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DOJ Targeting Reflecting Pool Visitors?; Trump Administration Tries to Force State Election Changes; Status of Iran Peace Talks?; U.K. Prime Minister Set to Resign. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired June 22, 2026 - 13:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Progress toward peace? J.D. Vance says the U.S. and Iran had -- quote -- "a very good day of talks." We will dig into what the two sides have agreed to so far.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: A falling Starmer. The U.K.'s prime minister says he's resigning. That's number six in seven years. So who could be next through this revolving door?

And slime and punishment. Now the president's threatening a 10-year prison sentence if anyone vandalized the peeling Reflecting Pool on the National Mall.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: At any moment, Vice President J.D. Vance is expected to leave Switzerland after leading the first round of peace talks with Iran.

Just a short time ago, Vance saying -- quote -- "We laid a very good foundation for a successful final deal."

During negotiations, Vance says that Iran agreed to allow nuclear inspectors back into the country, something that he called a major milestone. Vance also denied reports that President Trump's threats over the weekend about the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. taking over it briefly upended talks. Listen.

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J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What we told the Iranians yesterday is, when you guys engage in what us millennials might call trash talk, you can't expect the president of the United States not to respond and not to correct the record.

So when they say things that aren't true, the president is going to respond to it.

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SANCHEZ: Let's go now live to the White House with CNN's Kevin Liptak.

Kevin, what more did the vice president say?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, and the real headline, I think, from these negotiations over the weekend was Vance's announcement that Iran would now let these U.N. inspectors into the country.

Now, he didn't specify what kind of access they would have, which nuclear sites they would be able to observe. Remember, the Iranians had cut off all access for the IAEA after the U.S. bombed those Iranian nuclear sites almost exactly a year ago.

President Trump is also alluding to these inspections on TRUTH Social just in the last few moments, saying that everybody is fully aware that Iran will agree to have major weapons inspections in order to ensure -- quote -- "nuclear honesty long into the future."

We should point out that weapons inspections by the IAEA were included in the Obama era nuclear deal that President Trump ripped up. That deal was essentially inspections in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. We also saw the lifting, at least temporarily, of certain sanctions today, the U.S. following through on paragraph 10 of that memorandum of understanding, waiving certain sanctions for Iranian oil.

That will now go into effect that the memorandum has been signed. Now, the other aspects of this negotiation over the course of this weekend included the Strait of Hormuz, discussing the cease-fire in Lebanon, both issues that were said ostensibly solved by the memorandum of understanding, but still needed some working out between the two sides.

Vance also described this scheme that he says was devised by Jared Kushner about sort of restricting what Iran would be able to use potentially unfrozen assets to purchase. Listen to what he said on that front.

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VANCE: If there is any frozen Iranian assets that are unfrozen, then we have approval over that process, the Qataris have approval over that process, and then the money would actually go to buy American soy, American corn, and American wheat for the benefit of the Iranian people.

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LIPTAK: Now, I think what Vance is trying to do here is to allay some of those concerns that you hear among Iran hawks that this deal would give access inside Iran to more funding, to more money. He's saying that it will only be able to be used for humanitarian purposes.

I don't know that that's necessarily going to ease all of those concerns, because even if you're giving Iran money just for humanitarian reasons, that would, in theory, free up money already inside of Iran for more malign purposes, like funding the proxy groups or funding the missile program.

So, clearly, Vance describing progress being made, but I think it's also evident, just listening to him and listening to how the Iranians are characterizing this, that a lot of these thorny issues, whether it's on the nuclear program, whether it's on the financial relief, still have to be resolved, Boris.

SANCHEZ: And the clock is ticking toward that 60-day deadline.

Kevin Liptak at the White House, thank you so much for that update -- Brianna.

KEILAR: We have new exclusive reporting on how the Trump administration plans to use Homeland Security funding to force states and local governments to make election changes.

CNN spoke to multiple sources and obtained documents showing how the president's threatening to withhold tens of millions of dollars in federal grants from states that ignore his administration's new guidelines. Trump says he's trying to root out alleged voter fraud, despite data that shows it's rare and not the problem he claims it is.

CNN's Gabe Cohen has more on this exclusive reporting.

Gabe, tell us about these new requirements and what happens if states don't comply.

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so they have added this list of election reforms that are now mandated as part of these Homeland Security grants as part of the program.

Let's go through the list right now. So they're telling states that, one, they need to transition away from certain electronic voting systems that use things like Q.R. codes and bar codes and move toward hand-marked paper ballots, something we have heard Trump allies and the administration talk a lot about over the past year or so.

They want states to conduct manual election audits specifically using methods that are going to be established by the administration. They also want states using a government-approved system to verify citizenship for all workers at various polling locations.

And -- and this is potentially going to be most controversial of all -- they are expecting states to run their entire unredacted voter list through the SAVE system at DHS, the citizenship verification tool that's used to try to find, identify noncitizen voters or ineligible voters. But it has been really controversial because it has mistakenly had

false positives or identified eligible voters that way. And so states are not going to want to hand over that data. But what the administration is saying is, if you do not implement this full list, you are going to lose 20 percent of your Homeland Security grant funding.

And what we are talking about here are a couple pretty large programs. They distribute about a billion dollars. At least, that's the plan for this year across the country. It's really the main tool that the federal government has for helping cities and states prepare for terrorist attacks, cybersecurity incidents, major disasters.

And so officials across the country think of this as really critical, really important funding. But the administration now is trying to use that funding as leverage and say, if you want all of that money, if you don't want us to potentially strip away millions of dollars, you need to implement our election security priorities, and here's the list.

KEILAR: Yes, the federal government normally considers that to be really important funding for what it goes for.

So, the president has limited powers to force election rule changes on his own. Could there be legal challenges to this stuff?

COHEN: Yes, almost certainly there are going to be challenges immediately once this goes out to states, because I will just say again that these are not completely finalized yet. They haven't made their way to the states.

But you can expect that states right away are going to sue over this. And we know that the administration has tried to add conditions and language, tried to withhold federal funding over other policy issues in the past, not just elections, but when you're talking about immigration policies, sanctuary policies, DEI. They have tried to withhold federal funding.

It has often been challenged in court. And courts often have blocked those efforts. It's unclear if how they have written this they can try to get around it, but no doubt it will be challenged.

And I do want to note that DHS did respond when we asked for comment on this. They essentially said it's not finalized yet, so they're not really going to comment. But they did say: "Any recipient of federal funding should expect accountability for how taxpayer dollars are spent."

So that shows you a little bit of their mind-set here, that they expect, if states want federal money, that they are going to implement the priorities of the administration.

KEILAR: Gabe Cohen, great reporting. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

COHEN: Thank you. KEILAR: Still to come: from algae to arrests. The president says the Reflecting Pool will have to be drained again. And he claims that it's being attacked by vandals. Why he's now threatening prison time.

Plus: here today, gone tomorrow. The United Kingdom is now looking for its seventh prime minister in 10 years. Ahead, what this means for one of America's closest allies.

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And then, later: firefighters dodging fireworks, as a stand goes up in flames in Oklahoma.

We'll have that and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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SANCHEZ: President Trump is now threatening a 10-year prison sentence for anyone who vandalizes the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall.

Trump has, without evidence, blamed vandals for all the issues plaguing this renovation project. A senior administration official said that five people were arrested for vandalism. Another five were cited.

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One of the suspects, a U.S. Olympian, told CNN that he was simply touching a partially detached piece of material. The peeling blue paint and algae-infested water follow a $14 million publicly funded renovation for America's 250th birthday celebrations next month.

CNN's Tom Foreman has been following all the twists and turns of this story.

So, Tom, give us the specifics on what President Trump is saying happened to the pool.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what he's saying is basically, nothing went wrong here, but people showed up -- it's sort of he and some of his other folks in play here -- that somebody came in, they slashed part of the bottom, and they have been tearing at part of the bottom, and that they poured chemicals into the pool to create this giant bloom of algae there.

And there is no evidence of any of this happening. It's just what he's saying right now, and, yes, saying there should be stiff penalties. And his U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia is echoing it. Listen to what she had to say.

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JEANINE PIRRO, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: There are several citations that have been handed out to individuals, and these are cases that will be prosecuted to the full extent. If there are more serious products that are put it into the Reflecting Pool to create more algae or a bigger problem, then we will consider more serious charges.

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FOREMAN: Algae is completely common here in D.C., as you know, Boris, in the summertime. It's been common in this pool before.

Experts said before this happened it would probably happen again, so the idea that someone's seeding algae in there just is kind of laughable, on top of which they have workers in there. And they have had them there around the clock, walking in, climbing in and out, walking around, rubbing these vacuums across the floor.

To suggest that somebody who walks by and touches something with their finger over here is somehow doing damage, there may be some people, because I saw tourists out there the other day. And I think there were tourists who were trying to tear pieces away as kind of souvenirs. But to suggest somebody who touched it is probably -- and this Olympian actually he says he was trained in material science.

And, in his statement, he said look, I just touched this to sort of figure out what it is, that nothing was changed from the time he showed up until the time he left and did no damage.

SANCHEZ: It's also curious that there are so many cameras around the Reflecting Pool, not just security cameras, but just like for news stations that capture these beauty shots...

FOREMAN: Yes, right.

SANCHEZ: ... that you would see someone doing something nefarious aside from the people that have been there at 24/7. I wonder, what is being done now to mitigate the algae? Is there anything new in that regard?

FOREMAN: The algae continues to be a problem. There's some analysis suggesting it's one type of algae is taking precedence over another type of algae.

The problem is, this is -- it's inelegant to say it, but because the way the water is in here, this is a multimillion-dollar drainage ditch, in effect. The water is not moving. And when it's not moving like that, in this temperature, shallow water, and with a darker bottom, which is what they did -- it gets a little bit warmer.

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FOREMAN: According to some experts, experts warned that could make it even worse, that there's more algae. And the problem, as we were noting last week, they can go through and clean all this algae out, and there is no guarantee whatsoever that it isn't growing again right behind them.

And now they're talking about maybe draining the whole thing to start over. So that'd be $14 million out the window, and who knows how much more to try again and see if that works, all from a president who just tore into his predecessors, saying they didn't know what they were doing, they were fools when they tried to do it.

SANCHEZ: Also, keep in mind, that deadline for the project was supposed to be July 4.

FOREMAN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: We're now weeks closer.

FOREMAN: It's coming on really fast.

SANCHEZ: And it seems like we're further from...

FOREMAN: And everyone's still seeing green.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

Tom Foreman, thank you so much. Always appreciate you.

Still ahead: If at first you don't succeed, try again and again and again and again and again and again. We will look at why the U.K. is about to get its sixth prime minister in seven years.

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KEILAR: There's chaos and there's the political situation in the U.K.

Britons will soon have their sixth prime minister in the past seven years, Keir Starmer resigning the post. And the next leader could be a politician who was mayor of Manchester, England, up until Friday.

CNN's Clare Sebastian is with us now from 10 Downing Street.

Clare, tell us the latest here.

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna, this was a really momentous day here in 10 Downing Street.

In the space of less than two years, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has gone from one of the biggest parliamentary majorities in modern British political history to this tearful speech that we saw today, announcing that he would resign and launching a transition.

Now, this party that campaigned to take office from the Conservative Party after 14 years of that party being in power, it campaigned on stopping the chaos. So I think they really hope that this transition will be orderly.

Take a listen to how the prime minister laid that out:

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KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I will remain in post as prime minister until the contest is complete. And I will do everything I can to ensure an orderly handover of power. I will also give my successor my full and unequivocal support, knowing

that they will inherit a Britain that is far stronger and fairer than the one I inherited two years ago, better prepared for the challenges ahead and better able to ensure the Labor Party secures a second term in office.

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SEBASTIAN: That is the big thing that the Labor Party is driven by here. They want to secure a second term in office. They don't want to squander the giant mandate they were given almost two years ago.

And the man waiting in the wings here who was just sworn in as a member of Parliament this morning -- well, this afternoon here in London, Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester, who just won a special election -- we call it a by-election here -- last week, bringing him back to Parliament, well, he has said he will join a contest, but, as of now, no one else has.

So, if no one else does, this could all be sewn up very quickly by around the middle of July, when parliamentarians here go on their summer recess. So we're looking, as you say, at potentially the sixth prime minister in seven years, the seventh in the space of a decade since the U.K. voted 10 years ago this week to leave the European Union, ushering in this period of political turmoil -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Burnham previously, though, as he served 16 years in Parliament, hasn't been there for nearly a decade. Now he's been sworn in as a new M.P. for less than a day and could soon be prime minister?

SEBASTIAN: Yes.

I mean, look, it's been a meteoric rise for him, a masterful sort of political moment, if you can call it that. He -- as you say, well, he's a known quantity here in Westminster. I think you can hear it -- if we can play the video where he was announced in Parliament today right before being sworn in, you can sort of hear the cheer rising up as his name was mentioned from Labor M.P.s.

They know him here. He's seen as Labor's most popular politician. But as to what he will do if he gets the job prime minister, that is a little less known. He came back into Parliament having run a local campaign to get that seat. He doesn't have much of a foreign policy track record.

And I think we can tell by the TRUTH Social posts from President Trump on Sunday announcing Keir Starmer's resignation before it had even happened that the president is watching this very closely -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly.

Clare, thank you so much live for us from 10 Downing Street. We appreciate it. Vice President J.D. Vance says that negotiators are making headway in

talks with Iran. He's touting a -- quote -- "major milestone" and laying out next steps. So we will break it all down next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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