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Trump Meets With Netanyahu for First Time Since Iran War Began; Service Honoring Sen. Graham Begins at National Cathedral; CNN Analysis Finds Some Veterans Wait Months to See Therapist for First Time; Fauci Faces Senate Panel After the Release of His Diary Notes; New Heat Wave Could Intensify Wildfires in Spain and France. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired July 28, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": -- happened at this meeting and what Netanyahu was hoping to accomplish with this visit?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, about an hour-and-a-half long, positive and productive is how it's being described. But unlike so many of the meetings President Trump often has with visiting leaders In the Oval Office, this one didn't have the camera crews invited in, didn't have journalists throwing questions at both the leaders.

It was the same with President Zelenskyy, who was in the White House a little bit earlier as well. And actually, the same as when Prime Minister Netanyahu visited in the White House with President Trump before the war began back in February. So whatever was being said was behind closed doors.

But we know Prime Minister Netanyahu went in there with Iran, his top priority. We know that he wanted to provide intelligence about what the Israelis believe the Iranians are hiding under Pickaxe Mountain, nuclear riches, highly-enriched uranium, possibly centrifuges, all those sorts of things. That was what he was going to put to President Trump.

But we heard President Trump speaking on TV about this shortly before Prime Minister Netanyahu walked into the Oval Office saying he, the president, already knew what was on the Pickaxe Mountain. He didn't need Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu coming and telling him. And why did the Israeli prime minister say this publicly when he could have just said it privately?

The president mused that this was because Prime Minister Netanyahu wants President Trump and the U.S. military to stay engaged. That was his words on Iran. So you kind of get the sense that a bit frosty from the president towards the Israeli prime minister, but all smiles on camera.

SANCHEZ: We'll see what more we hear from President Trump and we'll see what interactions they might have at the late Senator's funeral, again, coming up momentarily. Nic Robertson, live in Jerusalem for us. Thank you so much. Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Let's discuss these developments and more with Dan Shapiro. He's former U.S. Ambassador to Israel. He's also a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council.

I'm so curious to know what your read is on President Trump this morning. He was on Fox and he's talking about Netanyahu and in particular these reports of Netanyahu's plans to share intelligence about Iran's rebuilding of its nuclear program. And he seemed to be really frustrated that Bibi was putting this out there in public. How would you describe how he's seeing Netanyahu right now?

DAN SHAPIRO, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL: I think the president is quite conflicted about what he's hearing from Netanyahu, in part because he has his own set of incompatible goals. On the one hand, he wants to find an off-ramp, an end to this war, bring down oil prices, settle gas prices, get things under control before the midterm elections. On the other hand, Netanyahu is certainly pushing for a return to full military operations against these Iranian nuclear targets.

Trump himself has spoken about that as an option he's considering. So you can tell he's sort of conflicted by these two incompatible goals, but he's certainly feeling that pressure from Netanyahu to do the one, which is not in his own political interest, as we're now under 100 days to the midterms.

KEILAR: There are so many instances where Israel and the U.S., or really it's Trump and Netanyahu are not on the same page, right? You've got Israel's defense minister saying this morning that the U.S. has been preventing Israel from striking Iranian energy infrastructure because of economic and energy concerns.

You have this divergence over issues like Trump's potential plans to sell advanced stealth F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, the U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear agreement. How are you seeing all of that collectively?

SHAPIRO: Add to that the Gaza Peace Plan, the 20-point plan, which is not really advancing in any way, and a still rather stuck process to work toward Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. It's kind of ironic.

Today, President Trump met with two leaders, Zelenskyy who he's had some tensions with in the past, but at the moment seems to be feeling very positively toward as Ukraine has the upper hand in a lot of their combat against Russia. And Netanyahu, who he's been so close with, but today, and you just listed them, brings almost nothing but headaches, whether it's on Iran and whether to go back into fighting, whether it's on the Turkish F-35 deal or the Saudi nuclear deal or Gaza or Lebanon. It's one headache after another.

And so I think there's a lot of under-the-surface tension between Trump and Netanyahu, even if they try to keep the smiles before the cameras. KEILAR: And Trump has historically been very supportive of Netanyahu, but he's also aware that Americans are less supportive of Israel right now. It's pretty staggering, actually. This Gallup poll from this year showing 46 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Israel in 2026, and that's down from 75 percent in 2021, a 29 percent drop.

Can you talk a little bit about the things that have contributed to that? Obviously, we know what some of them are, but how that also is factoring into President Trump's calculus here, and also about whether he's going to support Netanyahu in his upcoming election.

SHAPIRO: There's no question the polls you cited and many others demonstrate that Israel's standing in the United States has declined precipitously, really in both parties in different ways. Some of it's about Gaza and the civilian casualties there. Some of it's about the Iran war. Some of it's about kind of an America first idea of we shouldn't be funding another country's military any longer.

[13:35:00]

But it's almost impossible to imagine that decline being reversed or even arrested without a change of leadership in Israel. Netanyahu is so associated with all the controversies, whether it's the speech against President Obama's nuclear deal in 2015, or whether it's the Gaza War, whether it's this Iran War, he's so associated with all of those that it's hard to imagine the American people giving Israel a fresh look until there's new leadership. And President Trump has to take that into account.

Netanyahu is certainly going to seek Trump's ultimate endorsement and approval before his own election on October 27th this year. And without that, he's going to really struggle to win. And Trump might find he does better in terms of getting results and getting a better hearing for the American people with a different Israeli leader.

KEILAR: It would be so interesting if he makes that calculation and so out of step with what he's done in the past. But as we see, the numbers are changing here. We should also note the reason Netanyahu is here is for the funeral of the late Senator Lindsey Graham. He's going to be there in the National Cathedral there to pay his respects.

And we actually saw some new footage from an unreleased documentary from Alex Holder. I want to play part of it. This is part of the conversation that the two had on March 4th of this year, just after the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Hey, (inaudible). How are you?

LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R) LATE U.S. SENATOR: Couldn't -- just so impressed. Glad to be your friend.

NETANYAHU: I'm glad you are my friend.

(LAUGH)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Ambassador, he is not going to have that figure in Lindsey Graham, that very important support on the Hill. Is that going to make a significant difference? How do you see it?

SHAPIRO: Well, Senator Graham really was of the camp and in a unique way for his personality and his involvement of those Republican Senators who were going to back Netanyahu and back Israel almost to the hilt in every situation.

In this case, he was not only backing the war that had just started in Iran in March, but even in (inaudible) to Netanyahu, he was going to encourage President Trump to get involved in attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon, something even Netanyahu wasn't for. You take away an important figure like that, an important voice like that, somebody who really had the trust of the Netanyahu and Trump, and it's hard to find a similar figure in the Republican foreign policy firmament these days.

And we know that there's other voices. Certainly, Vice President Vance has been outwardly and inwardly a skeptic about support for Israel, about this war in Iran. So President Trump's going to be hearing those voices from his own base, his own administration as well. And the lack of Senator Graham's voice on the other side might be felt in these decisions that are coming up.

KEILAR: Yeah, Vance reflects an important part of the Republican base, so did Lindsey Graham. So it will be interesting without that in his ear to see how he negotiates this.

Ambassador Shapiro, thanks for being with us. Appreciate it.

SHAPIRO: Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: Boris?

SANCHEZ: So we are getting our first live look inside the National Cathedral. We're minutes from now. Funeral services are expected to begin for Senator Lindsey Graham. These are live images where you see the arrival of various notable figures, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu there speaking with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. In front of them, you have the back of the head of Senator Tim Scott, fellow South Carolina Senator of the late Senator Graham.

We've also seen a number of their Republican and Democratic colleagues from the Senate, including John Barrasso, Mark Warner, Chris Coons, Joni Ernst, Chuck Grassley as well. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is also there, as we see HHS Secretary RFK Jr. Both those foreign leaders, Zelenskyy and Netanyahu, met earlier this morning with President Trump at the White House.

Of course, the president is also attending the funeral. We are expecting him to deliver a tribute to Graham in the next hour. We will bring you the president's arrival to the National Cathedral as we await the funeral of the late Senator Lindsey Graham. We'll bring it to you live right here on CNN. Don't go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:43:58]

KEILAR: A new analysis on data compiled by CNN shows that some veterans are waiting months to see a therapist for the first time. A significant amount of time, especially as many suffer from anxiety, depression, and other conditions once they end their military service. CNN's Brian Todd is joining us now with his reporting on this. And Brian, you've done a lot of reporting on veterans.

I've spoken to a lot of veterans who use mental health services. And I think what we both know, and anyone who's covered this space knows, by the time they're asking for help, they don't then need to be waiting for months to get that help. What are you learning?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right. And they've, you know, it takes a lot for them to ask for that help. So they don't really need to be waiting months. As you mentioned, Brianna, this is new reporting from myself and our colleagues, Tami Luhby and Alex Leeds Matthews.

We looked at what veterans really go through when they try to get seen for mental health appointments at the VA, since dealing with mental health is, as Brianna and I've discussed, so crucial for so many veterans. The issue here is it's confusing for veterans to figure out whether the VA is consistently providing timely appointments when a veteran wants to schedule a mental health appointment at the VA for the first time.

[13:45:00]

The VA and its Secretary, Doug Collins, say it only takes 15 days on average for a veteran to see a provider for a first-time mental health appointment. That falls under the VA's own target of 20 days to get an initial appointment.

But when a veteran actually goes to look for an appointment by going to a VA website that you see there, it's called 'Access to Care,' well, they get a different picture. We crunched the numbers on the Access to Care website for most of the month of July. We found that based on what Access to Care says, veterans across the country frequently have to wait weeks or even months for initial mental health appointments.

Our analysis showed that wait times at 541 VA facilities exceeded the VA's target of 20 days for first-time mental health appointments. Those 541 facilities make up two-thirds of those that reported numbers. At a handful of VA facilities, waits stretch nearly five or more months. Another 22 facilities reported wait times of at least three months. That's way more than the 15 days the VA is touting.

The VA's contention, it says analyzing the numbers for wait times on its own website, Access to Care, is inaccurate for several reasons, including that a few patients with long wait times skew the numbers and that the Access to Care website does not reflect certain situations like when mental health appointments are sometimes moved earlier, meaning they ultimately are not waiting as long as the site says.

The VA also stresses that new patients only make up roughly 10 percent of all mental health appointments and that wait times for established patients are generally shorter. So the VA contends its own website listing wait times for veterans is not really a good measure of reality. We did speak to some veterans who were frustrated with the confusion over all of this.

One veteran who only wanted to give his first name, Dennis, says his anxiety grew when it took him a few months to schedule an appointment with a psychologist at his local VA facility. Dennis said, quote, "By the appointment being delayed, I couldn't be helped sooner. My mental state probably declined a little bit more."

There is an important caveat to all this. Under the VA's policy, a veteran having an emergency mental health crisis can be seen the same day that he or she reports it, at an agency facility, an emergency room, or with a private sector provider. So any vet in a real crisis should still seek help.

We can't emphasize this enough, Brianna. If you're in a crisis, still seek help. You can maybe bypass some of the website information there, call your local VA facility, get that help today if you're in a crisis.

KEILAR: That's very important. Now, of course, the wait times for established patients are going to be shorter.

TODD: Yes.

KEILAR: You would think they have, at least many of them, regular appointments scheduled --

TODD: Yes.

KEILAR: -- if they are getting return care. And all of this is coming, Brian, as you have found, at a time when more veterans are seeking mental health care?

TODD: The number has exploded in recent years, Brianna. According to a VA report from last fall, the number of veterans who received mental health care from the VA jumped 78 percent between 2009 and 2024.

It is expected to, again, go way up between now and 2033. It is exponentially growing, and more and more vets need that care. And again, they just don't need to be confronted with the confusion over the wait times.

KEILAR: It's really important reporting, especially at a time where America is at war. Brian Todd, thank you so much for that.

TODD: Thank you.

KEILAR: Boris?

SANCHEZ: A showdown is set for tomorrow. Dr. Anthony Fauci is scheduled to testify before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, appearing under subpoena, not voluntarily. His appearance will mark the latest face-off with Committee Chairman, Senator Rand Paul, who has long blamed Fauci for the COVID pandemic and shortcomings in the U.S. response.

Now, ahead of the hearing, the committee released more than 1,100 pages from Fauci's personal diary, dating from 2019 to 2022, the diary expected to be a focal point of the hearing.

Let's get to CNN's Meg Tirrell, who has the details. Meg, what are we learning from these entries and how could that impact the testimony we're expecting?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Boris. Well, we learned just from last night, from Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in an appearance on Fox News, that he and his team had actually handed over these diary entries to Senator Paul, as well as Senator Ron Johnson, after what he said was an eight-month search on servers. So that is how these diary entries have gone over to Senator Paul and now have been released.

And as you noted, they start at the end of 2019 as cases of this sort of mysterious disease coming out of China were mounting, and they go through 2022. And so Dr. Fauci, in these diary entries, is really documenting the growing pandemic, the scientific questions that he was grappling with, as well as working with both administrations, the first Trump administration and the Biden administration.

A lot of attention has been paid to how he notes which media appearances he did, which celebrities he heard from. And of course, he notes that he became one of the most famous recognizable people in the country, which I think most people would agree is true. That did happen.

[13:50:00]

At the same time, of course, we know that Senator Rand Paul and he have clashed for years. And some of the scientific things he talks about in these diary entries include the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. And that is expected to be a big focus of Senator Paul tomorrow in this hearing. You noted also that he'd been subpoenaed to appear. So this is not voluntary.

We obtained a letter from Fauci's lawyers to Senator Paul about a previous request to appear. And he says, quote, "Your request that Dr. Fauci appear before the committee arises within a context that cannot be ignored. The context of repeated public and absolutely baseless pronouncements by you, a sitting U.S. Senator, that Dr. Fauci should be prosecuted and jailed."

And we also heard from Secretary Kennedy last night in this interview on Fox about a question Laura Ingraham had said about accountability for things during the pandemic. RFK Jr. used the word 'justice.' Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: He's going to testify in front of Rand Paul's committee this week. He has immunity against all of the things that he did prior to President Biden signing over the electronic pen, signing his pardon, but he could perjure himself now. There are many things that he said that we know are lies. And Rand Paul presumably is going to ask him about those things. And if he lies again, then he could be subject to perjury prosecution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TIRRELL: So that is the context going into this hearing tomorrow, talking about that Biden preemptive pardon that Fauci received. And now they are talking about what he's going to say tomorrow, conflicting with what he wrote privately. So Dr. Fauci, we should note, has a lot of support from the scientific community. This is going to be another contentious hearing tomorrow, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, no doubt. Meg Tirrell, thank you so much for staying on top of that for us. And we are watching the Washington National Cathedral where the hearse carrying the late Senator Lindsey Graham's casket arrived just moments ago.

The service set to start minutes from now. President Trump also attending the service, delivering one of the tributes to Graham. We will bring you the president's remarks live. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:57:17]

KEILAR: Firefighters in Spain and France are still racing to contain raging wildfires as the region prepares for yet another scorching heat wave. Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated in France. Authorities say most of the country is suffering from poor air quality and they're asking people to stay indoors as these flames rage on.

Some good news in Spain, that is that officials say fires west of Madrid are improving little by little, but large areas do continue to burn. CNN's Pou Mosquera mascara joins us now from Spain. Pou, how tell us a little bit about the conditions where you are?

POU MOSQUERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now, we are like around 34-degrees Celsius, which is 94-degrees Fahrenheit. But let me tell you, Brianna, that weather conditions are going to be worse from tomorrow and on because the fourth heat wave of the summer is going to impact the Iberian Peninsula, which means that temperatures are going to climb again. And this is going to be dangerous.

It's going to pose a threat as to try to extinguish the wildfires that are still active here in the country. Actually, what you're seeing here around me is the aftermath of the largest wildfire ever recorded in the country. This is the Burgohondo wildfire and it started last week in the southern part of Avila Province and so far, it has engulfed around 50,000 hectares of land actually. This is the aftermath. This is what happened after the flames engulfed and devastate all this area.

You can see the ground. I mean, it's completely black, charred and there are no signs of plant life around. And also, if you have a look on the horizon, on the edge, you're going to see like a layer of haze. But in reality, this is the smoke that has been gathering from the different wildfires around the day, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. Pou Mosquera, thank you so much for the latest from Spain.

A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

SANCHEZ: Just moments ago at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., we saw the arrival of President Donald Trump getting to the funeral services for the late Senator Lindsey Graham, which is now set to start at any moment. The late Senator's family, his colleagues from Capitol Hill and world leaders are gathering to pay their respects to a man who spent three decades on Capitol Hill.

Graham's influence notably going far beyond America's shores as he built close relationships abroad aimed at advancing America's interests.

KEILAR: In fact, he had just returned from a trip to Ukraine when --