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Five Eyes Reports AI Could Breach Government and Business Defenses in Months; Tulsi Gabbard's COVID Documents Don't Corroborate Her Claims on Dr. Fauci; Texas Ranchers Battle Screwworm; Trump Claims Vandals Cut Reflecting Pool Very Violently. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired June 23, 2026 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: A new and stark warning from the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance, the group which consists of the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They're saying that AI-powered cyber attacks are quickly approaching a tipping point. Their joint statement saying, quote, "The timeline is not years, it is months."

The alliance does not name any specific adversary, but the message here is clear. Governments and business leaders must act now to strengthen their defenses against more sophisticated and potentially more destructive hacks.

We're joined now by Jacob Ward. He's a technology journalist, and he's the host of the Ripp Current podcast. All right, Jacob, first off, what kind of threats and the potential damage that we're talking about here, what could this look like?

JACOB WARD, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, Brianna, I mean, think about the old world we lived in. You remember Stuxnet, which was the U.S.- Israeli efforts to shut down centrifuges in Iran, right? That took $300 million, something like that, and five years to put together.

It took once upon a time the resources of a nation state in order to pull off something like that. What this letter is essentially saying is that now we're in a world in which people with basically no resources and no expertise can suddenly pull off the kind of destructive capability that we saw with something like Stuxnet. We're seeing a world in which technical expertise and money don't really matter anymore.

Once upon a time, a small business was safe from cyber attacks in the same way that they were safe from nuclear weapons, right? No nation state would care enough to try to launch an attack like that. But now, because the barrier to entry is so low, it means, according to this letter, that basically everybody and anybody is suddenly under threat.

And that could be anything from a voice generated by AI impersonating your boss and convincing you to send money to the wrong place, to an actual attack on banking or even government cybersecurity infrastructure. All of this meaning that we're just in a very, very new world. That's clearly what these intelligence agencies are worried about.

KEILAR: OK, so the democratization of the nefarious use of technology, which is kind of horrifying when we think about it that way. So how do people, governments, companies protect themselves against that? What do they really need to do?

WARD: Well, this is the problem, right? We're in a world suddenly where it's not entirely clear how that's going to happen. What we do know is that CISA, the government agency in charge of this stuff, has basically taken what used to be a recommendation that when there was a known vulnerability, you had 14 days to close it.

That was what they were talking about. Now, they're smashing that down to three days, which means suddenly you're in a world in which people have 72 hours to come to grips with this stuff. Now, the big companies of the world, this is probably something they're going to be fine with.

They spend huge amounts of money on that kind of defensive capability, and they'll come up with an adaptation. But it's the small businesses that we don't know how they're going to handle this. And the really ironic thing here is that we've just seen this fable Mythos ban, the creation of Anthropic, this new model that people have discovered can do all sorts of damage to banks and government infrastructure and the rest of it.

[14:35:00]

Well, now suddenly the Trump administration has put a ban together on that for the use by foreign nationals, and essentially Anthropic has pulled that product off the market. Well, these intelligence agencies are essentially saying, you have now removed the best possible defense that we had, this product, from defenders' use, such that only people who want to do bad with it might be able to make use of it.

And so they just say, the irony here of really needing that technology to defend ourselves at a time when it's being denied to us here by the Trump administration is the great irony of it. So it is a real mess right now, Briannia. I mean, it's not at all clear how especially small businesses or even individuals, are going to handle this.

KEILAR: It's really interesting. Open AI's Sam Altman was talking with Laurie Siegel on our podcast a couple months ago, and he said he believes it's important that the U.S. government and the military have access to advanced AI. I mean, for the reasons that you're stating there, right, that they can't carry out their national security mission without it.

And on this question of whether AI companies or governments are more powerful, he says the democratically elected government should be. Is that, you know, realistic? I mean, it should be, but is that realistic?

How can they have that power? And what about that rogue individual?

WARD: I mean, right, if extraterrestrials touched down on the Earth today and we had to explain to them the moment we are in, in which private corporations with no democratic inputs hold the keys to all of our deepest vulnerabilities when it comes to our money and our health care records and everything else, they wouldn't believe it, right? It just feels like an outrageous, lopsided moment we are in when it comes to the power around this stuff. Now, of course, the democratically elected government should, in theory, be protecting people against these sorts of things, but it is private companies and their creations that are creating this issue.

And at the moment, we have very, very little regulation that makes any sense. We have a great deal of talk about regulation, and we have these weird piecemeal moments like the Trump administration banning this one anthropic product. But it is such a patchwork of instincts and impulses rather than a comprehensive federal strategy.

And so we really obviously need to be changing the regulatory landscape if anything like what Sam Altman is talking about there is going to be possible. But for the moment, a handful of people at the top of the biggest companies in the world in this space hold the keys, it turns out to all of our most vulnerable areas of our lives. And so it is a very weird moment to be in right now, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, it certainly is. Jacob Ward, thank you so much, as always, for being with us.

WARD: Appreciate it.

KEILAR: On her last day as the director of national intelligence, she claimed to have proof that Dr. Anthony Fauci funded the research that sparked COVID-19. CNN, taking a look at Tulsi Gabbard's so-called evidence, and we'll share what we found right after this.

[14:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Tulsi Gabbard spent her final days as director of national intelligence going after a known target of President Trump, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Fauci, who you likely recall, served in public health for nearly 40 years, helping lead the U.S. response to the pandemic and then retiring four years ago. Gabbard released this post about him on Friday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TULSI GABBARD, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Today, on my final day as director of national intelligence, I'm releasing never- before-seen communications and documents that expose exactly how Fauci worked with politicized career leadership in the intelligence community to suppress the truth about his actions, the virus's lab leak origins, and his role in directing U.S. funding for this dangerous research that caused immeasurable harm and countless lost lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SANCHEZ: CNN's Daniel Dale dug through the documents. So, Daniel, Gabbard's press release makes a pretty big claim that Fauci funded Wuhan lab research that sparked COVID. It's a reference to gain-of- function research.

But these files, you say, fall far short of proving her allegations.

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Far short, especially on that last big claim. Nothing in these documents comes even close to proving that Dr. Fauci had a role in the origination of the pandemic. In fact, the documents don't contain any definitive answer.

I'm sorry, the documents don't contain any definitive answer whatsoever on the still unresolved question of where COVID came from. So certainly no proof that the virus emerged from this research in Wuhan, China. That was -- sorry, that got money from the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Now, the first document for us in the files is interesting. It's heavily redacted, but it's an analysis from a federally funded lab in May 2020 that argues that the Wuhan lab had all of the necessary conditions in mid to late 2019 for an accidental release of a lab- modified virus.

The analysis put equal weight on the theory that COVID-19 came from a lab modification as it did on a natural outbreak or a lab leak from a natural virus. So that is certainly ammunition, it's valid ammunition for the people out there who felt like officials like Fauci were unduly dismissive of the lab leak theory at the time, maybe now. But even this analysis, which by the way was described in the media five years ago, didn't even try to conclusively prove where COVID came from.

And other documents in this same package released by Gabbard make clear that the intelligence community didn't know for sure. One official said in a September 2020 e-mail that quote, "We do not see compelling evidence that China deliberately manufactured this virus and there is no intelligence community consensus on whether an accidental lab release of a natural strain or a natural outbreak is more likely."

[14:45:00]

And an official argues in a 2023 e-mail that the 2020 analysis doesn't actually substantiate its claim that the Wuhan lab had all of the necessary conditions for a release of a lab-modified virus. So there is certainly debate in these documents about the origins of COVID. It's sometimes interesting, but there's no proof and certainly no Fauci-related smoking gun.

SANCHEZ: But to that point, Gabbard also claimed that Fauci lied to Congress back in 2024. Is there proof of that?

DALE: There is not. The Fauci comment in question, Boris, came at the end of a messy exchange that is much less clear-cut than Gabbard made it out to be. So what is this claim even about? Well, Gabbard's team explained on that website that she was talking about six words that Fauci uttered in this 2024 hearing. They said Fauci was asked in his testimony if he'd ever spoken to any U.S. intel agencies concerning viral research before, during or after the COVID pandemic. They said he dodged the question and then answered not to my knowledge about COVID.

And the newly released documents do show Fauci made at least one brief comment in a meeting with the CIA about an academic paper on COVID research. So is that case closed, smoking gun? No, because if you actually go back and watch the tape or read the transcript of that testimony, you'll see it's much more complicated.

So Fauci had been talking about having discussed bioweapons with intel agencies around the time of the anthrax attacks of 2001 before a Republican congressman interjected and said, sure, but not as related to, say, COVID-19. And Dr. Fauci said, not to my knowledge about COVID. So while the congressman had explicitly asked earlier in this exchange whether Fauci had talked to intel agencies about viral research, this critical comment here, the one where Gabbard is saying that he lied to Congress, could be interpreted as a denial he talked to intel agencies about COVID and bioweapons and there's nothing in these documents that show that that's wrong.

So there's certainly room for disagreement about what Dr. Fauci meant here. Again, this is a messy exchange, but again, that's the point. Just no smoking gun in the papers Gabbard released.

SANCHEZ: Important context to keep in mind. Daniel Dale, thank you so much -- Brianna.

KEILAR: The appearance of the screw worm in the southern border states is an existential crisis for ranchers. The parasite could decimate cattle herds and potentially leave them with no beef to sell and no way to make a living. CNN's Ed Lavandera spoke with ranchers on the front lines of this fight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When David Henderson makes the call, his cow herd listens.

LAVANDERA: So this is how you come and inspect them?

DAVID HENDERSON, TEXAS CATTLE RANCHER: Yes. More than anything, just visually inspecting them.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): He's looking for any signs that his cows have been infected by the dreaded New World screw worm fly.

LAVANDERA: So when you're out here, what are you looking for right now?

HENDERSON: Anywhere I see blood, cuts, wounds, anything like that.

LAVANDERA: This might be the most intimidating interview location I've ever had in my entire life.

HENDERSON: I don't need any cows my daughters can't walk in the field around.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): For almost 30 years, Henderson has raised cattle in this secluded spot in the East Texas woods. It's a tough business, but he's never faced a threat like the screw worm. The New World screw worm was eradicated from the U.S. in the 1960s and 70s and pushed southward. But over the last few years, the fly has been making its way back north from Central America into Mexico and recently discovered again in South Texas. At least a dozen cases have now popped up across the state and New Mexico, and ranchers fear it will spread wider.

LAVANDERA: What the screw worm fly does is it looks for open wounds on cattle and other warm-blooded animals. Then it deposits eggs, and when those eggs hatch, the larvae burrow their way into the tissue of the animal. And that's when the real problems begin.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): The screw worm can cause serious infections or damage to vital organs that can kill the animal. It's treatable, but it can also cause overwhelming costs in quarantines and animal care for ranchers.

HENDERSON: It's a strong concern of mine, a very strong concern. I mean, this is my livelihood.

LAVANDERA: Do you think this could threaten to put some cattle ranchers out of business?

HENDERSON: Yes, it do. If it gets bad enough and it starts affecting a lot of animals, you have death of animals. If you start losing and losing large quantities, it's definitely going to affect the beef industry in a major way.

LAVANDERA: Prices at the grocery store are going to go up.

HENDERSON: They don't have a choice.

LAVANDERA: It's nerve-wracking.

HENDERSON: It is. Yes, it is.

DR. JARED RANLY, VETERINARIAN: This cow belongs to a client.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Jared Ranly is a veterinarian in central Texas.

RANLY: We removed that eye lesion, and we were just monitoring it for a couple days.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): This is the kind of equipment you need to closely inspect a 1,300-pound cow. Since the return of the screwworm, his phone has been ringing off the hook.

RANLY: The last week has been sort of a storm. When the first case hit in Texas, everybody sort of panicked. People were extremely worried.

People were seeing pictures of flies on animals, on dead animals they found. They were texting in those pictures. Right now, we're not taking any chances.

So any larvae we find, we want to send those off to be evaluated to determine if it's a screwworm larvae or a different larvae.

[14:50:00]

LAVANDERA (voice-over): To fight the spread, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Texas officials are releasing millions of sterile flies around infected zones to control fly reproduction. The ranchers we spoke to feel the sterile flies aren't being produced fast enough, and the cattle industry is bracing for a long fight.

RANLY: This is something that I may spend the rest of my life fighting.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Jared Ranly first learned about the screwworm fly in veterinarian school textbooks. Now the past has come back to haunt the ranch.

RANLY: I never thought in my life that we would be battling screwworms again, to be honest with you.

LAVANDERA: There has been a great deal of criticism directed at the Trump administration for the way it's handling its response to the New World screwworm. A group of senators say that staffing cuts and funding cuts have hampered the U.S. Department of Agriculture's response to all of this. The head of that agency denies those claims, says there's plenty of funding, and goes on to blame Mexico for not doing more to prevent it from reaching the United States.

Ed Lavendera, CNN, Dallas, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Our thanks to Ed for that reporting. Well, President Trump did promise to drain the swamp, and while the reflecting pool is green and kind of gross, it's probably not what he meant. We have an update on the saga that is gripping the National Mall next.

[14:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Pool Project, take two. President Trump now says the reflecting pool will be drained around the 4th of July so the newly painted bottom can be repaired, and he's claiming without evidence that someone cut that bottom with a sharp knife or razors, quote, very violently, he said.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is here with more on this. All right, what's he saying about the repairs? SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, it's interesting. What President Trump is focused on right now is really the blame for the repairs. He says the repairs and the draining of the pool is necessary, he says, because of vandals, and that's his word.

Vandals that he said, as you mentioned, came in, and he says, took razor blades or a knife to the bottom of the reflecting pool. Now he says -- and this was just in the last hour in Pennsylvania -- he says the Department of Interior will be releasing some photos and videos of the damage, and he said proof of the allegations will be provided in court. But again, let's take a look at these allegations on True Social earlier today.

He said quote, "Six people have been arrested and seven people have been cited for the damage they did to our country's now beautiful reflecting pool. The 350-foot gash made by a very sharp knife or razors is actually numerous slashes over a very long 350-foot length. It was purposely and criminally done, and somebody had to work very hard, probably in the dark of night."

And of the six people that Trump says were arrested, we know of one for sure. This was a former three-time Olympian. He said he was on a bike ride, and he went down to the reflecting pool to check it out, and he said that he saw some blue material, and he kind of tugged at it a bit.

This is according to him, and it was already detached, he says, from the bottom of the pool. But Brianna, he said he did not intend to vandalize it in the immediate aftermath. Now, to put this in perspective, this is now 19 days since the reflecting pool was filled back with water.

And since it's just turned into a big mix of controversy, you had obviously the algae that first appeared. Then we had workers there vacuuming up the algae from the water. Then we saw the Department of Interior and Park Service adding gallons of hydrogen peroxide.

And now you have this surface that is really peeling up from the bottom. Trump had, of course, previously touted that this was going to be the best restoration, and here's what he said just in the last month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This will last for at least 50 years, and you'll never have a leak. It's very strong. You couldn't, if you had a knife -- I don't want to give anybody ideas -- if you had a knife, you can't even cut it. It's so strong, so powerful. It's like powerful rubber.

It is beautiful, sealed. There's a thing, common sense, right? Swimming pool. I said, well, swimming pool looks so beautiful.

Wouldn't that be nice? So for a tiny fraction of the time, a tiny fraction of the cost, we end up with a much better product.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: And down at the reflecting pool, we have noticed ramped up security there, and also, we witnessed them yesterday reel in these trailers. There are many multiple mobile security cameras that workers told us give us a 360-degree view of the reflecting pool. Certainly this is an area of the D.C. Mall that's highly watched, obviously highly scrutinized as well.

KEILAR: So he was talking about the knife a while ago, this idea of cutting or something. All right, Sunlen, thank you very much -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour. Quarantine officially over for all 18 Americans who were aboard that Hantavirus hit cruise ship. Health officials confirming the final eight passengers were allowed to go home Monday after spending 42 days inside a specialized hospital quarantine unit in Nebraska.

In all, more than 120 people were evacuated from the ship last month. The outbreak resulted in 13 cases of the virus, including three who died.

Also, multiple parks and other outdoor spaces across Germany are closed as officials battle an invasion of poisonous caterpillars. The oak processionary moth caterpillars are covered by microscopic, barbed hairs that can cause painful rashes, pink eye, even breathing difficulties if they come into contact with humans. That can happen even if they're not touched because the toxic hairs can be spread over long distances by wind. Workers are using these vacuum-type devices to suck up the caterpillars and their nests, which also contain those toxic hairs ...

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