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U.S. & Iran Reach Agreement, Includes Reopening Of Hormuz; President Trump Headed To G7 Summit In France; Historic Kyiv Monastery On Fire After Russian Attack; Algae Spotted In Reflecting Pool After $14M Renovation. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired June 15, 2026 - 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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JULIA BENBROOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Donald Trump says an agreement with Iran has been reached. His announcement came shortly after Pakistan, a key mediator in all of this, took to social media. The prime minister, writing in part, "Following intensive talks, we are pleased to announce that the peace deal between the United States of America and Islamic Republic of Iran has been reached. Both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon. The official signing ceremony is expected to take place on Friday, June 19th in Switzerland."

Now, this is different than what Trump previewed earlier in the weekend. He said repeatedly that it would be signed on Sunday, which is also his birthday. It's Flag Day. It is the day that the UFC fights were taking place there on the South Lawn. But now both sides have said that this agreement will be signed in the coming days.

There are still some questions, though, about what is included in this memorandum of understanding, but it is our understanding that it would kick off a 60-day time period for technical negotiations. And according to a Trump administration official, it would include an outline of commitments on Iran's nuclear program, including how the highly enriched uranium would be handled.

Now, Vice President J.D. Vance, while speaking with Fox News, he outlined some of the core things that happened in this deal. Number one being that the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened and that the U.S. blockade there would be lifted, that Iran would never have a nuclear weapon and that they would not pursue one. And then also that compliance would be central to implementation, that the United States will want to verify that the proper steps are being taken throughout this process. When it comes to the signing, Vance says that he does plan to be there, but the president himself could be there.

Julia Benbrook, CNN, Washington.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's get the latest now from CNN's Paula Hancocks. She joins me live from Abu Dhabi.

So, Paula, just bring us up to speed a little bit on what we do know about this deal is to be signed on Friday. And some of the questions that still remain.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Polo, the key question is what exactly is in this memorandum of understanding? We have heard agreement from both the U.S. and Iran that it will be signed, that it has been agreed to, and yet the actual details of what it entails have still not been released. Now, of course, what this allows is for both sides to really put their spin on what they say has been agreed. We have heard from Tehran.

One of the key issues that they are looking for is to ensure that the billions of dollars of their frozen assets are unfrozen and also to see the lifting of sanctions. That is not something that we are seeing as a priority from the Trump administration. Unsurprisingly, their main focus is that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, something which Tehran has agreed to in the past. But, of course, the level of trust between these two sides is close to zero. So this is the details that the Trump administration will be looking for.

So, of course, going forward there, there is a long time between now and Friday. There are concerns, we're hearing from many experts that there could be something to scupper the deal, many of them pointing, of course, to Israel and the fact that this is not what Israel wants at this point. We saw just before the announcements that this memorandum had been agreed that Israel struck Hezbollah targets, it said, in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Now, we understand that there was great concern among the Trump administration that this was going to derail the whole process. We heard from, from one U.S. official, there was a phone call between President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In fact, President Trump in a phone interview with the New York Times, did speak of Netanyahu, saying, quote, "he is a very difficult guy," saying that Israel does stand to benefit from this memorandum, from this eventual deal that will be done between the U.S. and Iran. We're not hearing that at all, though, from Israel itself. In fact, we're hearing from politicians on both sides of the political divide that this is not a good deal for them. From the far right, we're hearing that Israel is not a subordinate to the U.S. and even on the center left side, we're hearing Yair Golan saying the agreement was made over Israel's head. So while the announcements themselves have been welcomed by many countries, there are concerns that over the next few days, there could be something to derail this agreement before it is signed.

[04:35:02]

Polo.

SANDOVAL: Not to mention the additional pressure on the Israeli prime minister domestically. Paula Hancocks, thank you so much for laying all that out for us. President Trump is currently on his way to France for the G7 Summit, taking off in the last hour from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Here's some video fresh from that UFC fighting match that he got to see at the White House and going straight to Air Force One there. When he arrives in France, he'll no doubt hear from Western leaders about the agreement reached between the U.S. and Iran. But the president could also face some friction about why the war started in the first place and also some potentially more dissent when the talks -- when the talks actually turn to the issues of trade and the war with Ukraine.

CNN's Senior Political Correspondent Melissa Bell is in France, the site of the G7 Summit with more.

Hey, Melissa.

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brian (ph). This is the lovely Lake Geneva where the Evian summit is just about to kick off. President Trump on his way, facing what has been, and you're quite right to point out, a pretty testy relations relationship these last few months with his fellow G7 leaders. In fact, last year when this G7 was held in Canada, it was the 12-day war between Iran and Israel that had derailed that. He'd left early, insulting the French president as he arrived back in Washington, suggesting that President Macron, purposefully or not, tended to get things wrong.

Now, one year on, it is President Macron who's hosting this G7 Summit in Evian. Really the French have gone to great lengths to ensure the President Trump sticks this one out. There will be a dinner for him at Versailles on Wednesday and in the meantime, even the agenda itself has been designed to try and avoid ruffling American feathers. No mention, for instance, of climate change, normally a staple in these kinds of events.

Clearly this is a summit that's likely to be dominated by Ukraine and Iran. The Ukrainian president will be here tomorrow and we understand that Europeans are really going to be seeking to wrestle back much more control of potential peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, with Europeans really pointing out that it is them keeping Ukraine financially afloat. But of course it is Iran, specifically with the events of yesterday and the emergence of this possibility of a memorandum of understanding by Friday that is going to dominate these talks, as the Iran, Israel situation did a year ago. That's how long this has been. There is also, of course, the anger on the part of the American president clearly expressed over the last few weeks that he feels G7 leaders and other European -- other Western leaders have simply not stepped up to help the United States forcefully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

So that's likely to be certainly at the heart of potential tensions as the American president arrives. But also in a factual way there is this Anglo French initiative to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The Coalition of the Willing as it's called, more than 30 countries involved insists this will only happen when hostilities ends -- cities ends but you are going to have these conversations about what happens over the next few days, the nature of the negotiations with Iran and there will be other regional leaders here in the shape of the leaders of the UAE, Egypt and Qatar. Brian.

SANDOVAL: CNN's Melissa Bell, grateful for your reporting there as the president heads your way. Thank you.

Russia launching a massive strike on Ukraine's capital? We'll be giving you a full report on the aftermath and Ukraine's discussions to join the European Union. What could that mean for the greater war?

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SANDOVAL: Switzerland rejecting a far right proposal that would have capped its population size at 10 million as a means to limit immigration. So far early results are showing that nearly 55 percent of Swiss voters opposed the idea, while 45 percent were in favor of it. The referendum was put forward by the right wing Swiss People's Party which says that uncontrolled immigration is hurting their country.

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THOMAS AESCHI, SWISS PEOPLE'S PARTY VICE PRESIDENT: Forty-five percent Of the Swiss population said yes to limit immigration to do something against those big problems that we have with illegal and criminal asylum seekers. So a very strong sign to our government to change its policies, a very strong sign to the other parties as well, and a very strong sign to the large lobby organizations.

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SANDOVAL: At the moment, foreigners make up about 28 percent of the 9 million people in Switzerland. Opponents of the plan said that it would hurt the economy by ending the free movement of labor between Switzerland and the European Union.

Now to a deadly overnight attack by Russia that sparked a massive fire at a historic Ukrainian monastery in central Kyiv. Some of the video we want to show you, it shows flames raging in that monastery. His crews battle the fire. The monastery is almost a thousand years old and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Russia's attack, it comes as Ukraine prepares for initial discussions on Monday for European Union membership along with Moldova.

More on that in just a moment.

Now let's go over to CNN's Sebastian Shukla standing by in Berlin.

Sebastian, what more do we know about these Russian strikes on Ukraine?

SEBASTIAN SHUKLA, CNN PRODUCER: Yes, good morning, Polo. You know those golden domes, the onion domes of the Orthodox churches all over Eastern Europe are such emblematic and symbolic across those cities. The fact that this one picturesque lava has been attacked is a highly symbolic moment. We don't know whether it has been a direct result -- took a direct attack or if this is just a result of a fire and spreading. That seems to be the suggestion we are getting here, particularly from the pictures.

That monastery, which is kind of known loosely as the Monastery of Caves, is a thousand years old, as you put it, and has been there for literally centuries and has actually slightly checkered and beleaguered history of being attacked in the past. It was demolished under Nazi occupation during the Second World War and has subsequently been rebuilt. It seems from these images that this monastery is going to be -- needed to be restored in some way once again.

You know, Polo, from these attacks that we saw last night, some 600 odd unmanned aerial vehicles launched by the Kremlin towards Ukraine along with 70 other ballistic and cruise missiles, some of them hitting various targets and has left five people dead and 35 other people injured. These attacks like this as well as we've seen, have becoming increasingly more common and increasingly more violent in their nature, launched largely by Moscow on Ukraine, but is also happening in the other direction to Kyiv launching attacks like these across Russian cities as this war kind of evolves more to a battle in the skies, particularly targeting military and industrial centers.

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I want to read a comment from the Russian Defense Ministry about the attacks last night, which says the targets were within the defense industrial complex in the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk. And obviously there has been widespread condemnation from the European Union. I want you to take a listen to what the head of the European -- or the E.U.'s top diplomat had to say about the attacks last night.

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KAJA KALLAS, E.U. FOREIGN POLICY CHIEF: Last night we saw again increased attacks on civilians, also UNESCO inheritance sites. So these are all war crimes that Russia is committing. Of course, we are also coming today with more listings, more sanctions that we have been working on on the military industrial complex of Russia, but also the shadow fleet.

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SHUKLA: And we know, Polo, as well now that the Ukrainian president is actually on the ground or is on his way to the monastery itself. I'm sure that we will hear from him as well as see video of him looking around and talking to those emergency rescue workers. And undoubtedly he will have some very, very, very strong words to say about last night's attacks. Polo.

SANDOVAL: Yes, we'll look for those potential developments in the future. For now, though, Sebastian Shukla, thank you so much for that live report.

Now we do want to take you to the U.K. where the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has just made a major announcement.

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KEIR STARMER, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: Today is a big moment for our country. This is a big step, real change for our children and our future because today I can announce that the government will ban access to social media for all children under the age of 16.

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SANDOVAL: You can expect a lot of unhappy teenagers in the U.K. this Monday morning. That ban is set to start early next spring. It would include popular apps like TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat and would also play restrictions on gaming and live streaming platforms. The British government says that the ban, which comes amid growing concern about social media among parents, will help protect children's mental and physical safety. Australia and also a number of other countries have recently introduced similar policies.

Still to come this Monday morning, a multi-million dollar renovation in Washington, D.C. it's supposed to be done. Then, what's all this green stuff in this water? We'll show you why the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool may still have some more work that should be done.

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SANDOVAL: The group stage of the World Cup it is starting to heat up as the teams look to gain an early edge. Let's start in Houston, Texas, where four time World Cup winner Germany making the biggest statement of the day, dominating Curacao seven goals to one. This was the island nation's first World Cup game and it's the smallest country ever to appear in this tournament. Ivory Coast grabbing a dramatic 90th minute win to beat Ecuador one nil in the city of Philadelphia. They now face Germany.

And Japan facing off against the Netherlands in Dallas, Texas in one of the most entertaining matches of the day. Scoring a late equalizer to secure a 2-2 draw. And to Vancouver now, Australia joining the United States at the top of group D after a two-nil victory over Turkey in the -- in that team's first World Cup match in 24 years. And Sweden trouncing Tunisia winning 5-1 in their opener. This is Sweden's 13th World Cup, but their first appearance since 2018.

Meanwhile, the Iranian national team arriving in the U.S. on Sunday just hours before President Trump announced that an agreement has been reached with Iran's government to end those ongoing hostilities. This now marking the first time in World Cup history that a host nation is at war with one of the participants.

Due to the conflict, the Iranian players, they faced multiple challenges ahead of the tournament and that included visa delays, travel bans and also their practice stadium being moved to Mexico. And the players were met by dozens of protesters at their hotel in Los Angeles. Another protest is planned for later today outside of the L.A. Stadium during the match between Iran and New Zealand. And the Carolina Hurricanes, they are Stanley Cup champions for the second time in their franchise history. The Hurricanes shutting out the Las Vegas Golden Knights three to nothing, capturing their first NHL title since 2006 when they won the series four games to two. Hurricanes rookie goaltender Brandon Bussi blocking 22 shots. Carolina captain Jordan Staal being named the most valuable player. What a show.

And the recent renovation of the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool. It is being questioned after the appearance of green algae. The Trump administration had spent more than $14 million and says that it has already installed state of the art equipment. But many or potentially that that equipment may not have actually solved one of the pool's problems as you're about to see in CNN's Brian Todd's report.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For several days, the Trump administration has been touting the renovation of the reflecting pool where we are here at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, saying that their renovation of this body of water is going to make it look better than ever. But it has been a work in progress. Not long after the Trump administration came out with that declaration that this is going to be better than ever.

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We captured images of plumes of algae at the surface, mostly on the east end of the reflecting pool, by the World War II memorial on the other end. But there's also been a lot of algae at the bottom. And here today, these employees of the National Park Service with their hip waders have been wading around in the pool. This is about four feet deep at this part of the pool. They've been wading around, using instruments to push the algae toward the so called nanobubbling machines.

Those machines are right over there, that green structure right there bubbling -- pumping thousands of tiny bubbles of oxygen and nanobubbles, which kill off the algae's food supply. So these gentlemen using instruments to push the algae at the bottom. And you can see the algae at the bottom, that's all the green. Underneath that algae is the new coat of blue paint that the administration put at the bottom of the pool. So what they want to do is push all the algae off, kill it off over there. So you can see the new blue paint job at the bottom of the reflecting pool.

The Department of the Interior says that any algae that's here now after the renovation is simply residual algae coming from supply lines that had been dormant during about eight weeks of construction. But this does kind of illustrate the idea that renovating this pool, which other administrations have tried to do unsuccessfully, is a problematic task. And this part of the renovation, at least this iteration of renovating the reflecting pool, according to the Trump administration, is going to cost about $14 million.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

SANDOVAL: And we do want to close with a feline that stole the show during a production of "Romeo and Juliet" in Turkey last week. You see, as Romeo dies in the play, the curious decided to check things out and also play with the star crossed lover's hair. You see that cat there? Unscripted. Juliet, though, remains in character mourning the loss of her love.

But people in the audience, they could not hold back their laughter as you see as the lifeless character gets dragged away.

Pretty cool. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Polo Sandoval in New York.

Our coverage continues with "CNN Headline Express."

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