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The Situation Room

Trump Touts D.C. Renovations; Interview With Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA); Trump Threatens Iranian Bridges and Power Plants. Aired 11- 11:30a ET

Aired June 10, 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]

SISTER BERNADETTE MOTA, SALESIAN SISTERS OF ST. JOHN BOSCO: And, again, we pray for them, but it's not that prayers are magical or going to be some special power that -- just because of our prayers. But we pray for them, again, so that they can have a really good game, and everybody can play safe.

But the Spurs, if they really play as a team, like they did this last game, they have a really good chance of winning tonight and other games as well. So, really, to have that unity on the court, so that way no one player is just the show, that they can play as a team, go for the rebounds and play tough defense, I think that's what's going to help them.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Sounds like you're a pro at analyzing professional basketball.

All right, Sister Bernadette Mota.

MOTA: I used to coach high school basketball as well. So...

BROWN: Oh, OK. Then that makes more sense. All right, put the pieces together now.

And, Sister Do, thank you so much for coming on. What a fun conversation with you.

SISTER VUONG DO, SALESIAN SISTERS OF ST. JOHN BOSCO: Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: And the next hour of THE SITUATION ROOM starts right now.

Happening now, breaking news: new threat. President Trump says Iran will -- quote -- "pay the price" for taking too long to negotiate just hours after launching new strikes.

Plus, a SITUATION ROOM special report, my new reporting on abuse allegations against Congressman Max Miller, claims from his ex-wife that he denies.

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROWN: Hi. And we begin with that breaking news on the war in Iran. Today, President Trump says Iran will -- quote -- "pay the price" after taking too long to negotiate a peace deal. This latest warning comes as the U.S. and Iran trade strikes in a conflict that is escalating once again.

Overnight, Iran's military claims it launched missiles and drones against U.S. military targets across the Middle East. Video geolocated by CNN appears to show a flash right near an American base in Bahrain. That would be the Fifth Fleet responding to U.S. strikes against Iran for the downing of an Army helicopter.

So, let's get right over to CNN's Kristen Holmes at the White House.

What else is the president saying as things seem to be escalating here between the U.S. and Iran, Kristen?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think, Pamela, it certainly feels like Groundhog Day. We have heard all of this before. It's a lot of threats. It's a lot of bluster. Where this is going, that's what we're waiting to find out.

We will start with President Trump's TRUTH Social post. Just a reminder, before he posted this, before today, just two days ago, he was saying that a deal was going to be reached in two to three days. Now, of course, that was before the downing of this Apache helicopter, as well as the retaliation.

But here's what he posted today. He said: "The bully of the Middle East is dead. They have taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them. Now they will have to pay the price."

He also went on FOX News to level more threats, saying what we have heard before, this idea that he may keep going. He could resume the strikes. He could resume targeting what he said were power plants and civilian sites. He said that they had a chance to sign, they didn't take it. So now he's considering more strikes.

Now, the reason I say that this sounds like Groundhog Day is that I will give you a little bit of a lead-up into the cease-fire, where President Trump, looking at down at it now, said they were going to hit and obliterate power plants, saying they were going to blow up the whole country.

Of course, remember the event where he said a whole civilization will die tonight. So it's unclear what is actually going on behind the scenes when it comes to that memorandum of understanding, when it comes to any kind of actual peace deal.

Yesterday, we were told by U.S. officials that they didn't believe that the strikes were going to impact the negotiations. So, now, of course, the question, is President Trump actually just trying to bring Iran to the negotiating table with this kind of bluster, or does this mean that the deal is actually falling apart?

BROWN: We will see. Kristen, thanks so much live for us at the White House.

So let's discuss all of this and more with Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. He is the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Hi, Senator. Thanks for being here.

SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): Hey, Pamela. Thank you.

BROWN: So, you just heard Kristen's report there. The president says he is readying new strikes on Iran's power plants and bridges. We have been here before. What is your reaction to that? Where do you think things stand?

WARNER: My reaction is, I don't have the foggiest idea, and I'm the vice chair of the Intelligence Committee.

President Trump literally has said 30 different times the war's over. Obviously, the war's not over. You start a war of choice, and I believe this will be looked back on as President Trump's biggest folly, because I don't see a way out, a way out that puts America or our allies in a better spot.

The regime is more hard-line than ever. We have no real plan to get out the enriched uranium. They still have plenty of missiles and drones. And on any going-forward basis, the whole right of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran's going to try to take some toll.

And while we have seen a short-term relief in gas prices, my fear is, as we get closer to the end of the month, every indication I have seen is that overall world oil supplies are going to drop and we're going to see a dramatic rise, even if there is a so-called victory declared tomorrow.

[11:05:17]

BROWN: I just had on General Wesley Clark, and he was making the case that the U.S. could be doing more militarily in the Strait of Hormuz to open it back up. It might be a multipronged process, but there is a way to do it, and that he doesn't understand why the U.S. hasn't.

Do you agree with him?

WARNER: Listen, I'm not a military expert, but we have the world's best navy.

Candidly, it would be a much stronger effort if we did this on a multilateral basis with our allies. I think Iran would be less willing to strike if we were reopening the Strait of Hormuz if the British and the French and the Italians and the Indians and others were in there with us.

But Donald Trump has burnt so many of our allies. Even when it's in their best interests, are they going to go along with us if we were going to militarily reopen the strait?

I do believe we have the capability, but it would be a heck of a lot better with allies.

BROWN: All right, I want to turn now to something that is related to all of this, and it's the president's decision to elevate one of his top allies, Bill Pulte, to become acting director of national intelligence.

Sources tell CNN Trump indicated to House Speaker Johnson that he wouldn't back down on his choice. What is your response to this?

WARNER: My response is, we're in the process -- we were in the process of trying to renew one of the most important intelligence tools we have. It's called Section 702 of the FISA bill.

And we had bipartisan agreements. This is always controversial. And then Donald Trump throws a live grenade by appointing somebody who's got no intelligence experience, whose only record in public life has been willing to disclose private mortgage information. This guy is currently the head of the mortgage regulatory agencies.

He's going to make him also head of the intelligence community, 18 different agencies. What would -- what could go wrong if you give the guy the keys to these 18 agencies?

My Republican colleagues on this one have been great. They have hung in, trying to push the president that this is -- this is not going to work. My fear is, the intelligence reauthorization of 702 will lag. And the full responsibility lies with Donald Trump.

And that is -- that is a real shame.

BROWN: All right, I want to turn to other news of day. And that is the election results last night. Last night in Maine, Graham Platner, as you well know, won the primary to become Democrats' pick to take on Republican Senator Susan Collins this fall.

Recently, Platner has been accused by several former girlfriends of unsettling behavior, including one instance where he was described as physically intimidating. Now, this is something Platner disputes. But I'm just wondering what you think about what he had to say last night. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM PLATNER (D), MAINE SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Redemption is not just some simple or easy destination. It's a journey. I have made mistakes in my life, mistakes that I regret, that I live with, and that I continue to learn from. And I'm still far from perfect.

But every day, I wake up and I try to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder than I was the day before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Now that voters in Maine have selected Platner despite those controversies, will you endorse him?

WARNER: Listen, I have said as this controversy came out that the voters of Maine ought to decide.

I am focused -- I'm up for reelection this year myself. I'm focused on my own race. I hope the Democrats take back the Senate. And that path probably goes through Maine. But I'm focused on my own race at this point.

BROWN: Do you think he will cost Democrats a chance to retake the Senate?

WARNER: I do wish this. I do wish this, that if Mr. Platner feels that he could -- and I have never met him -- if he could disprove some of these accusations, I think that would be important.

But I'm not going to go in and weigh in on race after race after race. I have got to get rehired in Virginia.

BROWN: All right, so I want to turn to something else. This is an issue that is so important and that's on A.I. It's something we cover a lot on this show.

I know you're very passionate about this issue. We were speaking about elections. I'm sure you saw all of the L.A. mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt's A.I. commercials. I mean, his candidacy pretty much was fueled in part by online A.I.-generated videos that he posted to social media.

I'm wondering. You are one of the leading voices on A.I. and the lack of federal regulation in this space. How concerned are you about the impact it could have on this upcoming election? Because people are just having a tough time knowing what's real, what's not.

WARNER: Amen, Pamela.

I think we made a big mistake never putting guardrails on social media. And I think we have got a generation of kids who've got a set of issues that they didn't necessarily need to have.

Social media is tiny compared to the power of A.I. I mean, we had all of the -- three years ago, all of the big companies, OpenAI, TikTok, Microsoft, you name them, they all said they were going to get rid of deepfakes in campaigns. They have not done that.

[11:10:13]

Matter of fact, I believe, Pamela, the next wave of election manipulation may not come from social influencers, but manipulating chatbots. You know, ask your ChatGPT or ask Claude.

So we need -- I'm all in on the long-term positive of A.I., but we have got to wrestle with data center. We have got to wrestle in terms of some constraints on them. A moratorium wouldn't work, but making sure power costs, water costs are not paid on, making sure we protect kids and what's truthful. The national security implications of Mythos, it was able to break

into almost all of our classified systems. And I still believe, I hope I'm wrong, but over the next three years, we're going to lose so many jobs. It's not going to be people getting fired, but people particularly coming out of college are not going to get jobs.

And we really need the A.I. community, with all the trillions of dollars being raised, to work with us to figure out how we retrain or get our kids the skills they need so after they finish four years in college or whatever, there's actually a job out there.

And that's going to take bipartisan and it's going to take the A.I. community engaging.

BROWN: And you have these execs of the A.I. companies, they're unelected, right? And they have so much power with these companies, and I'm wondering what you think, if there isn't proper regulation, and if these CEOs of these A.I. companies don't do more to regulate their own products, whether A.I. poses an existential threat to humanity.

WARNER: I think it is not a zero chance.

And when you think of most of these tech guys, empathy is not the first word that comes to mind. I will say, Dario Amodei, who is the CEO of Anthropic, probably the leading large language model at this point -- obviously, ChatGPT is close, and there are Gemini and others out there.

But I think we should all take a moment. When Dario says, in the last 10 days, and he's racing to a public offering, maybe we need to slow some of this down because we may soon have A.I. models that improve themselves without human input, I would hate to look back.

Now, I don't want the Chinese to win this, but the idea that we're going to do pedal to the metal, which comes out from some of the -- I'm not saying President Trump himself, but some of his advisers, kind of damn the torpedoes, who cares about the consequences, the potential of that coming back and biting us is enough to heed smart people like Dario's comments that we got to think about this.

And, candidly, we are also going to have to find some way, because China's advancing their own models.

BROWN: Yes.

WARNER: They are, frankly, cheaper than ours. This is going to require some level of international cooperation, even though I view very much China as our single biggest competitor in the world.

BROWN: Right. It would have to, because even if the U.S. regulates, then you have other superpowers like China in this war, this A.I. war, if you will call it that, or A.I. race, whatever you want to call it.

So there would have to be international cooperation. And you point out Dario and a lot of these executives just signed on to this letter concerned about what A.I. could do with -- as it pertains to bioweapons.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: So I know that is something you're focused on as well.

But, as you said too, there's so much upside. Such an interesting topic with very little certainty right now.

Senator Mark Warner, thank you so much.

WARNER: Pamela, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

BROWN: And still ahead: tearing into the GOP, embattled Democratic candidate Graham Platner now slamming the Republican Party after punching his ticket to the general election.

And then, later, behind the scenes of the White House Epstein crisis. New reporting on what was going on inside the Trump administration, as millions of Epstein files were released.

You're in THE SITUATION ROOM, and we will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:18:38]

BROWN: Happening now: Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is on Capitol Hill testifying before the House Oversight Committee about his ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

CNN is learning -- oh, I'm just hearing that Trump is starting to speak at the White House with his immigration signing. Let's listen in.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... alongside of me, not behind me, alongside of me. I would never say behind me because they're not behind anybody. They're great.

This morning, I'm thrilled to sign the Secure America Act to immediately and fully fund the Department of Homeland Security through the end of my term, so we won't have that to be talking about any more.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, we will not, sir.

TRUMP: We will give the heroes of ICE and Border Patrol -- and that's what they are -- they're heroes, what they have to go through to keep us safe -- the support and resources they need to defend our borders, protect our homeland, and to keep America safe.

I want to thank Speaker Mike Johnson. He's incredible. Where is Mike Johnson?

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Right here. TRUMP: Mike, you're doing an incredible job. Not a big majority.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Rather have 40 or 50. I don't think you know what to do.

(CROSSTALK)

JOHNSON: No.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: He would say, what are we doing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That would be no fun.

TRUMP: He's done an amazing job. And acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. And Todd is up, and I hear he's got tremendous support in the Senate, and he's got tremendous support everywhere actually. He's doing a fantastic job.

And Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne. Where's Markwayne?

SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK), DHS SECRETARY NOMINEE: Right here, sir.

TRUMP: He gave up his Senate seat. He had a guaranteed seat for the next 40 to 50 years.

[11:20:04]

(LAUGHTER)

And he gave it up to be homeland security, because he just wanted to...

MULLIN: Wanted to serve.

TRUMP: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

MULLIN: Be part of the administration.

TRUMP: You're amazing. Amazing.

As well as Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, who's here, I think.

(CROSSTALK)

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): Yes, sir. Yes, sir, Mr. President.

TRUMP: And John is -- you're incredible.

From day one, we got along, right?

BARRASSO: Thank you, Mr. President, absolutely.

TRUMP: From first day I met him.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, one of the bravest people. And what he went through is incredible, incredible. And he's -- I actually think he looks better now than he did.

(LAUGHTER)

REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): We're going to the win the game tonight, Mr. President.

TRUMP: Oh, is it tonight?

SCALISE: Tonight, 7:05.

TRUMP: Baseball. I will be watching.

And House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, who is an unbelievable leader, actually. He's just so highly respected. And he's in Minnesota, and he's ripping them because he knows what's going on. I mean, it's -- you have your chance now, Tom, because people have really found out about it.

REP. TOM EMMER (R-MN): Wow, thanks to you, thanks to you.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: So, I want to thank you for the work. No, but he's working with our people. They look like Eliot Ness. It looks like Eliot Ness and the gang up there, right?

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: They're finding billions of dollars of fraud, and Tom Emmer is really helping us. Thanks, Tom.

EMMER: Thank you.

TRUMP: And thanks as well to Senators Lindsey Graham, who had a big victory lesson. He won by a lot, and no run-off, no nothing. Had a lot of very capable people running against him, and he just blew them away.

So, Lindsey Graham, congratulations. And Chuck Grassley, Rand Paul, who's here. Hi, Rand. Boy, oh, boy. It's nice to have Rand.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: That's a good thing to have Rand. He knows what's important.

Eric Schmitt has been an incredible senator, wherever you may be, Eric. He's tall enough. He's usually not too hard to fight. And Bernie Moreno. Is Bernie here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir. TRUMP: Where's Bernie? Hi, Bernie. What a job, right?

SEN. BERNIE MORENO (R-OH): Absolutely.

TRUMP: So, how's the race going in Ohio?

MORENO: You're very popular there, and you will drag every Republican...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I hope so. Well, I love Ohio. We won by a lot. But you ran an incredible race.

MORENO: A big assist.

TRUMP: They weren't giving him a big chance, and he ended up winning quite easily, right?

MORENO: Thanks to you.

TRUMP: So, it was great.

We're also pleased to be joined by Representatives Lisa McClain, Jodey Arrington. And Jodey. Where's Jodey?

(CROSSTALK)

REP. JODEY ARRINGTON (R-TX): ... Mr. President.

TRUMP: You're doing a great job, Jodey.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: Garbarino, Laurel Lee, thank you. Riley Moore, a newcomer who's doing really well. Guy Reschenthaler, Derrick Van Orden, as well as Angel Sister Chris Storie. You know that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

TRUMP: Fantastic. And we appreciate it, Chris. We appreciate it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

TRUMP: For more than -- thank you very much. Appreciate it being here. Gone through a lot.

For more than 100 days, congressional Dumocrats tried to block all funding for the Department of Homeland Security in a reprehensible attempt to throw open the borders of the United States of America. They want to drag us straight back to chaos and crime, the crooked Joe Biden administration, one of the most corrupt administrations, probably the most corrupt ever. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. And we're not going to let them

do that. I have to say that Washington just had some crime numbers out, and it's the lowest number, best crime numbers we have had, they say, in 58 years.

So we went from being a crime-ridden city, our capital, from being a crime-ridden place to being among the safest cities in the country. I'm so happy. And you're big beneficiaries, because most of you live here. You're here all the time, the press, the media.

And even actually some of the media, a couple of people that I would not suspect, a couple of people truly treat me unfairly, but they came up and they thanked me because it's so much -- we have a safe city now. And we also have a beautiful city here.

We had 22 fountains. Every one of them didn't work. One of them, the -- probably the best was one that hasn't worked for 50 years. That was about the best. They have all been out of commission for 50 years or more. Can you imagine that?

They were graffiti-strewn, grass-strewn, grass growing through the cracks, and they were in terrible shape. And all 22 have now been opened, and the most magnificent, possibly of all, though the waterfront in Union Station is beautiful. You see that? It was all -- graffiti all over the place.

We -- through a lot of work, we got it looking maybe better than it was the day they put it in. But the one that they're all talking about is the almost 2,500-foot-long -- it's taller than any building in the world, actually. There's no building that's 2,500 feet tall, I don't think. But it's like twice the height of the Empire State Building, as an example, much wider.

[11:25:00]

So we just got that open last night. We wanted to do it before July 4, and it is incredible. It's called -- it was originally called -- 1922, it was built. It was called the Reflecting Pond, or the Reflecting Lake, some people called it.

But it was supposed to be reflection. It never worked from 1922, because it was stone on the base, and no matter what, it always leaked because you have stone and you have lots of crevices. We have nice stone out there. But if you go between the stone, it leaks.

And so it never really worked very well. And it was a bad color. It was gray. It was concrete and stone. It was gray. And I had the idea along with some great people that worked for us, Doug Burgum, fantastic, his group, Greg, everybody.

And we worked very hard. But it was going to cost $400 million, and we did it for about $10 million. It was going to take four years to build, and we did it in like a month, a month-and-a-half. And we would have had a construction site out there for years, and it wouldn't have worked when they built it. So when they told me what they were going to do, I said, that's not a

good idea. I have built many, many, many swimming pools as a builder. I have built hundreds of them. And I got one of our contractors. I had him take a look. And he said, oh, we can do a great job, if you could just give us a decent surface.

The surface wasn't -- so we sandblasted the surface. We fumigated it. We took out 11 dumpsters, big dumpsters full of garbage. It was all garbage. Some of the garbage was there for years. It was all disgusting. And it smelled.

And, anyway, we took 11 dumpsters of garbage out with shovels. We had to shovel inside of what's called a pool or a lake, and got it cleaned. We then fumigated it. We then sandblasted the entire thing, washed it, cleaned it, scrubbed it, sandblasted it.

Then we gave it a test. Then we rinsed it out, and we gave them a beautiful surface. And then they put a swimming pool topping, but industrial strength. It's industrial strength. It's used for tanks and lots of other things, so water.

And we worked out the ratios of expansion and contraction, because, believe it or not, when you have something that's 2,500 feet long, there's tremendous expansion. And who would think of this? Only a person that does it like me, and they have a lot of expansion and contraction.

So when we're putting the surface down, we'd leave areas that can expand and contract a little bit, because it expands over a foot-and- a-half. Can you believe it? So that would have ripped it apart. So we left areas of expansion and contraction. We were testing it for three weeks, four weeks.

It works great. And we just opened it last night, and people are going wild over it. So it was going to cost $400 million, and we did it for 10, probably 10, if you take away a couple of things. We did a much bigger job than originally planned, because, once we put that in, it looked so good, the sidewalks outside didn't look good anymore.

You know, they looked like they were in good shape. But when you do something new in this business, you do something new, the thing that you thought were good, you save it. So we ended up sandblasting, steam-cleaning and sandblasting the sidewalks around it.

And we had a lot of areas that were in bad shape. We had to fix them. We patched them, and you can't even see the patch. We have granite surrounding the pool, and the granite is great, but it was filthy, dirty, disgusting.

And it was broken in some cases. We were able to carve out pieces from other pieces that were identical and put them in, and you can't even see the seam. And it's like a beautiful -- it's in better shape than it was when it was built. I told you, from 1922, it never worked because it always leaked, because it had a stone base. The water leaked through the stone. So we're very proud of it. It's going to be great. Now we're doing a

new surface on the World War II fountain because the surface is so bad, and that will be done during the next couple of -- we're going to start in a week or so, finish it very quickly.

But we have done a great job. And the city is -- everyone's coming up to me saying, the city is so beautiful. So we have 22 fountains that none of them worked. The earliest -- I'm telling you, it's 50 years. For 50 years -- some of them haven't worked for 100 years, but we have fountains that were not working and were disgusting and dirty.

And they're all beautiful now, every one of them. We also took care of a lot of the monuments, not fountains, but monuments, and they're all in good shape. Some of them are being finished up now, and it's incredible.

And my goal was to get it all done, along with Interior and others that worked with us, to get it done before the July 4 date. July 4 was a very important date. So that was our -- that was the date we looked at. And we did a -- we did an hell of a job. But everybody's looking at that Reflecting Pool. They can't believe it reflects.

We used a dark blue. It's called American flag blue.