN FITZPATRICK (R-PA): There's a law in the books, the War Powers Act of '73 says 48 hour notification and 60 day concurrence of Congress. We're past the 60 days.

So you have two choices. You either follow the law or you change the law. You can't violate the law. That's not an option.

So I offered an alternative that would accommodate ceasefires for negotiations, real ceasefires and not ceasefires in name only. That was not taken up. REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): People are tired of this. They're tired of $5 a gallon gas and $6 a gallon diesel and fertilizer we can't afford to put on our fields in Kentucky. So I think it sends a good message that the people's house, which represents the people, is tired of this war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: To a major economic forum that's happening in Russia's second largest city, despite attacks from Ukraine just hours before the event started, Ukrainian drones rained down on St. Petersburg overnight into Wednesday, striking this major oil terminal.

The forum, often called Putin's Davos, is an annual event that showcases the Russian President's home city. Ukraine says that another target was a Russian warship that was in a dry dock, the Kremlin later threatening with what it called systemic responses to those strikes. But Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says that Russia should brace for more.

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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): They must know that if they use drones and missiles against us, we will do the same. And it is only a matter of time before we can increase the scale of our responses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: A community hit hard by Ebola virus, it is coming together to expand a treatment center. We have a report from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Plus why thousands of people in Albania are protesting a billion dollar resort development connected to Donald Trump's son-in-law. Don't go anywhere.

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SANDOVAL: Welcome back.

The World Health Organization says that it has significantly slashed its count of suspected Ebola cases after processing a backlog. They now put that number of confirmed cases at 344 in the Democratic Republic of Congo and that includes 60 deaths.

And in neighboring Uganda, there are 15 confirmed cases and one death there. But the full scale of the outbreak, it is not yet known. CNN's Clarissa Ward is reporting from the region and recently gained access to a DRC hospital on the front lines of this fight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're at a hospital in the rural community of Rwampara. This area has been one of the hardest hit by the Ebola outbreak. So at the moment, the hospital has 17 suspected Ebola patients.

They're rapidly running out of capacity. But if you look over here, you can see a huge amount of activity as people from the community and the NGO Alima are furiously working to erect these Ebola treatment centers.

The doctor from Alima told us they're hoping that these facilities will be completed in the next two to three days.

[03:19:58]

And that really is going to be a game changer for this rural hospital because it will give them the capacity to receive another 34 Ebola patients.

And it's really interesting. If you take a look at the way these treatment centers are being built, they are incorporating a lot of the lessons that have been learned.

So I want to show you what each room here looks like. You've got the tap outside, of course, to make sure that people are washing their hands the whole time. Each room has its own bed.

Each patient has, crucially, of course, as well, their own toilet. But the really interesting part is right here. This paper will come off and it's transparent glass, which allows the doctors to get up close and see the patients without endangering themselves.

This is what it looks like from the doctor's perspective. This is the entrance they come into. They can see through, see the patients.

It's pretty incredible.

It's interesting because despite the fact that this community has been ravaged by this virus, the mood here among these people who are all local, who are taking pride in the fact that they are participating in building and contributing and protecting their community.

They have been singing, they have been laughing, they have been joking around and, honestly, against the backdrop of so much misery. It's been really wonderful to see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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SANDOVAL: Tens of thousands of people taken to the streets of Argentina on Wednesday, standing up to violence against women. The protests, they followed the gruesome killing last month of a 14-year- old girl that shocked the nation. Police do have a suspect in custody.

A protest like this has been held annually for 11 years now. Organizers are saying that a woman is killed in Argentina every 31 hours on average. Sadly, that's a number that is rising.

In Albania, police using water cannons to disperse thousands of protesters there who are marching toward the prime minister's office holding signs demanding his resignation. The protesters opposing a $1.6 billion resort plan being led by an investment firm that's associated with President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The development is planned for an environmentally sensitive part of the Adriatic coast that is home to flamingo seals and sea turtles and their nesting sites.

New comments from President Trump. They have some lawmakers asking if his anti-weaponization fund is truly dead.

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

Russia's showcasing economic event is underway at this hour for a second day in St. Petersburg following Ukrainian strikes on the city just before it started. Ukraine says it hit a major oil terminal and a Russian warship on a dry dock. Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to address the forum on Friday.

Iran's foreign minister says there's no significant progress in talks with the U.S. to end the war. And an Arab media outlet is reporting that he also threatened a new attack if Israel strikes Beirut. But President Trump says the negotiations are going very well and even suggested a positive development could happen as soon as this weekend.

And in stunning rebuke to the U.S. President's handling of that conflict, the House passed a resolution to rein in his war powers. The vote was 215-208, with a handful of Republican lawmakers crossing party lines to support the measure, a measure that can still be vetoed by the President. Democrats in both chambers of Congress, they've repeatedly forced votes to limit President Trump's war powers.

President Trump is defending the controversial $1.8 billion anti- weaponization fund. He says that he's not sure if it's actually dead. That's even after the acting attorney general said that the administration is not moving forward with it.

Here's CNN's Kristen Holmes in Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump once again mucking up the waters when it comes to this anti- weaponization fund. After we heard from the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, telling Congress that this was over, this fund was not going anywhere, period, you saw President Trump kind of trying or at least acting as though that wasn't necessarily the case, that this wasn't dead in the water the way that we had heard from Blanche.

Here's what he said about it.

TRUMP: I'd have to ask the lawyers, I don't know. I know one thing, the weaponization. Are you talking about the weaponization fund?

REPORTER: Yes, what's your decision?

TRUMP: The weaponization fund, as far as I'm concerned, was a beautiful thing.

HOLMES: Now, obviously, President Trump is talking to his lawyers. We know that they've been working together going through whether or not they're going to move forward with this fund and ultimately deciding that they weren't going to, at least according to the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche.

[03:30:06]

But they're also raising an enormous amount of questions here as to what could happen down the road. President Trump, he has said that he thought this was beautiful. You just heard that.

He also, we are told behind closed doors, that he still believes there should be some kind of weaponization fund where pay for what he believes were political weaponization under the Biden administration. So that is something that lawmakers on Capitol Hill are watching closely, because while the acting attorney general said, point blank, we are done with this, it is over, period, he also wouldn't commit to that in writing.

So there's still an enormous amount of questions, particularly when you hear President Trump talking like that, as to what exactly this means for what's coming next with this weaponization fund.

Kristen Holmes, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: And it could take days before we have final results in one of the biggest primary elections in the United States. Votes are still being counted in the races for California governor and Los Angeles mayor. See, mail-in ballots postmarked on or before election day, they still have a week to arrive and then get counted.

Republican Steve Hilton leading the governor's race for now, followed by Democrats Xavier Becerra and Tom Steyer. The top two vote-getters have the chance to advance to November's general election.

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XAVIER BERCERRA (D), CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I've seen Trump more than 120 times before. And I won. And anyone who wants to come at California will have to go through me.

STEVE HILTON (R), CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Looking at basically the record of the Democrats after 16 years in power, and the fact that we got the highest gas prices, highest cost of living on everything, highest poverty rate, highest unemployment rate, the crime, the homelessness, all these things.

And you've got a candidate in Xavier Becerra, if it's him, who's explicitly saying that he doesn't think that there's anything that's been done he disagrees with, and isn't offering any kind of change. I think that we will have a shot at winning. I don't think it's going to be easy, but we're going to work very hard.

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SANDOVAL: And back to the L.A. mayor's race. Incumbent Karen Bass will be advancing to the general election. But who will she face?

Republican Spencer Pratt is currently in second place, followed by L.A. City Council member Nithya Raman.

And still to come here on "CNN Newsroom," the U.S. government wants access to new A.I. models to make sure they're safe. And A.I. companies, they want a hand in overseeing regulations. We'll have the latest on how that could potentially be overlapping in Washington.

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SANDOVAL: Welcome back. Let's get to your business headlines now.

Waymos operates driverless taxis in 11 U.S. cities, but they say that they want to expand. But according to a CNN analysis, the robo-taxis allegedly made dangerous maneuvers and struggled with some obstacles. They ran red lights, drove into oncoming traffic and even active crime scenes, they failed to abide by emergency road closures and came within inches of pedestrians.

Longtime CBS correspondent Scott Pelley is speaking out after being fired from "60 Minutes." He told the "New York Times" that there was no effort of any kind to find a resolution, despite what CBS News editor-in-chief Barry Weiss told her staffers. Pelley was let go after criticizing the news magazine's new leadership in front of other staff.

President Trump is expected to announce $425 million in federal funding for coal-powered plants in the coming hours. The White House official says that the funds would be distributed to 13 existing coal- fired plants. Additional grants would also help pay for the construction of two new coal plants in Alaska and West Virginia.

The White House called on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to attend meetings on the future regulation of A.I. here in the United States. And he comes amid the U.S. government's push to stay at the forefront of A.I. innovation. And this as they weigh the potential risks of the technology. CNN's Hadas Gold with more.

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HADAS GOLD, CNN A.I. CORRESPONDENT: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman spent the day in Washington with meetings at the White House with high-level officials as well as at Capitol Hill discussing A.I. policy and A.I. regulation.

These meetings come just one day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on A.I. that the most important aspect of it would have A.I. companies who develop these really advanced frontier models that have amazing cybersecurity capabilities, that they would voluntarily submit those models to the government for review up to 30 days before they are released to others.

And that's because some of these models have proven to be so successful when it comes to being able to find vulnerabilities in cybersecurity that the government wants to be able to take a look and see what kind of vulnerabilities could there be in critical infrastructure, in critical systems like the finance system, before these systems could potentially get into the wrong hands.

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So Sam Altman is expected to be discussing this executive order as well as other safety policies, where the models are going next, the cyber capabilities. Sam Altman and OpenAI, they were in favor of this executive order, but now they actually want to see things go even further. And they want to have a hand in helping shape any sort of A.I. regulation.

OpenAI releasing on Wednesday afternoon what they called a blueprint for how they believe the government should build a durable federal framework, they called, that includes some of these A.I. safety laws from the various states. And you can see there that the A.I. companies, OpenAI and others, they know that regulation of some kind is coming and they want to be involved.

We also know that Sam Altman is meeting with several members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, people who will have a direct impact on creating regulation that will impact the A.I. industry. Speaker Mike Johnson telling Politico that he plans to discuss a developing house framework that's a bipartisan bill that will be regulating artificial intelligence.

So that will be what he will be talking about with Sam Altman. And then Senator Bernie Sanders telling our own Kaitlan Collins that Sam Altman reached out to him to have a meeting. Senator Sanders has been introducing bills that would have the American public have 50 percent ownership stake in A.I. companies.

But also Senator Sanders specifically told our colleague Kaitlan Collins that he wants to discuss a federal moratorium on data centers with Sam Altman. Data centers, of course, are a subject that animate a lot of people because they see these massive, they look like warehouses coming to their cities and towns. They're worried about energy usage, they're worried about water usage, they're worried about pollution and noise.

And so we've seen a lot of pushback against data centers coming to these places and Bernie Sanders is asking for a federal moratorium on them. But the A.I. companies, they desperately need data centers because that is where all the action happens. That's where A.I. models are developed, that's where all the inference happens.

When you ask a chatbot a question, that question has to travel through that data center before it is answered and returned back to you. And that's why you're even hearing of some of these A.I. companies talking about putting data centers in space, because they are desperate for more of them.

So Senator Sanders said he will be discussing that with Sam Altman as well, as these A.I. companies understand and know that the A.I. regulation will soon be coming, and they want to have a hand in shaping it.

Hadas Gold, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: And we can't say goodbye without talking NBA Finals, where Game 1 definitely lived up to the hype of fans as the New York Knicks won a back-and-forth battle against the San Antonio Spurs.

It was a close game all night, though. You see the Knicks, they jumped out to an early lead, but the Spurs' star rookie, Dylan Harper, he came off the bench and he helped the team come back with a 20-5 run to end that first quarter.

The Knicks have extended a playoff win streak now to 12 games, the second longest in league history. The Spurs will look to even the series in Game 2 that's set for Friday night in San Antonio. I think there's still people celebrating out there on the streets of New York.

Thank you so much for joining me. "World Sport" is next, and I'll be back at the top of the next hour.

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