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Trump Has Yet To Sign Off On Draft G7 Statement Calling On Israel And Iran To Deescalate Conflict; Israel And Iran Widen Their Targets In New Wave Of Attacks; Now: Update On Capture On Minnesota Shootings Suspect. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired June 16, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

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[11:00:59]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown. And you're in The Situation Room.

We're following multiple breaking news stories this morning. Four days into the conflict, Iran and Israel are now widening their attacks. Iran targets an Israeli oil refinery and damages the power grid.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: And back here in the United States, officials in Minnesota are about to give an update on the man charged with shooting two state lawmakers and their spouses. Of course, we will bring you those developments.

BLITZER: And in just moments, President Trump will meet directly with Canada's new Prime Minister at the critical G7 International Summit in Canada. We're going to bring that to you live. Stand by for that.

BROWN: And right now, let's go to CNN Senior White House Correspondent Kristen Holmes. She is in Calgary, right near where the summit is -- the summit is happening. Kristen, the President's G7 allies, they want clarity on his plan for Iran and Israel. What more are you learning on that front?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there are a lot of questions still about how far President Donald Trump is willing to go on this. Obviously, he has been supportive of Israel. But in addition to that, he's been wary of U.S. involvement. So a lot of these allies have questions for whether or not Donald Trump is going to get involved. Is he going to put any pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu to de-escalate the situation?

We have just learned from our colleague, Kevin Liptak, that President Trump has yet to sign off on a draft G7 statement that would essentially call on both Iran and Israel to de-escalate the situation. The situation says or the draft says that Israel has a right to defend itself, but also says that Iran should never have access to a nuclear weapon. All of these things are things that Donald Trump himself has said. He has said that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. But remember, part of what the U.S. is hoping to do here amid all of these attacks is bring Iran to the table to have some kind of agreement when it comes to a nuclear agreement. They were supposed to meet on Sunday in Oman, obviously, after these strikes from Israel. That got tabled.

But the U.S. is still really pushing to have those talks. And the other thing that's really on the forefront of this conference is all going to be about trade and tariffs. And we're about to see Donald Trump in his first meeting with Prime Minister Carney of Canada. And we have to look back at the last time we saw the two sitting together in the Oval Office. It started out as an incredibly pleasant meeting. They exchanged hellos, compliments about each other.

It devolved pretty quickly into a tense situation in which Donald Trump was calling for Canada to become the 51st state. He was insulting them over trade. And you could see the prime minister growing increasingly tense. And that's something that not only he but other world leaders who are considered our oldest allies want to avoid. They want to avoid any kind of public confrontation.

But what's on the mind of a lot of these different leaders is, one, as you were talking about, as we're talking about Israel and Iran, where does Donald Trump stand on these world issues? But also trade. They're coming up on this deadline for these reciprocal tariffs. And are they going to come out of here with some kind of trade deal? So that's what we're looking at today as these leaders meet for the first time.

BLITZER: All right. Kristen Holmes reporting for us from Canada at the G7 Summit. Kristen, thank you very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: And as you've been reporting, Wolf, both Iran and Israel are broadening their attacks. Just a short time ago, the Israeli military issued an evacuation order for parts of Tehran ahead of planned strikes that could continue for weeks.

Overnight, Israel's Iron Dome defense system scrambled to intercept Iranian missiles.

BLITZER: At least eight people in Israel were killed and some residential areas were heavily, heavily damaged. We're covering all the angles right now. CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is in Israel for us. Alayna Treene and Kylie Atwood are here in The Situation Room. They've been doing serious reporting on all of this as well. First of all, Nic, what are you seeing in Tel Aviv, in central Tel Aviv where you are?

[11:05:06]

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, it's this scene of widespread destruction. I'm looking at a hotel office building, four stories high. That's been ripped apart, shredded, the windows, everything gone. Of course, the apartments behind me really bore the brunt of the blast. This was a ballistic missile, Iranian ballistic missile landed just after 4:00 in the morning. And I was told that this missile here, by far not the biggest type that Iran has. Perhaps they have them two and a half times more explosive.

So you see the scale of damage. You get a sense of what's happening. The reaction in the city here, a lot of people coming to take a look. The mood that I'm getting from people here is not one of -- of fear. This is one of that this was, in a way, expected. That this was what, in a way, was required. That this threat from Iran, this nuclear threat, was something that was real. There's a concern, of course, about how long this goes on for. People are talking about, well, a week's OK and then maybe we can make a deal.

But that very much depends, and people are absolutely seized at that understanding here. Does the United States now, does President Trump make that decision to support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and double down in helping on strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities? That is going to determine how long this current conflict goes. That seems to be the mood and sense here.

And I certainly got that from the leading opposition figure here. Yair Lapid said there's political unity about that. But it's getting a couple of hours from dusk here. And I think people in Tel Aviv and across the rest of the country know what that means. We'll be back into a cycle of more Iranian missiles coming down in Israel, of sirens going off, people spending parts of their nights in the shelters, because that's what officials here are saying is keeping people safe here.

Now, the Air Force, the Israeli Air Force, has been targeting some of those missiles before they launch. The IDF said that they hit more than 20 of those launchers last night. They've destroyed totally so far about a third of Iran's launch capability. They say that albeit is -- is a dent in the arsenal that Iran has, it is still capable to fire back. So at the moment here, I think the expectation is without diplomatic, strong diplomatic change of the situation, which doesn't seem on the horizon, without the United States coming on board and in the face of what Iran is doing right now, which is saying it won't engage in talks as long as the strikes, Israel strikes, continue.

Iran is looking to the U.N. to condemn Israel's actions. All of that is not going to bring an end in the short term, it seems, to what everyone around me here is going to experience later tonight. They're going to experience the sirens again, Wolf, and they'll be going to their places of shelter.

BLITZER: When I see, Nic, the destruction behind you, is that -- what is that, an apartment building right in the heart of Tel Aviv? I've been speaking to some Israelis who say they certainly did not expect to see this kind of destruction, given Israel's Iron Dome, an excellent air defense system, which they thought would prevent these Iranian ballistic missiles and drones from actually hitting, hitting Tel Aviv. But go ahead and tell us what -- what's going on. What are you hearing from Israeli officials?

I think we just lost our connection with Nic. All right, Nic, next standby, we'll get a little analysis on that in just a few moments.

BROWN: Yes, we'll definitely check back in, because I think that's an excellent point. How did those strikes get through, given the defenses? Also part of the conversation I want to bring you in, you and Alayna Treene, is the fact that two U.S. officials tell CNN that President Trump rejected an Israeli plan to kill Iran's supreme leader when that opportunity arose. What more are you learning about that?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Yes, look, part of the reason in my conversations with White House and Trump administration officials that the president told his team to tell the Israelis he did not want them to move forward with that is because the fear is that having some larger-scale regime change in Iran would lead this to becoming just right now a terrible conflict in the Middle East to a potentially full-out war. And that is what President Donald Trump wants to avoid here.

That's also why you're hearing, you know, from our conversations, we've learned that essentially the Israelis have asked the United States for more help. As of now, we know that the U.S. has been helping them in their defensive capabilities and helping intercept some of these missiles from Iran. But they don't want to go any further than that. And that is, again, because they are worried that the more involvement they have, you know, the smaller chance there is to actually try and handle this in a diplomatic way.

And what we've been hearing now consistently, publicly, and in our private conversations from the President is that he still believes there is a chance to have some sort of deal worked out, both between Israel and Iran, but also specifically getting Iran back to the table when it comes to negotiating this potential nuclear deal. So that's why we're not seeing the U.S. get involved in a much more direct way.

BLITZER: What are you hearing from your sources at the State Department, for example, Kylie, about the possibility of reviving these negotiations between the U.S. and Iran on Iran's nuclear program?

[11:10:09]

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so internally, U.S. officials are echoing what President Trump said over the weekend, that he still wants there to be a deal. They say they're still committed, even though the six rounds of nuclear talks that was scheduled to take place on Sunday didn't take place.

However, we're not talking about dates yet. We're not talking about where this could happen. The specifics of that actually coming to fruition are far and few between in conversations right now. It's a recognition that as Israel continues to carry out this operation, it's very unlikely to happen. And that brings us to the question as to whether President Trump and those around him are going to try and urge Israel to stop, to really break it down so that diplomacy can begin. We've given no indication from officials that that is the case.

And meanwhile, you have the Iranians saying that they're not going to engage while this ongoing back and forth between the two is active. So it doesn't seem like diplomacy is anywhere near, even though we know that the White House believes that it still could happen down the line.

BROWN: All right, Kylie, Alayna, Nic, thank you so much.

BLITZER: All right. I want to continue our conversation right now. Brett McGurk is joining us. He's a CNN global affairs analyst and was a White House coordinator for both the Middle East and North Africa. We're seeing Iranian missiles hit central Tel Aviv and Haifa, for that matter, as well, going after oil refinery projects in Haifa. Where do you see all this going?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think if it comes back to one question, me, Fordow, Fordow, Fordow. Fordow is the deeply underground nuclear enrichment facility buried into a mountain about a half mile underground. That is something the United States can take out. It's something the Israelis will have a lot of difficulty doing.

If this ends with Fordow intact, you could actually have a worse problem. You could have Iran more inclined to go to nuclear weapon, and they have that infrastructure intact. Two ways to deal with Fordow. Number one, a diplomatic deal. I think if the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called Steve Witkoff, President's -- President Trump's envoy, tomorrow or today and said, hey, let's sit down on the deal you put down a month ago.

Remember, the U.S. put down a deal a month ago to basically get rid of the risk of an Iranian nuclear weapon. I think that this war would stop. The second way to take out Fordow is a military operation. It would be a U.S. military strike. But these can be combined. The more Iran thinks that might be coming, the more likely you're to have a good diplomatic outcome.

BLITZER: Well, the Israelis could launch that strike against the Iranian nuclear program in Fordow to if, if the U.S. were to provide Israel with those huge bunker-buster bombs that the U.S. would use in trying to destroy that that Israel doesn't have.

MCGURK: Yes, Wolf, that's going to take a long time. You've got to train pilots on a B-2. You've got to train how to use that munition. That's going to take a long time. I don't think that's a real option. Look, Israel has tactical advantage here. They have air supremacy. They can hover over those nuclear facilities, render them inoperable. But you really want to dismantle it? It's a -- it's either a U.S. military strike or a deal.

Again, I think the two are combined. Iran's strategic culture, they'll absorb a blow and then try to just kind of live to fight another day. They'd be happy for this to go on. If they know their nuclear facilities are truly at risk and Fordow's truly at risk and the Americans are prepared to do that, I think that's the best way, actually, to a diplomatic outcome. It's not just a diplomacy. It's what are we talking about?

And I think what the Americans want is, OK, let's sit down on the offer we put down a month ago. The Americans believe it's a fair offer. I know it was discussed with the Brits and the French. It's actually good the G7 is happening right now. I would not call for full de-escalation. I would call on Iran to get back to the table, take the deal the Americans put on the table. At least that's the basis for talks. Otherwise, this is going to continue to go on. We have to get also, Wolf, we have missile destroyer ships. We had seven on the -- seven of them in the theater in the October attack of last year, 200 ballistic missiles in one night.

I think we're moving those resources into the theater now. We need to get that stuff in place because there's missile math. The Pentagon's probably doing missile math. How many missiles does Iran have left? How many launchers do they have left? That's a real limitation. And how many missile interceptors does Israel together with the U.S. have in place if this goes on another few nights?

BLITZER: I was going to ask Nic Robertson, who's right in Tel Aviv for us, but we lost our connection with him. If he was surprised, if Israeli officials are surprised and disappointed that their air defense system, the Iron Dome and related air defense equipment, was not necessarily completely successful in preventing these Iranian missiles from hitting downtown Tel Aviv and Haifa, for that matter.

MCGURK: It looks -- it looks like about 5 percent to 10 percent of the missiles are getting through. That's actually a pretty good defense. They can kill a lot of Israelis.

BLITZER: What -- what Iran -- what Iran is doing is kind of massing the barrages on specific areas. And, again, we have to have these missile destroyers in place to reduce the risk. But overall advantage here, tactical, goes to Israel. They have air supremacy, air dominance. They can, you know, hover over sites, take targets out.

[11:15:02]

Over time, those missile launchers that Iran has are going -- are going to to be depleted. We've got to get the interceptors in place. But strategically, it's a big a question, go back to Fordow. If Fordow's intact, this ends with Iran having that enrichment facility there. Strategically, this is not a success.

BLITZER: That's a big question right now for the United States. All right, Brett McGurk, as usual, thank you very, very much. Pamela.

BROWN: All right, well, officials in Minnesota are holding a press conference right now about charges against Vance Boelter, the suspect who shot two lawmakers.

SHERIFF DAWANNA WITT, HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA: And he did it while impersonating the very people who are trusted to protect and serve. These violent acts strike at the heart of our democracy, and the safety of those who serve the public with dedication and courage.

Our hearts go out to Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, their families, and their loved ones. We are also grateful Senator Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, are expected to recover, and we will be here to support them during their long journey of healing and grief. Today, the manhunt is over, but the investigation continues, and more importantly, the process to healing begins. We also need to mention that we know that this unspeakable act has left residual effects on many people in our communities, as we're still taking calls for people -- from people and organizations asking for additional resources.

We grieve with those close to our victims, our families, and all community members. The last days have revealed the true strength of our unity both as a community and as law enforcement bound by a shared mission to protect and serve.

We stand together today to uphold the principles of our democracy, and with a continued commitment to safety and security of those we vow to protect and serve. Thank you.

We also have Drew Evans from the BCA, Chief Mark Brewley from Brooklyn Park. We'll stand for questions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Superintendent Evans, just curious. We were with you last night in hindsight, overnight, di -- did the defendant give us any indication, any comments, anything you can share publicly about his mode of cooperation with authorities?

DREW EVANS, BUREAU OF CRIMINAL APPREHENSION, MN DEPT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: Yes. Yes, so the question was related to whether or not there's cooperation. The individual, you know, we can't provide a lot because it's now under the prosecutorial process in terms of what cooperation was. What I will tell you is that since he's been in custody, that -- that starts the process, as the county attorney mentioned and the sheriff mentioned, of the ongoing investigation.

And so what that does, there's a number of steps that went with that, regardless of the level of cooperation of the individual. Now that we have him in custody, it opens up additional investigative avenues that we'll be all working together collectively with to gather the information and evidence in this case.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you talk about the additional details on how the final moments unfolded, how you tracked him, and if you could elaborate on that a little bit?

EVANS: So as mentioned, the final moments and when he was taken into custody, you know, as we mentioned yesterday, we had an extremely large law enforcement presence with dozens of investigative agencies and law enforcement and SWAT teams in the area because we believed he was in that area.

We received information to begin with, a vehicle that was recovered that first led us to the Sibley County area, and that's what's concentrated our search in that area. We then received additional information that provided confirmation closer to the time of the actual arrest that he was, in fact, in that area, which is which time the command post started moving all of the law enforcement assets into that area, and they were able to close in, and when we say he was crawling towards us, these were in response to the commands by the SWAT teams that were on scene as they were working in coordination with each other, along with our State Patrol air assets as they look -- we're able to get over him and then came into custody.

He was cooperative and cooperated with law enforcement and gave up peacefully at that time. This is -- all right, again, we're -- their -- the -- as we said, the -- the -- the real work of the investigation now begins. They've been working collectively, and I want to thank Hennepin County Attorney's Office and Mike Radmer, who's with us today, who worked really with our team all weekend long, along with others across their office and the United States Attorney's Office to be working together on that.

What I will say when it comes to his wife and anybody else, if anybody else participated in these crimes, if anybody else worked to hide him and provide assistance in getting away, that will certainly be something that we are looking at with that, and we will provide that information to our prosecutors that will analyze and determine whether or not additional charges are appropriate.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you tell us how long you negotiated with him until he surrendered?

[11:20:01]

EVANS: Yes. So it was a -- I don't have the specifics. The question is, how long did we negotiate with him? It was a relatively short period of time because they were moving in, and he was cooperative. So it wasn't a prolonged negotiation with him. It was more that they converged on him, and because of the extremely good coordination and what they're doing, I believe he's certainly in a position where he just had to give up because he knew he was surrounded by who was there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And mayor, I have a question. I know we're going to hear strongly from federal prosecutors.

MARY MORIARTY, HENNEPIN COUNTY, MN ATTORNEY: Yes, so if I could just say, I think, as Drew said, we've shifted into prosecution right now, and so I understand why it was important to get information out there to the public because there was a person who was suspected of these murders.

Right now, what everybody up here is trying to do is to protect the integrity of the investigation, and so I know there's a tension. I know people want information, and right now we're really trying to focus on the investigation so that we don't have all kinds of information out there so that as law enforcement gathers that information, if we need to present it in court, there's integrity there. So I know you all have questions, but that's the reason we're really focusing on not sharing some information.

Yes, Paul (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I have a legal question.

MORIARTY: Of course.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to hear shortly from federal prosecutors. I've heard the attorneys pontificating on the morning news, and if the feds take this, if it could be a death penalty case, I don't know the specifics there, but what are we going to hear today from across the street, and do you want this case in your jurisdiction and out of the county?

MORIARTY So I know that the feds are going to make an announcement, and so they can speak for themselves. What I can assure our community is that we have filed charges. As you know, we intend to seek first- degree murder charges here. The penalty for that would be life without parole. So we intend to go forward on this case because we are accountable to protect our community and hold people who commit crimes in this county accountable.

BROWN: All right. I want to bring in former FBI deputy director and CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe. So, Andrew, we just heard officials there describe the way that the suspect surrendered, saying that he was compliant, that he crawled towards law enforcement and surrendered relatively quickly. What stands out to you about what we just heard?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Pamela, in terms of the surrender, the thing that really stands out to me is the remarkable level of professionalism and restraint that the -- that the law enforcement officers used in apprehending this man. So let's remember, violent felon, already responsible for two killings and two attempted killings, has been on the run at that point for over 24 hours.

He's actively hidden himself in a heavily wooded area, realizing that if he went anyplace else, he had to essentially get out of the city because they did such a good job of spreading his identity and his photograph around. So he's hiding in thick growth. He's armed. And knowing all that about him, they did the right thing. They surrounded him. They called him out. They gave him an opportunity to surrender.

So, you know, it's just a really remarkable level of restraint there and one that preserves the ability of the community to actually seek what they're entitled to under law, which is a prosecution to kind of show the citizens of this community this is how the system works.

BROWN: Right. And you heard the prosecutor there talk about how they have to be careful with what information they share now because they want to have a successful prosecution. Right now, Boelter is facing charges of second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder. And we just learned from prosecutors that they plan to pursue first- degree charges. Help us understand the significance of that.

MCCABE: Sure. So the second-degree charges are much easier to make initially because they don't require any great showing of evidence of intent. And so that's typically a placeholder that entitles you to keep the defendant in custody while the investigation continues. But definitely what they want here, and you heard her say it, is a first- degree murder charge. And to bring a first-degree charge, you've got to prove an intentional homicide.

So what the investigators are looking for now is every piece of evidence that they can find that shows that not just this man conducted these killings and these attempted killings, but that he planned it in advance. So they're going to look for things like evidence of planning, statements that he made about what he wanted to do, maybe other people that he talked to and indicated his desires to, things that he purchased, research that he did online, maybe trying to find the addresses or locations of these people, how he composed his victim list.

All those steps before the killings are great evidence of intent. We know they have a lot of that stuff already, but I'm sure there's more out there, and prosecutors always want to bring to court as much as they can possibly find.

BROWN: Right. And including the fact that he was apparently dressed up as a police officer, using, you know, what appeared to be a police vehicle, all of those feed into the idea that this was premeditated from the suspect. Andrew McCabe, thank you so much.

[11:25:14]

MCCABE: Thanks.

BROWN: Wolf?

BLITZER: And coming up, right now President Trump is meeting with the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney. We're going to get some comments from the two leaders at the end of their meeting. We will -- we will bring that to you as soon as it begins. Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

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