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Trump Administration Diverting Billions Meant For Global Health; Will Iran Peace Talks Resume?; Interview With Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder; Hantavirus Outbreak; Trump Meets With President of Brazil. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired May 07, 2026 - 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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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Happening now: awaiting a response. We could hear from Iran soon about a new U.S. proposal to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. What we know about the renewed diplomatic push.

Plus: containing the spread. A cruise ship where several people have died from a rare virus is back on the move this morning, as health officials race to track down anyone who may have been exposed.

And all-out battle. Republican and Democrat-led states rush to redo their congressional maps in a bid for more power on Capitol Hill. We will ask former Attorney General Eric Holder what this could mean for voting rights.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Pamela Brown. Wolf Blitzer has the day off. And you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROWN: And we begin this hour with that breaking news that.

At any moment, President Trump will welcome the president of Brazil to the White House. Both leaders are set to meet face-to-face after a year marked by insults and policy disagreements.

CNN's Alayna Treene is at the White House for us.

So, Alayna, what more can we expect from the Brazilian president's visit today?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's really fascinating that we're seeing President Lula come to the White House after a year of seeing these two leaders, leaders of the Western Hemisphere really -- or the two biggest countries, I should say, in the Western Hemisphere, exchanging insults, having this tariff fight, and also a lot of criticism from the Brazilian president on the -- Donald -- President Donald Trump's policies toward Cuba, Iran and his criticism of Pope Leo.

But I will say the meeting comes at a moment of what I'd argue is a fragile truce between these two men. And as for what they're expected to discuss, we are hearing that likely the topics are going to center on ways that they can find cooperation on cracking down on organized crime, also on U.S. trade and tariffs, particularly those on U.S. tariffs on Brazilian imports.

But then also something we know that this administration, the Trump administration, cares deeply about, which is access to rare earth minerals, that is another thing we're told that is likely to come up.

But I do want to get into what we have actually seen happen between these two countries over the last year-and-a-half or so under Trump's second term.

I would remind you that the president previously imposed very strict tariffs on Brazil, trying to pressure them really to drop the prosecution of one of the president's top political allies. That's the former president of Brazil, the right-wing leader Jair Bolsonaro.

He later, the -- President Trump walked some of those tariffs back. I note he also imposed sanctions on the Brazilian Supreme Court justice for overseeing Bolsonaro's case. But I'd also argue we did see these two men have some sort of detente, it seems, when they met on the sidelines of a summit in Asia late last year.

We actually heard President Trump come out after that meeting describing President Lula as -- he said -- quote -- "He seemed like a very nice man." So we're going to have to see really how today goes.

I would note, Pamela, we are expecting, as you mentioned, any moment to hopefully see President Lula's motorcade arrive here. We are not going to see the greeting. But the two men are then later going to go into the Oval Office. They're going to have a bilateral meeting. That will be open to cameras.

At least, that's according to the public schedule from the White House. So that will probably make for very interesting moments between these two. So we will have to see what comes of it.

BROWN: We will be watching.

All right, thanks so much, Alayna Treene, live for us from the White House.

And happening now: Authorities across the world are racing to contain a deadly outbreak of hantavirus. A German woman who may have been exposed on that cruise ship linked to the outbreak was picked up today by a convoy of emergency vehicles in Amsterdam. You see it right here. Authorities transported the woman back to Germany. And doctors say she's quarantining, but in stable condition.

The World Health Organization says there have been eight cases so far, including five confirmed and three suspected. Overall, three people have died. CNN's Will Ripley shows us how this all started and what happens next

for passengers still stuck on the ship.

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WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Off the coast of West Africa, a cruise ship under quarantine, three more passengers medically evacuated, all tied to a deadly outbreak of hantavirus, a rare, typically rodent-borne disease with no specific treatment or cure, the open decks of the MV Hondius deserted, dining rooms empty, passengers told to stay in their cabins.

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JAKE ROSMARIN, TRAVEL BLOGGER AND PHOTOGRAPHER: Hi. I'm Jake. And I'm spending the next 35 days crossing the Atlantic, visiting some of the most remote islands in the world.

RIPLEY: This is how the journey began for Jake Rosmarin, a Boston photographer, one of around 150 people on board.

ROSMARIN: People with families, with lives, with people waiting for us at home.

RIPLEY: Health officials are now retracing the ship's route, trying to figure out where and when passengers became infected. Their 35-day expedition began from the edge of Antarctica, visiting some of the most remote islands in the South Atlantic.

DR. MARIA VAN KERKHOVE, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: On those islands, there are birds. Some islands have a lot of rodents. Others don't.

RIPLEY: Hantavirus is usually picked up by breathing in particles from rodent droppings or urine. Symptoms often start like the flu, but can quickly cause severe breathing problems, organ failure and death, the incubation period one to eight weeks.

Lab tests have yet to confirm it, but investigators think this may be a rare South American strain that sometimes spreads not just from rodents, but between people.

KERKHOVE: Among the really close contacts, the husband and wife, people who've shared cabins, et cetera.

RIPLEY: This small boat medically evacuated a handful of infected passengers. Investigators say the outbreak began in early April. The first victim, a Dutch passenger, died on board April 11. His wife died around two weeks later in a hospital in South Africa.

A third passenger, a German national, died on board on May 2. A British passenger remains in intensive care, everyone else stuck on board undergoing medical checks, a situation Kent and Rebecca Frasure know all too well.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't know how long you will have to stay in the hospital. RIPLEY: I met them back in 2020. They were quarantined on the Diamond

Princess cruise ship off Japan.

(on camera): What's the hardest part?

REBECCA FRASURE, DIAMOND PRINCESS PASSENGER: I would say the unknown.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Rebecca one of the first Americans to test positive for COVID.

(on camera): There she is. She's standing in the window right now.

Rebecca, here we are. Hi.

(voice-over): She spent weeks in a Tokyo hospital. Kent was quarantined in their cabin.

(on camera): What would be your advice for passengers stuck on this ship right now?

KENT FRASURE, DIAMOND PRINCESS PASSENGER: If you start thinking about what's happening around you, it is so difficult to stay away from a mind-set where you're getting depressed and just, like, really fearful of what's going to happen. You have to try to stay as upbeat as you can.

RIPLEY (voice-over): They know how difficult staying upbeat can be for everyone on the MV Hondius facing fear and uncertainty on a floating quarantine zone.

(on camera): A passenger who left the ship before news of the outbreak is now being treated in Switzerland as the ship heads from Cape Verde to Spain's Canary Islands.

Some officials there are pushing back, even as Spain's national government says they will receive the ship, nearly 150 people on board from 23 countries, including reportedly more than a dozen Americans.

Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.

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BROWN: Breaking news this morning: Iran is due at any moment to respond to the U.S. proposal to end the war. Sources tell CNN both sides are closer to a road map for the next round of talks.

And, this morning, we're learning Iran's president said he met with the supreme leader, who, by the way, still has not been seen in public since taking power. Meantime, tensions are high as Iran tries to formalize control over the Strait of Hormuz, while the U.S. military is enforcing a blockade.

So let's dig into those new developments with CNN political and global affairs analyst Barak Ravid.

Hi, Barak. So, before we get into the Iran-U.S. negotiations, I understand you have some new reporting on Israel and Lebanon peace talks. What are you learning?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, what I hear from State Department officials is that, next week, on Thursday and Friday, Israel and Lebanon are going to hold a round of negotiations at the State Department in Washington.

This is going to be the third such meeting over the last few weeks, but I think that the hope is that this time it's not just going to be some isolated meeting specifically about the issue of cease-fire in Lebanon.

But, while it's going to deal with this too, the hope -- that I think the State Department hopes that it will be able to get the parties to actually start negotiating on the issues that have to do with starting to formulate a peace deal between the two countries, and not just talk about some specific cease-fire for a week or two weeks or three weeks, but something much, much broader.

That's the hope of the Trump administration. I'm not sure it will be possible. We saw just the other day Israel attacking in Beirut for the first time in weeks, killing the top Hezbollah commander. The IDF thinks that Hezbollah will retaliate today with possible rocket fire against Israel.

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So, until next Thursday, there is a lot of time for things to escalate.

BROWN: Certainly.

And to pivot back to Iran, a top Iranian negotiator mocked President Trump's short-lived operation to guide ships through the strait and said -- quote -- "Operation Trust Me Bro failed."

Meantime, Trump says the war could wrap in a week and the waterway will reopen. Is that timeline realistic?

RAVID: Well, first, the interesting thing with Mr. Ghalibaf and his tweets that I think it's something that will still be further investigated is that it seems that those tweets are not originating from Iran.

Somebody else is tweeting for him. And Mr. Ghalibaf, at the moment, at least, has been sort of sidelined from the talks with the U.S. I think some of it was him feeling disgruntled and frustrated about some of the criticism that he got. So I think that a lot of -- we need to read his tweets in this context too.

But when it comes to the negotiations with Iran, I think everyone awaiting for the Iranian response. Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi was in Beijing yesterday. He came back today to Iran. He spoke to the Pakistani foreign minister. The Pakistanis are key mediators between the U.S. and Iran.

And, from my understanding, U.S. officials expect that Iran will deliver its response sometime tomorrow. I think, initially, people thought it might be today. At the moment, from what I hear, the expectation is that the Iranian response will be delivered tomorrow.

BROWN: OK.

Well, we will wait and see. Barak Ravid, thank you so much.

RAVID: Thank you.

BROWN: Still ahead: Secretary of State Marco Rubio meeting with Pope Leo this morning after weeks of tension between Washington and the Vatican.

Plus: the race to redistrict. President Trump is pushing red states to redraw their maps ahead of the November elections to help the GOP get more seats. And some Democratic states are doing the same.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder is in THE SITUATION ROOM to talk about what all of this means for voters now and in the years ahead.

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BROWN: Happening now: Even more states are feeling empowered to redraw their political maps ahead of the midterms after President Trump got election revenge this week against Indiana Republicans who defied his redistricting demands.

The GOP-led legislatures in Tennessee and Alabama are in special sessions weighing new congressional districts, while Republicans in Louisiana are working on their own plan. And this all comes after the Supreme Court's decision to limit the Voting Rights Act and make it tougher for voters of color to challenge maps as discriminatory.

Joining us now is Eric Holder. He is the chair of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and was President Obama's attorney general.

Nice to have you on, Mr. Attorney General.

So where do you see this redistricting arms race heading after the Supreme Court opinion and Tuesday's elections?

ERIC HOLDER, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, it's heading into a really bad space.

The Supreme Court is saying that, well, we're going to allow racial gerrymandering. We're going to allow partisan gerrymandering. What people need to understand is that that's taking power away from the American people, regardless of your race.

I mean, you see what's going on in Tennessee now, where they're going to draw these lines in such a way that there is not a majority -- all the districts they are drawing on majority white. They're splitting up Memphis and Nashville into a whole variety of different districts.

I mean, they're even splitting up Graceland. I mean, think about this. Graceland is -- the Graceland property is being split up. And what I'm concerned about is that, with this focus on and approval of gerrymandering, it takes power away from the American people and puts it in the hands of the extremists and the special interests.

And if you want to have an impact on the policy, the direction of this nation, gerrymandering takes that takes that away. And the Supreme Court is facilitating that.

BROWN: Yes, so the Supreme Court ruling throwing out a black-majority district in Louisiana has made it harder to oppose maps that allegedly would dilute minority voters' political power.

But Democrats have a long history of gerrymandering in places like Illinois and Maryland. More recently, we have seen Democratic-led states like California and Virginia redraw their maps for partisan advantage. What do you think about that? Do you think that was the right thing to do? Is your party liable here for this?

HOLDER: Well, I think gerrymandering is just a bad thing. We have had it in this republic for almost as long as we have been a nation.

That doesn't mean it's acceptable. And what Democrats did in California, what Democrats did in Virginia was in response to what Republicans did under the direction of Donald Trump in Texas and in other states.

But what's different is that, in California and in Virginia, the people had the ability to say yes or no to the proposed maps. They were imposed upon the voters by the Republicans in Missouri, in Texas, as well as in North Carolina. So there's a fundamental difference.

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But for Donald Trump's decision to grab for these seats through partisan and racial gerrymandering, we wouldn't be in this crisis at all.

BROWN: You're no stranger to these issues. You are the Holder named in the Shelby v. Holder ruling that limited the Voting Rights Act back in 20 -- 2013, I believe.

But since then, your organization has invested in Democratic redistricting efforts. How do you respond to critics who believe the map-drawing process should be completely nonpartisan so that voters elect their politicians, rather than the other way around? And what impact do you think all of this has on democracy as a whole in America?

HOLDER: Well, I support and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee has consistently supported the notion of neutral line- drawing. I support federal legislation that would ban partisan and racial

gerrymandering. We have stood for the creation of these independent commissions to draw the lines. I have not had one Republican stand with me -- stand with me to support the notion that we would have these independent commissions draw the lines, except for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I will give him credit for that. But, other than that, I have been really hard-pressed to find Republican partners in this effort. But I am for a neutral process in the line-drawing.

BROWN: And just for our viewers watching, what is your message about what all of this is doing to democracy as a whole in your region?

HOLDER: Well, people need to understand that the Supreme Court decision in Callais was about racial gerrymandering. And the Supreme Court is essentially saying that partisan gerrymandering is OK.

But if you're white, you need to understand this. All American citizens need to understand this. The partisan gerrymandering means that people at the extremes are the ones who make the decisions. If you're in a gerrymandered district, the general election doesn't matter.

It's all about who wins the primary. And the primary people -- people who win the primaries are the people on the most extreme sides. And that leads to a lack of cooperation between extremists from either side. It leads to not having progress. You see government gridlock.

And it leads to people not having trust in the ability of government to solve the problems that impact their lives on a day-to-day basis. We got to get rid of gerrymandering, partisan, as well as racial.

BROWN: And social media has just added a layer to all of that, because there's an incentive to be more extreme in these districts to win the primary, as you pointed out.

I wonder what your response is to critics of the use of the Voting Rights Act in the redistricting process who argue that the U.S. has made progress and moved past its legacy of racial discrimination that prompted the Voting Rights Act in the first place? What do you say to that?

HOLDER: Yes, this nation has made extensive amounts of progress. We're not the nation that we were when Dr. King started the civil rights movement. We're not the nation that existed in 1965, when the Voting Rights Act was put into place.

But race is still an issue in this nation. This country has not yet reached its founding ideals. And to simply say in a broad sweep that the nation has changed and therefore we need to ignore the realities, I mean, this same Supreme Court just three years ago looked at the maps drawn in Alabama and said that the maps drawn by the Alabama legislature diluted the voting power of African-American residents in that state. Now, this is the Supreme Court applying the same statute that they're

now saying should not be applied when it comes to Louisiana and Alabama. And so it's hard for me to understand the Supreme Court's rationale. I understand we want to get beyond racial issues, but we're not yet at that place in this country.

BROWN: Do you feel it's a fair characterization or hyperbole when some Democratic politicians argue the U.S. is in a second Jim Crow era?

HOLDER: Well, I think we're potentially on the verge of that.

If you take away the tools that erased Jim Crow, and among -- chief among them being the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and you see what legislatures are racing to do in Louisiana, in Tennessee, in Alabama, you see the beginnings, the potential beginnings of, if not a Jim Crow era as we have known it, a modern Jim Crow era, where African- Americans, Hispanics don't have the ability to fully express themselves when it comes to their political power.

And that's really something that worries me. But, again, I emphasize, if partisan gerrymandering is something that is going to be accepted by this Supreme Court, if that is a thing to say, well, it's not racial gerrymandering, it's only partisan gerrymandering, that affects white people in this country as well. It takes power away from all Americans and something that needs to be stopped.

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BROWN: Eric Holder, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your views on this important issue.

HOLDER: Thank you.

BROWN: Well, new this morning, CNN has learned that the Trump administration plans to redirect $2 billion meant for global health programs. That money instead would cover the cost of shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development, also known as USAID.

An analysis shows the new plan could bring more than 120,000 preventable deaths from tuberculosis and more than 47,000 from malaria. So, instead of going to prevent those deaths, this money is going to shut down the agency.

Last year, the administration froze nearly all foreign aid and canceled thousands of aid work contracts. It then folded the few remaining programs into the State Department.

And that's where we find CNN senior national security reporter Jennifer Hansler this morning.

Jennifer, tell us more about where this $2 billion comes from exactly.

JENNIFER HANSLER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Well, Pam, according to a congressional notification obtained by our Lauren Kent, this money was appropriated by Congress for global health programs. Health analysts that she spoke to said that this money was

particularly meant to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and help with maternal and child health. It is instead being put towards this massive pot of money that the administration has set aside for closing out USAID.

According to that congressional notification, they have set aside $19.1 billion for the close-out of that agency which was coming from previously terminated USAID contracts as well. This is going towards legal fees, administrative fees, et cetera.

The irony here, Pam, is that the Trump administration said they were shutting down USAID last year because of waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer money. We are now seeing that some $20 billion almost in taxpayer money being funneled towards closing out this agency.

And, of course, the broader impact here is this could be catastrophic for global health, particularly on top of those frozen and suspended contracts that you mentioned in the introduction. We have heard from health workers and clinics throughout the world, particularly in places in Africa and Asia, where they are feeling the acute impact of those aid cuts on their ability to help people, to give them vaccines, medications and treatments, even mothers and children in these places.

So, this is having a catastrophic ripple effect. This is something that former USAID officials had warned about as the agency was being rapidly dismantled last year and in the months since, that this would have a major impact on the global health of the world here.

Now, the Trump administration also, according to Lauren's report, is not spending congressional appropriated money as much as they have been given on HIV/AIDS treatment. This is a different pot of money that had been given to them by Congress to try to combat that disease. They say that this is being underspent by some $2 billion.

And so this is something that is also not being taken advantage of by the Trump administration to try to combat that very deadly disease. So we put a request into the Trump administration. We have not heard back on that point.

Pam, there are Senate Democrats who are pushing back against the use of this money. They say that it should be used to help global health, as was appropriated by Congress -- Pam.

BROWN: All right, Jennifer Hansler, thank you so much. Important reporting.

Just ahead: The World Health Organization expects more cases of hantavirus after a cruise ship outbreak, and a growing number of countries are rushing to track down anyone who may have had contact with the rare, but dangerous virus.

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