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CNN This Morning

Iran's Top Diplomat Meets with China's Foreign Minister; Jen Gavito is Interviewed about China and Iran; Cruise Ship Hantavirus Outbreak. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired May 06, 2026 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:32:18]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: So, Iran's foreign minister meeting overnight with China's top diplomat in Beijing. The two countries say they're discussing regional and international developments. Here's what Secretary of State Marco Rubio wanted them to talk about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: And I hope the Chinese tell him what he needs to be told, and that is that what you are doing in the Straits is causing you to be globally isolated. You're the bad guy in this. You guys should not be blowing up ships, you should not be putting mines, you should not be holding hostage the global -- trying to hold hostage the global economy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I don't think that happened. After their meeting, Iran's foreign minister said that his country's cooperation with China will -- is "stronger than ever." He called his Chinese counterpart, "a sincere friend of Tehran."

I want to go live to Beijing and bring in CNN's Steven Jiang.

Can you talk about what else came out of this meeting? We heard from Iran. Have any of China -- China's ministers said anything?

STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Yes, Audie, you know, Iran, of course, wants more support from Beijing on all fronts, political, economic and security wise. As you just heard Marco Rubio suggest, Iran's indeed one of China's closest partners in the Middle East. But the Chinese readout after meeting really contained no surprises. They highlighted this so-called four-point peace proposal put out by Xi Jinping a little while ago, emphasizing the importance of sovereignty, international law and, more immediately, calling for a lasting ceasefire.

Now, the conventional wisdom here, of course, is, any time the U.S. is mired in a quagmire like this, the Chinese benefit strategically. And also, of course, China has continued to buy Iranian oil despite U.S. sanctions, really providing an economic lifeline to the Tehran regime.

But analysts actually said the Chinese priorities are more practical. Even though they may be trying to strike a balance here and playing a long game because the Chinese economy does need reliable access to energy to fuel growth at home. And also, they need a stable global market for its exports. So, a prolonged war would hurt them on both fronts. That's why in their readout they made a point of calling on all parties to address this global concern of reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

Now, of course, this upcoming Trump visit -- remember, the president's due here in just a week. This visit really looming large over this foreign ministers' meeting because that -- first of all, the summit already delayed once by this very war. And secondly, the Chinese understand the Americans want them to do something, but they're in no hurry, actually, to ramp up pressure on the Iranians just yet because, for one, they are better prepared to deal with oil shocks than anyone else. And two, they may want to wait for an in-person ask from President Trump so they could actually play up any potential positive results from this summit between Xi and Trump.

Audie.

[06:35:07]

CORNISH: OK, Steven, thanks so much.

And I want to turn now to Jen Gavito. Thank you so much for being here. She's the former deputy assistant secretary for state for Iran, Iraq and public diplomacy.

So, you are the right person to follow up on this thing Steven has brought up, that China is an export-driven economy. It is also an economy that gets its oil, sanctioned Iranian oil. And at a certain point, why aren't they in a hurry, so to speak? Why wouldn't they want to help push Iran back to the table?

JEN GAVITO, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR IRAN, IRAQ AND PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: I think China, like Russia, is strategically benefiting from this conflict, which has introduced fissures between the United States and Europe. Arguably between the United States and its gulf allies, at least some pressure there. And so that all benefits China and its strategic position.

At the same time, though, I do think we're going to move to a place, likely in advance of this upcoming summit, where China will be trying to play the role of mediator in some ways, trying to bring some degree of conclusion to this conflict, at least through an extended ceasefire.

CORNISH: Meaning like the White House wouldn't want to go to a meeting like that empty handed, or, like, what are the optics of this?

GAVITO: Again, Steven's absolutely right, they've already delayed this once because of the conflict. I think the White House would prefer to have this resolved going into this conversation. And China, I think, would like to position this as an opportunity to say, look, you know, we were able to bring about some sort of diplomatic resolution to this.

CORNISH: One other thing. I tend to think of China as always being like national sovereignty matters. We don't meddle into other people's -- exactly. But lately they have been more aggressive when it comes to diplomacy. They have been more involved regionally. And I'm wondering if they think they're stepping into a vacuum that the U.S. is leaving on the international stage. I don't want to over read into it, but how do diplomatic folks see it?

GAVITO: I completely agree with that. And you look back just a couple of years ago to the role that it played in the detente, as it were, between Saudi Arabia and Iran. They clearly are trying to stake out a diplomatic position within the region and extend influence. I think you're -- you know, it is export driven, arguably to shore up their economic position in the region.

CORNISH: Yes.

GAVITO: But, absolutely, they're trying to take a --

CORNISH: But they have this meeting where they brought in the foreign minister of Spain the other day. And I forget who it was, but one of the Chinese leaders said, like, we need to oppose this move towards the law of the jungle, international law, which caught my ear because I had heard Steven Miller using the term law of the jungle like just a few months ago. And so, all of a sudden you have China being the one saying, well, like, not so fast, we should work through international community. And I -- it felt like, diplomatically, things were a little topsy turvy.

GAVITO: Absolutely. I mean, China has played the role of disruptor as much as it's played the role of mediator economically. Again, I -- this is all driven by their economic positioning and trying to shore up those relationships. I --

CORNISH: Shore up ahead of a potential global recession or just shore up --

GAVITO: Well, I mean, that -- they have everything to gain from this conflict ending, which is where, you know, we go back to, I think, they will be moving in that direction, trying to bring a speedy conclusion to this. Their economy will certainly suffer as well.

CORNISH: Yes.

GAVITO: Perhaps they've got a longer -- a longer tail on this than, for example, the gulf countries, the United States and others. But we're all going to suffer the longer this disruption goes on.

CORNISH: OK, the fact that we're having this discussion where people can like voice some skepticism or, you know, have a sense of what is going on is a testament to the kind of journalism that's out there, what we're able to learn right now. And the Trump administration obviously has this, like, sort of fraught relationship with the media. But I want to play something for you that happened just the other day

with Pete Hegseth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

I want to first express my gratitude and admiration for the work you do and for everyone involved in our armed forces, and also for the accomplishments of Operation Epic Fury, which I think are too often dismissed too lightly.

But those accomplishments don't obscure, I think, a central default that has occurred here. And I would like you both to address it.

On the first day of this conflict, President Trump addressed the Iranian people directly and said, when we're finished, take over your government. It'll be yours to take. And then on the seventh day of the conflict, in a Truth Social post, the president said, quote, "there will be no deal with Iran except," all caps exclamation mark, "unconditional surrender."

What happens to that pledge to the Iranians? And when did the president decide to capitulate on his demand for unconditional surrender?

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, James, I wouldn't -- I wouldn't -- you started out nicely, but you ended exactly where we knew you would end. The president hasn't capitulated on anything. He holds the cards.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:40:02]

CORNISH: OK, shout out to James Rosen at "Newsmax," who, as you could hear, started off saying the things that the administration wants to hear when you raise a question in the room, you know, saying, I want to express my gratitude, admiration. Like, all of the things, and still had to get to, you know, the --

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The truth.

CORNISH: You're saying the truth. What did you -- what did you hear?

GOLDBERG: Yes, it's all -- I've known James for 20 years and the -- for him, like, part of that is, the phrase, do the spoonful of sugar stuff at the front, which I can't stand. It's one of the reasons I'm not a reporter like that. But, part of that is for his own audience, right? Is that it's to signal that you are coming from a non-anti- American, anti-Trump place. But, you know, this is the funny thing about a lot of the press corps at the Pentagon. It's been decimated of like the old guard, mainstream media people.

CORNISH: Yes. I mean we've had images of people with their boxes, right, after Hegseth then tried to kick them out. GOLDBERG: And you get people from -- you get people from really MAGA

affiliated outlets asking hard questions. Because at the end of the day, what are you there for if you're not to ask some of those questions?

CORNISH: Is that also because some of the high profile marquee MAGA podcasts, media ecosystem people have been speaking very harshly about this war?

TAL KOPAN, DEPUTY WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": I mean, before this administration took power, Trump and many of its members actively cultivated the antiwar strain of sort of the MAGA base. I mean, they -- he stocked his cabinet with very notably anti-war members. And so, it is not entirely surprising to see media outlets that represent that base that have these very harsh questions of the war.

I think also some of these -- when you watch some of these sort of fawning press conferences where it's a lot of friendly media, no good -- like, no news comes from it. It's kind of boring. And I think they're sort of starting to realize that, like, part of the reason that reporters ask tough questions is because that's how you get answers the public wants to know.

CORNISH: Yes.

KOPAN: And that's how you actually make them worth the while.

CORNISH: And at the end of this is an answer, is a question that is meaningful about --

GAVITO: Yes.

CORNISH: Are we looking at capitulation? We heard the German chancellor used the term humiliation. We've heard people use the terms distraction or pointless. All of these things that run counter to what the administration is trying to say, which is that they believe they have fundamentally reshaped the Mideast region for the better.

GAVITO: And this is going to be a really hard argument to make. And I think they -- you know, this, in some ways, is a favor to them.

CORNISH: Yes.

GAVITO: They have an opportunity to try to lay out how they justify this as a strategic win.

CORNISH: Yes. But in the era of the internet, the attempts to mold that, I think, are just much harder.

ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: But even the most conservative outlets, like Fox News polling, has the president upside down with the American people on this war. And so, you can't deny that. And so, because you cannot deny that --

CORNISH: Well, you can. The president said they're fake polls earlier this week. But the reality of that gets out.

SEAWRIGHT: Well, you can't realistically deny that.

CORNISH: Yes.

SEAWRIGHT: And you also can't realistically deny that Americans are feeling the effect or the residue of this war. And people know that and understand that. That's why you see the pressure to ask the right question, where do we go from here?

CORNISH: Yes. OK.

Well, Jen Gavito, thank you for joining the chat, as always. I love when you're here.

Next on CNN THIS MORNING, we want to turn to that other story you've probably been hearing about on the high seas, the dangerous outbreak on a cruise ship. This morning, passengers are being evacuated. We don't know if that is safe.

Plus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is taxpayer free. We have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, that's what you were told. That was the promise for the ballroom. So, why now do we see $1 billion of taxpayer funds requested?

And later on CNN, a clear statement in Indiana. President Trump still controls his Republican Party.

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[06:48:05]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel kind of bad for those people on that cruise ship with the hantavirus, because, I'm sorry, that's just where y'all live now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, tell me why they're allowed to get off the boat. That doesn't make any sense. Are they trying to create Covid all over again?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: All right, needless to say, you guys have a lot of questions and concerns about this hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship in the Atlantic. And the World Health Organization has just evacuated three people who were suffering from symptoms that are associated with this virus.

Now, Swiss health officials are now confirming yet another person who previously had been on the ship has tested positive for the virus at a Swiss hospital.

Just a reminder, three people have already died from what is basically a rare disease. And it's typically associated with contact with rodents. The WHO says the outbreak does not pose a wider health risk. And they are trying to find a way to dock this ship to help the 150 people stranded on board.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MARIA VAN KERKHOVE, DIRECTOR FOR EPIDEMIC PREPAREDNESS, WHO: We're having active discussions with several different countries who want to be able to welcome that boat and make sure that the proper public health risk assessments are done, the environmental contamination.

I should say that right now, on board, the crew is working to do disinfection on the boat as well. So, there are things that are happening on board to keep people safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, joining me now, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, CNN medical analyst and professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University.

Good morning.

As you can see, Google M.D. has not assured the people on the internet that there is a greater danger. And I understand, there's not a cure for hantavirus. I think I'm getting that right. And the mortality rate, 35 to 38 percent.

So, can you talk about what it is that is making this strain a problem on this ship?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: So, public health experts suspected from really the first hint of this outbreak on the boat that there might be human-to-human transmission.

[06:50:09]

Typically, the American, North American, South American variants of this virus are spread via rodent droppings. In the United States it's typically the deer mouse, and in South America, where it appears this virus originated, it's typically something called the pygmy rice rat, a lovely name for the morning.

And it comes about by exposure to, you know, feces or urine or the saliva of the rodent. But in rare cases, the South American variant, called the Andes variant, can spread via human-to-human transmission. But it's thought that that requires very close contact.

So, the first two people to contract this virus were a husband and wife. So, presumably sharing the same cabin in close contact. The concern about this virus, in terms of tracking all the people on

the boat, and I think there are about 100 and -- there are about 80 something passengers and a similar number of crew, is that the incubation period is very long. The incubation period can be anywhere from a week after exposure to eight weeks after exposure. So, ideally, what one would want to do with the passengers on this boat is quarantine them. Quarantine all the passengers on this boat until the incubation period has passed. But to do that --

CORNISH: Can I jump in here with something?

REINER: Yes, go.

CORNISH: I was also -- I was hearing, though, that it was between the first death and actually a proper diagnosis. It was like 21 days.

REINER: Yes.

CORNISH: And this Swiss person is somebody who was on the ship and got off the ship. So, I know you're getting there, but, like, how helpful is a quarantine if the disease could be spreading all this time while they're on the boat?

REINER: Right. So, that's exactly the reason for quarantining these passengers away from, you know, the general public for up to eight weeks. You want to isolate all the folks who have been potentially exposed to the virus, but not yet sick. But to know whether they are actually sick with the virus might take -- might take eight -- might take, you know, several weeks. It's thought that people who are contagious are contagious about the time they start to develop, you know, sort of typical viral like symptoms with this virus.

The passengers boarded this boat on April 1st. And the first passenger to actually develop symptoms and subsequently die developed symptoms about four days later. Strongly suggesting that he contracted the virus on land, not on -- not on the boat itself.

And the fact that other passengers have gotten sick, as much as two or three weeks later, is consistent with the longer incubation period for this -- for this virus. So, it's going to take a while to sort out exactly how many people have contracted the virus.

I'll say that one of the people who is sick with this virus is the ship's doctor, who would have had close contact with ill passengers.

CORNISH: Before I let you go, you have countries like Cape Verde saying, please don't dock here. Are countries turning people away because they don't have the kind of medical support needed, or is it really out of their abundance of caution or fear of there being person to person transmission?

REINER: Well, it's probably a little bit of all of that. And I think this is what international health organizations are really designed to do. The World Health Organization, the CDC, you know, really are tasked with dealing with these outbreaks. I'll say that last year, the United States unit of the CDC that is

tasked with responding to cruise ship outbreaks, suffered about half, about 50 percent of the people who work for that unit in the CDC were fired, leaving a very limited resource in the United States for handling, you know, these kinds of outbreaks should they -- should boats approach the U.S. shores.

So, in a world of emerging pathogens, we have to constantly be on guard for these kinds of threats. And it's not a happy thing to talk about, but the CDC and World Health Organizations are essentially intelligence services, medical intelligence services tasked with identifying these threats early and doing the kind of containment necessary to prevent wider spread.

CORNISH: Well, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, thank you. Thank you for bringing up that detail about the cuts to those agencies. It's directly relevant to what we're going to talk about next. We'll talk to you in a bit.

[06:55:01]

We're going to talk about the president's White House ballroom. You know, Senate Republicans are proposing giving the Secret Service $1 billion for ballroom security. That's taxpayer money. Despite the president's claim that this project would not cost taxpayers any money.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have no tax -- this is taxpayer free. We have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents.

We did this no charge to the taxpayer whatsoever.

I'm paying for it. I'm paying for it. The country is not.

We're donating a $400 million ballroom.

Myself and donors are giving them, free of charge, for nothing.

It's being paid for 100 percent by me and some friends of mine, donors.

Rich people and people are putting up the money. Zero taxpayer dollars.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Group chat is back.

The way this played out is, of course, after the attempted attack at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. We saw across the board a response within sort of MAGA Trump supporting areas of, hey, this is a good time to talk about the ballroom and the fact that it is now a security concern. And I did wonder at the time, once you start calling it a security concern, does it suddenly become something that the taxpayer should pay for?

KOPAN: Well, it turns out perhaps that is what happened. I mean, part of this is also that Trump's lawyers, the DOJ -- I shouldn't call them Trump's lawyers. The Department of Justice lawyers have argued --

CORNISH: Which is led by his personal attorney, right, Todd Blanche.

KOPAN: Yes. I know. But we shouldn't -- we shouldn't buy (ph) into that.

CORNISH: Don't worry. You're OK. Yes.

KOPAN: But the Department of Justice lawyers have been arguing in court, when a judge has paused the ballroom, that, no, no, there are all these security upgrades, that there's some sort of stuff we can't know about happening --

CORNISH: Yes. Which makes sense because they're fighting historical groups who were there saying, it's esthetically horrible and all of these things.

KOPAN: Right. So, members of Congress, who have proposed this billion dollars, were sort of initially saying, no, no, no, we're not paying for the ballroom. We're just paying for the security stuff. But the White House has very clearly made this all of a package. And yes, now you have a ballroom that is polling very poorly, playing into all the Democratic talking points that I'm sure Antjuan will get into, about possibly being --

CORNISH: Yes. Because I -- and I should just say, Claire Slattery, let me just show you this social media post. They're looking at the fine print, looking at the actual proposal, and it -- that it says, none of the funds made available under this section may be used for non- security elements of the East Wing modernization project.

So, is there mission creep or much to do about nothing?

SEAWRIGHT: Show me your budget. I'll show you what you value. The truth of the matter is, these are the same people who have defunded health care. These are the same people who have essentially caused our economy to be on life support. These are the same --

CORNISH: Apparently cut the boat detectives at the CDC. I didn't know that was a thing. I wish you guys were working right now.

SEAWRIGHT: These are also -- these are also the same people who came into office cutting government and cutting research and cutting funding that Americans have essentially survived on for most of our existence.

CORNISH: Yes.

SEAWRIGHT: Yet they want to prioritize $1 billion --

CORNISH: So, they are planning missile-resistant steel columns, drone- proof roofing materials, bomb shelters, medical facilities, air conditioning.

SEAWRIGHT: How would they feel if this was a Democratic administration? That's the question you have to ask to Republicans in the Congress.

KOPAN: They'd lose their minds. They'd lose their minds.

GOLDBERG: Yes, of course they would. So, two quick points.

One, it seems weird that everyone's forgetting that this administration literally, not figuratively, but literally wanted to put Jerome Powell in jail for building cost overruns.

CORNISH: Yes. Overruns of 30 percent.

GOLDBERG: Right. And --

CORNISH: And now, just to your point, keep talking while people see these numbers.

GOLDBERG: Yes. So --

CORNISH: The estimated cost from the ballroom has gone from $200 million to, let's just say, more.

GOLDBERG: Well, and also, the cost to the taxpayer has gone from zero to $1 billion.

CORNISH: Yes. Jerome Powell could never.

GOLDBERG: And all increases from zero are infinite, right?

But the second point is, to me, this is like a domestic small, metaphor or analog to the Iran War. Trump did it unilaterally as an ego thing. He didn't want any buy-in from Congress. He didn't want to make the argument for it. He just did it over a weekend, right? And then all of a sudden, when it gets complicated and difficult, he wants Congress to bail him out. He wants the taxpayers to bail him out. And he grounds the arguments for doing it in all of these pretextual things about national security that weren't part of it at the beginning.

CORNISH: I have to get to the group chat today, and I think we're starting with who? We're starting with Tal. Tell me.

KOPAN: Oh, I'm still chatting about the Met Gala outfits.

CORNISH: Oh, my God.

KOPAN: The good ones like, you know, I thought Anne Hathaway, I mean Beyonce and Rihanna every year, but also, like, what the heck was Katy Perry wearing?

CORNISH: OK. Well, I'm going to give you guys mine. We played Obama earlier. Very compelling thing about this chapter in American history. But our last president also said this about aliens. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm putting in a plug now.

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": OK.

OBAMA: First contact, I think I would be a good emissary for the planet.

COLBERT: Wow. To represent mankind.

OBAMA: Yes. I mean, I -- you know, I've got a diverse background, some experience in statecraft and diplomacy.

[07:00:02]

COLBERT: Sure. Uh-huh.

OBAMA: I'm friendly.

COLBERT: OK.

OBAMA: You know.

COLBERT: Yes.

OBAMA: So, I actually think, you know, I could do a pretty good job. All right. So --

COLBERT: That's a good pitch.

OBAMA: Yes.

COLBERT: We will keep that in mind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I feel like there's bilateral bipartisan agreement to send him somewhere maybe when I think about it. But that library is opening up. And, honestly, it looks gorgeous. Lots of sort of community offerings in it.

GOLDBERG: The inside looks gorgeous.

CORNISH: The inside looks gorgeous.

KOPAN: The inside.

CORNISH: We'll bring that -- we'll bring you back to talk architecture Jacob (ph).