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The Situation Room
Nolan Wells Death Investigation; Housing Affordability Bill Becomes Law; Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. Aired 10:30a-11a ET
Aired July 13, 2026 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:30:00]
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: The U.S. says it struck dozens of targets aimed at protecting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran says it's targeting U.S. bases in the region. And Iran says this video shows the launching of those drone strikes. Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan are all reporting aerial threats this morning.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And time now for a SITUATION ROOM special report.
I'm just back from spending a few days aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and the destroyer USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. in the Middle East. The carrier strike group is right near the Strait of Hormuz and a constant target of Iranian missiles and drones.
In this exclusive report, I will take you inside the mission and the people entrusted with it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): One fighter jet after another takes off from the USS Abraham Lincoln, overnight missions amid rising tensions with Iran.
We're in the Gulf of Oman, near the Strait of Hormuz, aboard a ship President Trump says, has been attacked more than 100 times since the conflict began.
(on camera): And they have tried with missiles and with drones?
CAPT. DAN KEELER, COMMANDING OFFICER, USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN: Yes. Everything they throw at us hasn't really gotten near us at all.
BROWN (voice-over): Earlier, we watched as missiles were prepped and loaded onto these fighter jets, the mission and active combat and defense as real as it gets.
(on camera): I want to show you these symbols right here. These are drones right here that this fighter jet has taken out during this conflict that started 5.5 months ago. These are missiles that have been taken out just by this fighter jet alone.
(voice-over): With the Lincoln under constant threat of attack, it's guarded by navy destroyers for protection. On a chopper headed to the Frank Petersen Jr. destroyer high above the Gulf of Oman, we get our first look at vessels headed toward the Strait of Hormuz.
(on camera): We've seen about five vessels so far. We are seeing maritime traffic. In fact, right here, if you turn around, you can see there's a ship right there passing by. That's about the sixth ship we've seen.
(voice-over): The traffic is lower now, as tensions rise again in the Gulf. Officially, the Navy reports 20 vessels around the strait as we head to the warship, the tip of the spear.
(on camera): We are the closest Navy ship to Iran right now.
CAPT. CASEY MAHON, COMMANDER OFFICER, USS FRANK PETERSEN JR.: Correct. You're right on the -- what we call the picket line, the firing line right now. So, if Iran were to attack the U.S. Naval forces, we'd be the first ones they'd be attacking.
But don't worry. Our radars are working. Our guns work. We have a lot of well-trained folks down below.
BROWN (voice-over): Threats are part of life here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you don't obey my order, you will be targeted.
BROWN: Like when Captain Mahon led this ship through the Strait of Hormuz in April. Radio transmissions between the U.S. and Iran were released by Iran to its state media. Mahon confirmed to CNN an exchange like this did happen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm ready to open fire on them without any warning.
BROWN (on camera): And so the Iranians were threatening.
MAHON: Correct, yes. Yes. They told us, hey, you have to turn around within 30 minutes or we will open fire on you. We kept going, obviously. Had to go through what was potentially a minefield to get there--
BROWN: Yes.
MAHON: -- which was, you know, not something I had on my bingo card for things I would do in my life, go through a minefield.
BROWN (voice-over): The firepower aboard this ship is everywhere.
MAHON: We have this as our last-ditch defense. Captain Mahon calls the shots from a command center several decks below.
BROWN (on camera): Just with Iran being to the north, they're always on the lookout for all kinds of threats. Have you had any close calls?
MAHON: My fight really starts at that Iranian coastline and comes all the way back. I don't wait for it to come to me. I go out and I try to meet that threat.
BROWN: You go out.
(voice-over): Back on the Abraham Lincoln, it can be tough to keep spirits high day in, day out for the nearly 5,000 people on board. Because of its limited port visits, the Navy considers this deployment among the longest consecutive days at sea for any aircraft carrier.
RANDALL STONE, WORKS IN HANGAR BAY: I mean, I haven't stepped off the ship in the year 2026.
BROWN: Most have been here more than six months under constant threat and change and missing their families.
(on camera): What kind of toll does that take on you personally?
LT. CMDR. JOE CAPSTAFF, USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN: It's tough. It's a -- I had my first kid born in February.
BROWN: Oh, wow.
CAPSTAFF: So I'm very excited to get home and meet her.
BROWN: You have never met your daughter?
CAPSTAFF: Nope.
BROWN: And she was born right around when this conflict started.
CAPSTAFF: She was born February 6, so I was able to get on FaceTime, watch the birth --
BROWN: Aw.
CAPSTAFF: -- talk to my wife before everything went down. So --
BROWN: And you don't know when you will be able to do that.
CAPSTAFF: Nope. We will see, I mean, hopefully home soon. But, unfortunately, it's a common story on the ship, I think. Get in the Navy, this is what you kind of sign up for.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: And, Pamela, I want to talk a little bit more about your reporting, excellent, excellent reporting from there.
We saw in that piece the emotional toll this war is having on the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln, the aircraft carrier, and the USS Frank Petersen Jr., the destroyer that's in part of that group, missing the birth of their children, not seeing their families for months and months and months.
[10:35:11]
You also spoke with some of the pilots who have been involved in these combat missions against Iran. What did they tell you? BROWN: Yes, Wolf, I had the opportunity to sit down with Marine
pilots that fly the F-35s, and they are really on the front lines of this conflict.
And as things heat up, they have to be at the ready at all times. A big part of their job is to keep ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz, protect those ships. And they're having to also ship their tactics sometimes. One of the challenges they told me at the very beginning was these slow-moving drones., they had to figure out how to take those out because they're low, they're slow-moving.
And, of course, these are very fast fighter jets. At one point there were 12 one-way attack drones coming in a swarm. And I talked to some of the pilots. One of them told me he missed the drones. Others got them. They were taken down pretty quickly, I'm told by the captain of the ship.
But they say those one-way attack drones are a cheap lever for Iran to pull, but not that big of a security concern. And I asked them also what it was like for them after that Air Force plane went down in Iran, where the pilot and the WSO were -- had to be rescued.
I said, did that rattle your nerves at all? Because they are constantly having to go over Iran for different strikes and missions. And actually they said that the fact that they have only lost one plane in Iran is below the normal threshold in training, and they say it speaks to how well everyone has done so far that there is only that one particular incident.
Of course, other planes have gone down for other reasons. And they said it also speaks to how well the F-35 stealth fighter jet has done in this conflict. But look, at the beginning of this war, Wolf, they were going 117 hours straight.
They said it was very challenging. They didn't think they were going to be able to do it, but they did. It was very complex. One of the pilots described those night landings that are so complicated. He said his legs would shake every time. He wondered if that was going to happen for the rest of his career.
But, eventually, they get used to it. As far as the objectives of this war, Wolf, I asked them, does it weigh on them, the American sentiment of this war? As we know, according to the polls, a lot of Americans are against it. And they say, look, they get questions from family members, is this an unwinnable war? What are the objectives here?
They said they can't be preoccupied with the geopolitics. They can't concern themselves with the objectives of the administration. Their number one priority is the defense of the crew members and just making sure that they are at the ready and protecting everyone.
BLITZER: Yes, it's a big, huge operation that's unfolding right now, lots and lots of crew members, months at sea requiring logistical coordination to make sure that all of the crew gets fed, for example. That's really important.
Take us inside that part of the operation.
BROWN: That's right.
And, of course, there are massive logistical challenges, right? It's been at sea for -- since last November, and there are logistical challenges involved with that. Supply chain at one point was disrupted, so they weren't getting certain foods like fruits and veggies.
And I spoke to the so-called chow boss, who was in charge of feeding all of those sailors day in, day out. I want to play a clip from him and some of the sailors on board.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: So the U.S. Abraham Lincoln has set a record of being at sea for the most consecutive days during a deployment--
CHIEF WARRANT OFC. 3 DAVID BURSTON, USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN: Yes.
BROWN: -- which means you have had to feed all of these service members, at this point, as we're talking today, around 230 consecutive days.
BURSTON: Yes. Yes, absolutely. Each and every day -- we serve about 17,000 to 18,000 meals every day. And we have not stopped. The galley does not shut down. We stay open 24/7. If one galley is cleaning and doing a field day, then the other galley picks up and the sailors go there.
So it's been an extraordinary effort with the whole team without really missing a beat with over 237 days.
BROWN: So we're here in the wardroom. This is where officers eat, and something really exciting happened for all the crew members on board the USS Abraham Lincoln, salad bar and fruit. They went several months, actually since February, until they could restock with this fresh fruit and the veggies.
And the crew members I have been speaking with said this is like a delicacy. It feels like a holiday meal, Christmas in July, just to be able to have this.
STONE: Oh, man, let me tell you. So we were running pretty low on rations. I mean, at some point, some points of the day, it would just be noodles and tuna mixed in together, and that was it. Sometimes, you get a--
BROWN: That's all you were eating?
STONE: Sometimes, you get a corn dog. Sometimes, you get a hot dog. But those were some rough days.
BROWN: What's the one meal you're looking forward to when you get home?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think good Chinese food.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Morale among the crew, it must be difficult. There -- some of them have been there for almost a year away from their families. Talk a little bit about that.
[10:40:03]
BROWN: Yes. And, as we mentioned, some of them haven't seen their kids that have been born during this conflict.
I spoke to the commanding officer, Casey Mahon, of the Frank Petersen Jr. destroyer, about what he does and his crew does to keep morale up. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAHON: So, the biggest challenge is the people, the sailors who haven't been home for a while. We have been out here in a very stressful situation, always on ready to go, always ready to take action.
And that's wearing on a person, you know, a very honest, I think, assessment of it. And we try to really have ways to vent that. We talked we have various behavior therapy groups, right? We have poll sessions. People can come in and say, this is how I feel.
And we just try to really give everybody a chance to vent that feeling and have a chance to say, hey, you know what, it's a tough situation. It's stressful, and I need ways to relieve that stress. We try to do that in very healthy ways.
We have we have like the meme wall down below--
BROWN: Yes.
MAHON: -- where sailors can put up all the different memes of how they feel. We do things where we will, like, have ice cream socials. We will have various chances on the mess decks to do games and those kind of things, but really just anything we can do to alleviate that stress.
It's probably the biggest thing I worry about on a on a daily basis.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And we just want to thank the crews there on that destroyer and the Abraham Lincoln, the USS Abraham Lincoln, for allowing us on to tell these stories and show the hard work and sacrifice of these service members overseas.
BLITZER: And I'm just glad you're back safe and sound. That was a tough assignment.
BROWN: Well, it was an important assignment and a big responsibility, and we're grateful that we were allowed to go tell those stories.
No matter what you think about the war, the policy of it, these are service members very hard at work overseas protecting us. You just saw--
BLITZER: Protecting all of us.
BROWN: -- Casey Mahon, commanding officer, protecting 20,000 sailors at sea. It's important work, and they're making a lot of sacrifices.
BLITZER: And we are grateful to all of them.
BROWN: Yes, we are.
BLITZER: Thanks for your reporting.
BROWN: And just ahead: The new housing affordability bill just became law. Will it actually make homes cheaper?
David Goldman is here to "Make it Make Sense" -- David.
DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR REPORTER: Big institutional investors in Atlanta own 80,000 single-family homes for rent. Will a new housing bill help to make that more affordable for people?
I'm going to -- I'm here to "make It Make Sense" after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:46:34]
BROWN: Happening now: Supporters call it the most comprehensive housing reform bill in decades, and it just became law. The bipartisan 21st Century Road to Housing Act aims to increase housing supply, reduce costs, and expand access to affordable homes.
BLITZER: CNN senior business reporter David Goldman is here with us to make it make sense.
So, David, today's question, will the new housing bill make homes cheaper for Americans?
GOLDMAN: Well, Wolf, we really don't know yet, but the aim of this bill is to increase supply.
And this is the thing that is really weighing on housing prices, keeping them much, much higher. There is just not enough homebuilding in this country. In fact, we need four million homes to be built in the United States just to keep up with population.
So, what is this bill aiming to do? Well, one of the things it's trying to do is to keep Wall Street out of single-family homes, limiting investors. How invested are those investors in single-family homes? In these four major metropolitan regions, they own 40 percent of the single family homes for rent. And this is a controversial thing, because people need to rent homes,
not just buy them. So some people think that this is a good thing. A lot of folks think that this is diminishing that supply that we're talking about.
But what this doesn't do, Wolf, is does not change the mortgage rate. So even if we had more homes, this rate remains very, very high. Remember, this was underneath 6 percent before the Iran war. To get this lower, we need those oil and gas prices to be lower. There's a lot of work to do to address this, in addition to the supply, Wolf.
BROWN: All right, David Goldman, thank you so much.
And if you would like David to help you "Make It Make Sense," e-mail your question or send us a selfie video of your question to MakeItMakeSense@CNN.com
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:53:02]
BROWN: Happening now: The parents of Nolan Wells are demanding a thorough and transparent investigation as they wait for autopsy results in the 18-year-old's tragic death.
The football player, who is black, disappeared during a Fourth of July boating trip with a group of white friends to a remote island in Mississippi. His body was found face down on the shoreline two days later. One of Wells' friends spoke to ABC, saying they had nothing to do with his death.
Here's what he said on "Good Morning America."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRACESTIN SHEPHERD, FRIEND OF NOLAN WELLS: We did no wrong here, and we don't understand how we're getting so much hate behind us. We all cared and loved Nolan, and nobody wanted to see Nolan die. Nobody wanted to see his life be taken so short.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Let's go live right now to CNN senior national correspondent Ryan Young, who is joining us from Atlanta.
Ryan, the family ordered an independent autopsy, worried that Mississippi officials aren't being fully transparent. What are they saying? What are they saying right now? And does it add up?
RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf and Pamela, I believe what everyone's upset about is, no one's come up with the timeline just yet.
And they're hoping that investigators will sort of lay this out this week. Of course, you have to wait for that independent autopsy to be finished as well. We know that was delayed because of some bad weather last week. That's being done in D.C., being paid by Colin Kaepernick.
So, what the hope is, that the family will have some information from their own independent investigation, but as well as state investigators, because, obviously, that autopsy has been done as well. So, when the two informations come together, hopefully, there will be some sort of a better timeline.
And, of course, the family and the attorney have been out there, with Ben Crump saying, look, they want to know as much as possible and that many people who have seen maybe Nolan Wells that day, on July 4, can come forward to talk about what actually happened at Horn Island.
This weekend, Ben Crump was talking to a megachurch here in Atlanta, and this is what he had to say:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR FAMILY OF NOLAN WELLS: The fact that he was talking to a young lady, and she said that Nolan said he was going back to get in the boat with the boys who he came with, and then the boys said that, no, Nolan said that he said he was going to stay behind and talk to the girl.
[10:55:11]
So there's some conflict there. Both of them can't be telling the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
YOUNG: Yes, let's be clear here, though. The information that's spreading on the Internet, a lot of people feel like that timeline has sort of gotten on its own.
And what they're hoping for is investigators or the sheriff's department sort of fills us in, so everyone can stop speculating on what actually happened. But, at the end of the day, you have a loss of life.
Nolan Wells, just 18 years old, had such a long life to live ahead of him, and now there are so many questions about what actually happened to him on July 4.
BLITZER: And our deepest condolences to his family and his friends. May he rest in peace and may his memory be a blessing.
Ryan Young, thank you very, very much -- Pamela.
BROWN: And, Wolf, here's what's coming up all new at the top of the hour.
Cartoon controversy. Calls for one of America's oldest veteran advocacy groups to be investigated over a political cartoon. And parasite problem. What you need to know about the gut-churning
outbreak hitting more than half of U.S. states. That is all new next hour.
And bison attack, a grandfather flung feet into the air by a bison at Yellowstone National Park. We have the new video.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
