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Vance: Iran has Agreed to Let Nuclear Inspectors Back Into Country; White House Claims 5 People Arrested for Allegedly Vandalizing Reflecting Pool; British Prime Minister Keir Starmer Announces Resignation. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired June 22, 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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SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Because we're like, oh, well, there's treatment and you can get a vaccine for it, it's fine. But you can see what a huge problem it can create. And it could make us in a scenario where we're less safe, not just health wise, but our troops getting it in large numbers.

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, you spelled it out for us this morning. Thank you so much for your expertise.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, breaking just moments ago, the vice president announces that Iran has agreed to allow weapons inspectors back in. But what have we learned about the money that Iran could soon have access to?

The great national pool problem. President Trump shirks responsibility for the algae and paint chips in the reflecting pool and blames what he calls vandals. But one guy arrested says he merely touched a piece of detached material before being arrested.

And then a Tesla slams into a home leaving a 76 year old woman dead. The driver tells police he was using the car's autopilot.

I'm John Berman with Sara Sidner and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SIDNER: The breaking news this morning for you. Vice President J.D. Vance is hailing it as a quote, major milestone after the first round of new U.S. Iran talks. Vance says Iran has agreed to allow international nuclear inspectors back into the country.

He spoke just last hour in Switzerland.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNTED STATES: This is probably what we're most excited about as Americans. The Iranians have agreed to invite IAEA inspectors back into their country. That is a major milestone for the American people and the first step in permanently denuclearizing or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Vance also said the two sides had made good progress and laid a foundation for a final deal. And he denied the talks were nearly derailed by President Trump threatening the Iranian delegation. The president had said the U.S. might take over the Strait of Hormuz and charge tolls if a permanent deal was not reached. He also told Fox that he warned Iran quote, "You close the Strait and you won't have a country. You won't even make it back to your F-ing country." Those are the words that he says from the President of the United States on Iran -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us right now is CNN Political and Global Affairs Analyst, Barak Ravid, of Axios and CNN Military Analyst, retired Colonel Cedric Leighton. It's good to have you both. Barak, J.D. Vance saying that Iran has agreed to allow U.N. nuclear inspectors back in. Talk to me about what this means, how much of a win this is.

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, first, this is part of a, let's call it, that's my description, a mini deal between Iran and the U.S. that I think both sides have been working on for several days now ahead of this first round of talks. What is this mini deal? The Iranians will agree to invite the IAEA inspectors back to the country and the U.S. will start taking step to release frozen assets, Iranian frozen assets in Qatar. What happened during this round of talks? The Iranians said, we will invite them. Iran and Qatar signed some kind of document that approves a mechanism for use of those funds, those $6 billion in Qatar.

This money hasn't been released yet and I think it will be released once the Iranians actually allow those inspectors back in the country. So this is the whole, let's say, mini deal that was agreed on during this round of talks. And it's meaningful because IAEA inspectors did not visit the key nuclear facilities in Iran, the facilities that were attacked during the June 2025 war.

They haven't visited there since then, more than a year now. So if they will, it will be a meaningful step.

BOLDUAN: That is, so as everyone's keeping track of Barak's great reporting always, they were working -- the MOU is a framework to get to a deal, a path to get to a path to a deal. And now we're talking about a mini deal which will now continue with technical negotiations to get to. We're continuing to follow this as Barack brings it to us at every step of the way.

Colonel, one aspect that's becoming more and more central, it seems very clearly in the last few days, is Lebanon. And Vice President Vance described in some detail how he says they have now set up a deconfliction mechanism to prevent flare-ups between Hezbollah and Israel, flare-ups and incidents from spiraling and escalating, kind of out of control. How could this or would this work?

[08:05:00] What do you hear in this kind of announcement?

COL CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, Kate, one of the things that you hear is that this is basically going back to what was supposed to have happened in Lebanon multiple times. The U.N. had peacekeeping troops in Lebanon that were designed to basically deconflict between the Israelis and Hezbollah and of course any Lebanese, other Lebanese elements that could possibly have been threatening to Israel.

So in essence, we're going back to that kind of a state of affairs, possibly without direct U.N. involvement. It's not clear yet whether the U.N. will be involved or not, but right now they're not involved. So what I hear is a mechanism whereby the Israelis and the Lebanese will be talking to each other.

OK, that's good. The problem is how much is Hezbollah involved in all of this? And the thing that we have to remember is that neither Israel nor Hezbollah nor the Lebanese are part of these negotiations.

So this is a deal that is made by other people that hopefully will be followed because it does have an impact on the greater Iran deal that the U.S. and Iran are working on. But it is a positive step as far as it goes, but the problem is it does not include the people that are actually going to be either doing the shooting or the deconflicting.

BOLDUAN: And Barak, the vice president was asked if Netanyahu had been kind of looped into all of this. And he said, yes, we've been talking to the Israelis and keeping them in the loop as well as the Qataris, Emiratis. Like he says, everyone is being kept looped in because this is about the region.

This is not a U.S. imposed deal is what he says. But you also have Netanyahu just saying, I think it was just yesterday, that saying that Israel is going to stay in Lebanon for as long as it takes to protect Israelis. And Vance is clearly trying to downplay how serious these last kind of round of strikes and flare-ups have become in terms of threatening this overall deal.

How central are you hearing that Lebanon, this fight between an Iran proxy, Hezbollah and Israel has now become to the fate of the actual U.S. deal with Iran that will stick?

RAVID: No, I think it has become a major hurdle for the deal. This was, in my opinion, one of the biggest mistakes in the negotiations to wrap those two issues together. It was an Iranian demand in order for Iran to have a say in what's going on in another sovereign country that is not Iran, this is Lebanon.

And they wanted to have a say in order to make sure that their proxy, the terrorist organization Hezbollah, will survive. And they got it. And what they got yesterday is even more significant.

At the end of the war in Lebanon in November 2024, the Biden administration negotiated a deal between Israel and the government of Lebanon that set a mechanism. This mechanism was the U.S., Israel, Lebanon, France and the U.N. and it was supposed to do deconfliction. Now, the Trump administration has created a new mechanism, but this time with the U.S., Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan and Qatar.

Israel is not part of this mechanism at all. And so I think that when Benjamin Netanyahu read this statement that came out last night from Switzerland, I think, you know, basically it blew his mind because this is a catastrophe for him and his government.

BOLDUAN: Fascinating, great reporting as always, Barak. Colonel, thank you so much. It's great to see you both.

Thank you -- John.

BERMAN: All right, new repairs that will cost even more money probably. Are taxpayer dollars going down the drain right there as President Trump lashes out over the reflecting pool? He claims vandals are attacking it. Some of those arrested say they were just touching the floating paint.

And then breaking news, political tremors. The British prime minister announces his resignation. Six prime ministers in seven years. What does that mean here in the United States?

And then a car slams into a home and kills a grandmother sitting inside. Now the driver says the car was in self-driving mode.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, this morning President Trump says the reflecting pool might need to be drained again and he's blaming others for what some see just as a misguided botched repair job. There have been several arrests for alleged vandalism including a three-time Olympian. Some of those arrested say they were just touching the paint they saw peeling off from the bottom of the pool.

The U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro spoke about this alleged vandalism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEANINE PIRRO, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: You know, anyone who is in a position of vandalizing or attempting to vandalize the reflecting pool will face the criminal justice system in D.C. Look, the president has made it a priority to make D.C. not only safe but beautiful. And there are several citations that have been handed out to individuals and these are cases that will be prosecuted to the full extent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Prosecuted to the full extent. With us now, CNN senior legal analyst, Elie Honig.

[08:15:00]

If these people, as they say, were touching floating paint pieces in the pool, is that really a crime?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, if that's indeed all that happened, John, then no, there is no federal crime for merely touching federal property. There is, of course, a federal law that prohibits people from destroying or damaging federal property. And by the way, if you want some instances where that's been easy to apply, look, for example, at January 6th.

Dozens of those rioters were charged with destroying property at the Capitol. Or more recently, look at examples of anti-ICE protesters who were charged and convicted for destroying government property if they destroyed government vehicles or damaged government buildings. In this case, it's all going to come down to this in all of these cases.

If these people were leaning into the reflecting pool and ripping up or tearing up that lining, then yes, this law could apply at its lower levels. But if all they were doing was leaning in out of curiosity and touching the lining or touching floating paint, then no, there is no crime to that.

BERMAN: So the line may be between touching and pulling. Let's say they were pulling here, Elie. What kind of a crime are we talking about here specifically?

HONIG: So the dividing line here is $1,000. If a person causes more than $1,000 of damage to federal property, then it's going to be a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. All of these cases, however, including the ones who've been charged, are going to be misdemeanors because it's under $1,000.

Now that's really important because misdemeanors are procedurally different from felonies. First of all, the max penalty on a misdemeanor is just one year in prison. Almost nobody ever goes to prison on a first time misdemeanor.

Also, in a misdemeanor, prosecutors don't actually have to go to a grand jury to indict. They can do it unilaterally under a document called the criminal information. And last and most importantly, depending on what level of misdemeanor it is, a person may or may not be entitled to a jury trial.

So if a person's charged with what we call a class A misdemeanor, which these would be, you can get a jury trial. But if you're charged with the lower level misdemeanors, class B and C, then you're not entitled to a jury trial. You just have to go to a judge.

But the cyclist, for example, is charged with the class A misdemeanor. So he's going to have an option of having his case adjudicated either by a judge or a jury. That's going to be up to him.

BERMAN: And what would you maybe advise him here? Or what would he be thinking in terms of whether a jury trial would be good for him? HONIG: You know, a lot of misdemeanor defendants waive the jury trial and say, I'll just go with the judge. But in this case, if I was advising this guy, I would tell them 100 percent you are taking your jury trial because this is Washington, D.C. Donald Trump, we know, is very unpopular in D.C.

In all three elections that he ran for president, he got under 10 percent of the vote in D.C. Start with that. We've also seen evidence that D.C. grand juries and jury trial juries have been rejecting some of these cases that they see as political.

We've seen D.C. grand juries refuse to indict protesters, anti-ICE protesters. We've seen D.C. grand juries reject the potential case against Senator Mark Kelly and other Democrats. We've seen a D.C. trial jury reject the case, you'll remember this, of the individual who threw the sub sandwich, the Subway sandwich, at an ICE agent, even though he did it on tape.

So if I'm advising this defendant, I'd say take note of that. These D.C. juries and grand juries, they've had enough with what they see as political prosecutions, and I think that would be his best chance.

BERMAN: Elie Honig, thank you so much for the legal side of what is a political and frankly, you know, a reconstruction story more than anything else. Thank you very much -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Exactly.

BERMAN: I just keep looking at the pictures. I mean, you know, vacuuming up the algae there, it's just extraordinary. It really is just crazy.

BOLDUAN: It is. Welcome to today. It's today o'clock.

Also this morning, a major political change is underway. United Kingdom, now looking for its seventh Prime Minister in 10 years after Keir Starmer announces he is stepping down.

And a new study says a massive fault line responsible for several major earthquakes is now at its highest stress level in a thousand years. We'll be back.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Some of the breaking news this morning, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that he is resigning less than two years after he won the job. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Every decision I've taken has been about putting the country I love first. That is why I will resign as leader of the Labour Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: This is more political turmoil for one of America's closest allies. The U.K. will now be preparing for its seventh Prime Minister in a decade. CNN's Clare Sebastian is live outside 10 Downing Street in London.

Weeks and weeks of speculation and mounting pressure even from within his party. What was the last straw? And what are you hearing now after this major announcement?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, weeks, I would even say months, Kate, of speculation around the Prime Minister. His approval rating has been on a precipitous decline ever since he won that landslide victory back in 2024. But the deciding factor I think in this was that we had local and regional elections at the beginning of May, which were decisively terrible for Labour.

They lost some 1,400 council seats. Labour, of course, being the Prime Minister's party. And meanwhile, the right-wing populist Reform Party won almost the same number of seats as Labour lost.

That party, of course, led by Nigel Farage and has been surging in popularity over the last couple of years. So that's what brought him to this point. He'd been trying to hang on.

[08:25:00]

Everyone was waiting to see what happened in a special election last week that was supposed to. It was triggered with the sole reason of bringing Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham back into Parliament. He is the very popular Mayor of Manchester, really seen widely as the man best to replace the Prime Minister.

He won that election decisively against a Reform candidate. Mainly, he is going to be sworn in as a member of Parliament this afternoon. And then we don't exactly know whether there's going to be a leadership contest yet.

Andy Burnham so far is the only person who's said officially he's going to stand. So if anyone else throws their hat in the ring, then we could be looking at a couple of months of a contest starting and then debates and then finally installing someone before September 1st when the parliamentary recess finishes. If no one else throws their hat in the ring, this could be over within a few weeks.

So we're waiting to see what happens there. But as you say, this would bring the seventh occupant of that residence, 10 Downing Street, in just 10 years. 10 years, of course, ushered in by the vote to leave the European Union, the Brexit vote, which happened 10 days ago tomorrow and all the turmoil that that brought with it -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yep, a period of political instability yet again. The turmoil continues. Let's see what happens now in the coming weeks.

It's great to see you, Clare. Thank you so much for bringing us that -- Sara. SIDNER: All right, thank you so much, Kate.

An enormous, deadly tornado taking lives and destroying property. And there were more across the Midwest. Several states now in the path of the same dangerous storm system.

And can you spot an AI deepfake? A new study shows most Americans can't. We'll talk about it ahead.

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