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Iran's President Says Country in Full-Scale War; Houthi Rebels Announce Red Sea Blockade of Saudi Shipping; Army Veteran Accuse of Incendiary Attack on NYC Federal Building; Tropical Storm Bertha to Hit Gulf Coast from Florida to Louisiana. Aired 8:00-8:30a ET

Aired July 21, 2026 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: He pulls a power move, John, so the fan in green is baffled. He hands over the ball, dejected, but then next inning, Mookie gave him another chance.

Another homer, almost exact same spot. The fan in green once again comes up empty-handed. A girl beside him can't believe it.

No souvenir, but in the end, plenty of laughs and at least his Phillies won 10-7. What say you, John? Did it belong to the man in green or the man whose hat it was?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The only right answer ever with a ball hit out of the park is to give it to the nearest kid. So, so none of them were right. Everyone's a loser in that scenario, especially the Red Sox for trading Mookie Betts.

Coy Wire, thank you very much for that.

WIRE: You got it.

BERMAN: A brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The breaking news overnight, Iran now calls the current state of the conflict with the U.S. full-scale war, as President Trump warns of revenge for the killing of American troops. With the conflict escalating, the defense secretary is headed to Capitol Hill today to ask Congress for billions and billions of new funding for the war.

Plus, a new effort in Congress to find out if Jeffrey Epstein was actually working as an unregistered foreign agent for multiple countries.

And in today's edition of "You Cannot Park There," a chase ends with a suspect's car on top of a police cruiser.

Sara is out today. I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

So the president of Iran says that his country is, quote, engaged in a full-scale war. And now that war may be spreading to threaten a second critical international shipping channel, which means, yes, more potential major impacts on the global economy.

Also, the Pentagon is now acknowledging that nearly 100 U.S. service members have suffered injuries in the last 14 days, though they say most of those are minor -- were minor. This is despite President Trump's repeated claims that Iran's military has been absolutely destroyed. CNN has learned that the Pentagon has been slow to disclose injuries, citing security concerns.

And a Trump administration official says the remains of four fallen U.S. service members will be returned home tomorrow in a dignified transfer. Two of those fallen soldiers, who were killed in Jordan, have now been identified as First Lieutenant Tyler Feehan and Private Isabella Gonzales.

President Trump has warned -- or now warns Iran that Iran will pay many times over every time it kills an American soldier. We'll see what that means.

Back to that new possible front for this war. Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels have declared their own naval blockade now against Saudi Arabia in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, threatening another blow to oil markets and international shipping across the globe.

CNN's Nic Robertson is live this morning in Jerusalem. What is the latest you're picking up, Nic, where this is, what the options are, where this is headed?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, look, it sounds like escalation. The Houthis about to, they say, stop Saudi shipping. It's important route to the international market for its oil that it pipes all the way across the Arabian Peninsula to its port on the Red Sea.

And then the ships pick it up in the port and then take it out through -- past Yemen, through Bab al-Mandab, which is what the Houthis are citing that they will, their point of cutting off that shipping. They haven't started yet. Their leader is expected to give a big speech on Thursday.

What he says may give us some indication of whether or not the Houthis will follow through on this. Undoubtedly, if they do, you can expect Saudi to respond. So that would be a point of escalation right there.

Israel also says that it's readying in case escalation brings it into the conflict. The head of the IDF here saying they're ready at a moment's notice. Jordan, just a few miles from where we are now, intercepted three missiles just a few hours ago, Iranian missiles there.

The Iranians say that they're attacking U.S. Air Force facilities on the ground inside of Jordan. Kuwait today, again, sirens going off there. The Kuwaiti officials saying for the fourth day that their water and desalination plants have been hit again, degrading their services.

The United States continuing its attacks pretty much along the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf to try to stop the Iranians putting their small attack boats out and hitting the few commercial vessels that are trying to get out of the Strait of Hormuz.

[08:05:00]

And by early morning today, the Iranians had again hit another tanker, setting it on fire. The crew abandoned ship. The Iranians claimed they hit another couple of tankers.

So in this sort of pre-escalation level of the conflict, if you will, the Iranians seem to have been able to come out each of the past few nights and hit a tanker trying to go in or out the Strait of Hormuz.

Their point is, you're hitting us. We're proving our point. We control the Strait of Hormuz. That's the state of play.

It's all about control of the Strait of Hormuz.

BOLDUAN: Nic, thank you so much. I really appreciate it -- John.

BERMAN: All right. With us now, CNN Global Affairs Analyst Karim Sadjadpour. Karim, great to see you today.

And when we're talking about the Straits here, obviously, this is the Strait of Hormuz. We've all been familiar with that, the traffic coming in and out of that region right there. This is where the blockage has been.

Down here is Bab al-Mandab. This is Yemen, right here with the Houthis in control. And this is where we have seen the Saudis successfully moving a fair amount of the traffic that they couldn't move out of the Strait of Hormuz over the last couple of months.

We can see here in this imagery, actually, leaving the Port of Yembo and then a lot of it traveling right out that Strait. So how much of an impact would it have if the Houthis made an effort to go after shipping here to effectively close it?

KARIM SADJADPOUR, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: It would have an enormous impact, John, because as Nic has also talked about, before Saudi Arabia was getting its oil out of the Strait, now it's gone through the Red Sea. And the bulk of that energy is bound for Asia. So that's why this is kind of a convenient route to Asia.

If the Houthis end up blocking that route, we're talking about six, seven, eight percent of global oil traffic being blocked. So it will have a significant impact on prices.

BERMAN: You know, one of the open questions has been, since this began at the end of February, why haven't the Houthis been involved? Why didn't they do this? So why now?

SADJADPOUR: So up until now, the Houthis are the dog who haven't barked. They are Iran's proxies, of course. And for a couple of months now, they've been threatening to close the Strait. There is a perception that the Houthi salaries were being paid by the government of Saudi Arabia, and that's why they haven't yet interceded. But the Iranians have been trying to rile them up. And, you know, what happened was when Iran's supreme leader died, there was Houthi representation at his funeral.

And so there is a perception that link has grown stronger in recent weeks.

BERMAN: It is worth paying attention. I just want to point out here, you're mentioning that the oil leaving the port here in Yembo and then traveling mostly to Asia. You can see it.

You can see this line of ships going right to Asia right there. And that would be an enormous sort of valve to stop for that region.

I want to talk about what the Iranians have been able to do the last several days with attacks, deadly attacks in Jordan and more attacks in Kuwait, in Bahrain, in this after the President, Secretary of Defense consistently say that the Iranian military has been destroyed.

What's left? How are they still able to do this?

SADJADPOUR: So Iran's strategy is twofold. They, as we talked about, they want to block the flow of global energy, spike the price of oil, impact American public opinion. The other way they want to impact American public opinion is by going after U.S. bases and not only the Persian Gulf, as you talked about Bahrain, Kuwait, but also Jordan, where they just killed a couple U.S. service members. And the reality is that even though Iran has been diminished militarily, it still is able to produce thousands of drones and missiles per month. And those missiles and drones are still very impactful and deadly.

BERMAN: Talk to me about this target that is now in discussions by the president openly. He says, we may go after Pickaxe Mountain, which is an Iranian facility. What's the significance?

What do we believe is going on there?

SADJADPOUR: So that is one of Iran's nuclear facilities. There's a perception that that is where some of their highly enriched uranium is. Up until now, unfortunately, none of these military attacks on Iran have really altered their calculations.

And it's a regime which has been diminished, as I said, militarily, but psychologically it has been boosted because it feels like it has prevailed in this war. And although we're more than 30 days past the 60-day window of the Memorandum of Understanding, there are no signs that Iran is preparing to compromise on its nuclear program or over the control over the Strait of Hormuz.

BERMAN: It doesn't seem like the goals the U.S. set out have been met or are about to be by those standards. Karim, great to see you this morning.

SADJADPOUR: Thank you. BERMAN: Thank you very much.

All right, tropical storm Bertha churning in the Gulf, threatening millions of people. And there's another weather system bearing down on the northeast today. We're getting a new forecast just in.

The fiery attack outside the federal building in Manhattan. We're getting new images, just remarkable footage of what this man allegedly tried to do there and new information about what he had with him.

And a police chase ends with the suspect's car on top of a patrol cruiser.

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BOLDUAN: Right now, we're waiting to hear about formal charges against the man officials say through an incendiary device outside a New York City federal building. The whole incident left three people injured. There's also video of it all unfolding, really remarkable level of video of what this man had, what he did, as you can see. And then the moment he was taken into custody.

The FBI says this is a video of 43-year-old Army veteran Andrew Arrabaca pouring gasoline on the ground, igniting it with fireworks and then running away. Authorities say he also had signs expressing anti-ICE views.

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JAMES BARNACLE, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, FBI NEW YORK: He did say he was targeting the building and he was OK if he hurt or killed people going in and out of the building, whether they were federal employees or civilians. He did say he was targeting the building and he was OK if he hurt or killed people going in and out of the building, whether they were federal employees or civilians.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me right now is former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis. It's good to see you. Thanks for being here.

When you see this level of video, you hear what we have now from federal officials. What are the first things you think investigators are going to aim to answer here as they start building this case against this person?

ED DAVIS, FORMER BOSTON POLICE COMMISSIONER: Good morning, Kate. It's a very troubling incident. It's a continuation of a series of attacks on federal buildings.

I think what the authorities are looking at right now is the history of this man. It's extremely troubling that he's ex-military. It's extremely troubling that he put together a package, including gasoline, improvised explosive devices, and a number of weapons to attack the facility there.

There's a great testament to the NYPD camera system that all of these things were caught on video and it allowed the security personnel to respond immediately and in a very heroic action to take this suspect down. But there's a lot to study here.

BOLDUAN: Does this, when you talk about this level of video, right, does this attack expose vulnerabilities at federal buildings or does it show that there are security measures that are in place as they should be and have worked here?

DAVIS: I think both things are true. In this particular incident, it would have been preferable to challenge this man prior to his spilling the stuff out all over the ground and lighting fireworks up. There was also a pretty sizable explosion there.

Luckily, it didn't do any damage to people or the building, but that's not a guarantee. So ideally, these incidents are prevented as opposed to effectively responded to. And so I think the federal government has to look at all of their facilities around the country and tighten things up.

It's a dangerous time and this has played out over and over again. And I don't expect that it's going to stop considering the temperament of the country at this point in time.

BOLDUAN: Yes, and as you were mentioning, this is the kind of the latest in a string of similar-esque type attacks on federal institutions and federal buildings, more incidents like this. Is it getting -- Ed, do you think it's getting harder to identify someone who, you know, who's heading down this path, who may be radicalized? Or again, we need to learn more about exactly, you know, what the allegations and what the man's charged with and what more they say about his views.

But getting harder to identify people in this heightened state of kind of tension and division in the country than it used to?

DAVIS: That's a great question. And I think it is. It's very difficult to identify, especially a lone wolf attacker.

That has been the difficulty that investigators have had for decades. It's one thing if there's a group of people conspiring and you're able to pick them up on and over here or some other informant information. But these guys who might have some mental health problems have training, military training, and are so obsessed with the particular issue that they decide to do something like this are very difficult to stop.

In addition to that, the level of threats has gone out of control, threats to public officials, members of Congress, local officials. It's just a very, very difficult time right now without a lot of role models demanding that it stop where it almost seems like we're feeding the fire here.

BOLDUAN: Ed well said. Thank you so much. It's great to see you, Ed Davis. I really appreciate it.

So this morning, we are tracking tropical storm Bertha on the Gulf Coast. It's getting ready for potential flooding and storm surge. We have the very latest on the forecast. It's just ahead.

And a family finds a very unexpected visitor on their front porch.

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BERMAN: We've got new watches and warnings for Tropical Storm Bertha all along the Gulf Coast there. Heavy rain, coastal flooding, storm surge, tropical storm force winds, all possible. The storm is expected to make landfall tomorrow. Let's get right to CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam for the latest on this. Derek, what are you seeing?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: John, here she is in all her glory. Tropical Storm Bertha. She was birthed yesterday evening, officially became our second named Atlantic Hurricane Storm, and it's just about 100 miles to the South and southwest of Panama City. A lot of beautiful beaches here, but you can see clearly the bulk of the heaviest rainfall with lightning is on the southern edge of this storm.

That's because there's a lot of dry air and wind shear from the north that's helping keep this storm system from becoming a larger, more powerful tropical entity. So here it is. The current watches and warnings basically from Panama City to the edge of the Florida Panhandle.

That's a tropical storm watch, but the warnings include Mississippi, the coastline, and parts of the boot of Louisiana, not including New Orleans. You're under a tropical storm watch. This system is moving generally in a northwesterly direction. Some minor fluctuations in the intensity going forward.

There's a lot of warm water here in the Gulf, but that sheer that I mentioned just a moment ago, that's going to really put a cap on the potential of this system from strengthening too far.

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Nonetheless, this is a vulnerable part of our ocean coastline, and it's already pushing up storm surge here. One to two feet generally locally higher amounts, especially across the coastal areas of Louisiana and into Mississippi. But there are a lot of beautiful beaches here and many people vacationing across this region -- the 38.

Remember rip currents anytime there's a tropical system that's passing this close by that is going to create dangerous rip current conditions across the beaches. Take note of that.

The heaviest of rain will stay offshore, but we will certainly feel the wind impacts may be gusting to tropical storm force winds from Panama City to New Orleans. and Mobile, Alabama.

The other big story we're monitoring the potential for severe weather today across the Mid-Atlantic and the Ohio Valley. Damaging winds, isolated tornadoes, and even some hail. You can see the cold front responsible for triggering these showers and thunderstorms. There's just so much moisture to work with here.

Look at how the thunderstorms. erupt throughout the course of the afternoon. Heads up heading home from work tonight could be a rough go in New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, the nation's capital, and even into tomorrow. Another round of showers and storms.

But this is another threat that you need to keep weather aware. We have the potential for flash flooding with any of these slow moving thunderstorms. John, so many people have basements in New York City. You want to have your ability to get emergency alerts and evacuate from the basements if it rains quickly in this short amount of time -- John.

BERMAN: Yes, some of that radar right over my house. Derek Van Nam, we will be watching very closely. Thank you very much for that.

All right, a new congressional investigation seeking to find out if Jeffrey Epstein was a foreign agent.

And one of the largest airports in the country now privatizing their security screening.

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