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Trump Speaks at White House Amid Tensions With Iran; Trump Says, Iran Wants to Make a Deal, But It's Very Late; Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Youth. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired June 18, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: But remember this, somewhere in this group, there's somebody that is going to captivate some movie producer, not Harvey Weinstein, but somebody else, Harvey's seen a better day. So, it won't be Harvey, but it'll be somebody and it'll say that guy is perfect for a movie. And you're going to become a star and your friends are going to call you and you won't even return their phone call anymore.

You know, because you say, what do you do for a living? I put up flag poles. I'm not even going to talk to you. I'm a big movie star. So, somewhere either you have that.

Anyway, let's have a good -- they call it a lifting. They also use another word, but I'm not going to use that word. Do you know what that is? The word, it starts with an E. You know what the word is? If I ever used it, I'd be run out of town by you people.

All right, so enjoy it. Doug, you're going to get some goodies, is going to win another Nobel Prize, I think, for this picture. So, maybe the flag will be even more exciting, but this is pretty exciting. That's some equipment. I'll tell you what. Look at that crane. That's some beautiful equipment. It's -- there's nothing like America. Have a good time, everybody.

REPORTER: Can you answer questions about whether you are moving closer or you believe the U.S. is moving closer to striking Iranian nuclear facilities? Where's your mindset on that?

TRUMP: I can't say that, right? You don't seriously think I'm going to answer that question. Will you strike the Iranian nuclear component and what time exactly, sir? Sir, would you strike it? Would you please inform us so we can be there and watch? I mean, you don't know that I'm going to even do it. You don't know. I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do.

I can tell you this, that Iran's got a lot of trouble and they want to negotiate. And I said, why didn't you negotiate with me before? All this death and destruction, why didn't you -- I said to the people, why didn't you negotiate with me two weeks ago? You could have done fine. You would've had a country. It's very sad to watch this. I've never seen anything like it. So, you everyone thought it was going to be the reverse. I didn't. I didn't think so. And I was telling him, you got to do something. You got to negotiate. And at the end, last minute they said, no, we're not going to do that, and they got hit.

Remember 60 days and then came the 60 -- 61 is going to become a very famous number. That was one hell of a hit, that first hit. That was one hell of a hit. Not sustainable, to be honest. That's where it ended. It ended on the first night. Yes?

REPORTER: Is it too late though? Do you think it's too late to now --

TRUMP: Nothing's too late. The only thing too late is Powell. Powell's too late. Too late, Powell.

REPORTER: Have the Iranians reached out to you, Mr. President?

TRUMP: What?

REPORTER: Have the Iranians reached out to you?

TRUMP: Yes.

REPORTER: And what did he say?

TRUMP: I said, it's very late, you know? I said it's very late to be talking. We may meet. It's -- I don't know. There's a big difference between now and a week ago, right, big difference.

REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE)?

TRUMP: It's about anybody. They even suggested they come to the White House. It's a big difference. But they've suggested that they come to the White House. That's, you know, courageous, but, you know, it's like not easy for them to do. But they suggest because I can't go now because of what's going on. I had to come back early from the G7, which was terrific by the way, in Canada, really terrific, good people.

REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE)?

TRUMP: well, I don't know how much longer it's going to go on. I mean, they're totally defenseless. They have no air defense, whatsoever. We've totally captured -- you know, we've totally captured the air. Brian?

REPORTER: Yes. Mr. President, you've been fairly compassionate towards the Iranian people --

TRUMP: I know a lot of people from Iran, from New York, from Washington, mostly from New York. They're incredible people. They're smart. They're energetic. They can be difficult, but so can you, you know? No, they're great people, smart people. And those people are getting the hell beat out of them now. And it's really a shame. It's so stupid. It's so stupid. It's another one. You know, Russia and Ukraine is so stupid, would have never happened if I was president. You guys agree with that, right? Would have never happened if I was president. Putin would have never done it. And I spoke to him yesterday and I said, you know, he actually offered to help mediate it. I said, do me a favor. Mediate your own. Let's mediate Russia first, okay? I said, Vladimir, let's mediate Russia first. You can worry about this later. But I think that's going to work out too, but it's -- so many people have been killed.

The big thing with that one is far more people are dead than have been reported in the Ukraine, Russia, many, many more people. A building falls down, they say nobody was hurt, you know? So, ridiculous.

REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE)?

TRUMP: Unconditional surrender, two very simple words, very simple, unconditional surrender. That means I've had it, okay?

[10:05:01]

I've had it. I give up on, no more. Then we go blow up all the nuclear stuff that's all over the place there.

No, they had bad intentions. You know, for 40 years they've been saying, death to America, death to Israel death to anybody else that they didn't like. They were bullies. They were schoolyard bullies, and now they're not bullies anymore. But we'll see what happens.

Look, nothing's finished until it's finished. You know, war is very complex. A lot of bad things can happen. A lot of turns are made. So, I don't know. I wouldn't say that we won anything yet. I would say that we sure as hell made a lot of progress and we will see. The next week is going to be very big, maybe less than a week, maybe less.

But is there anybody here that said it would be okay to have to have a hostile, very -- you know, zealots, really, but to have a hostile country have a nuclear weapon that could destroy 25 miles, but much more than that, could destroy other nations just by the breeze blowing the dust. You know, that dust blows to other nations, then they get to decimated. This is just not a threat you can have.

And we've been threatened by Iran for many years. You know, if you go back and look at my history, if you go back 15 years, I was saying we cannot let Iran get a nuclear weapon. I've been saying it for a long time, and I mean it more now than I ever meant it. Yes?

REPORTER: Mr. President a question on deportations. Mr. President, you said last week that changes would be coming for farmers who have seen a lot of the workers they rely on taken away, but then DHS said this week that work site enforcement would remain in place, that it's a cornerstone. So what's your message to farmers?

TRUMP: Look, we got to get the bad people out of here first, and we're doing that. We're taking them out by the thousands, murderers, drug dealers, people that are mentally insane, from insane asylums. What they gave to us, fellows, they gave for -- do we have anybody in here that's a member of the (INAUDIBLE)? You've known all these people for a long time. Any illegal immigrants in here now? If they were, they'll find out, right? They'll be checking you. You won't believe your whole life will be destroyed because of this press conference. Well, they'll destroy these people. I didn't want to tell them that before they stood out. They'll end up being a -- he's a so and so. This one is from you know where. Don't worry. I think you've going to be okay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure.

TRUMP: I'll be right behind you. I'll be far behind you. I'll be right behind you.

Now, look, we have to take care of our farmers. We have to take care of people that run leisure hotels. I mean, we got to take care of them. But most importantly, we have to get the criminals out of our country. And Biden let in thousands and -- 11,888 murderers, many of them murdered more than one person. Can you believe it? Many -- almost 50 percent of them murdered more than one person. He let them into our country. They emptied out the jails of countries from all over the world, from the Congo, from Venezuela, from all over the place. They emptied out there, just many of them. I would. If I were running one of the countries, I would've emptied out my prison population into the U.S., and many countries did. And we are getting them out, okay? We're getting them out. Thank you very much.

Let's watch this. Brian, go ahead. Are you okay?

REPORTER: I'm just going to follow up on the immigration real quickly.

TRUMP: Yes. Can you comment on the impact of a Trump Card and how much revenue?

TRUMP: Yes. We have a thing called the Trump Card. This has not been done before, I thought of. And for $5 million, this is usually people that would either be working for companies, like Apple, I think is going to buy a lot of them, because they can't get people into the country. You know, if you're come in through the southern border, you have no problem. You can be a criminal, you can be a drug dealer and you have no problem. But if you go and graduate, number one in your class from a great school, you can't get a job because there's no access to getting it. You can't get a green card.

So, we're going to sell that to people, in some cases, wealthy, in some cases, not wealthy. They'll be paid for by universities. Look at Harvard. They got $53 billion. That whole thing is coming to an end. It's amazing what we found out. What a disgrace. They have $53 billion. We gave them five, six, and some people say it's as much as $9 billion over a short period of time. So, that's very much coming to an end. They want to make a deal more than -- I would say, Harvard wants to make a deal more than Iran wants to make a deal, and Iran wants to make a deal.

But, I mean, a lot of things -- look, a lot of things are happening on a lot of fronts, Brian. A lot of good things are happening. And, frankly, you know, it's a little bit of a, as we used to say, liberal, now they say progressive. I use the word liberal. Progressive is too nice a word because they're destroying the country. They're really destroying these --these liberal politicians are destroying our country. Look what they've done during Biden's four years. I mean, we're working on -- I mean, so much of our effort goes to getting people out of the country that should have never been here in the first place.

[10:10:00]

What he's done to this country -- it is not him. He had no idea what was going on. Everybody knows that. It's other people. It's Lisa and this one, and that. All these people, all this scum that was around the Oval -- you know, the Oval Office or around the beautiful Resolute Desk telling this guy here, do this, do that, and not even telling them. They just go over to the autopen and sign whatever the hell they wanted to sign.

Say what you want about Biden. He wasn't for open borders. He wasn't for transgender for everybody. He wasn't for men playing in women's sports, but he has no idea what the hell -- he has no idea. And they were very upset. They wanted Bernie Sanders. And after about a week of this guy, they said, wait a minute, we just hit gold. This guy has no clue. He'll do anything we tell him. And then they realized they don't even have to get permission. They just go up to the autopen.

That's a subversion. That's a takeover of our government. And you people ought to start looking at it. That's a takeover. Not only did they cheat. I guess you saw yesterday came out with China and the license plates, tens of thousands of cards. They use those cards to vote on the second election, my second, in 2020, because, as everybody here knows, I won that election by a lot. But the only good thing I can say is this is a much more historic term than I think I could have had as a second term. This is a much more historic election.

And now we're going to put up a beautiful flagpole and we're going to put up a flag and I hope you enjoy it. And let's see how real people work. These are real people. You're not real people. Your job is too easy, okay? Thank you very much.

REPORTER: How tall is the flag pole?

TRUMP: Close to a hundred feet.

REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) You have a meeting today with the with the Pakistani Army chief of staff. What are you looking forward to achieving diplomatically at the --

TRUMP: Well, I stopped to war between Pakistan. I love Pakistan. I think Modi is a fantastic man. I spoke to him last night. We're going to make a trade deal with Modi of India. But I stopped the war between Pakistan and India. This man was extremely influential in stopping it from the Pakistan side, Modi from the India side and others.

And they were going at it and they're both nuclear countries. I got it stopped. I don't think I had one story. Did I have one story written about it? I stopped the war between two major nations, major nuclear nations. I don't think I had a story written about it, but that's okay. You know why? The people know. The people know.

Did anybody write that story about the war? Did anybody -- did you write it? Did you write it? You wrote it.

(CROSSTALKS)

REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) more adjustments that need to be made for Marine One, departures?

TRUMP: No, no. We put it so that Marine One is very far away. We did it in conjunction with the Air Force with everybody. And everybody signed off on it. We -- no, we have to have it far away. It's very far from -- Marine One's out there. It's out in the field. So, you have to have a certain distance. We're about three times that distance, okay?

Thank you very much everybody.

REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) what you told Prime Minister Netanyahu about getting involved?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. You've been listening to President Trump. He's been speaking at the White House, answering a few reporters' questions in the process as well.

We want to welcome 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.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: We want to go straight to CNN's Kevin Liptak at the White House. Kevin, you heard there the president refusing to answer whether the U.S. will strike Iranian nuclear facilities, but he did say the Iranians have reached out recently, but he said it's too late.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, the president keeping his cards close to the vest in that appearance there, saying that he may do it, he may not do it, referring to joining Israel in its strikes against Iran, suggesting perhaps that he has yet to make up his mind.

It was interesting to hear the president talk about the prospects of diplomacy potentially working to end this conflict. He essentially said that he thought it was very late for that to potentially be effective. He said that even as recently as a week ago, there had been a suggestion raised that the Iranians could actually visit here at the White House to try and broker some kind of agreement. But the president says essentially that it may be too late for that, but I think importantly, not entirely ruling it out, saying, quote, Iran wants to make a deal and saying that nothing is too late, and so keeping that option open even as he discounts the prospect that it could be successful.

You also heard the president define in his words what an unconditional surrender would mean.

[10:15:00]

Remember, the president posted that in all capital letters on Truth Social yesterday. In his telling, unconditional surrender would mean when Iran says that they've had it and that he says we, the word, we, would go in and blow up all of their nuclear facilities.

And so interesting remarks from the president there, not necessarily revealing exactly where his head is at as he weighs this important decision. And I will say if the president is now considering the most important decision of his life and perhaps his presidency, you wouldn't necessarily know it based on what he's doing. He's out on the South Lawn erecting a new flagpole. The president talked at some length about the design of this flagpole, calling it the best pole, and saying that he has a similar pole at Doral.

And so, clearly, the president is a man of many sort of persuasions many passions. Construction is one of them, but obviously behind the scenes, he is now weighing this very critical decision that will have an enormous effect for the entire world.

BROWN: Yes. It stuck out to me he was talking about flagpoles and clearly Jerome Powell is taking up a lot of space in his brain now during this critical time with Iran.

Kevin Liptak, thank you so much.

I want to discuss more now with Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California. Senator, thank you for coming on. First off, what is your reaction to what we just heard from President Trump?

SEN. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Well, it's obviously unclear where his head is at right now. I think he was, you know, pretty indecisive on the subject of Iran, which I can understand. This is a difficult call. But I don't think we got much guidance as to whether he is optimistic about talks with Iran leaning in towards a potential strike on Iran. It was pretty nebulous, the kind of usual stream of consciousness, a bit Iran, a bit, Jerome Powell, a bit about a flagpole and a lot of other things.

BLITZER: Hey, Senator, it's Wolf Blitzer here in The Situation Room as well. Does the president, from your perspective, have the legal authority, the authority to go ahead and strike Iran's nuclear facilities without formal Congressional approval?

SCHIFF: No, I don't think he does. And I think Congress should insist on having a vote on this prior to decision to engage in hostilities in that manner. Whether we will or not is very much an open question. We have over the last 10 or 20 years really ceded our authority, our authority to declare war or to refuse to declare war under the Constitution. So, whether this Congress will say a word about it remains to be seen. But I do think Congressional approval is both desirable, and from a constitutional point of view, necessary.

BROWN: Majority Leader Thune, though, has said that, you know, that is putting the cart before the horse, essentially. What do you say to him?

SCHIFF: Well, we really don't know whether it's putting the cart before the horse because we could find out in an hour, in a day, in two days, who knows, that the president has ordered a strike. We may not even hear about it until those planes are on their way or they've already dropped their first load of bombs.

So, is it premature? Who can say? But I think for Congress, if they're contemplating this, if the president makes the decision to go forward with this, then he should come to Congress and say he wants our authorization. If he wants to maintain some element of surprise, he should come and get that authorization saying that he is contemplating the possible use of it and wants to make sure that Congress and the American people are bought in on this decision. And given the potential for escalation, we need to be bought in on this decision.

BROWN: You have said that you support Israel's right to defend itself against, quote, any imminent threat, including ones from Iran. You've said that Iran must never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon. So, what role should the U.S. have in this conflict between Israel and Iran at this point?

SCHIFF: Well, I think Israel made a decision that was in its national security interest, and I support that decision. October 7th, I think, changed a lot of Israel's calculus, given that it was the victim of this horrendous surprise attack by Hamas. I can't afford to allow Iran to get the bomb and have a surprise attack by a nuclear armed Iran. So, I support Israel's actions and I support whatever intelligence, support and defensive support we can provide Israel.

But I think in terms of engaging in active hostilities ourselves, and I would think bombing Fordow would certainly qualify as our engaging hostilities, that requires Congressional approval. And I would certainly want a briefing from the administration. I would want to know what intelligence the administration has, what Israel has. I've only received the most preliminary of briefings on the subject before I could ever make a decision to approve the use of force like this with the risk to tens of thousands of American troops in the region and the risk of getting engaged in another protracted conflict in the region.

[10:20:02]

BLITZER: Most of your Republican colleagues in the Senate, Senator, are standing with Trump when it comes to Iran. One of those is Senator Ted Cruz. I want you to listen to this exchange he had earlier with Tucker Carlson. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, THE TUCKER CARLSON SHOW: How many people live in, around, by the way?

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): I don't know the population.

CARLSON: At all? CRUZ: No, I don't know the population.

CARLSON: You don't know the population of the country you seek to topple?

What's the ethnic mix of Iran?

CRUZ: They are Persians and predominantly Shia. Okay, this is --

CARLSON: No, it's not even -- you don't know anything about Iran. So, actually the country --

CRUZ: Okay. I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran.

CARLSON: You're a senator who's calling the overthrow of the government. You don't know anything about the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Senator, what do you make of that exchange?

SCHIFF: Well, look, I'm not a fan of Chucker Carlson. And I don't frankly rely on his advice, whether it is about Iran, Russia, or anything else. But I do think that it would be dangerous for the Congress to once again cede this decision to Donald Trump or frankly any president. This is something that Congress should weigh in on, if the president is contemplating engaging the country in another war.

So, I don't know where Ted Cruz's position is on that, but other Republicans who have essentially said they're comfortable, and I've heard some of them say this publicly, leaving this all to Donald Trump, well, that is certainly not where I am.

I support Israel's right to defend itself. I understand what Israel's doing, and I wish them Godspeed and protecting their country from this malign actor that is Iran and, and my thoughts and prayers to go out to the people of Israel that are at risk right now. But in terms of drawing the United States into a full blown war with Iran, that is not something I am willing to see to this president or any president.

BLITZER: All right. Senator Adam Schiff of California, thanks so much for joining us.

SCHIFF: Thanks, Wolf.

BROWN: Thank you very much. And we're also following breaking news from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has upheld Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth.

Let's go to our Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent Paula Reid, who's monitoring all of this for us. Explain the ruling, Paula.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, this is one of the biggest cases of the term. And here, the court, in a 6-3 opinion, has upheld a Tennessee state law that bans gender-affirming care for minors. This case specifically focuses on access to medication used to transition.

And this law was challenged by the families of transgender minors saying this is a violation of the equal protection clause. They argued that other minors have access to this same medication as long as it's not being used for this particular purpose.

But here, again, 6-3 opinion, they are upholding the Tennessee law. And this is significant because this could have implications for other laws targeting transgender individuals.

Notably, this case was argued back in December. It was actually argued by the Biden administration, the Biden solicitor general. She argued against the Tennessee law. But in the opinion today, which was authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, he wrote, quote, this case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field. The voices in these debates raise sincere concerns. The implications for all are profound. The equal protection clause does not resolve these disagreements.

Now, today is one of the final opinion days are from the Supreme Court. We expected to get, you know, five or six opinions. There's about four, I think, that are really we're all just watching and waiting. This was one of the big ones today. Unclear if we'll get anymore opinions.

BROWN: All right. Well, this is certainly a big one. Thank you so much, Paula Reid.

Joining us now is CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig. Elie, explain to us the breakdown here of the justices and what this means for other states that have gender-affirming treatments for transgender adolescents.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Pam, so this is a 6-3 opinion with the six conservatives on one side, the three liberals on the other side dissenting. And, essentially, the key point of contention here is, does this Tennessee law discriminate based on sex? The majority said, no, it discriminates. It treats minors differently based on what their diagnosed condition is.

But the dissent forcefully disagrees here, there's a dissent. It's actually longer than the main opinion written by Justice Sotomayor, where she says, of course, this law discriminates based on sex. She says, a boy cannot receive estrogen treatments, but a girl, minor, can. And so she says, therefore, it definitely does in her dissenting opinion, discriminate on the basis of sex.

Let me just read you the last line of Justice Sotomayor's dissent, because it's quite heartfelt on her behalf. She writes that the law does discriminate based on sex, and she says it also authorizes without second thought untold harm to transgender children and the parents and families who love them because there is no constitutional justification for that result.

[10:25:03] I dissent.

And that's actually notable, Pam, because, traditionally, when a justice dissents, they end with, I respectfully dissent. We have taken note of a few times over the past few years, and this is another one where the justice does not say, respectfully, just says, I dissent. So, a pitched disagreement here between the conservative majority and the liberals in the dissent.

BLITZER: Significant decision, indeed. Elie Honig, thank you very, very much.

And we'll be right back with more news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Breaking news, President Trump not revealing whether the U.S. will get involved in Iran.

[10:30:01]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I said it's very late, you know?