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Holly Dagres is Interviewed about the Israel-Iran Conflict; John Sandweg is Interviewed about Deportations; Senate Republicans Unveil Medicaid and Tax Cuts; Daniel Hernandez is Interviewed about Lawmaker Shootings; Lawmakers Face Political Violence. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired June 17, 2025 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:33:40]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Audie Cornish. Thank you for joining me on CNN THIS MORNING. It's half past the hour. And here's what's happening right now.

President Trump back at the White House after abruptly leaving the G-7 summit. The White House said he needs to monitor the Israel-Iran conflict. The president says he is seeking a real end, not a ceasefire.

A U.S. citizen has been killed in a Russian attack on Kyiv. The 62- year-old is one of the 14 people killed overnight in drones and missile attacks. Officials say it is the deadliest strike on the capital in weeks.

And in just a few hours, former Senator Bob Menendez will report to prison. He was found guilty of corruption and bribery for taking gifts, like gold bars, a luxury car and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. Menendez is fighting the 11-year sentence, but an appeals court denied his latest bid for freedom last week.

Turning back now to this spiraling conflict between Israel and Iran. Both sides launching dozens of airstrikes. Iran reports another round of explosions in Tehran overnight. Their air defenses were activated amid a barrage of Israeli drones. These attacks coming just hours after President Trump issued a warning on social media to evacuate the Iranian capital.

[06:35:00]

Many in Tehran didn't need a warning. Video taken before Trump's post show what appears to be bumper to bumper traffic leaving the city.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PASHA MOEZZI, PROTESTER: Both my parents are stuck in Tehran. They don't have gas to leave. My dad doesn't have water right now. There are bomb -- bombardments around them. And as much as they've said that they're not hitting civilian targets, civilians are being hit.

We just want people to know that the Iranian people don't want this war. Our government, unfortunately, has also sparked this war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now to discuss, Holly Dagres, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Also author of "The Iranist" newsletter, correct (ph)?

I want to talk to you about what we just heard there in those comments. We've seen scenes of people in Tehran trying to flee the city. And there are also people questioning the lack of warning in other ways, right? No air raid sirens, things like that?

HOLLY DAGRES, SENIOR FELLOW, "THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY: Yes. There were no air raid sirens. There are no shelters. They made makeshift shelters in mosques and schools and metros just days after the war broke out. And metro stations don't even have bathrooms. So, Iranians, those that have been staying behind, that don't have savings, that don't have a second home in another city, that are elderly, they're staying behind. And for them, they're terrified because the -- the message that President Donald Trump put on X or Truth Social saying that Tehran needs to evacuate. Tehran is a capital city with over 10 million people. Thats roughly the size of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. So, how do you tell that many people to leave with no information coming from their government? They're having to rely on intermittent internet access, diaspora satellite channels for that information, or they're calling -- their phone calls and text messages from family and loved ones abroad.

CORNISH: I want to talk about how the airstrikes are taking out so many of the leaders in the government. One, because it is happening sometimes in their homes, right, which means in civilian areas. But, two, there is a dwindling -- there was an opposition to the Iranian leadership. So, what is the reaction as these airstrikes are happening? Are people feeling like they are glad those leaders are taken out? As you heard that person say, we didn't want this war. What are you hearing?

DAGRES: Well, Iranians have not wanted this regime for a long time. In 2022 we had something called the Women Life Freedom Uprising. That was not successful in school of ousting this regime.

And Iranians have been disappointed the international community didn't support them in their push for positive change. And now we're in a situation where they have a regime that's made decisions for them that they didn't want. They are being held hostage by them. Forty-six million people have been living under a regime that's been at war with them, and now they're in a war that they never asked for. And they are having to fight for their survival in the capital right now.

And so, you know, we talk about opposition. There's many Nelson Mandelas in Tehran's notorious Evin prison. And you know what, those --

CORNISH: So, meaning, there's opposition leaders in Iran, but they're in prisons right now.

DAGRES: The best and the brightest are in this prison. And a lot of these political prisoners, including western hostages, some of which are U.S. hostages, are in these prisons. They're not being let out. They don't have access to information. And so, this is what's happening on the ground right now.

CORNISH: Can you talk about this decision for President Trump, something we've been hearing about all day, covered today, tug of war. I mean they're presenting it as destroy the last Iran nuclear site or somehow get back to talks.

From the position -- what -- what you're hearing out of Iran, what is the decision being seen as?

DAGRES: Well, there's a lot of confusing reporting because "Axios" this morning had reported that there were talks of ceasefire. And actually, just moments before I met with you, I was reading that President Donald Trump had tweeted or posted on Truth Social that he actually was not -- there was no ceasefire talks and that all the reporting has been inaccurate. Iran has not approached him. And that if they would, they would be saving many lives.

Again, this emphasis on many lives and evacuating Tehran, it -- it -- the -- the U.S. and Israel want to say that they're not at war with the Iranian people. But when you're talking like that, it -- it doesn't seem to suggest otherwise that you're just targeting the regime.

CORNISH: All right, Holly Dagres, I hope to talk to you soon as this unfolds. Thank you so much.

Holly is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Now, you've seen the footage of plainclothes I.C.E. officers wearing masks and making arrests, and the protests over President Trump's immigration policies. But tough immigration enforcement didn't actually start with him. It's the latest in a long line of measures carried out by both Republican and Democratic administrations.

[06:40:01]

And while Trump deported more than 1.5 million people in his first term, that's about half of the nearly 3 million deported during Obama's first term. And it's a fact that earned Obama the nickname deporter in chief. So, with I.C.E. stepping up enforcement and arrests under Trump, how new is what we're seeing?

Joining me now to discuss is John Sandweg, a former acting director at I.C.E.

Welcome to the program.

JOHN SANDWEG, FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR, U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT: Yes, thanks for having me. CORNISH: You know, on social media people have taken a lot of videos

of I.C.E. officers approaching people in masks maybe doing everyday things, maybe at schools. Is there something to be said about the tactics or approaches that I.C.E. is deploying now to do their jobs?

SANDWEG: You know, Audie, this is a -- a fundamentally different operational tactics we're seeing from this administration than any prior administration. Although this administration spent a lot of time and rhetoric saying we're going to focus on criminals and transnational gang members, the reality is what they're doing here is a volume-based approach. They're going after work sites, targeting places where they can find large numbers of migrants congregated.

The problem, though, is when you do those kind of operations, you're not finding your criminals, right? Typically your criminals are not the ones who are wanting to work --

CORNISH: But, John, can I interrupt for a second?

SANDWEG: Yes.

CORNISH: The reason why I'm asking you about this is because you've actually had to do this job, right? And doing these kinds of deportations is not unusual. But people are making a big deal and really rebelling against the visual of it. The tactical gear. The face coverings.

Are people overreacting to that?

SANDWEG: I don't think so, Audie. Look, I -- I understand why that's troubling. And, frankly, it raises all sorts of issues from an officer safety perspective, right? You have I.C.E. officers wearing masks where you can -- you know, they're doing it to protect their identity. And I'm sympathetic to that. The -- the tactics and the, you know, this mass deportation effort is triggering a lot of controversy. So, these officers feel vulnerable. So, I'm sympathetic to the idea that they want to wear masks to protect their identity.

On the other hand, though, you know, we have -- we don't -- you know, those visuals are terrible, right? You have these officers wearing masks and people -- it also creates officer safety risks whereby, you know, people, third parties, might not know these are I.C.E. agents who are making these arrests.

So, in a sense, this is all a byproduct of this administration's policies in terms of the focus on, you know, these non-criminal populations.

CORNISH: We're also hearing reporting, for instance in "Axios," that it's part of a cash crisis that the agency has amid this crackdown. The reporting out of "Axios" says that they're "burning through cash so quickly that the agency charged with arresting, detaining and removing unauthorized immigrants could run out of money next month."

What's your reaction to that, having kind of managed a budget like this? SANDWEG: Certainly these type of operations and the volume of mainly

detention. The detention numbers are through the roof. That is very expensive for I.C.E. They're not budgeted. They're budgeted for 40,000 beds. We're currently at a population of about 50,000. So, right now this is a budgeting game. I think the administration is banking on this bill coming through, giving supplemental resources. I also anticipate that they're moving money around from other DHS priorities.

Of course, Audie, the problem is, as you move money around, that means it's something else you're not doing, right? There's some other national security or law enforcement priority that you're now pulling money from to fund immigration enforcement.

But as it relates to budgeting, I have no doubt that they're having a budget crisis right now, but it's more of one managing the timing and really banking on this supplemental funding that's coming in that Congress is kicking around on the big, beautiful bill.

CORNISH: Can they make the number, the quota they're talking about, by just going to major cities?

SANDWEG: They can, Audie. The problem is, first of all, two things. One is, you don't have enough resource -- officers to make these volume of arrests. But, two, really is this, how you do it is so critically important. And I know at the beginning you talked about the Obama administration. But during the Obama administration we had a very targeted approach. We are focused solely on people inside the country who had a criminal history, a serious criminal history, as well as people at the border.

Now, this administration doesn't have -- the border numbers have dropped. That impacts the number of arrests that I.C.E. can make. But the other issue here is, so what's happened is I.C.E. is pivoting and forced to go away from this targeted approach, getting away from doing all those investigations and finding that at large criminal where you might spend 100 hours to get one arrest, but it's a high-quality arrest.

Instead, they have to look for groups. Places where immigrants congregate. And that means work sites. That means Home Depot parking lots.

So, while those type of tactics can allow I.C.E. to really surge up the number of arrests, this 3,000 a day quota that the administration has put on them is just not sustainable. But, Audie, again, more -- you know, more disturbingly about it is it diverts the agency's attention away from this criminal population to the non -- you know, the people who are working and making a living.

CORNISH: Yes.

SANDWEG: And what we know about that population is they've been here a long time. They're integrated into our society and they're really generally, more frequently than not, not criminals.

CORNISH: John Sandweg was former acting director of I.C.E. Thank you.

SANDWEG: Thank you.

[06:45:01]

CORNISH: Senate Republicans have revealed their version of President Trump's spending and tax bill. The Finance Committee's framework makes significant changes to that measure that narrowly passed the House. And one point of contention, deeper cuts to Medicaid through the so- called provider tax, which is how states raise money to pay for their portion of the program. Senator Josh Hawley says it would effectively defund hospitals. Democrats are echoing that concern.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-IL): I've actually been traveling into red states to talk to the people there about what they're going to lose. Missouri is going to lose 400,000 people will be kicked off Medicaid's rolls. I talked to the hospital -- National Hospital Association. Thirty percent of our safety net hospitals, most of which are in red states, will shut down if you actually -- if these Medicaid cuts go through.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Group chat is back.

Chuck, I want to go to you.

Late night couch. Mentioning Missouri. In terms of messaging, it's pretty clear what's happening here, saying, look, red states, look, Republican voters, this is hitting you. Should we expect to see more of this?

CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think so. And what you're going to see is messaging centered around rural hospitals. They take the brunt of this. And it's one of those issues that Democrats and Republicans can come together on. In rural America, health care is hard to find. I grew up on a farm in east Texas. We had to drive 18 miles to go to the nearest hospital. There's a lot of other folks that are like that. And Democrats see it as a place where they can bring in some of these rural Republicans and say, like, hey, this is too much.

CORNISH: Is that remotely possible, Charlie Dent?

CHARLIE DENT (R), FORMER PENNSYLVANIA CONGRESSMAN: Well, look, the politics of Medicaid have changed a lot since 2017. Republicans recognize that many of their base voters are on Medicaid and benefit from it, probably more so than the Democrats, and particularly in these rural areas Chuck just mentioned. So, I think that the Senate is going to have a tough time enacting these Medicaid changes. There are other problems with this bill, too, that we haven't even gotten into yet. They've just kept the SALT deduction at $10,000. That's going to upset House members and it -- CORNISH: Yes. But I assume that's because some people have already kind of said, OK, fine, they're going to waffle on that. It feels like this Medicaid thing has become a bit of a sticking point --

DENT: It is.

CORNISH: And a rallying issue for Hawley, of all people.

DENT: Well, for Hawley, I suspect senators Murkowski and Collins and others are going to have some difficulty with this. You may remember in 2017 we tried -- actually they Republicans tried. I voted against it. But Republicans tried to block grant Medicaid with a cut. And that couldn't get through. And now we're talking about limiting the provider tax from 6 to 3.5 percent, which is the way the states draw (INAUDIBLE).

CORNISH: I want to leave you guys with one last image, which is this poll where nearly two-thirds of the American public disapproves of the one big beautiful bill.

All right, group chat, stay right there, we have a lot more to talk about when CNN THIS MORNING returns.

A dangerous trend in the U.S. A deadly uptick in political violence. Why is it happening? Can Congress stop it?

Plus, a rift in the Republican Party. Why longtime Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is calling out Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon.

More from our friends in the group chat after this.

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[06:52:10]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just can't allow the violence to permeate and skew our political process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: In the wake of Saturday's shootings, Capitol Police are enhancing security for members of Congress impacted by the incident. In just a few hours, senators will get a security briefing from Capitol Police and the Senate sergeant at arms.

The attack is also bringing up painful memories of other politically motivated shootings, including the shooting of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords during an event in her home district in Arizona that was more than a decade ago. Her husband, Senator Mark Kelly, now speaking out about yet another act of violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): The gun violence in our nation today is not like any other developed nation. And now it's political. I mean, Gabby was assassinated -- or there was an attempt on an -- of an assassination on her life because she was a member of Congress. With Melissa Hortman and her husband and John Hoffman, you know, those -- and his spouse, those were attempts too because they were serving in the legislature in Minnesota. And this kind of violence has to stop. And -- and -- and there are things that we can do about it as legislators, both at the federal and state level. It's a horrific, horrific act.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now to talk about his personal experience with this issue, Daniel Hernandez. He's credited with helping save Congresswoman Giffords' life back in 2011. He's also now running for Congress himself in Arizona's seventh district.

You were there with congresswoman that day in 2011 when the attempt on her life was committed. I can't imagine your feelings over the weekend. Were you getting texts, calls? What were people saying?

DANIEL HERNANDEZ (D), RUNNING FOR CONGRESS IN AZ-07 DISTRICT: Yes. Political violence is, unfortunately, something that I'm very familiar with. I'm running for Congress right now in Arizona. And last Thursday, someone shot at the door of one of the staff in my campaign outside my home. And I moved in to the home that I share with my sister, a state legislator, who received a lot of death threats about two years ago. So, this is, unfortunately, something that I've been dealing with for over 14 years since the shooting in Tucson and just saw personally on Saturday, when I woke up to tons of missed calls from my mom and my sister, who were freaking out because my sister and I both overslept and weren't picking up. And in light of what happened in Minnesota, they were worried that something had happened because just days before we had had someone shoot out at in front of our house. So, this is, unfortunately, something that I've had to deal with for a long time, and even more so now that I have two sisters that are legislators.

CORNISH: We heard the senator just say it's worse somehow in this moment. How do you hear that? Do you feel the same?

HERNANDEZ: I do. And, you know, this is something where we've seen our political rhetoric get very heated. And the temperature keeps going up and up and up.

[06:55:01]

But I think what we need to be doing is making sure we're focusing on policy and ideas, not on people. And yet to often times our politics is focused on attacking other people, destroying other people. And that's not where we need to be focused on. We need to be talking about how we're going to actually solve problems, not how we're just going to destroy the other side.

CORNISH: What are you going to be doing in the coming months? I mean you talk about people in your family being legislators.

HERNANDEZ: Yes.

CORNISH: You are currently running for office. How do you even begin to think about protecting yourself?

HERNANDEZ: The first thing was changing how we operate. So, we've had to move our campaign headquarters from my home. We're now at a new place. We're going to be looking at hiring security when we're doing public events.

But this is not something that is covered by other folks. So, we're going to have to find in our budget the ability to be able to hire additional people, to be able to just help protect ourselves, because it's not just about me, but making sure my staff, my family. My mom and my four staff were feet away from where the shooting happened. And if anything had happened to them, I would have never been able to forgive myself. So, I think that's the thing that we have to completely adjust how we operate just to make sure we're keeping everybody safe.

CORNISH: Arizona Congressional Candidate Daniel Hernandez, thank you for being here.

HERNANDEZ: Thanks for having me.

CORNISH: OK, gentlemen. So, one of the things that happens after these shootings, and I saw this with -- when Steve Scalise was shot at that congressional softball game, everyone talks about the rhetoric. Everyone talks about that language. But it's -- it's like a drug they can't give up. It's not like it goes away. So, just help. I don't have a question here. How do you think about it?

ROCHA: I think about it as -- as thinking of the history of going back to the '90s when I worked for Ann Richards. There's always been folks who disagreed. And there's Democrats, Republicans, folks that -- and we would even get in each other's face and have arguments about policy. Me and Charlie can have an argument about policy, but it never turned to where it was this hateful side of us that I'll say I blame on the internet because now people literally make money being hateful on the internet. And they make a living doing that. So, now we've monetized the hate, and I think that's the real difference of where we are now than when I first started campaigns.

CORNISH: Yes, that's an interesting point.

Charlie.

DENT: Yes, the rhetoric has gotten to the point now -- I agree with you. I think this -- a lot of this is driven by social media, the internet. People are saying things online that they would never say in a million years to your face or in a public setting.

ROCHA: That's right.

DENT: It's gotten so bad that, you know, I was in Congress after Gabby Giffords was shot. We noticed every public meeting we had and always made sure that there was security there, a police officer. That's how seriously we took this back then. And it's only gotten worse.

CORNISH: Yes.

DENT: We're in a moment of political instability and turbulence right now like nothing like we've seen since the war (ph).

CORNISH: But I like you bringing up the point about rage farming and clickbait mean --

ROCHA: Right.

CORNISH: And -- but also you have a voting base. You do have voters who want a pugilistic language from their lawmakers.

ROCHA: Right.

CORNISH: How do you appease that element of the base?

ROCHA: I was taught what pugilistic means because I was a good fighter growing up. And if there's a pugilist up here, it's me.

CORNISH: I'd (INAUDIBLE) with that.

ROCHA: I've got scars on my face to prove that. You have somebody like me, who's a proven fighter, go and look at the camera and go, we can have a disagreement. It don't mean being a man is going and hitting a child or going and shooting somebody. That's not being a man. Being a man is standing up and saying what's right and what's wrong without violence. Sometimes it's more to do that without violence to prove that you're a man or that you're a pugilist and doing something ignorant.

CORNISH: Yes. And we're seeing the lawmakers be very upset. Some reporting out of Congress today about the lawmakers -- Minnesota lawmakers upset with Senator Mike Lee, who kind of jumped to conclusions early in the process of the shooter's motivations and made some comments that implied somehow it was politically -- politically deserved, so to speak. So, again, like, is this a moment of reflection? Do you think we'll actually see any of that in Congress?

DENT: Well, I hope there's some reflection. And, frankly, some restraint. There's not enough of that in this country.

CORNISH: Yes. And we're showing this tweet. I think he has since made comments kind of dialing it back, but it had its impact.

DENT: Well, he -- he had to. And -- and this has been the problem. Look, after Steve Scalise was shot at the baseball practice, I mean, I didn't say Bernie Sanders was responsible. He was horrified like the rest of us.

CORNISH: Yes.

DENT: But -- and -- and so we have to be really --

CORNISH: But that's a very common comment. ROCHA: Yes.

CORNISH: I mean, I immediately saw -- I think it was the actor James Wood, who was blaming Governor Walz for his language.

DENT: Yes.

CORNISH: There's this quick --

DENT: Right.

CORNISH: It's someone's fault.

DENT: Yes. And I think we have to really refrain from that. I mean we have terrible acts of political violence, too many. We've always had acts of political violence in this country, sadly. But it seems that there are many more now. The country is more divided and fractured I think at any time since the Civil War. And it's -- it's incumbent upon leaders to dial down the rhetoric, stop all the inflammatory, incendiary rhetoric and try to talk about the issues, talk about the -- talk about why you disagree with a person, not that that person is evil. If we dehumanize our opponents, then there are going to be people out there who are going to take that as a -- as a signal and do some really bad stuff.

CORNISH: Yes, and maybe even ending the whataboutism about that conversation.

DENT: Yes.

[07:00:01]

CORNISH: Usually, you try and bring it up and someone says, well, someone said this, someone said that. I feel like I'm talking to my kids who are arguing. It will be interesting to see if lawmakers start to deal with this, because as we saw, this violence fell at the state level.

ROCHA: Yes.

CORNISH: And we heard the congressman say --

ROCHA: Absolutely.

CORNISH: I'm not protected. I don't have that money. So, it's an interesting moment.

You guys, thank you for being with me. Just the three of us. I appreciate it.

Thank you for being with us as well. I'm Audie Cornish, and "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.