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Iran: No Plans For 2nd Round Of Talks "As Of Now"; U.S. Military Fires At & Seizes Iranian-Flagged Cargo Ship; FBI Dir. Patel Files $250M Lawsuit Against The Atlantic, Reporter. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired April 20, 2026 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Sabres hold on to win 4-3. It was snowing before puck drop and Buffalo says keep those coats on because this Sabres storm is just getting started.

Finally, the sweetest moment of the day, it didn't come from a superstar. At the ballpark in Pittsburgh, the Pirates' Jake Mangum saw a young girl wearing his jersey. He tosses the ball to her, but a young boy makes the catch. It's her brother. No hesitation, no second thought. He hands it to her and the two give the sweetest embrace and just like that, the crowd's biggest cheer wasn't for the game, it was for goodness. Souvenir secured, memory made.

In a world that can feel heavy at times, Pamela and Wolf, moments like this remind us there's still a whole lot of light out there too.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Wow, that was so sweet to see their warm embrace after he caught the ball and he did not hesitate, as you pointed out, handing it to his sister.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I love that so much. So nice, so beautiful indeed.

And the next hour of The Situation Room starts right now.

BROWN: Happening now, breaking news vowing to retaliate. Tehran threatens to take action after U.S. forces seized an Iranian flag ship. What this means for already uncertain peace talks.

BLITZER: And growing crisis, more than a million people in Lebanon displaced and struggling with their basic needs amid the war. I'll speak to a humanitarian worker there about what people are facing.

BROWN: And medical breakthrough, the promising new treatment offering hope against one of the deadliest forms of cancer.

BLITZER: 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.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News. BLITZER: We begin this hour with the breaking news. Sources telling CNN that Vice President J.D. Vance is expected to head back to Pakistan tomorrow with a second round of talks between the U.S. and Iran planned for Wednesday.

BROWN: All of this comes as Tehran is vowing to retaliate after U.S. forces fired on and seized an Iranian-flagged vessel in the Gulf of Oman. U.S. military central command says the ship tried to break the U.S. blockade of Iran's ports.

BLITZER: Let's begin this hour with CNN's White House correspondent, Alayna Treene. Alayna, what more are you learning right now about the Vice President's trip to Pakistan?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, I think there's been a lot of confusion around the timing of this. You heard the President, President Donald Trump, telling "The New York Post" in an interview this morning that the Vice President was actually already on his way, the U.S. delegation to Pakistan.

But that appeared to be premature from the conversations I was having with sources this morning. They tell me that Vance is expected to leave for Pakistan tomorrow. That's at least the current plan. I should note a lot of things are fluid. We're seeing a lot of this change pretty periodically. But the current plan is to have him leave tomorrow and then have these talks in person between the U.S. officials and the Iranian officials on Wednesday in Islamabad.

I'll note as well we just got video of the Vice President arriving here at the White House just to add to, you know, the idea that the Vice President is not yet en route to Pakistan. All to say, though, there's a lot that still needs to be worked out. From the conversations I was having all weekend and this morning, you know, talks are in a very fragile state right now.

The ceasefire, the two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is expected to expire tomorrow evening. Unclear if they are -- if the administration is going to try and extend that, but obviously they do want to allow this diplomacy to play out while also trying to use the pressure of this quick timeline to get a deal done. But there is a lot of mistrust, I should note, on the Iranian side as well.

One point is that, you know, the President was sending a lot of Truth Socials on Friday, doing a lot of phone interviews with different media outlets, kind of sending, you know, hour-by-hour updates of what was happening in talks in Tehran with the Iranians and the Pakistanis. And then also, of course, everything we saw play out in the Strait of Hormuz this weekend with the U.S. attacking that tanker for violating the U.S. blockade.

And so there's a lot that still needs to be worked through, but they are so hopeful diplomacy can prevail. Wolf?

BLITZER: We shall see. Alayna Treene at the White House, thank you very, very much. Pamela? BROWN: All right, Wolf. CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson joins us from Islamabad, Pakistan. Any word there from Iran on this new round of talks, Nic?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Look, there are plenty of words coming out of Iran, and I think when we kind of read them all, we can see that the hardliners over the past few days, 48 hours or so, have really had a bigger voice.

The main negotiator, Ghalibaf, spoke on state T.V. just a couple of nights ago. He talked about unity. You know, and he was the one, obviously, that led the Iranian delegation here last time and is sort of seen in this context, despite his IRGC, you know, historical connections, as a sort of a moderate who wants to get these talks done, who wants to get a deal done.

[11:05:01]

But what we've seen since the Iranians opened the Strait of Hormuz and then President Trump said that he wasn't going to lift the U.S. blockade, then the Iranians shut it down again, and the Iranians shot at a tanker and a container ship, and then the United States last night shot at an Iranian tanker, disabled it, boarded it, have taken it under control.

All of this, in a way, has sort of undermined the trust that was built over last week where the Lebanon ceasefire came into play, Iran opened up the Strait of Hormuz, and when that trust has fallen away, the hardliners in Iran, the sort of more military types, have really gotten a bigger voice.

So the question is right now, and this is one everyone is asking, of course, when are the Iranians going to come? The last time on record an Iranian official spoke was the foreign ministry spokesman several hours ago. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ESMAEIL BAQAEI, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESMAN (through translator): As of now, as I am speaking to you, we have no plan for the next round of negotiations. No decision has been taken in this regard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: So what I can tell you is right now there's a lot of behind-the-scenes diplomacy going on. The negotiators, the mediators, Pakistan, are putting a huge amount of diplomatic effort into the situation right now. Calls -- telephone calls are being made behind the scenes. Conversations are being had. And it's -- there is a real hope here in this city that's ready, security, the venues are ready, that by the end of tonight the Iranians would have given a signal that will give clarity that would allow the talks to go ahead.

That's the hope in this city right now, but it isn't clear yet that it's going to happen. But there's a sense that if it does, and this is a huge lift, I think, you know, when we consider how important it was, the talks were last week, and how important it will be to get the delegations around the table again in talks coming up, right now the even bigger lift is just to get the Iranians to say yes and come back, and the sense is if that happens, then there can be progress.

BROWN: Yes, a lot of uncertainty right now. Nic Robertson, thank you very much. Wolf?

BLITZER: I want to continue the conversation right now. Joining us, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, retired General Wesley Clark. General Clark, thanks so much for joining us. How important was it for the U.S. to actually have a show of force and seize that Iranian vessel?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: I think it was critical that we did that. We said there was going to be a blockade. They ran the blockade. We took the ship. That's what we had to do.

BROWN: So just to follow up on that, what do you make of this Iranian ship trying to, apparently according to the U.S. Central Command, break this blockade in this, you know, very fragile ceasefire time? And why is it that the U.S. has the capability to effectively keep Iran's ports closed but is unable to keep the Strait of Hormuz open?

CLARK: Well, I'm sure the Iranian ship was in contact with Iranian authorities. It was an Iranian-owned ship. So they would have had control of it. It was a test. They wanted to see if we would stop it. We did stop it. They wanted to see how we would do it. Now, opening the Strait of Hormuz by force, that's an entirely different issue.

That's a much, much tougher problem. I don't know if we have a military option really to do it. People talk about the mines, but it's the mines, the speedboats, the missiles, the sea-skimming missiles, the cruise missiles, the ballistic missiles, the possible artillery fire that could be brought to bear. This is a very constrained area. It's been fortified for years. And the Iranians certainly have taken lessons.

They have Chinese technology. They've got real-time observation of our fleet as we're moving in it. This would be a real dogfight if we went in there. And it's much more than simply sallying a couple of destroyers through with guns bristling and so forth or putting a minesweeper in. This is not the late 1980s. This is not the tanker war.

This is something entirely different. And the Iranians now know they've got a real strategic asset more useful than a nuclear weapon. And they've used it. And they don't believe we have an answer for it. They know we don't want to commit ground troops. They know we don't want to take losses. We don't want to get our ships close enough to be hit by their missiles. They've practiced with the missiles in using the Houthis to go against our ships. They know how good we are and how good they are.

And so this is a real tough military problem. That's unfortunate because that's driving their stance in the negotiations.

[11:10:04]

BLITZER: President Trump, as you know, General, has threatened, in his words, no more Mr. Nice Guy. How hopeful are you that a deal will be reached before this very, very fragile ceasefire ends this week? It's supposed to be over this week, but how hopeful are you that it could be extended and that a real peace could eventually emerge?

CLARK: I think it will be extended. But, Wolf, just imagine how complicated these negotiations are. First of all, you've got multiple issues. You've got the nuclear issue. You've got the militia issue. You've got Hezbollah. You've got the Houthis. You've got the missile issue. And then you've got who's in charge in Iran. And then you've got U.S. politics involved in this, and the President and the way he leads it and works it. And then you've got the mediators, and then China on the outside who's pushing on Pakistan and on the Iranians. Very, very complicated, very difficult.

So when we say a solution, maybe you get, you know, a fragment of a solution like some talking points and said, but you've got to be careful because the talking points aren't complete and they can be misunderstood. Maybe that's what happened on Friday and Saturday when the President said the Strait was going to be open. He took it like you would and said, by golly, we've won. We got this thing open. And it was not so fast.

And so this is a really, really complicated negotiation. The problem we've got is you can't solve this with a couple of handshakes and four hours on the ground in Islamabad. So if you can't solve it that way, I guess you're going to extend it. And we've said all along, we didn't want this to be extended. We wanted to set a hard deadline and force Iran to come to the table because we believe it's in their interest, their interest, not ours, to keep dragging this out, dragging it out, dragging it out, because they think that we have a shorter timeline than they do.

We think their timeline is short because we're going to cut off their economy. They think our timeline is short because the price of gasoline is going to go up. There's an election cycle coming, an election this year. So they think they've got the squeeze on us if they can extend this. So all of these factors are involved in this negotiation. But if I had to sort of guess, I'd say 70-30, 80-20, it gets extended.

BLITZER: Let's see. This week will be critical. General Wesley Clark, thank you so much for joining us.

BROWN: Thank you so much.

CLARK: Thank you Wolf.

[11:12:47]

BROWN: And still ahead here in The Situation Room, people in Shreveport, Louisiana, are in shock and mourning after a man killed eight children, all but one of them his own. I'll speak to a Shreveport City Councilwoman about how the community is dealing with this right now. Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

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BLITZER: New this morning, researchers now say the same technology used in the COVID vaccine is now showing promising signs for treating pancreatic cancer. It's an extremely deadly form of cancer. Just one in four patients live a year after their diagnosis.

But in an early trial, patients now showing a dramatic immune response to the mRNA-based cancer vaccine. And patients are living up to six years well after the trial began. CNN health reporter Jacqueline Howard is joining us right now. Jacqueline, what more are we learning about this new research?

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Yes, Wolf, this is a follow-up results from a phase one clinical trial. So that's what we'll be talking about today. And this is a big deal because as you mentioned, pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers out there. So having treatment possibilities is a significant development right now. And the treatment we're talking about is a vaccine that's administered to patients who've already been diagnosed. So this vaccine is intended to extend survival in these patients.

And in this clinical trial, it included 16 patients who had already had surgery, chemotherapy and immunotherapy for their pancreatic cancer. Among those 16 patients who were given this vaccine, eight of them showed a response to the vaccine. So that means the vaccine taught the immune system to recognize tumor cells as foreign in their bodies.

Among those who responded, Wolf, this is what's significant. Almost 90 percent of them were still alive six years later. So they were still living six years well into the trial. And among the patients who did not show a response to the vaccine, only two of them sadly were, you know, still alive. So two is a small number. This is significant because overall the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is estimated to be around 13 percent.

So seeing how almost 90 percent of people who responded to this vaccine were still alive six years later, that's why this is getting a lot of attention right now, Wolf.

BLITZER: How has skepticism surrounding the mRNA vaccine affected the development of this technology?

[11:20:06]

HOWARD: We know since the COVID-19 vaccines, there has been a lot of political backlash against mRNA technology. And Wolf, it's interesting that in some states, lawmakers have even introduced bans on administering mRNA vaccines, introduced measures, I should say, to ban the vaccine.

So we're seeing a lot of discourse around mRNA technology. But this particular trial, Wolf, really shows the promise that this technology can have well outside of COVID-19. We're seeing right here a possibility for a cancer treatment. So that is also very significant as we see this political discourse around mRNA technology in general within medicine and science, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, very significant potentially indeed. All right, Jacqueline Howard, thank you very much. Pamela?

BROWN: All right, Wolf, just ahead here in The Situation Room, a bombshell lawsuit. The FBI director, Kash Patel, is taking "The Atlantic Magazine" to court why he's seeking $250 million in damages.

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[11:25:54]

BLITZER: New this morning, the FBI director, Kash Patel, is suing "The Atlantic Magazine" for $250 million over an explosive story that alleges his colleagues are concerned about heavy drinking and unexplained absences.

BROWN: CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter is here in The Situation Room. So what do we know about this lawsuit, Brian?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Yes, this defamation lawsuit charges "The Atlantic" with actual malice and seeks $250 million in damages. Patel vowed to sue in the hours before this article came out on Friday. So now this morning, his lawyers are following up, filing this lawsuit in D.C., and really, you know, performing what Patel knows his boss, President Trump, wants to see, a very aggressive response to these charges in "The Atlantic."

Now, the lawsuit says that sentences like this one from reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick are false. Here's what Fitzpatrick wrote. She said, several officials told me that Patel's drinking has been a recurring source of concern across the government. They said that he is known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication.

The lawsuit says that Fitzpatrick's article falsely asserts many things about Patel, including that, "He is a habitual drunk, unable to perform the duties of his office, is a threat to public safety, is vulnerable to foreign concern -- coercion, has violated DOJ ethics rules, et cetera, et cetera." So the lawsuit goes through point by point, and says that all these charges against Patel are false, and it says the lawsuit charges that "The Atlantic" published these statements with actual malice.

Those two words are the key in any defamation suit. Actual malice is the very high legal standard that public figures have to prove in order to win a defamation suit. They have to prove that "The Atlantic" knew these claims were false, or had a reckless disregard for the truth. Now, Patel's lawyers are going to argue that "The Atlantic" didn't ask for comment until a couple hours before it published.

But "The Atlantic" will probably say in response, hey, we had two dozen sources all throughout the government who described these concerns. Here's the statement from 'The Atlantic" just a few moments ago saying, "We stand by our reporting on Kash Patel, and we will vigorously defend The Atlantic and our journalists against this meritless lawsuit."

CNN has not independently corroborated the anecdotes that are in that "Atlantic" article, but the title is pretty stark. It says the FBI director is MIA. It's still up on the homepage of atlantic.com, and it's one of the most read articles on the website, and has been ever since it came out on Friday evening. Wolf, Pamela?

BROWN: It's not getting even more attention with this lawsuit. Brian Stelter, thank you so much.

[11:28:28]

BLITZER: And still to come, a Louisiana man kills seven of his own children and their cousin in America's deadliest mass shooting in more than two years. We'll speak to the chair of the Shreveport City Council about how people there are dealing with this horrible, horrible tragedy. That's next.

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