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The Situation Room

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons Stepping Down; Trump Picks Dr. Erica Schwartz to Lead CDC; Trump Now, Says He's "Not Fighting" with Pope Leo; FBI: Michigan Synagogue Attack was Hezbollah-Inspired Terrorism; Antisemitism on Instagram. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired April 17, 2026 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR REPORTER: And United said that it's maybe looking into merging with American Airlines. That's a rumor that's been floating around for quite some time and now they are talking about a potential tie-up there that may or may not be allowed to happen. So, all of this means higher fares and a pretty difficult summer travel season. Back to you.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. David Goldman, breaking it down for us. Thank you so much, Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And just ahead, shifting tone, the message President Trump could be sending with his pick for a new CDC director.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Happening now, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, is stepping down this spring.

[10:35:00]

His last day will be May 31st. Lyons led the controversial agency as it was tasked with carrying out President Trump's mass deportation plan. It's unclear who will replace Lyons. ICE has not had a Senate- confirmed leader since the Obama administration.

BROWN: And happening now, President Trump is tapping public health veteran Dr. Erica Schwartz to lead the Center for Disease Control and Prevention -- the center, I should say. Schwartz served as Deputy Surgeon General during Trump's first term and has experience leading vaccination programs. So, that could be a sign that the White House may be shifting its messaging on vaccines.

CNN Medical Correspondent Meg Tirrell joins us now. Meg, what more do we know about Dr. Schwartz and what her nomination says about the Trump administration's potential shifting of priorities here?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Pam, it is being seen as a shift. The response to Dr. Schwartz's nomination has been glowing, both from people who know her and worked with her, and also from the broader public health community. She is seen as a much more traditional and strong public health choice. That experience she had as the Deputy Surgeon General during Trump's first term, her experience in the Coast Guard, serving in public health roles for a long period of time, overseeing disease surveillance and, as you noted, vaccination programs as well.

And, of course, her pick comes as the CDC director position has been one of the trickiest in the Trump administration and under RFK Jr., for them really to even keep somebody in that seat, Pam. They initially nominated Dr. David Weldon, who was a Florida congressman, somebody who was close with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but they withdrew his nomination in March, the morning of his confirmation hearing over concerns about some of his vaccine views in the past.

Then, of course, Dr. Susan Monarez was confirmed into that role, but she served less than a month after she was sort of ousted from that position as she conflicted with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy and how they would handle sort of the vaccine advisory committee that RFK Jr. had put together and recommendations they were making. Then, earlier this year, they essentially stuck the NIH director into that role to oversee CDC at the same time.

So, now we are getting this nomination. And Dr. Jerome Adams, who was the surgeon general in Trump's first term, posted this glowing review of her on social media, saying she has the expertise, credibility, and integrity to lead the CDC effectively, but he points out something the public health world is worried about. He says, if allowed to follow the science without political interference, she'll excel. That's a major concern, Pam. We are also hearing negative reactions from some in the community who doesn't like to see that she has supported vaccination in the past. Aaron Risi, a lawyer with ties to RFK Jr., calling her likely a disaster, Pam. So, this is the kind of response we're seeing this morning.

BROWN: For supporting vaccinations. All right. Meg Tirrell, thank you so much. Wolf.

BLITZER: And there's more breaking news we're following here in the Situation Room. President Trump saying the Strait of Hormuz is, quote, "completely open and ready for business," but that the U.S. naval blockade will remain in full force until, quote, "our transaction with Iran is 100 percent complete," end quote. Iran's foreign minister says the critical waterway is open to all commercial vessels, at least for now.

Joining us now to discuss what's going on, CNN's Washington bureau chief and political director, David Chalian. David, we have to see whether Iran really does allow all the ships through the Strait of Hormuz, but if it does, how significant of a win could that potentially be for President Trump?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR AND CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Well, potentially it moves the U.S. and Iran down the path towards a resolution here, which is an ultimate win for everyone involved.

You recall, Wolf, when the ceasefire was first announced, the two things that immediately were sort of road bumps or concerns to thinking about how the ceasefire was going to hold is that the strait was still closed, ships were not going through, and this Israel- Lebanon factor was still a conflict that was very much on display.

Well, now you have Trump working to get the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire in place, at least for a short period of time here, and now you have Iran opening up the strait. Those seem like two big pieces that needed to occur to get the parties closer down the path to a resolution.

BLITZER: And they both seem to be occurring, and that's very, very significant. The war has not only divided countries, as you know, but also President Trump and the Pope, the president posting on social media Sunday that Pope Leo, an American born Pope, the first ever, is, quote, "weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy," Trump's words. But here's what he told our Kaitlan Collins yesterday. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Why are you fighting with the Pope? And are you worried it's upsetting your evangelical supporters and Catholic supporters?

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: No, no, I don't. I have to do what's right. The Pope has to understand that, very simple, I have nothing against the Pope. His brother's MAGA all the way. I like his brother.

COLLINS: But why are you fighting with him then?

TRUMP: I'm not fighting with him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Were you at all surprised, David, to hear President Trump play down his conflict with the Pope there and that exchange he had with Kaitlan?

[10:40:00]

CHALIAN: I mean, I wasn't terribly surprised because it was like day four or five of this. And it wasn't going well for the president on across a whole series of metrics here. I mean, when he put that A.I. generated image of him looking like Jesus that he said was looking like he thought he was a doctor, that got a ton of backlash. You're dealing with a block of support.

I mean, I think a quarter of President Trump's votes in 2024 came from American Catholics. I'm not suggesting every American Catholic is siding with the Pope over Trump in this skirmish, but I just think it was not a wise political fight to pick, especially considering the Pope is far more popular than Donald Trump is. You don't usually pick a fight with somebody who's a lot more popular that way.

Now, Donald Trump does quadruple down more often than not, as you're suggesting. But when I heard him yesterday say those words that you just played, I thought to myself, I think he does not have a desire for this to be a two-week story of a battle with a popular vote.

BLITZER: Let's not forget there are a lot of Catholic voters in several of the major key battleground states out there, right? CHALIAN: No doubt about it. And Donald Trump won the Catholic vote in 24 by 20 points over Kamala Harris after he lost it by five points to Joe Biden in 2020. So, it was a big sort of growth constituency for him. And you don't want to -- if you're Donald Trump, with all the Republicans on the ballot this year, you don't want to do anything to erode that advancement you made.

BLITZER: Good point. I wanted you to watch and our viewers to watch the vice president, J.D. Vance, who actually converted to Catholicism a few years ago. Talk about the pope's opposition to the Iran war. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I think that it's important in the same way that it's important for the vice president United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it's very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: How do you view how Vance has navigated this divide between the president of the United States, his boss and the pope, his spiritual leader?

CHALIAN: Well, I think you heard there it hasn't been a tough navigation for him. He just really wanted to align himself with the president and not do anything to get crosswise with his boss. I mean, John Thune, I think, had the best retort of the week to that comment from J.D. Vance, which was like I thought talking about theology was his actual job for the pope.

But Vance clearly didn't want to be seen as separating himself from Trump on this issue or in some way siding with the pope. So, he just sort of tried to redefine it on his terms, but sort of not offend the president and his --

BLITZER: Good point. Amid all of this, the war in the Middle East clearly has provoked a very interesting, unusual trend within the Democratic Party. We saw a stunning 40 Senate Democrats out of 47 in the U.S. Senate, the caucus vote, vote against U.S. weapons sales to Israel on Wednesday. What's your takeaway from this development?

CHALIAN: I think a year ago on a similar measure proposed by Bernie Sanders, it was like 15 Democrats that supported it. Then in the summer, there was another similar proposal. It got up to 25, 27 Democrats and now 40 Senate Democrats. I think in one year you've seen a dramatic uptick. And I think it mirrors what's going on in the polls inside the Democratic Party.

Netanyahu's Israel is becoming more and more unpopular. Democrats, especially in America, have a more unfavorable view of Israel. And so, you're seeing a lot more Democratic senators sort of responding to that and joining this opposition to selling offensive weapons to Israel from the United States. BLITZER: And Republicans are sticking more with Israel. Is that right?

CHALIAN: Yes. Although you're starting to see fractures there as well. I mean, there are concerns. I don't think it's not nearly as widespread as it is on the Democratic side. But on the Republican side of the equation, you're also seeing not a total unified support of Israel the way that you used to.

BLITZER: You used to see a unified support of Israel on both parties --

CHALIAN: Across the board.

BLITZER: I've covered U.S.-Israeli relations for a long time.

CHALIAN: You know it. That is not the case anymore.

BLITZER: This is pretty extraordinary what's going on right now.

CHALIAN: No doubt.

BLITZER: David Chalian, thank you very, very much.

CHALIAN: Sure.

BLITZER: Pamela.

BROWN: All right. Coming up, Wolf, there is a new report that's calling out Meta, accusing the company of a lack of moderation when it comes to antisemitic content on Instagram. The major changes the Anti- Defamation League now wants to see from the platform.

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[10:45:00]

BLITZER: New this morning, British counter-terror police are investigating an incident near the Israeli embassy in London. Police say a group claims to have targeted the building with drones carrying very dangerous substances. On Wednesday, two people were arrested in connection with an attempted arson attack at a synagogue near London. These incidents mark but the latest in a string of antisemitic crimes in recent weeks.

Yesterday, I spoke with the CEO and national director of the ADL, the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, and computer scientist Jen Goldbeck.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

Jonathan, let me start with you. Here in the U.S., the FBI says a recent attack against a synagogue outside of Detroit, Michigan, was inspired by Hezbollah. Are authorities based on all of your research being proactive enough in combating crimes and threats against the Jewish people? JONATHAN GREENBLATT, CEO AND NATIONAL DIRECTOR, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE: Look, ADL has been working with law enforcement literally for a hundred years to fight antisemitism in all forms. We have certainly seen a tsunami of anti-Jewish hate. That attempted attack in West Bloomfield, literally, if that individual had succeeded, he loaded his car with explosives, drove through the synagogue, and attempted to blow up the building, would have been the largest mass killing of children in American history.

Thank God it was foiled, but indeed, we need authorities to continue to press the case, offline and online, which I know we're going to talk about.

[10:50:00]

And I'll tell you, Wolf, like, what I worry about is this intemperate rhetoric, which continues to intensify. We see political candidates, like in Michigan, diminishing what happened there. We see others, you know, invoking or glorifying terror organizations. It's got to stop. We need to turn down the rhetoric once and for all.

BLITZER: I know at the University of Maryland, Jennifer, you study malicious online behavior. Is the rise in antisemitic messages that we've been seeing to the hateful content against other groups?

JEN GOLBECK, COMPUTER SCIENTIST: I think that's fair. What we have always seen online is hate directed at everyone, including antisemitism. But really, in the last ten years, we have seen this mainstreaming, stuff creeping out from these corners of the Internet where most people don't go, into places like 4chan and then Reddit and then Twitter and then Facebook.

And so, we've had this real normalization, both of antisemitism and generally of hate speech to a lot of groups. And we've seen that from the top down. When I was following the Trump campaign last year, talking to his supporters, they were saying it's the political incorrectness that they like. It's the brazenness. And we've seen that spread across all kinds of language. And antisemitism is one of those places where it's now become part of the mainstream conversation.

BLITZER: And the online spread of antisemitism and other hate is growing among younger people who are online, right?

GOLBECK: Absolutely it is. And if you look at the world of antisemitic speech, there's a lot of tropes and things that younger people may not necessarily realize that they're stepping into. And so, we'll see things like young people talking about globalists, which is playing into these antisemitic tropes, and they may not understand those connections, along with very explicit antisemitism. So, there's quite a lot going on right now.

BLITZER: What is the ADL doing right now to deal with this escalating threat to the Jewish community?

GREENBLATT: Well, look, our Center on Technology and Society specifically is focused on, again, tracking online hate, working with the platforms. We've worked directly with all of them, including Meta. And we just released a report this week, Wolf, looking at, like, some really problematic content on Instagram specifically. You know, Instagram is used by 80 percent of adults under 30.

Literally, it is extraordinary, its reach. And yet, in running some recent tests, we found, like, Nick Fuentes, who they have banned, actually, his videos continue to show up through his Groyper network, hundreds of accounts. We've seen hundreds of thousands of followers of foreign terror organizations on Instagram. Actually, we found one vendor who got millions of views for his Nazi-branded merchandise.

Look, Meta is an amazing company. They have great leadership. They need to do better. They need to enforce their own policies. They need to institute strong moderation and use the same capacity for innovation, Wolf, to tackle this issue once and for all.

BLITZER: What do you think?

GOLBECK: Yes. The problem that we see with moderation, one is that we've been hearing for years that A.I. is going to be able to handle it. It's scale, and it's just not there. And we've also seen in the last year, year and a half, all these human content moderators being fired from social media companies, not just Meta. And what that means is these reports come in about content that is absolutely violating the terms of service of the platforms, and it's allowed to remain up there. And then what you get, again, is this normalization of hate speech, of tremendously harmful and offensive content remaining on the platforms because they're not moderating it.

BLITZER: How serious is the antisemitic threat right now here in the United States?

GREENBLATT: Very high. I mean, it's the highest we've seen in decades. Last year was the most lethal year for the Jewish community in recent memory. 20 people were killed, 15 in Bondi Beach, of course. But two here in Washington, D.C. An elderly woman burned to death in Boulder, Colorado. Two people killed in Manchester, England. And, Wolf, just the last few months, we saw the synagogue burn down in Jackson, Mississippi. The near-attack disaster in Michigan. We saw ambulances attacked in London, of course. Four Jewish ambulances. And now, it just happened overnight. In Toronto, synagogues shot up.

Look, the Jewish community is on high alert. ADL is working with law enforcement all over the country to try to monitor potential threats. Wolf, we'll do the best that we can to stop them before they take place.

BLITZER: All right. Jonathan Greenblatt, thank you very much for joining us. Jen Golbeck, thanks to you as well. I'll say Jennifer.

GOLBECK: Thank you.

BLITZER: Thank you very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Really important conversation there, Wolf. And coming up here in the Situation Room, a singer arrested and accused of killing a 14- year-old girl whose body was found dismembered in his car last year. Why did it take so long? We'll discuss after.

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[10:55:00]

BLITZER: A new CNN Special follows the rise of medical cannabis use among women. CNN's Chief Medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, has done extensive reporting on the impact of marijuana.

BROWN: And for his latest reporting, Wolf, he travels the country to learn why women of all ages are turning to cannabis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Is it the general approach saying, look, we've tried everything and now we're going to do --

[11:00:00]