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The Situation Room

Sean 'Diddy' Combs Trial Deliberations Continue; Final Damage Assessment Key For Iran Nuke Deal; President Trump Visits Alligator Alcatraz. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired July 01, 2025 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:03]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Throughout the years, the Everglades has proven incredibly resilient, surviving both natural and manmade disasters, hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, pollution, development, to name just a few.

Why is the construction of this detention facility more ominous, in your view?

ELISE PAUTLER BENNETT, CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: We have spent decades trying to restore the flow of waters in the Everglades. It's an incredibly complex and sensitive aquatic ecosystem.

And so this project, putting more development in this area, particularly an area that we know floods, prevents that flow from continuing to move south. There's already been discussions in the past about eventually removing that sole airstrip that's out there in the middle of nowhere to help restoration.

And this goes in the complete opposite direction. We're incredibly concerned about endangered and threatened species like the Florida panther, which is already getting hit by cars, 20 to 30 of them per year. We would only expect that to grow because we know panthers use this area and cars are coming in more frequently.

We also know endangered Florida bonneted bats fly on and around the site. And having artificial lights will prevent them from feeding. So those are just a couple examples of the incredibly sensitive ecological resources we have in and around the site.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: How much of a threat does this volatile environment pose to the detainees -- and several thousand are going to be moved there -- especially when considering this will be a tent city exposed to storms and potentially even hurricanes?

PAUTLER BENNETT: I think the storms are a real concern, but I will say this.

When it comes to the wildlife, I'm more concerned for the wildlife than the folks on the site. I have actually waded in the wetlands not far from that site myself waist-deep in the water, no problem, wasn't attacked by alligators. The idea that these are vicious animals out to attack people is rather absurd.

And I think it detracts from the important message, which is that this doesn't belong here, Floridians don't want it here, and it's wasteful and an incredible risk to our ecological resources.

BROWN: What do you say to those who support this Alligator Alcatraz, as it's called, and who say that your opposition is based more on immigration politics than it is environmentalism?

PAUTLER BENNETT: Well, the entire heart of our case is based around a law called the National Environmental Policy Act, and it's actually a really commonsense law that essentially requires agencies to look before they leap, to understand the consequences of what they're doing before it's too late and they have gone down a road and they can't take it back.

My organization is dedicated to protecting biodiversity. That's every endangered species, great and small, that's facing extinction. We know many of them are at risk here. And, more importantly, the incredible greater Everglades ecosystem is at risk. And so the idea that it's anything beyond that is somewhat laughable when you look at the case itself.

BROWN: All right, Elise Pautler Bennett, thank you so much.

PAUTLER BENNETT: Thank you.

BROWN: And just ahead: the possible next steps for a deal with Iran. It will depend on just how badly its nuclear sites were damaged.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:38:50]

BROWN: We're getting new details on the potential next steps for an Iran nuclear deal.

A final battle assessment will play a key role in the Trump administration's efforts to pivot from military strikes to diplomacy.

CNN national security correspondent Kylie Atwood is at the State Department.

Kylie, what more do we know about the next steps here?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, one thing that we're going to be looking at quite closely is what that final battle damage assessment actually looks like.

When you talk to current and former officials, they say that that will be really critical when negotiators go back to the table, because, in order to negotiate effectively the future of Iran's nuclear program, you need to know what they still have. And so that final battle damage assessment will help the U.S. officials at the table have an understanding of what they need to be negotiating. And if there is to be a verifiable new deal in place, some of the

elements that would include, Pam, would be destroying elements of Iran's nuclear program that still exist, monitoring further activity blending highly enriched uranium. That's the uranium that is enriched to 60 percent now that is close to bombs-level-grade uranium. They would want to blend that down, and then also getting Iran to declare parts of its program that are still in use.

Those would presumably be parts of its program that are still in use for civilian nuclear purposes. That would be for nuclear energy and the like, not for a purpose of turning what they have into a nuclear weapon.

The other thing when you talk to current and former officials that's going to be really critical when these talks begin, though we don't know exactly when that's going to happen, is getting the IAEA back and doing its inspections on Iran's nuclear sites. Right now, we know that Iran's Parliament has halted participation with the IAEA.

But I talked to a former U.S. official who was a senior official who did many rounds of talks with Iran in previous years.

And what they said was that even the final U.S. assessment, the U.S. intelligence assessment of what Iran's nuclear program looks like, wouldn't in their eyes be legitimate until you have those IAEA inspectors on the ground to actually verify what Iran has, look at where the places of the program are, and take all of that into account to come up with a deal that actually limits Iran from being able to turn what it has into a nuclear weapon in the future.

[11:40:12]

BROWN: All right, Kylie Atwood, thank you -- Wolf.

BLITZER: I want to continue the conversation right now.

CNN global affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier is joining us right now.

Kim, how accurate are any of these damage assessments without inspectors being there on the ground at these nuclear sites?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: They are a best guess using the technology available and using intercepts of phone calls, et cetera.

But you really do need people who you trust, a neutral third party going in on the ground, and using the radio equipment to try to figure out if there's been any contamination and also just assessing, how collapsed are the entrances at these various different sites? What can be recovered?

BROWN: I just want to follow up with that, because President Trump again defended what he has said, that the program has been obliterated because of the military strikes, but then he also talked about how everything's buried under the rubble.

So how can you really know because so much of the core components are under that rubble? How do you know how much damage was done?

DOZIER: Buried under the rubble at three sites. There were other sites.

Also, the IAEA has said that it is likely that Iran moved its enriched uranium that was at three different sites, secreted away when the Israeli bomb strikes started. So, as long as they have got some of that enriched uranium -- and apparently they had some centrifuges in storage that weren't online -- they can start reconstituting the program.

What has been destroyed seems to be physical spaces and some existing equipment, but not the capability to restart.

BLITZER: And it's interesting that the Iranian Parliament has already banned the IAEA inspectors from coming back, the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors.

Would a continued ban scuttle any potential deal, if you will?

DOZIER: It certainly could because that was the key part -- one of the legs of the stool that made the Iran nuclear deal work, that you could have someone in who you trusted to verify that Iran was declaring everything it had and not building a nuclear weapon.

Now, the one thing that they have going for them on the Western side is that sanctions snap back from the original Iran nuclear deal that the Europeans kept honoring even after the Trump administration pulled out. They snap back in October. So, now Iran has a decision to make. Does it allow inspectors back in so that some of those sanctions don't get snapped back, or does it make the calculation that Russia, China, et cetera, will make up for the lost trade for the newly imposed sanctions and it just goes ahead with rebuilding its program, in defiance?

BROWN: And you have Iran's ambassador to the U.N. saying that the country's enrichment of uranium will -- quote -- "never stop"...

DOZIER: Yes.

BROWN: ... that Iran has an inalienable right.

So where does that leave us?

DOZIER: That leaves us in potentially the situation we most feared with an angry Iran beaten, but not defeated, unwilling to come back to the negotiating table and unwilling to stop its nuclear program.

However, there are Gulf states that are also reaching out. The Qataris are still trying to get them to come back to the negotiating table. I think it would take at least a lot of posturing before they would do that. Maybe it will take the time of European and Gulf negotiators offering something to sweeten the deal, but not this close to the strike.

BLITZER: Very quickly, how is significant potentially could Prime Minister Netanyahu's visit to Washington on Monday, meeting with the president, be?

DOZIER: If Israel and the U.S. decide the moment they see any construction at those sites to strike again, we could be in dangerous territory, because then we won't be using negotiations to stop Iran's nuclear program. Those two countries would be using force.

BLITZER: Kimberly Dozier, thanks, as usual, for joining us -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, thanks, Kim.

And coming up, new details inside day two of the deliberations of the Sean "Diddy" Combs trial -- the questions the jury has about key witness testimony next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:48:52]

BLITZER: Just moments ago, President Trump toured the controversial migrant detention facility in the Everglades. Here's some of what he said. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And they want to go home, so we immediately send them home, where it's appropriate.

Now, if somebody's a real killer-killer, we don't send them anywhere. We put them in a maximum security. Look, what we inherited from this guy, this incompetent man, and his administration, which wasn't incompetent, it was radical left, lunatic, communist, whatever you want to say -- I know most of them.

What we inherited should never, ever be forgotten, what they have made us do. This is all because of an open border policy, where 25 million people flowed in from all over the world, from prisons. From all over the world, they have flowed in for no reason whatsoever.

We had -- when I left, we had a very powerful border. We had no problem. He opened it up day one. He just opened the border and people couldn't believe it. They were standing there. What are they doing? They said, go in. That's the -- you look at the first-day tapes, they opened it up and they said, go in.

And that's where all of this began. But this is an amazing thing that they have done here.

[11:50:00]

KRISTI NOEM, U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: But, listen, they don't -- people don't have to come here. If they self-deport and go home, they can come back legally. We will let them come back legally.

TRUMP: And there is a lot of self-deportation. People...

(CROSSTALK) NOEM: Yes. But if you wait and we bring you to this facility, you don't ever get to come back to America. You don't get the chance to come back and be an American again and work here. So...

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): They weren't with us when the president and the secretary, Kevin and I, we went through the intake.

So right when you do the intake, they have the information about voluntary departure. They have the ability. Obviously, you guys are finding that, because it's a lot cheaper to do it that way. So, even if they get brought to the front doorstep here, they still have an opportunity to just go back voluntarily. And then this way, they're not...

(CROSSTALK)

NOEM: We can put them on a plane that day and take them home. We will buy their plane ticket, go home, and then they get the chance to come back legally.

If they wait and say, we're not going to do that...

TRUMP: If they do that, they can come back legally after a period of time.

QUESTION: Mr. President, you talked in -- recently about the idea of finding some way to get a farm work force and service sector work force. And I think you have discussed somehow a program of people leaving on a sponsorship and coming right back.

Can you give us a little more detail about that and why, in the view of some hard-liners, it's not amnesty?

TRUMP: Yes. We're going to take care of our farmers and hotel workers and various other people, that we're working on it right now. And Ron's going to be involved, and you're involved already.

NOEM: Yes.

TRUMP: So we have a case, a lot of cases where ICE will go into a farm, and these are guys working there for 10, 15 years, no problem. The farmers know them.

We're going to put -- it's called farmer responsibility or owner responsibility, where they're going to be largely responsible for these people. And they know these people. They have worked on the farms for 15 years, and all of a sudden they're -- so I have a great -- Ron does. Kristi does. We have a great feeling for the farmer and for others in the same position.

And we're going to give them responsibility for people. And we're going to have a system of signing them up, so they don't have to go. They can be here legally. They can pay taxes and everything else. They're not getting citizenship. But they get other things. And the farmers need them to do the work. Without those people, you're not going to be able to run your farm. QUESTION: Mr. President, you and the governor tangled pretty hard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, the president now continuing his visit there to this area called Alligator Alcatraz, this migrant detention facility down in Florida.

He's holding a roundtable with national and state officials about the facility right now. We will continue to monitor this, as we're watching all of this unfold.

It's interesting. He's there, Pamela, with Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis.

BROWN: Yes.

And you heard them talk about -- Kristi Noem and Governor DeSantis talk about, look, you can self-deport. Clearly, they want to use this moment as -- to create a deterrent effect. This is the imagery that the administration wants to put out there. So we're going to continue to monitor that.

We also have some breaking news, Wolf, in the jury deliberations in the Sean "Diddy" Combs trial. The jury has sent a note requesting the transcripts of Combs' ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, and Daniel Phillip, a man Combs allegedly hired to have sex with her. That testimony is what they're asking for.

So let's go to CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister outside court.

Elizabeth, what else did the jurors request?

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so the jury has requested that testimony, as you said, from Daniel Phillip, who was one of the male escorts, and some testimony from Cassie Ventura.

Now, Daniel Phillip had testified in this trial towards the beginning of the trial, and he said that during one of these so-called freak- offs, that he testified that Sean Combs was physically violent with Cassie. He said that he witnessed this, and after that he was unable to perform. So they have requested his testimony.

Now, they have also requested testimony from Cassie from two separate incidents, one, what she said about the Intercontinental Hotel in 2016, of course, that pertaining to that horrific hotel surveillance footage that our team at CNN first broke. They have also asked for testimony relating to the Cannes Film Festival, where Cassie testified that an incident occurred that her and Combs got into a fight, and that on the way home from France, that he was threatening her over releasing those graphic tapes from those freak-offs.

So, the jury clearly working their way through all of this complicated testimony. What this says is that they have not made a clear decision, guilty or not guilty. And, by the way, yesterday, they also asked -- they sent in a jury note asking a question: If somebody asks for drugs, is it still drug distribution if the person then hands them those drugs?

The judge sent them back a note, which was really just referring them back to those jury instructions, so not giving them a clear yes or no, but just saying, look back at those instructions.

BROWN: Just very quickly, there were concerns about another juror yesterday, I think it was?

WAGMEISTER: Yes, it was. And, yes, yesterday, one of the first notes from the jury, they said that Juror No. 5, they had concerns that this individual was unable to follow the judge's instructions.

[11:55:11]

While the judge did not take that juror out, he did not send in an alternate, the judge instead sent back a note saying that you are obligated to follow my instructions and follow the law, go back in there and deliberate. Now, we don't know what's going on in that room, but they clearly are continuing to deliberate. So it seems that whatever that issue was with Juror No. 5, whether it's resolved or not, we don't know.

But they are working their way through it and continuing with their deliberations.

BROWN: All right, Elizabeth Wagmeister, thanks so much.

BLITZER: And thanks to our viewers for joining us this morning. You can always keep up with us on social media @WolfBlitzer and @PamelaBrownCNN.

We will see you back here tomorrow morning, every weekday morning 10:00 a.m. Eastern.

BROWN: "INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" is next right after a short break.