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Severe Weather Hammers Parts of the Plains and Midwest; Trump Hints U.S.-Iran Talks Could Resume this Week; Trump Says He and Xi Exchanged Letters on China Sending Weapons to Iran; Testimony to Resume in Camp Mystic Court Hearing. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 15, 2026 - 08:00   ET

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

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MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: About 5 to 15 percent of people don't actually see significant weight loss with GLP-1s. Doctors sometimes call these folks weight non-responders, and they don't know exactly why this is happening. Some recent studies have pointed to genetics as a possible cause, and likely there are multiple things at play.

But regardless, a growing body of evidence is suggesting that GLP-1 medicines may be beneficial for a various range of serious conditions, regardless of whether they produce weight loss. We saw this with the drug Wegovy, for example, in a major study of cardiovascular disease outcomes that was seeing whether the drug could reduce the risk of somebody having a second heart attack or stroke if they'd already had one. Now, it reduced that risk by 20 percent, and initially researchers assumed that this was driven by the amount of weight loss that these drugs produce.

But as they dug into the findings, they actually saw that regardless of how much weight people lost, they still had this benefit in protecting their heart.

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump, in a new interview, says he was misquoted in talking about gas prices being higher come the midterms. Only thing, he literally, literally said that out loud to the same anchor days ago. How he is walking that back now.

And crazy video is in this morning of tornadoes and flooding in the central United States. Tens of millions of people are under threat from this severe weather system today, and we are tracking those dangerous storms.

And CNN takes a ride with a woman who live streams her life, like literally nonstop, sharing every moment online for the past four years. Yes, why? You'll find out with me.

Sara is out today. I'm Kate Bolduan. I can no longer talk. Let's go to John Berman, and this is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, breaking overnight, and we are just getting some really stunning new video of major storms across the U.S. destroying hundreds of buildings. Millions of people are currently in the storm zone right now, and these threats very much continuing. They are on.

This morning, thousands of people were without power across the central United States. Devastating tornadoes ripped across parts of Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. And this morning, they're very much picking up the pieces.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we work hard for every day, and sunup to sundown seven days a week, and now what do you do?

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BERMAN: Heavy rains led to torrential floods across the Great Lakes. Water rescues are currently underway in Wisconsin to save people stranded in their cars on the highway. These pictures really are stunning.

Hail rained down on residents across Iowa, destroying roofs and windows, breaking them there. And this morning, the threat of more storms with potentially devastating impacts, very, very real. We're going to have the forecast, a new forecast, which is just coming in now in just a short moment -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thanks, JB. Breaking this morning in the war with Iran, President Trump says it's very close to being over, though that is definitely not the first time he has said that. He's been saying similar for more than a month now.

And in this new interview, he is acknowledging that the conflict would slow down growth of the U.S. economy. Let me play some more of what he said to Fox Business.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, look, there's a hit because, you know, we go through it for whatever it is, six weeks. There's going to be a hit, but it's going to recover, I think, fully. Somehow, they misquoted me.

I think oil will be down to the levels it was. You know, they said I expect oil to be high at the midterms. I don't expect that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: The president also hinted that talks could resume soon between the two sides, maybe even over the next two days. If so, Vice President J.D. Vance is expected to once again lead the U.S. delegation. Key sticking points obviously remain and include how long Iran would pause its nuclear enrichment.

There's also the Strait of Hormuz, that critical oil route. Iran has effectively continues to have it shut down. The U.S. military has now declared its own blockade on Iran's seaports. And this morning, we hear from U.S. Central Command. It has, quote, completely halted the country's sea trade.

Joining me right now is CNN Global Affairs analyst Karim Sadjadpour and retired Vice Admiral John "Fozzie" Miller, the former commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. Thank you both for being here. Karim, what is your sense of where things stand today in terms of the likelihood that real talks are going to pick back up?

KARIM SADJADPOUR, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Kate, for the first time since this war began six weeks ago, I think there is actually momentum towards some kind of a resolution.

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Now, it's not going to be the comprehensive resolution that President Trump hoped for. I think they're going to more narrowly focus on the nuclear issue. And what I'm seeing, Kate, is that the most consequential debate and negotiation may not be between America and Iran, but within the Iranian side, between those who say the country is in such dire economic straits that it needs to do a deal and those that want to continue with revolutionary defiance.

BOLDUAN: Admiral, you heard I just quoted from Central Command saying that they have now completely halted sea trade for Iran. President Trump says this morning that the blockade so far, his words, is it's been pretty amazing. How do you assess it?

VICE ADM. JOHN "FOZZIE" MILLER, FORMER COMMANDER, U.S. NAVAL FORCES CENTRAL COMMAND: Well, it's been effective and it's, I think, having the impact that we expected that it would, which is taking away the regime's opportunity to make money. So as Karim just talked about, Iran was in desperate economic straits before the conflict started. This certainly isn't going to help that.

And it becomes very difficult for the regime to continue to prosecute the war, to continue to oppress its people if it doesn't have an income source to be able to do its work.

BOLDUAN: And Karim, on this point, there continues to be real questions of what is the leadership structure? What is the power structure? What is the motivation of those who are running Iran right now?

Are they more moderate, as the president has tried to suggest over and over again? What is your sense on this?

SADJADPOUR: So when you have a supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who has been ruling for 37 years and suddenly he's killed, that opens up an enormous power vacuum. And so right now people are jockeying for power. And I do think the dividing line are between those who say we need to continue forward with what I call Vision 1979, the vision of the 1979 revolution, death to America, death to Israel, versus those who say, listen, we're not going to survive under this level of economic duress. We need to do a deal with the United States. And the person that is emerging is the Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad

Bagher Ghalibaf, who spent 20 hours with Vice President Pence. That's the most senior U.S. level contacts with Iran since 1979.

BOLDUAN: So interesting. Your perspective is so critical on this.

Admiral, some of the news we're also getting in now is that Iran is digging for missile launchers. There's satellite imagery showing front end loaders seen digging rubble, digging up rubble, digging through rubble from those tunnels that had been struck and blocked by U.S. and Israeli forces. Is that to be expected in your view in the midst of a ceasefire or does that indicate something else?

MILLER: I think we really learned two different things from this activity by the regime. One is that, as everyone expected, we've been enormously effective and successful in the strikes that have been conducted thus far in the conflict. And so if the idea was to reduce the number of ballistic missiles Iran had available to it, both by destroying the missile storage sites and by destroying launchers, we've had good success in that regard.

At the same time, we also learned that there's a resiliency to this regime. And we've known this. I think we knew it going into it, but they're not going to give up easily.

And so if they have to dig through the rubble to find launchers and to be able to cobble together systems, they're going to try to do that. And so some of those targets, if this war goes on much longer, are going to have to be revisited.

BOLDUAN: Karim, I was looking down because the president just put out a new statement on True Social this morning getting to some of the questions around China's involvement. China has said that it wants a resolution and says it has not been involved in this war at all, though there's reporting from the Financial Times that Iran has used intelligence and satellite imagery from China to target -- this is for some of its targeting. And here's the Truth Social from the president today.

"China is very happy that I am permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz. I am doing it for them also and the world. This situation will never happen again. They have agreed not to send weapons to Iran. President Xi will give me a big fat hug when I get there in a few weeks. We're working together smartly and very well. Doesn't that beat fighting? But remember, we are very good at fighting if we have to, far better than anyone else."

Just take it all together. What is your assessment here?

SADJADPOUR: So China needs the Strait of Hormuz open, perhaps more than any country in the world, because 90 percent of Iran's oil exports are bound for China. Right now, that is being blockaded. And so I think what's clear here is that President Trump wants China to lean on Iran to say, listen, this straight is not an Iranian waterway. It needs to be a free and open international waterway. BOLDUAN: Yes. Maybe attempting a new point of leverage as they could be heading back to the negotiating table. It's really good to see you, Karim.

Admiral, thank you so much for your time -- John.

BERMAN: Right. New testimony in the legal battle against the owners of Camp Mystic, where 27 victims were killed in last year's floods. A new admission of missteps from the camp's director.

The former Michigan football coach learns his sentence over a confrontation he had after being fired for an inappropriate relationship.

And if you have yet to file your taxes, you're cutting it pretty close. But if you're one of those people, what you need to know now at the very last minute.

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BERMAN: All right, we're getting some brand new images out of Milwaukee showing the damages done after tornadoes ripped across the ground there. As of right now, millions of Americans are under a severe storm threat. Thousands remain without power from all the wind and the flooding.

Let's get to CNN's Derek Van Dam, who is tracking all of this for us. Derek, what's the latest?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: John, this is why we call it extreme weather. There was flooding across parts of Michigan, the combination of relentless rainfall and the melting snowpack there. And then there's this, the big elephant in the room, right?

An incredible aerial visual of this rope tornado. Look at the connection point from the clouds all the way down to the ground. This is not Kansas.

This is Iowa, right? The classic wizard of Oz type set up here, but rarely do we get to see the vortex, which is right there as the storm starts to dissipate, swirling throughout this farmland. Fortunately, not creating significant damage because of this open farmland, but really what a sight to see.

There's been over a dozen tornadoes over the past two days. And that severe weather threat, although slightly diminished today, continues. Here it is.

We have the Great Lakes under threat once again. Chicago stretching westward to Des Moines, southward towards Oklahoma City. Very large hail, damaging winds and tornadoes.

Here's our greatest risk of EF2 tornadoes. That's minimum 111 mile per hour winds if these storms do form. And we do expect that because we'll get the daytime heating from the sun.

This is the culprit. We've got the stationary boundary. We've got waves of moisture, low pressure systems just riding along that same boundary.

This is why we have this multi-day stretch of severe weather ongoing. We get the ingredients from the sun, the blossoming of the thunderstorms right around dinnertime, and you need to be very weather aware if you're located across the Great Lakes, stretching through the lower Mississippi Valley and into the Central Plains. This is the area that we have concerns for today.

Tomorrow, severe weather threat shifts a little further to the east, diminished once again. But I want to point your attention to Friday. This could be another big ticket day across the Central Plains and into the Great Lakes, already highlighting a enhanced risk for that region.

The other part of the story here is the continuous rounds of rain and the melting snowpack across the state of Michigan and into Wisconsin. We've already broken records at some of the river gauges here. There are currently 10 river gauges at major flood stage.

And unfortunately, that is spilling over into people's homes and their businesses. John, it's really heartbreaking to see this water impacting so many people. But this is a wide ranging storm system that is relentless and won't stop today.

BERMAN: And look at that. That's Green Bay right there again. Some of these pictures are really, really stunning in this system.

Not done yet. Nowhere close. Derek Van Dam, we will definitely be speaking with you again. Thank you very much.

So it is tax deadline day. And if you're thinking about using AI, artificial intelligence, to get your taxes done, you might want to think again, because if you get audited, AI is not the one that's going to pay the penalty.

And streaming her whole life, nearly 24-7 for over four straight years. The real question is why?

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BOLDUAN: Testimony is set to resume today in the case against the owners of Camp Mystic, the all-girls summer camp in Texas, where 27 counselors and campers, you'll remember, were killed last summer during that devastating flooding. The hearing now is tied to a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the parents of Cile Steward. She is the only camper who remains missing still to this day.

Yesterday, the camp director at Eastland, he broke down while on the stand when asked about that 8-year-old.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You failed her, did you not, Mr. Eastland?

EDWARD EASTLAND, CAMP MYSTIC DIRECTOR: I wish we had more information.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All the information was there for your entire family to see and utilize if y'all had just stayed awake and looked.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: CNN's Isabel Rosales is following this for us, and it is really heartbreaking moments, questions, details that are coming out in this courtroom. What are Cile's parents asking for and looking for here?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and incredibly difficult, Kate -- good morning -- for all those families that are listening and watching this three-day evidentiary hearing play out. Now, while that wrongful death lawsuit plays out in court, the Steward family has essentially asked the court here to stop the camp from reopening and to preserve evidence.

Now, last month, the district judge there granted the family an injunction to temporarily shut down the camp's flooded areas. Well, Camp Mystic challenged that injunction. So now what we're watching is this hearing play out where this judge will ultimately decide whether to let her original injunction continue or not.

So yesterday, we actually saw Mary Liz Eastland, the wife of that man, Ed Eastland, that you played at the beginning there, we saw her testify. She is the camp director in charge of nursing staff. She spoke about her actions as those floodwaters rose at the very camp where she spent more than three decades, first as a camper and then ultimately as a staff member herself.

Take a listen.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is difficult to me to hear that it's been 34 years that you've been there, and you did this little to help save these children that were under your care. You knew the property. You knew the flood lines. You knew access points.

[08:25:00]

Your children knew them, and these were first-year campers. You had 34 more years of experience than Cile. She needed your help, and you abandoned her, didn't you?

MARY LIZ EASTLAND, CAMP MYSTIC DIRECTOR: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: And her husband, Ed Eastland, made stunning admissions in court yesterday. He gave the most detailed description yet of how staff members did or did not respond as those waters rose.

He said that staff had no meetings prior to this pending weather danger that the family was asleep when flood warning alerts were sent, and they didn't make the call to evacuate in time until it was too late. He acknowledged that more campers would have survived if staff had acted sooner but said they could not have anticipated the severity of this storm -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Oh, my God, just gut punch after gut punch with these details. And we're showing in the wall right next to you a picture of the Stewart family and Cile right there. Cile has not been found.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Ahead for us, Erika Kirk pulling out of a Turning Point USA event where she was scheduled to appear alongside the vice president. The reason we're told, serious threats against her safety. Got more details coming in this morning.

And some incredible video also coming in. A fisherman caught in the middle of, well, a shark feeding frenzy.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Wait, are those sharks? Oh!

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