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CNN International: Iran Demands Compensation For Pollution In Persian Gulf Waters; Cali Community Comes Together Amid Rescue Efforts; DHS Ramps Up Investigations Into Alleged Voter Fraud. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired August 13, 2026 - 04:00   ET

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

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[04:00:38]

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you so much for being with me. I'm Polo Sandoval, live in New York, and this is CNN Newsroom.

There's a growing energy crisis in the Middle East as the U.S. and Iran both double down on controlling the Strait of Hormuz. I'll take you live to the region.

And rescuers are racing against time to find survivors of a deadly earthquake in Colombia. We'll hear from crews on the ground about the efforts underway at this hour.

Plus, a rare eclipse completely blocking out the sun in parts of Europe. Hear from one astronomer who took his family on the road to experience it firsthand.

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

SANDOVAL: Let's begin in the Middle East, where there is a growing sense of urgency to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as the International Energy Agency is now warning that the world is rapidly burning through its oil stockpiles. Traffic through that critical waterway remains low, with just 14 vessels reported to have crossed the Strait on Tuesday.

Still, President Trump claims that the Strait is open and that the U.S. controls it. In the meantime, Iran is now demanding compensation for pollution in waters in the Persian Gulf and surrounding areas. Some of this video geolocated by CNN shows oil washing up on a beach at an Iranian island near the Strait of Hormuz.

And Iran's ambassador to Pakistan, as well as Pakistan's foreign minister, sat down for talks in Islamabad. There, they discussed closer ties between the two countries and regional issues. Pakistan, along with Qatar, has played a key role in mediating talks between the U.S. and Iran. Wednesday's meeting came just one day after Pakistan's interior minister traveled to Tehran to meet with the Iranian president.

CNN's Paula Hancocks is following those developments from Abu Dhabi. So, Paula, what seems to be coming out of these meetings?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Polo, what we've been seeing is Pakistan, as the mediator, making a real effort to try and bring the two sides closer together. We've heard the U.S. president say they are low-key negotiations. We've heard Tehran say that there are no direct negotiations, but they are continuing to pass messages back and forth.

We also heard the Pakistan foreign minister saying that he believes the memorandum of understanding that was signed between the two sides back in June is still the template of peace, even though both sides have deviated very seriously from that, Pakistan holding out hope that they will come back to that template of peace, as they call it, at some point.

Now, we've heard just yesterday from an adviser to the commander of the Revolutionary Guard suggesting that Iran could prolong this war until President Trump is out of office, so really showing the exact opposite than suggesting that they are getting close to negotiations. I want to read you part of what he said in an interview with PBS, saying that we have to attain deterrence so that the enemy never dares to attack us, so we can live with security. One way is to prolong this war until we get to the next term of the presidency and cause attrition, so that if anyone else wants to attack Iran, they will know there is a cost, also saying that the longer that this war lasts, the more experience Iran is gaining in knowing how to prolong it.

Now, we have talked about the political impact of this war, the personal impact to those affected, and the economic impact in the Strait of Hormuz, but there is also an environmental impact that is becoming more apparent now. We have seen from video geolocated by CNN, there is an oil slick on Qeshm Island, which is near the Strait of Hormuz. This is an Iranian island.

Officials have been saying it is about a kilometer along the coastal line. It is affecting mangrove forests. And Iran is now asking for compensation against those they believe who are responsible for environmental damage over decades, it says. We have a social media post from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson saying who bears responsibility for compensating for these damages, saying, is it the nations that consume the inexpensive energy imported from our region, the shipping insurers or the aggressors and their partners who have transformed the Persian Gulf and the of Oman into a theatre for military operations.

[04:05:20]

Oil tankers in and around the Strait of Hormuz have come under repeated attack, notably many of them by Iranian drones, if they have taken a route in the past which Tehran has not sanctioned. We're also hearing from Oman that they say that they have environmental damage as well. There was an oil spill from a sanctioned tanker carrying Russian crude which ran aground, according to Reuters, carrying some 800,000 barrels of oil.

Now, there have been specialized teams deployed to the area as it is affecting part of the south-east coast of Oman. They are trying to prevent this oil spill. But Omani officials say that they believe it will impact one of their islands, Masirah Island, which does have a rich coastal ecosystem, home to nesting areas for sea turtles. So this environmental impact really is having a greater effect now, Polo.

SANDOVAL: It really is. Paula Hancocks, thank you so much for that reporting. I appreciate it.

Now to dramatic scenes in the West Bank as Israeli troops crack down on settlers who had set up an outpost in front of a Palestinian home.

You see the troops there using tear gas to try to remove the settlers, but it's unclear if they were fully dispersed. The military has come under increasing pressure to halt rogue land seizures by settlers. A Palestinian resident described what her family went through in recent days.

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RUQAYA HASSAN ABU REEDA, HOUSE BESIEGED BY ISRAELI SETTLERS: The settlers established an outpost close to the house, around six meters. Since that day, we have been subjected to daily attacks by settlers, during the day and night, and harassment on the road. They tried to cut off water and electricity networks many times. We fix it, and they re-cut it again two days later, as well as attacking the workers who come to do the maintenance work.

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SANDOVAL: The West Bank has seen a surge in settler violence since the of the war in Gaza.

Well, Colombia's president says that the death toll from Monday's earthquakes has risen to at least 265 people. International teams are currently lending their assistance, much like they did when two deadly earthquakes hit Venezuela back in June. But the damage has been enough for the president to declare an economic emergency. That basically means that he can pass recovery measures that would normally have to be approved by Congress.

Thousands were injured in Monday's 7.4 magnitude quake. And as we approach the end of the critical 72-hour window for rescuing survivors, the president says that the focus remains on finding the missing. CNN's David Culver is in Cali, Colombia, with more on the rescue efforts.

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DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: We're headed now to a southern part of Cali, where we're told there are active rescues underway, including just a few hours ago where someone was pulled out alive.

You can hear people still right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh yeah.

CULVER: Well, they won't. OK, he said you can still hear people, so let's go see.

Just handed us masks. They said, please put these on because they're worried about asbestos and anything else that's in the air that we're also seeing some of this dust.

We've been told what we're looking at here was an apartment building that was about four storeys high. You can see the rooftop pool, the blue tiles over there, now about a story and a half up in the air. So, it has totally pancaked down, collapsing into the basement of this apartment complex.

CULVER (voice-over): Looking into the collapsed rubble, Harold Valencia recognizes something.

CULVER: You can see your dad's -- your dad's mattress.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A second, which is that one that he's showing right now.

CULVER: Have you heard anything? Is there any movement or anything?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been here two days and that we don't hear anything here.

CULVER (voice-over): Harold flew in Tuesday from his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and he isn't the only one here doubling as a first responder.

CULVER: And how old are the two people still missing, roughly?

JAVIER TABARES, VOLUNTEER: Late teens.

CULVER: Teenagers.

TABARES: Yes.

CULVER: And a brother and sister.

TABARES: Yes.

CULVER: How do you even process this moment?

TABARES: There's no way to process it. Like you don't process it. You just hear Dylan (ph). Like if you're home, maybe you may have to find some way to cope with it. Like there's no time to process this type of stuff. Like you have to be here helping. Otherwise, there's nothing else to do.

CULVER (voice-over): Here in Cali, Colombia's third largest city, with a population roughly the size of Houston, Texas, even folks working at hotels or taxi drivers even are splitting their day between their actual work and helping with rescues.

Motivated by scenes like this, a man handing off a baby boy from within the rubble, dust covered and struggling to breathe, but he's alive. [04:10:08]

BRIAN OSORIO ZULUAGA, HELPED RESCUE BABY FROM RUBBLE: (Speaking in Foreign Language).

CULVER: You saw the baby's little head. He's not a first responder. He works in a bank, and he was just around the corner, and rushed down the street where the collapse and rescue is still under way for several others. And he says he goes there and he hears (Speaking in Foreign Language). What did the voice say?

ZULUAGA: (Speaking in Foreign Language).

CULVER: The voice says, I'm here. I'm here with a baby. Brian and several others immediately go in. Over the course of three to five minutes, they're able to pull the baby out. (Speaking in Foreign Language). How's the baby right now?

ZULUAGA: (Speaking in Foreign Language).

CULVER: Stable condition right now as well as the dad.

ZULUAGA: (Speaking in Foreign Language).

CULVER: The only thing is that the mom is still missing.

CULVER (voice-over): More than 130 miles north, we watched on for hours as this close-knit community dragged huge slabs of concrete from this collapsed apartment in Pereira.

CULVER: All of these folks are volunteers.

CULVER (voice-over): Late in the evening, their hands reach the 32- year-old woman clinging to life. Her stepmother held vigil there for more than 24 hours. She tells us her daughter suffered heart failure and shattered nearly every bone imaginable, but says she's hopeful she'll make it.

From that same wreckage, someone's beloved pet also pulled out alive. Back here in Cali, this moment, reality briefly surfaces for Harold.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CULVER: You could tell in that moment Harold started to allow almost the reality of what he was looking at, the potential aftermath, to soak in, and he had to push it away, almost compartmentalize a bit, so that he could then focus that and get back to work.

And looking at him from afar, when we first were pointed his direction, we assumed he was part of first responders or a work crew. I mean, he was directing traffic and having essentially some of the workers follow some of his orders, so as to remove some of the large slabs of concrete.

Then it turns out that he, like so many we've met here, have just flown in and are not part of the experienced teams so much as are just here looking for loved ones. He and many others have said, if you want to do it, you have to do it yourself sometimes, and they're doing just that.

David Culver, CNN, Cali, Columbia.

SANDOVAL: Ukraine's president is making a new plea for U.S. interceptors amid an onslaught of Russian missile strikes. He said Ukraine would be OK through the winter if the U.S. sold it 5 percent of its Patriot interceptors. But if Ukraine could buy 10 percent of the U.S. stockpile, it would be able to shoot down all incoming Russian missiles, according to the president.

In an interview with CNN's Nick Paton Walsh, President Zelenskyy rejected the idea of conceding the rest of the Donbas region to Moscow. He also agreed with the recent assessments that Russian leader Vladimir Putin may be looking for an escalation against smaller NATO countries in the future.

The Department of Homeland Security is stepping up investigations into purported massive voter fraud. Still ahead, CNN uncovers some e-mails from investigators, and we'll show you what they show.

[04:13:32]

Plus, a tense encounter caught on camera. A federal immigration agent points his gun at a woman who shouted insults at him. We'll have details on the varying accounts of what may have led to the incident.

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SANDOVAL: Welcome back. The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, they are suing President Trump and his social media team. They claim that he's violating the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution by charging for instant access to his Truth Social posts.

The President frequently uses the platform to announce policy decisions and some of his executive orders. An attorney for the plaintiff say, "The President's official statements are not the private data of a company that are owned by the United States under the Presidential Records Act." Well, the White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Well, studies in the past have shown that voter fraud in the U.S. is extremely rare, but that's not stopping the Department of Homeland Security from zeroing in on investigations of alleged massive fraud in the nation's electoral system. Here's Gabe Cohen with more.

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For years, Trump and his allies have claimed that there is widespread voter fraud and non-citizen voting in this country. His Department of Homeland Security has made uncovering and prosecuting those crimes a top priority. That includes these criminal investigations that we have seen ramp up at DHS using agents that typically focus on crimes like human trafficking and drug smuggling who are now tasked with investigating the voter records of thousands, if not tens of thousands of people that the Department has flagged as possible non-citizens. Of course, it is a federal crime for non-citizens to vote or to make false statements to register to vote. And evidence, like what these agents are seeking, can be used to prosecute people or to deport them. Now, we have obtained e-mails from recent months that show agents in various exchanges pressing local election officials for voter records, sending them lists of names it appears that they believe to be non- citizens who may have registered or voted.

Those e-mails show in some cases agents have been hitting roadblocks, in some cases misidentifying people, or even finding out that few of the people on their lists have actually ever voted. To be clear, this is a snapshot of a much bigger investigative effort, and DHS insists that it has found voter fraud. They said in a statement, we have repeatedly demonstrated that illegal aliens can and do vote in our elections, pointing to a handful of cases that they have publicized, as well as that massive error you might remember last month at New Jersey's DMV when the governor revealed that they automatically registered more than 6,000 non-citizens, nearly 400 of whom had cast a ballot.

[04:20:18]

But there's a lot of concern right now from election integrity advocates as well as some officials who believe that DHS is, one, chasing these cases largely to push that political narrative of this sort of election fraud crisis in this country, and they also point to another key aspect of the department's initiative, these claims that we have seen in recent weeks from DHS that they have found hundreds of thousands of non-citizens on state voter lists, specifically looking at the public voter lists of just a handful of states.

And we've seen officials on both sides of the aisle question those numbers, say that they are likely inflated, perhaps dramatically, and they are still waiting on DHS to actually show its math. The context here is key, because as all of this is happening, we are less than 90 days out from November's midterms, with the administration and the President still pushing for abrupt and significant election reforms and in some cases using all of these claims from DHS as a piece of the evidence that those reforms are desperately needed.

SANDOVAL: All right, thanks to Gabe Cohen.

There are conflicting accounts around a tense confrontation between U.S. immigration officers and a woman in Virginia on Monday. Carolina Molina says that she was driving when she saw ICE agents and then shouted insults from her car window. Well, that's when Molina says that masked agents pulled up in a vehicle and then jumped out.

One of them threatened to arrest her and actually also point a gun at her, as you saw there. The Homeland Security Department accusing her of attempting to harm officers by, "weaponizing her vehicle." But dash cam footage from her car, it appears to conflict with the government's account.

And the woman says that she never tried to run anyone over. Now, this is just the latest incident in recent months in which DHS has made claims that were later called into question, sometimes by video or other evidence, other times by police and judges. The House Democrat, whose district includes this part of Northern Virginia, is calling for ICE to be held accountable.

And meanwhile, the Trump administration now plans to equip ICE agents with gloves to deliver electrical shocks. A notice published on Monday by Homeland Security says that ICE plans to spend between $10 and $20 million to purchase these devices. It's unclear exactly how many pairs will be brought and, you know, how much each one would cost and also when officers could potentially start using them.

But they are expected to be delivered by the end of March of next year. And the manufacturer of these gloves says that they are intended to de-escalate encounters between agents and individuals. In fact, a video shared by the company in 2023 actually shows you how they're supposed to work.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So if I was back here and I'm working with Wyatt, and he started to struggle with me, I would say, oh, Wyatt. Now if you take a look at Wyatt, he's got no burn signatures, nothing happened to his skin. He's perfectly fine. But that fight ended in less than three seconds.

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SANDOVAL: And all this comes as DHS has been under pressure to put more body cams on their agents after several officer-involved shootings where agents not wearing cameras were involved in incidents. DHS and ICE, they are already under scrutiny over what critics say are aggressive and dangerous tactics. And that the Trump administration is pressuring the agencies to make around 2,000 immigration detentions a day.

Well, let's talk more about all of this and bring in Richard Kolko. He's a retired supervisory special agent with the FBI. Richard, it's always great to see you. Thank you so much for joining us.

RICHARD KOLKO, RETIRED SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT, FBI: Glad to be here, Polo.

SANDOVAL: So Richard, given ICE's previous issues with the use of force, do you think that these gloves are the right tool for some of their agents?

KOLKO: Well, that's yet to be seen when they actually be put into action. But I think it is a useful tool. From the beginning, when you start law enforcement training, you learn about the force continuum. Any agent, law enforcement officer, carrying out an operation wants to use the least force possible to do what they want to do, which is, you know, conduct that arrest safely.

So there are different tools that you have along the way, from verbal commands, soft physical controls, hard physical control, less lethal, all the way up to deadly force. And what I think these gloves do is it provides something at the lower level that can be used to help ensure compliance from somebody who just, frankly, doesn't want to get arrested.

[04:25:04]

SANDOVAL: One of the first questions that came to mind when I heard about this, sir, Richard, was what other sort of law enforcement settings this kind of technology has been deployed in? I saw something about prison guards, for example, using it in the event of a riot.

KOLKO: Yes, it's a pain tool. It enforces compliance. We think of this, you'll hear people try and compare this to a taser. I don't think that's a good comparison. A taser is more of a -- almost a decaspitation. It stops you from moving. We've seen people that are hit with tasers and they fall down and can't move.

This just causes pain. Kind of de-escalation tool. Gets you to comply with what the law enforcement officer wants and when conducting an arrest, when somebody gets that. The other thing we learned also in training was people can be compliant up until that point where you go to put the handcuffs on them. That's kind of that point where they make a decision, a change in their attitude. Having these gloves may continue to encourage them to allow you to put on those handcuffs in a more peaceful manner.

We're going to have to wait and see. One of the things that concerns me, though, Polo, is we've seen so many of these protests outside of ICE facilities, people blocking cars, things like that. I don't want to see these agents have to go out there and use these gloves just on protesters to get them to move. I don't know what the policy is going to be for ICE on that.

SANDOVAL: Well, per the manufacturer of this technology, no more than two gloves should be applied to a person at a time and they should not be used for more than 15 seconds in many instances. So bearing that in mind, what kind of training you think should be needed to ensure that these agents do use these gloves appropriately and they don't deploy them in one of those scenarios that you just outlined?

KOLKO: Well, a lot of that's going to come down to the training department at ICE. This is pretty standard. Anytime they get a new tool, whether it's how to use a gas or a baton or even how to put on handcuffs, they go through a training regimen. So they'll have to write up a training policy and a training profile. They'll probably work with the company that makes the gloves. There'll be initial training. There'll be training, probably annual or biannual, to make sure that they stay current using them.

They'll probably have to document each time they use the gloves on somebody with a taser. They have to typically offer medical care afterwards. Not sure if they would have to do that with these gloves or it doesn't seem like they would have to. It seems like a much lower compliance issue. In reality, when you're out there as a law enforcement officer in difficult, dangerous situations and leaving the politics aside, trying to get the job done and get that person arrested, this, I think, will provide a lower-level tool that can help law enforcement de-escalate, be safer for them, and be safer for the person that they're arresting.

So if it's carried out correctly, if the training is done right, I strongly encourage that rush to body-worn cameras, which I know ICE is trying to do right now. At the end of the day, this may be a helpful tool for them so they don't have to go all the way to the taser or gas or a baton and be able to just use this glove to get people to get handcuffs on them.

SANDOVAL: But based on your vast law enforcement experience, Richard, do you think it would be wise for ICE to issue these gloves to agents who do not have body-worn cameras?

KOLKO: I think no matter what happens, and just based on the way things are being conducted these days, so many of these arrested interactions between ICE and the subjects, the targets that they're arresting, are being risen up into the media, on social media, onto national media, that having those body-worn cameras provides safety and security for both sides and it helps tell a more accurate story of what's occurring.

We heard, you know, from the Secretary of DHS in the past that they wanted to get those body-worn cameras out quickly. Hasn't happened probably as quickly as people wanted it to or should have happened. They're pushing for it right now, but they're spending the money, they've got the finances.

And you've got to remember, body-worn cameras requires a good deal of training. They've got thousands of officers and agents out there. They come back from every shift. All that information that data has to be downloaded, has to be retained, has to be recoverable. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes. We see just the very tip when we see one of these arrests take place on a social media reel.

There's so much more that goes into it from the training, from how the information is handled at ICE, how it's retained, how lawyers can get to it, how prosecutors can get to it. There's a lot of things that are going on that it's just difficult to explain to the general public. And I think it's helpful when we do this here on the news and try and talk about some of those things that are going on.

At the end of the day, if used correctly, if the policy is in place, if the training's in place, this is a lower level de-escalation tool that I think has a potential to keep everybody safer.

[04:29:56]

SANDOVAL: Yes, those cameras certainly would help. I mean, this latest incident in Virginia, we've only seen just a few seconds. It would be extremely helpful to see not only more of the video from the civilian perspective.