Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

CNN International: U.S. Strikes Iran for 12th Day; U.S. Secretary of State Addressing ASEAN Summit; Trump Approves Deal with Saudi Arabia To Enrich Uranium; Trump Attends Dignified Transfer of Four U.S. Soldiers; Modi's Promise to Protesters in India. Aired 4- 4:30a ET

Aired July 23, 2026 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

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

As Donald Trump threatens to strike Iranian infrastructure, Tehran is warning that it will respond in kind across the region. And as Houthi demonstrations across, and as youth demonstrations across India intensify, Prime Minister Modi addressing protesters for the first time, we'll tell you more. Plus, an invisible killer threatening New Zealand's birds. We'll speak with a local official about efforts to protect their winged wildlife.

ANNOUNCER: Live from New York, this is CNN Newsroom, with Polo Sandoval.

SANDOVAL: All right. Let's begin with the war in Iran, and the U.S. presidents and Iranian leaders now ramping up their threats as this conflict continues to rage on. U.S. Central Command now says that the military has completed a 12th straight night of strikes.

And according to Reuters, Iranian state media is reporting that two people were killed and at least 11 others wounded in a missile attack near the border with Iraq. And local media in Iran now reporting that there were strikes on military sites in the port City of Bushehr. And that's near Iran's only operating commercial nuclear power reactor.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is now threatening to destroy Iranian bridges and power plants every time Iran strikes a ship in the Strait of Hormuz. Now, President Trump has issued similar threats since the start of the war. But Tehran is warning that any such U.S. attacks would be met with powerful and decisive response.

Let's go now to CNN's Leila Gharagozlou, who's live in London. Leila, I know you've been monitoring closely some of the remarks from the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who just spoke to reporters in Manila as he was meeting -- after he was meeting with some Asian leaders, speaking about Ukraine, speaking about why he's there. What if we could focus on what he's saying about the U.S. war with Iran? LEILA GHARAGOZLOU, CNN PRODUCER: Yes. So, he actually spoke quite a lot about the escalation that we've seen with the introduction of the Houthis into this conflict and those attacks that we saw on the tankers that the Houthis have claimed. He said that the Houthis have been snookered into this conflict, that they had stayed out of it, but now they had basically been dragged in. And he said that they should stay out of it. And I do think that this is an attempt by the U.S. to kind of try to bring down the temperature of this conflict and not allow it to escalate and expand.

The Houthis joining into this conflict, hitting the Saudi tankers, inevitably is going to bring in the rest of the region. And so, far over the last 12 days, people have, the regional countries have essentially tried to stay out of what's going on between the U.S. and Iran so that we don't see another repeat of the earlier part of this war when all the GCC countries were really dragged into this conflict.

Now, as you said, President Trump has said that he's going to hit civilian infrastructure if Iran keeps hitting tankers and ships in and around the strait. Iran has said that their new defense doctrine is eye for an eye. And so, if the U.S. escalates, they're also going to escalate. So, it's a really fragile situation that we're seeing here. And it does look like things are rapidly expanding and escalating.

And so, far, there has not really been an off ramp. As you know, earlier this week, there were overtures made by Qatar and Pakistan to kind of draw down this conflict and maybe bring both sides back to the negotiation table. And so, far, that hasn't really worked. So, we're going to have to see what happens over the next couple of days if both sides continue to escalate. And what's going to happen if the Houthis also keep attacking these Saudi ships and tankers around the Red Sea? Polo.

SANDOVAL: Just as a follow up, again, I know you've been following exactly what the secretary of state has been saying. I wonder if we could also expand on maybe, you know, has he elaborated, for example, on this President Trump's reiterating that threat, that if the Iranians continue to disrupt ship traffic, that he would potentially go after infrastructure? And what else is the secretary saying?

GHARAGOZLOU: Yes. I mean, he's saying that they're really going to focus on trying to get that straight open and that they are not going to shy away from hitting Iran and trying to really degrade their military capabilities. So, we're going to have to see, again, what happens over the course of the next days, whether President Trump really does go after these civilian infrastructures and even things like Pickaxe Mountain or Mount Kolan, as the Iranians call it.

[04:05:00]

SANDOVAL: All right. Leila Gharagozlou, thank you so much for that.

And U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, again, is still speaking there in the Philippines right now. We also want to listen to a few of the other remarks that were shared from or by the U.S.'s top diplomat. Listen to this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Iran is begging us, OK, both directly and indirectly. Let's do a deal. Let's talk. Let's talk. Iran is begging every day. The problem with Iran is every time they make a deal, the people that are in charge there, they either break it or they want to change it.

So, it looks like they're not ready to make a deal. So, they're going to continue to pay a price. And every night the price gets higher and higher and higher. And that's what's happening now. And until -- maybe in a few days they'll be ready to make a deal once they realize that this is not a winning proposition for them.

And that's what the president is outlining, the idea that this is going to continue. It's not going to continue this way. The price will continue to get higher every single night until they come to their senses. Right now, apparently, they haven't come to their senses. And so, the president doesn't see a lot of utility in responding to their overtures at this point because, frankly, Iran is clearly not ready to make a deal, at least not one they're willing to live by.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: And Secretary Rubio saying that they're not ready to make a deal, but also saying that they were begging to make a deal, according to some of the remarks that he shared a few moments ago. That's something that was echoed basically from what we've heard from President Trump as well. So, we'll see what else comes out of Manila and bring that to you.

The U.S. has signed a deal allowing Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium for civilian energy purposes. In fact, Secretary Rubio was quite supportive of that. The thing, though, it does not seem to include international oversight fueling concerns about the kingdom potentially developing nuclear weapons. More now from CNN's international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: What makes this deal different? And there's a deal that the United States, for example, had with the UAE in 2009, a nuclear civilian energy program that was sort of described as the gold standard. The enriched uranium is not enriched in that case in the UAE, which is that style has become the norm for countries moving into nuclear power. They tend not to be enriching the uranium themselves. The difference for Saudi Arabia is it appears it would be allowed to enrich the uranium itself.

Another part of that gold standard deal that the UAE and so many other countries have is that there would be careful oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Additional protocols, as the term is known, would allow those inspectors, international inspectors to go and visit sites. Saudi Arabia doesn't seem to be subject to those same additional protocols and scrutiny. In some ways, this sounds exactly like the sort of deal that Iran would be pushing for, where it would be able to do its own enrichment and wouldn't have stringent oversight.

Saudi Arabia -- and I think if we take a big step back here, Saudi Arabia has a military treaty, a pact with Pakistan. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia is widely understood in the region to have helped fund Pakistan's nuclear program. And it's widely believed that if Saudi Arabia felt it needed to call on nuclear weapons to defend itself, it could call on its treaty partner, Pakistan.

We don't know all the terms of the deal that the White House has agreed with Saudi Arabia at the moment. But it's these points, the enriching uranium themselves and those less stringent oversights that's giving rise to concern, particularly here in Israel, where it was widely seen under President Biden that Saudi Arabia would get a civilian nuclear program as part of its normalization with Israel.

Well, of course, the Gaza-Hamas attacks, Israel's response following that has put Saudi Arabia in a position where it won't normalize with Israel until Israel accepts and recognizes a Palestinian State. So, from Israel's perspective, this puts in the position of having a neighbor, another neighbor, with the potential for nuclear weapons.

And also, it puts criticism on Prime Minister Netanyahu for his relationship with President Trump that would have allowed this to happen. So, yes, it raises a lot of concerns. Maybe not all of them are justified at this stage until we hear what the White House has to say about this deal.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: Now, again, we just heard from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who defended that deal just a short while ago. But the question remains if this potentially sets a tricky precedent for the region, especially those regional nations that do not have any nuclear abilities.

So, I posed that question to Jasmine El-Gamal. She's a founder and CEO of Avro Strategies and also former Middle East adviser for the U.S. Defense Department. Here's what she told me.

[04:10:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASMINE EL-GAMAL, FOUNDER AND CEO, AVEROS STRATEGIES: That's certainly what critics of the deal are afraid of, that it would set a precedent, especially in light of the ongoing Iran-U.S. negotiations and the years-long struggle that the U.S. has had trying to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Now, for this particular deal with Saudi Arabia, this is a deal that essentially helps Saudi Arabia develop a civilian nuclear program to develop an alternative framework for generating electricity. This is something that the Saudis have wanted for a long time. It's part of their long-term vision for the future and for diversifying their energy resources. And so, from the Trump administration's point of view, they are looking at it in terms of whether if Saudi Arabia is going to do this anyway at some point and it's part of their plan, is it better to do it with U.S. cooperation, oversight, opportunities for U.S. businesses, or do we wait until they do it with someone else like China, for example?

So, the administration is looking at it from both an economic perspective and a geopolitical objective or lens as well. And President Biden had also had these talks with Saudi Arabia. The big difference here, Paolo, between the two administrations is that President Biden tied these conversations with Saudi Arabia to normalization with Israel, which President Trump is not doing. He's treating this as a bilateral issue between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. And that is something else that critics of the deal point out, that this essentially takes the Israeli normalization path out of the question.

SANDOVAL: Yes, and in the face of that criticism, the Trump administration calling this a win. Meanwhile, you have Iran that's watching this. Do you think that this makes Iran less or perhaps more likely to continue their negotiations?

EL-GAMAL: Well, I think Iran is likely to point at this and say, look, if you're having these conversations with someone else like Saudi Arabia, why are you imposing such standards on us? And that's another point that's being discussed in the analysis here, is whether this raises some sort of a double standard.

That said, though, Paolo, Saudi Arabia has certainly not acted the way Iran has acted in the region, whether that means vis-a-vis the United States and Israel or its neighbors as well. So, one can argue that Saudi Arabia has given no reason for concern in terms of Saudi Arabia acting as a threat to U.S. interests or regional interests in the way that Iran has.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: Our thanks to Jasmine El-Gamal. And President Trump attended a dignified transfer on Wednesday for four U.S. service members who were killed in the Middle East. Three of the soldiers were killed in an Iranian strike on a military base in Jordan, and the fourth was killed during a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian drone in northern Iraq.

And despite a number of recent polls suggesting otherwise, the president is claiming that Americans are not against the war

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Great heroes, actually. They said -- and all of them said very strongly, we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. They won't have a nuclear weapon. So, we're going to honor them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you say to the families of these fallen soldiers when Americans are only against this war? How do you ask them?

TRUMP: Well, Americans aren't against the war. A poll just came out. Americans don't want to have gasoline prices, but they're not against the war. That just came out loud and clear in a poll. Nobody wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: Russia says that its top diplomat has warned the U.S. that sending more weapons to Ukraine is inadmissible. The statement came after Sergey Lavrov met with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on the sidelines of a summit in Manila just a short while ago. But Moscow also said that Lavrov confirmed that Russia is still ready for a diplomatic settlement.

And hours earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke with top U.S. mediators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. He said that they focused on how to restart the stalled peace talks, but as leaders talk, Ukraine is also accusing Moscow of trying to hold global food security hostage. He says that the Kremlin struck three civilian cargo ships in the Black Sea on Wednesday, and it happened during the peak harvest period when Ukraine exports its agricultural products through Black Sea corridors.

A U.S. federal judge says that former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores will stand trial next June. The couple have pleaded not guilty to charges of gun running and drug smuggling. They were captured by the U.S. military in January and then flown to the United States to face those charges. As CNN's Maria Santana reports on the court hearing on Wednesday.

[04:15:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA SANTANA, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: A relaxed-looking Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, learned that their trial will start June 1st of next year during a very brief hearing in federal court in New York that lasted just 13 minutes and solely focused on establishing a pre-trial schedule.

Now, Maduro's attorneys said that in the next few months they are going to file several motions, one of them claiming sovereign immunity for Maduro. The defense argues that Maduro and his wife were kidnapped in January by U.S. military forces in Caracas and that as the legitimate head of state of Venezuela, he cannot be tried in U.S. courts. Of course, the U.S. government rejects those arguments and does not recognize Maduro as the legitimate president of his country. The defense said that they are very confident that they can stick with a June 1st date to start the trial, even though the judge expressed some skepticism about that timeline.

Inside the court, Maduro looked at ease, much more at ease than he has been at his previous two appearances here. He was sporting what looked like a fresh haircut, a trimmed mustache. He was in good spirits, talking to his lawyers, laughing with them. At some point, he said hi to the public as he entered and left the courtroom.

Both Maduro and Flores have been charged with narco-terrorism and other charges related to drug trafficking. They have both pleaded not guilty and will remain in a federal prison in Brooklyn as they await their trial.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: Maria Santana, CNN, New York. India's prime minister is finally responding to student protesters in New Delhi. What Narendra Modi is promising in response to growing anger from students over exam paper leaks, plus the intense heat wave in Europe, it is fueling some massive wildfires. We'll have an update on the fight to get them under control.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:20:00]

SANDOVAL: Welcome back. Protests are underway right now in India's capital again with students demanding action over an exam rigging scandal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is addressing the issue for the first time promising swift and stringent punishment for those involved. Here's CNN's Rhea Mogul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RHEA MOGUL, CNN SOUTH ASIA REPORTER (voice-over): The so-called Cockroaches first filled New Delhi streets. Now, they're showing up thousands of miles away. From New York to London, supporters of India's Cockroach protests are going global. Amplifying movement in India that's become one of the biggest challenges to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.

And it's growing at home too. Some of India's biggest celebrities have voiced solidarity. Bollywood superstar Salman Khan praised the student's dedication and has called for a solution. Support galvanized after a police crackdown on protesters earlier this week when tens of thousands of mostly young people marched through New Delhi. They're demanding the resignation of India's education minister and sweeping reforms to an examination system, they say denies millions of students of fair chance at success.

Police fired tear gas, baton swung, injuries were reported on both sides, but the protesters aren't backing down. They've reclaimed their main protest site in the capital, vowing to stay for as long as it takes. India's opposition has seized on the anger, calling for Modi's resignation and clashing with police.

MOGUL: On Thursday, while avoiding any direct reference to the protests, Modi said India's youth were, quote, important and pledged action against exam paper leaks. A rare acknowledgment for a leader known for keeping a distance when the political pressure mounts.

MOGUL (voice-over): Modi has weathered major crises before. From year-long farmer protests against agricultural reforms to public anger during India's COVID pandemic, but this challenge may be different. Nearly two-thirds of the country's 1.4 billion people are under 35. And Modi can't afford to lose the support of India's youth, making them not just the face of this movement, but potentially one of the most powerful political forces in the country.

Rhea Mogul CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: The storm threat has passed for parts of West Virginia, but after historic flooding hit the region, a state of emergency remains in effect for all of the state's 55 counties. The governor of West Virginia says that officials are focused on search and rescue efforts right now, and they're concerned over possible loss of life after hours of punishing rain and rising floodwaters. The crews conducted more than 100 rescues on Wednesday alone.

And officials say that the full extent of the damage that's difficult to assess because the storm has washed out roads and cut off some access to some areas. The severe storms also produced multiple tornadoes, damaging winds as well in states like Kentucky, Ohio and New Jersey and parts of Europe.

They are enduring another intense heat wave, fueling more destructive droughts and wildfires in southern France. Hundreds have been forced to flee their homes in a fast-moving fire, in a separate fire to the west. At least two firefighters have died near the Bordeaux airport.

To Spain now, hundreds of firefighters there are battling the country's largest wildfire of the year in the central Guadalajara province. Prime Minister Pedro S nchez says that the country has already seen four times as many wildfires this year than last.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PEDRO SANCHEZ, SPANISH PRIME MINISTER (through translator): More than 100,000 hectares have been burned as a result of the wildfire or wildfires across Spain. To put that into perspective, that is the annual average that Spain experienced over the past decade.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: An investigation is now underway in France after the death of a professional model recruiter with ties to Jeffrey Epstein. We'll bring you more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:25:00]

SANDOVAL: Welcome back. More now on our top story. The U.S. military says that it has conducted another round of strikes on Iran overnight. CENTCOM saying that it's to further degrade Tehran's ability to threaten commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. As the two countries trade daily strikes and an escalating war of words, President Trump is struggling to articulate a plan for how the conflict will actually end. CNN's Kevin Liptak has more from the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Concerns are growing inside the administration that the president's strategy of night after night attacks on Iran does not seem to be effective. And shifting the Iranians negotiating position, the president ordering up the 12th consecutive night of strikes on Wednesday into Thursday.

But there are some hard conversations now underway inside the administration about where precisely this goes next. And we know that the president over the last several days has been receiving options and policy meetings about potential steps that would escalate the conflicts. And what you see the Pentagon doing is ramping up the firepower and forces in the region in the case that the president may order up those options. It includes F-16s, F-35s and aerial refueling tankers.

But so far, the president has not executed on any of those potential options. Instead, what the strategy seems to revolve around is the president ramping up his threats against Iran. On Wednesday, the president said that he would strike roads and bridges if Iran continued to hit commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. He's also said that he would strike Pickaxe Mountain pretty soon. That's the highly fortified nuclear facility that's buried under 400 feet of solid rock.

[04:30:00]