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The Situation Room

Status of U.S.-Iran Negotiations?; Interview With Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL); Interview With Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL). Aired 10:30a-11a ET

Aired June 24, 2026 - 10:30   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Happening now: Two people are dead after a shooting at a library in Chico, California.

Police say an 18-year-old man opened fire in the building, then ran out the back door, where he was immediately taken into custody. Authorities believe Bradley Scott Sayer acted alone and that he was motivated to commit a Columbine High School-type shooting.

New video shows a terrifying hit-and-run rampage in Los Angeles. Eight people were injured after a man allegedly stole a car at knifepoint and began tearing across the city, running down pedestrians and crashing into another cars. He faces 10 counts of attempted murder, one count of carjacking, and several other charges.

And crews rescued more than a dozen people in Oklahoma after very heavy rain triggered flash flooding in some areas. More severe weather is headed to the area today and tomorrow. And authorities are urging people to be careful.

Some terrifying moments, by the way, at the Georgia amusement park, as a malfunction left riders stranded hundreds of feet in the air for nearly 10 minutes. That's scary. Six Flags Over Georgia says the SkyScreamer had what it called a technical delay that temporarily paused its operations.

Now to a SITUATION ROOM exclusive.

As millions of Americans are struggling with the weight of student loan debt, a rare bipartisan duo in Congress is aiming to do something about it. Florida lawmakers Jared Moskowitz, a Democrat, and Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican, are launching a discharge petition on their bill to slash federal student loan interest rates to just 2 percent, yes, just 2 percent.

That effort to force a vote on their plan marking an unusual, but significant challenge to the House Speaker Mike Johnson's leadership if enough members wind up signing on.

[10:35:11]

The lawmakers behind the plan, Anna Paulina Luna and Jared Moskowitz, are here with me in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Thanks very much for being here.

Congressman Moskowitz, let me begin with you.

Tell us more about this bill, what it would do and how the benefits would really be significant.

REP. JARED MOSKOWITZ (D-FL): Well, Congresswoman Luna and I had been having conversations about student loan debt and that that had become a partisan issue, and that there were a lot of people saddled with debt, and there were some solutions that came forward.

And then, obviously, it went to the Supreme Court. But one of the things we talked about is, how can we stop making the situation worse? Yes, there's a bunch of people who are stuck, but how can we stop making the situation worse? How can we not put people into this bucket?

And that's when we came up with this idea. Mike Lawler is also a co- sponsor with us. And the idea is, is that, that way, people can get loans and they can pay principal. It's very hard to pay principal when you're at 6 percent, 7 percent, 8 percent. You are mostly paying interest.

It elongates the loan, and they're saddled with this debt through their career. And so the one thing the congresswoman is very good at is, she's like, well, then let's do a discharge petition.

(LAUGHTER)

MOSKOWITZ: And so that would that was her idea. And...

BLITZER: The discharge position would allow it to be voted on right away without the speaker necessarily even supporting that.

REP. ANNA PAULINA LUNA (R-FL): Correct.

MOSKOWITZ: Yes. I mean, as we deal with leadership, whether it's Democrats or Republicans, leadership controls the floor.

This Congress, we have had more discharge petitions passed than any Congress in American history, and that's because the members want to take votes on issues where we can help people. You know, this would be an issue that could help 40 million Americans overnight. And we're not taking taxpayer money and bailing everybody out. We're just adjusting the loans.

BLITZER: Forty-two million Americans have these student loans right now. And if the interest rate goes down to 2 percent, it could save them a lot of money. That would be very significant.

LUNA: Most certainly. I joined the military. I don't have student loan debt. But I also understand what it's like if you have someone that's trying to better their themselves. Maybe they don't have the ability for their family to assist, so they have to take out the loans.

And I think the whole goal and objective is to ensure that these people are not working their entire life in indentured servitude essentially to pay back a student loan debt. That makes them literally a better functioning member of society.

And so I think that we will get 218 signatures. As Jared had mentioned, those discharge petitions tend to be pesky, but I will protect them for the entire time that I'm in the House because it really does level the playing field for the representatives.

And I think I think we will get it done.

BLITZER: In order for this to pass, you would need several of your Republican colleagues in the House to support it. What do you think?

LUNA: I think we will get it.

As Mr. Moskowitz has stated, we have another rep who's been championing this, Representative Mike Lawler. And also, too, you know this, Wolf, you have been at it for a minute, but we are upon the midterms. And so I think that this would be a very smart legislative thing for everyone to get behind.

BLITZER: You think it will pass?

MOSKOWITZ: Yes, I mean, listen, if the members decide to sign it, then we're going to be voting on it.

And the idea that we can do this and make it nonpartisan just by saying, hey, we're going to cap student loan interest at 2 percent, I think we can get to the 218.

BLITZER: Because there are a lot of Democrats who say there shouldn't be any interest on these student loans. The government shouldn't be making a profit, for example, on what the students have to do, and they should just lower it to zero percent. What do you say to them?

MOSKOWITZ: Well, I mean, listen again, we're about to cut that profit by like 75, 80 percent. So there's no perfect bill in Washington. This is the closest thing that has come forward on a bipartisan basis to try tackling student loan debt.

BLITZER: The Trump administration recently announced, as you know, Congresswoman, some new changes to the student loans issues, including a discount of 1 percent over two years for eligible borrowers who enroll in autopay, autopay, meaning that they get to pay every -- in your view, is the president doing enough right now to address affordability, particularly when it comes to student loans?

LUNA: I think that they're open to what we're doing right now. What I will tell you is that I have met directly with the White House,

and you have heard President Trump talk a lot on affordability. But specifically to this, I think that what they did was a step forward in the right direction.

But I think something like this signed into law makes a massive difference. And also, too, if we're talking about being competitive on the global scene, whether it's in STEM or other areas, I think that this is a step forward in the right direction.

BLITZER: So, if it passes the House and the Senate, you think the president will sign it into law?

LUNA: Yes, I think a lot of people forget President Trump is very much so populist.

BLITZER: You agree?

MOSKOWITZ: Well, I don't know what the president would do. I don't get to talk to him like Anna does.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

MOSKOWITZ: But what I would say is, is that it does go to the heart of affordability, right? The more money they have not to be paying interest, the more money they can put into the economy, the more money they can be saving.

That would help them a long way. So when we started this journey, we started trying to help students, but this is absolutely wrapped up in the affordability conversations.

BLITZER: While I have you, Congressman and Congresswoman, I want to get your reaction to the elections that occurred last night.

Only a few minutes ago, New York City Mayor Mamdani spoke out about what happened. I want to play a little clip. Listen to this.

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ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: Yes, I will be speaking with Congressman Jeffries later today, and I'm looking forward to working with Congressman Jeffries on delivering for the people of our city.

And what I see these results as a reflection of are the fact that New Yorkers are hungry for a new kind of politics. They are hungry for a politics that understands working people should be at the heart of it. And they're hungry for a politics that looks at the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world and understands that it's unacceptable that one in four are living in poverty. It's unacceptable that too many New Yorkers are spending all of their

day trying to figure out how they're going to make their rent check or pay for their groceries or pay their ConEd bill. And what we saw last night was a hunger for leaders who will be there on the front lines, looking to make it easier for working people to afford life in the greatest city in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The candidates that the New York City mayor endorsed basically won yesterday. What was your reaction to what happened?

MOSKOWITZ: Well, I mean, look, we're going to lose two good members in New York, that one had served for four years, one had been there for 10 years.

But this is what elections are about, right? I mean, New York City is different than Florida. Florida is different than California. Texas is different than New York. People get elected in different areas. We have districts there that are, I don't know, what are they, D-20s, D- 30s, D-40s? So the primary is what matters.

Obviously, they're very progressive seats. The DSA has been increasing their power in New York. They got...

BLITZER: Democratic Socialists.

MOSKOWITZ: The Democratic Socialists of America. They have a mayor, and he's obviously flexing his power. Thankfully, we live in Florida, and we don't have Democratic socialists like they have in New York. And, like, that's something that people in New York are going to have to decide whether they want to stay there and deal with those policies or leave.

BLITZER: In the November midterm elections, as you know, Representative Luna, a lot of Republicans are basically happy that these very progressive Democratic socialists won, because they think, especially in a state like New York, they think they can do better running against them. What do you think?

LUNA: Look, I think that there's no question that these are very polarizing candidates.

And I think, for someone like me too, obviously being a Republican, when I'm seeing some of the rhetoric that was put out by some of the newly elected members now to the Democrat Party and seeing how they were attacking people like Representative Goldman, who I don't really agree with on much.

But when I see his office being sprayed with stuff that you would really see, I think, out of Nazi Germany, I'm seeing him being discriminated when he's going into a coffee shop because of the fact that he supports the state of Israel, I think that these are issues that we have to address head on, because they might be talking about affordability. They might be talking about how they're going to benefit the American people, but if you really look at the heart of their message, it's actually a message of hate. And that's what I'm seeing. And so I think that we're going to have lots of debate in the House.

I don't speak for Jared, but what I can say from my perspective is, I think that their rhetoric saying that the United States, they're going to use it as a napkin -- or the American flag as a napkin, I don't want to serve with someone like that.

BLITZER: Congressman, you have spoken publicly about some of the threats you have received.

MOSKOWITZ: Yes, I mean, look, antisemitism is dramatically on the rise in America. It is a both party problem. It's at the forefront of everything that's happening.

I mean, Dan Goldman almost was denied service for coffee at a coffee place in New York. I mean, these are things that I remember my grandparents telling me as a kid what it was like in the run-up. And so we have to address it. We can have foreign policy debates. We can debate whether you like a leader of a country or don't like a leader of a country, right?

We can have all those debates, but bringing the tactics that Jews went through before the advent of the state of Israel, I mean, that's what brings up the emotions, is because we're seeing some of the same things happening again, where you don't want to serve a Jewish member of Congress.

And the other thing is, we're seeing silence, right? Where was -- where were all the people that wanted to speak out against what happened to Dan at that coffee shop? His opponent spoke out, Brad Lander, who won last night. And so I give Brad credit for stepping up and speaking up against that and saying that that's not that's not acceptable.

But a lot of people who are pretty verbose and have lots of things to say were pretty quiet about what happened to Dan.

BLITZER: It's gross what happened in that coffee shop, totally...

(CROSSTALK)

LUNA: It's -- discrimination is discrimination.

BLITZER: Yes.

LUNA: Doesn't matter if you're black, white, Jewish. It's wrong.

BLITZER: Congresswoman, Congressman, thanks to both of you very much for joining us. And I know you were friendly with Dan Goldman, and I'm sure you're upset he lost.

MOSKOWITZ: Yes.

BLITZER: All right, thanks very, very much for joining us.

LUNA: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: And we will be right back.

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[10:49:08]

BLITZER: Nearly a year after catastrophic flooding killed 25 girls and two teenage counselors at Camp Mystic in Texas, the all-girls Christian camp is filing for bankruptcy.

Camp Mystic says it has more than $10 million in debt and less than half-a-million dollars in assets. Families of the victims killed in the July 4 flooding filed a lawsuit against the camp in November, claiming operators failed to protect the girls as massive floodwaters approached the facility. Camp Mystic owner Richard Eastland was also killed in the flood.

Also happening now, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is visiting the Gulf region, set to meet this hour with officials in Kuwait. The visit also includes stops in the UAE and Bahrain, the countries hit hardest in the U.S. war with Iran, Iran launching missiles and rockets of those countries in big numbers.

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President Trump this morning posting this on social TRUTH -- on his TRUTH Social, writing that Iran says no tolls will be charged for transit through the Strait of Hormuz and -- quote -- "If this is false information, negotiations would end immediately" -- end quote.

We're joined now by CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger. He's also a correspondent for "The New York Times."

So, David, what is your sense of how Trump views these negotiations, the state of these negotiations right now? What's going on?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, what's going on is, they're moving slowly toward what's supposed to be the real agreement.

What you saw before was 14 paragraphs, vague, really a framework or a table of contents for the real thing. But what President Trump is doing is going out and announcing each little element of it to try to lock the Iranians in.

So, yesterday, it was, they agreed to inspections, and the Iranians said, well, not exactly. And today he said they have agreed to no tolls, which is something he said to me in a call about 10 days ago, when he was initially trying to sell this, that there would be no tolls.

There may be no tolls. But, Wolf, there may be service fees, right? And that would be for anything from keeping the strait clear of mines to environmental work to guiding ships so they don't go astray. And I think that's going to be the wording around it.

And I suspect that what's going to happen is, the administration is going to have to fold on that.

BLITZER: Israel's defense minister, meanwhile, is saying that Israel will not withdraw from Southern Lebanon, and that this position has been made clear to the U.S.

How is this going to factor into the U.S. negotiations with Iran right now?

SANGER: Well, the agreement calls for a cease-fire. And whether Israel withdraws or not, I think is a little bit vague from the way this is all put together.

But the problem with having them that close is, at some moment or another, Hezbollah is going to fire on them, or an Israeli unit will fire on Hezbollah.

Both sides will say they're acting in self-defense, and you could have a breach of the cease-fire that closes down the whole rest of the negotiation, which would be fine with Prime Minister Netanyahu, who, of course, is running in an election himself this fall, and who would love to see this entire agreement go away, because he believes, in the end, it's not going to provide him with the nuclear assurances that he insists or the limits on missiles that he has argued for.

BLITZER: What does Secretary of State Rubio look to achieve or come away with, for that matter, in these meetings that he's having now with these Gulf countries?

SANGER: Well, they angered the Gulf countries a lot at the beginning of the war, not giving them notice, not consulting them on it. All of a sudden, the Gulf countries are the target of Iranian attacks. They lost desalinization plants. They lost petrochemical plants.

Some of their hotels were hit. But, mostly, they lost a sense of security, that the U.S. was there as the ultimate guarantor that they couldn't be struck by Iran. And the second part of Rubio's part now then is to say, we're here for you, but we also want you to contribute to this $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran.

And that's going to be a real fund-raising challenge.

BLITZER: Key European allies had refused to back the war with Iran, as you know, and now we're seeing President Trump and his top officials pushing back hard.

Let's run through some of the examples. President Trump claims the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni -- quote -- "begged him" for a photo at the G7. She has said this is completely fabricated, her words.

Trump posted that the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, who has just resigned, would resign a day before the official announcement happened. And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a speech to NATO defense ministers announced a review of U.S. forces in Europe, saying other countries aren't paying their fair share.

How do you look at all these developments, these dynamics, David, between the U.S. and the European allies, as we have a NATO secretary, Mark Rutte, in Washington right now?

SANGER: Yes, Mr. Rutte is going to meet the president later this afternoon.

But I think the problem that they face right now is, there's been a breach within the NATO alliance that's basically not going to get sealed up while President Trump is still in office, because the president's always going to be ripping that scab off, right, for something or another.

[10:55:09]

He's still angry that the NATO members did not come and join him in the attack on Iran. Most of them view it as both an unwise and illegal operation. And there's nothing in the nice words you're going to hear between Mr. Rutte and the president today that's going to change minds on that on that topic.

So, the difficulty is, you're going to hear about agreements. Rutte is going to come and describe accurately how much more money Europe is spending on defense. But, at the end of the day, the Europeans do not believe any longer that the U.S. is necessarily there for them if the Russians go and take a small NATO nation.

And the president doesn't believe that the Europeans are there for him as he uses American power around the globe. And that's the bottom line.

BLITZER: All right, David Sanger helping us, thank you very, very much.

And here's what's coming up all new at the top of the hour.

There's more breaking news: historic housing bill blocked. President Trump is now refusing, yes, refusing to sign landmark legislation into law to tackle America's housing affordability crisis. What he now says must happen before he puts his signature on that legislation that just passed the House and Senate in very, very large numbers.

That's all new in the next hour.

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