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The Situation Room

More Than Two Dozen Opinions Pending Before Supreme Court; Trump to Nominate Blanche as A.G. Amid Split on Controversial Funding; Senate Begins Major Immigration Enforcement Funding Vote. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired June 04, 2026 - 10:00   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 ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news, at any moment, the Supreme Court will issue opinions in several major key cases have yet to be decided, birthright citizenship, transgender athletes, and President Trump's power to fire federal officials.

Plus, billion-dollar fund back and forth. The president plans to nominate Todd Blanche to be the attorney general, but they seem to be on two different pages about that anti-weaponization fund.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, growing GOP pushback. More members of the president's own party are speaking out against Bill Pulte, his pick to become the acting director of National Intelligence. We're going to discuss that and more with Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, a key member of the House Intelligence Committee.

And later, inside Hezbollah. CNN gets rare and exclusive access to the Iranian-backed militant group.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have managed to secure a meeting with a member of Hezbollah who's been fighting in the south of Lebanon for the last few months, and he's agreed to meet us in a very remote location, which we're heading towards right now.

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BLITZER: We're going to bring you The Situation Room special report. That's ahead.

Welcome to 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.

We're following breaking news out of the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices are expected to hand down opinions this morning. The high court facing an extraordinary showdown with President Trump as the justices scramble to finish more than two dozen opinions before the end of this month. While 26 cases remain pending before the court, we're keeping a very close eye on at least four of them, which will have far-reaching implications for millions of Americans, and they include decisions on birthright citizenship, presidential power, mail-in ballots, and gun rights. And it's already been a momentous term, which has seen several cases dealing with President Trump's tariffs, voting rights, and conversion therapy.

Let's go live right now to CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig. Elie, first of all, walk us through some of the major pending cases. Could be some big decisions coming up.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Wolf, as you said, 26 opinions left for this term. The biggest one I think we're all looking for is birthright citizenship. This goes back to the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, tells us that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are automatically citizens thereof.

Now, Donald Trump is trying to scale that back tremendously so that it would not apply if the parents are in the country illegally or temporarily. That would have an impact on hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people.

Now, that case was argued to the Supreme Court back in April, did not appear to go well for the Trump administration, but we're waiting on that one.

Also, we are here in the heart of primary season. There's a very big case about state laws that allow state authorities to count mail-in ballots that are received a certain number of days after Election Day. The number varies depending on state, and so the Supreme Court is going to consider whether those laws are constitutional or whether states must cut off all counting of mail-in ballots on Election Day.

That argument seemed to go well for the states. It seems like the Supreme Court is inclined to say, you have to cut it off on Election Day, and that's that.

There also are -- there's a case over state laws that bar transgender athletes from participating in women's and girls' sports. About 20 states have laws to that effect. That case also was argued to the court a few months ago. It sounded, again in that case, like the Supreme Court was inclined to side with the states to uphold those laws.

And there are a couple of really important cases about the extent and scope of presidential power. Can the president remove the head of the independent federal agencies, including the FTC? Separately, when can the president, if ever, remove a Federal Reserve board governor? Lisa Cook, who we see here, is somebody who Donald Trump has tried to fire, that's on hold for now.

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So, those are some of the biggest decisions, Wolf, that we wait for. We'll hit refresh on the opinions page and get back to everyone if one of these big ones drops.

BLITZER: We'll find out fairly soon.

All right, Elie Honig, thank you very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: All right, Wolf, happening now, President Trump says he'll nominate his former personal attorney, Todd Blanche, to become attorney general. Blanche's potential move to become the nation's top law enforcement official comes amid some very public differences with the president on his controversial anti-weaponization fund.

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TODD BLANCHE, ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL: We are not moving forward with the fund.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not moving forward ever?

BLANCHE: Correct.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Is the $1.8 billion DOJ fund dead, or is it on hold?

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: It's -- I'd have to ask the lawyers. I don't know. The weaponization fund, as far as I'm concerned, was a beautiful thing. It was something I was -- I didn't make it, but I was -- I heard that, I thought that was the greatest thing.

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BROWN: All right. Let's go live now to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House. So, Alayna, tell us more about the president's thinking here and wanting to put Todd Blanche in this role permanently.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Look, I mean, we've seen this now after Blanche has really auditioned over the last two months for this role to become more permanent. He was named acting attorney general after Bondi, of course, was pushed out by the president.

And one of the things he did that has been impressive in many ways to Trump has been he has bent over backwards to show his loyalty. I'd remind you that, you know, part of the reason Trump soured on Bondi was because he believed she was not doing enough to go after his political opponents.

And just three weeks after being named acting attorney general, Blanche moved forward with new charges against former FBI Director James Comey, something, of course, that Trump had wanted. But then he also hired a new adviser to investigate former CIA director under Obama, John Brennan. He also, of course, has been issuing new subpoenas to news organizations and journalists over Iran-related leaks, something that has also been -- something that has frustrated the president very -- he was very pleased with Blanche doing that.

And then, of course, the most recent thing being this IRS settlement, Blanche a key part of the talks around that, he had to sign off on it. Not only did it protect the president himself and his family members and their businesses from IRS investigations, but it created this $1.8 billion weaponization fund.

As for those comments though, where they seem to be differing, look, what Blanche was doing is something that the administration recognized they needed to do. It was a political -- you know, politically damaging to move forward with that fund, particularly as Republicans are trying to get immigration funding across the line.

Trump, however, is, of course, someone who never wants to capitulate to political pressure, instead trying to argue this was him following the court's orders. Pam?

BROWN: All right. Alayna Treene, thank you so much. Wolf?

BLITZER: And still ahead, Capitol Hill clash. Why President Trump's ballroom and the so-called anti-weaponization fund have been a very important part of the tense negotiations on an immigration funding bill.

BROWN: And then later, the youngest war victim. CNN is on the ground in Lebanon and gets a firsthand account of the toll of the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Say to the people who have power over this war right now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

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BROWN: We'll bring you The Situation Room special report just ahead.

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BLITZER: Happening now, the marathon voting session up in Congress known as a vote-a-rama is underway right now in the Senate on the massive immigration enforcement funding bill. The $70 billion legislation set for ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol was on hold for weeks due to GOP backlash against the so-called anti-weaponization fund.

BROWN: The Trump administration is trying to convince lawmakers that the fund is dead, but President Trump is now muddying those waters.

So, let's go live now to CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju on Capitol Hill. Manu, what's the outlook for this legislation to get across the finish line?

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it looks like they could actually get this bill passed out of the Senate today, but it's going to take a lot of wrangling by Republican leaders to try to keep their members in line, and President Trump is not making their jobs any easier by continuing to keep open the option of reviving this weaponization fund.

A lot of Republicans say, we need to kill this once and for all. Several are signaling they plan to support an amendment that would actually do just that. And if that gets added to the bill, that would undoubtedly complicate its chances of passage or getting signed into law. So, that's going to be part of the negotiation that's happening behind the scenes.

But in an important development, I just caught up with the Senate majority leader, John Thune, about a lot of these amendments that are coming to target the weaponization fund. He expects they will be at a 60-vote threshold. And why is that important? Because in the 53, 47 Senate, that would need seven Republicans to break ranks.

It's unlikely to get 7 Republicans, or I should say 13 Republicans to break ranks to join with 47 Democrats. It's unlikely to get that number of Republicans to join with Democrats. So, if they can keep it at that 60-vote threshold, then they're likely to fend off those amendments and ultimately get this bill over the finish line sometime tonight.

BLITZER: Manu, quickly, yesterday, the president suffered a rare setback in the House with the passing of the resolution to end the war with Iran. What was driving Republican lawmakers to make such a move?

RAJU: Yes, a lot of Republicans are simply saying it is time for Congress to assert its authority.

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And with a narrowly divided House, just a handful of members is enough to join with Democrats to rebuke the president, and many of them are saying that they are hearing from their constituents back home.

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RAJU: And how much pain is your -- are your constituents feeling as a result of this war?

REP. TOM BARRETT (R-MI): Well, you know, I think that people are frustrated certainly, but that's not the only consideration in this. There are a variety of considerations that we have to take into account. But I definitely see that. I definitely feel what people are experiencing back home.

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): The vote is a good vote. It says we're done with this war.

RAJU: Yes.

MASSIE: You didn't come and get authorization, and now we're doing the opposite of authorizing. We're de-authorizing. REP. BRIAN FITZPATRICK (R-PA): There's a law on the books, and the law says 60 days. I don't see what's complicated about it. Bring it to Congress, debate it on the merits, and have us vote. That's the way the system is supposed to work.

RAJU: Do you think he's going to come after you? Are you worried about it?

FITZPATRICK: No. No. I got to do my job, and will continue to do my job.

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RAJU: And that last comment from Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, a member from a swing district in Pennsylvania. I asked him about President Trump's likelihood that he plans to go after some of these members. Trump himself put out a statement on Truth Social this morning attacking those four Republicans for breaking ranks. But even so, with that vote, Wolf, it is unlikely to have the votes in the Senate to pass, but just shows you the level of concern within the House Republican Conference and the Senate GOP Conference as this war continues to drag on.

BROWN: All right, Manu Raju, thanks so much. We appreciate it. Wolf?

BLITZER: And coming up from housing to intelligence, there's swift backlash to President Trump's pick to be the acting director of national intelligence. I'll speak to a key member of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi. That's ahead.

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BROWN: And let's get to that breaking news. John Bolton is expected to plead guilty over mishandling classified documents. This is according to three sources familiar with the matter.

I want to go straight to CNN Senior Crime and Justice Correspondent Katelyn Polantz. She has this exclusive reporting. Katelyn, what are you learning?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Pam, the Justice Department securing a guilty plea from John Bolton, the former national security adviser in the first Trump administration. My sources are telling me that he is expected to plead guilty to one count of illegally retaining classified information or national security information at his home.

Now, this was a substantial case that had been investigated very significantly by, first, the Biden Justice Department, the whole way through the beginning of this term of Donald Trump. This is also a man that Donald Trump very much hates and very much wanted to see prosecuted. Now, John Bolton is going to agree to plead guilty and be appearing in court at the end of June. Part of what he is alleged to have done here, and we're still waiting to see exactly what he is going to be admitting to in court, what he's alleged to have done here is taken documents or taken notes of documents or briefings he was being given as national security adviser in the first Trump White House, and then emailing them to himself, almost as if it were a diary entry, and then printing them out, allegedly, and keeping them in his home after he was fired as national security adviser in the first Trump administration.

He then wrote a memoir, and his home was searched. When his home was searched last August by the FBI, they found multiple electronics and documents with information labeled secret or confidential or classified. Not necessarily the documents themselves, potentially, but he, at very least, had these diary-like entries.

And so his initial case that was charged for 18 counts, he's going to be pleading down to 1 count. We will still be watching to see exactly what the Justice Department asks for in court, whether he should be spending time in prison. That is a possibility. This would be a felony charge for John Bolton.

But this is a significant case that the Justice Department has made a deal on to secure a guilty plea of a significant political foe of Donald Trump. Pam?

BLITZER: All right. Katelyn, hold on a moment. I want to bring in our Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller. John, what do you think? How significant is this now?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, this is John Bolton caught between a rock and a hard place. When he wrote this book, In the Room Where It Happened, the Justice Department came out with a civil suit trying to block the publication because it had classified material in it.

But it's been years later when the Trump Justice Department, under then Attorney General Pam Bondi, last October, and I think this is a book that came out in 2020, last October, indicted him on 18 counts, as Katelyn Polantz told us, of retaining classified information, transmitting classified information, and failing to disclose when it turned out that it was believed that the Iranians had hacked his computer, to government officials that there was classified information in there.

So each one of those 18 counts is a ten-year count for the disclosure of national defense information. He could have been facing a significant amount of time in prison, if he were convicted. Even if he was convicted and all of the charges were bundled into one ten-year or five-year term, it's a big risk.

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So, this guilty plea is John Bolton saying, let's get a recommendation from prosecutors on a sentence. Let's get a deal with the government. Let's boil this down to one count and try to get out of it.

BROWN: All right. Thanks so much. Stand by as we continue to cover this breaking news.

I want to bring in our Elie Honig, our CNN senior legal analyst. Elie, if you would, help us understand this case against Bolton and how it differs from some of the other attempts we've seen from this administration to prosecute some of Trump's perceived political foes.

HONIG: Well, Pam, I think this case is fundamentally different than those other cases, than the prosecutions of, for example, Letitia James and Jim Comey, the attempted prosecution of Senator Mark Kelly, the other cases that we would consider to be part of the political payback agenda that Donald Trump has pushed here.

I think the Bolton case is entirely separate for a couple of main reasons. One, as Katelyn Polantz just told us, the reporting is that this investigation goes back to the Biden administration and predates the current Trump administration. And, two, the conduct that John Bolton has been charged with, and now apparently will be pleading to some of it, is quite serious. It's quite straightforward. This is not some manufactured crime, as John Miller just laid out for us. John Bolton took the highest level sensitive and classified information, which he got in his capacity as a key White House adviser, and he disseminated it to others. That is a straightforward crime.

And so I do not categorize the Bolton case along with those other cases. I think it's fundamentally different.

BLITZER: All right. Elie, I want you to stand by.

I want to bring in Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois right now. He serves on the House Intelligence Committee. Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

Let me get your immediate reaction to the breaking news. We just heard it, about John Bolton, President Trump's former national security adviser, now expected to plead guilty over mishandling highly classified documents.

REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): Well, first of all, any time someone violates a crime, especially with regard to disclosing classified information, that's a very serious matter that everyone should be held accountable for, whoever it is that commits that, whether it's, in this case, John Bolton, or it's Donald Trump.

But let's be very clear why Donald Trump was so keen on going after John Bolton, and that was because John Bolton is his political foe. And while he, Mr. Bolton, should be held accountable for violating the law, at the same time, let's also be clear that Mr. Trump is trying to send a message to anyone else who might be critical of him that this could be your fate as well.

And so I do think that this has a larger meaning than just merely John Bolton having violated the law with regard to this classified information or the handling of it.

BLITZER: But if he did in fact violate the law, if in fact he violated the law, and he distributed highly classified information out there in unsecured ways, potentially, that's a serious crime.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Sure. Just like stacking, you know, thousands of pages of classified information in a bathroom in Mar-a-Lago. But you see that there were two different outcomes in this situation. I would say that John Bolton should be held accountable, and, apparently, he has pled guilty. But at the same time, let's not lose sight of the bigger situation here with Donald Trump and going after his political enemies.

BLITZER: All right. While I have you, Congressman, I want to turn to the House vote yesterday to limit President Trump's Iran war powers. It's unlikely this will get 60 necessary votes in the Senate. And even if it did, it's not clear at all it would have the force of law. So, what can lawmakers do at this point to actually hold the Trump administration accountable in this war?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Well, first of all, I think it's a significant breakthrough, if you will, in that enough Republicans joined with Democrats and basically sent a bipartisan message out of the House to the president that it's time to end this illegal and unconstitutional war right now.

Secondly, I think that we have to use every tool in our toolkit at this point to end hostilities, whether it's the confirmations process or the appropriations process, because this war is hurting our national security, and it's hurting Americans straight in their pocketbook, among other places. And you don't have to go further than your gas pump to see that.

BLITZER: On another sensitive issue, as you know, Congressman, President Trump has named his housing official, Bill Pulte, to become the acting director of National Intelligence. Here's what the House speaker, Mike Johnson, said about that yesterday. Listen.

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REPORTER: And do you think that Bill Pulte is qualified to be the acting director of National Intelligence, and do you think you can still pass a bipartisan FISA deal given some of the Democratic pushback to that?

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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): So, here's the thing. The president obviously has the prerogative and the choice on who he appoints to these positions.