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Iran War Pulls in More Countries; Todd Blanche Nomination for A.G. in Jeopardy; U.S. Economy Slowed Amid Iran War; Family of Virginia Giuffre Accuses Attorney of Casting Doubt. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired July 30, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: About this a lot, as you might imagine, Kate. Here's how I sort of talk about it.

One is that I think it's probably better than Dr. Google, as a -- as a sort of general start. And it's more personalized if you have your records in there. So, more about Kate, for example, versus just the general population.

Second thing is, you know, this is going to sound a little strange to say, but you can get a second opinion from another A.I. platform as well. So, maybe you go to ChatGPT. You could then ask Claude or somebody else or something else about their opinion on this sort of thing.

So, it's, in some ways, I think better than the alternative. For a lot of people, they can't get in to see their doctor. So, this provides something in between.

One of the challenges I think is going to be, how do you prompt the A.I. platform to really make it understand what you're asking?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Right.

GUPTA: That's probably the biggest challenge for people. And also keep in mind that A.I. platforms, when they error (ph), in some ways they're reflecting your own emotion. Meaning, if you're very worried about something, they're more likely to take you down a worried route rather than a more pacifying route.

BOLDUAN: It's a great -- that's a great point, Sanjay. I'm going to stick with Dr. Sanjay, not Dr. Google.

GUPTA: I do --

BOLDUAN: I think that's my first place to go.

It's great to see you.

GUPTA: Call me anytime.

BOLDUAN: And you know I do, which you can also hang up on me. It's the -- you're the best. Thank you, Sanjay.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

The breaking news overnight, the United States unleashed what CENTCOM called a heavy wave of strikes on Iran, as more countries are getting pulled into this war now.

And breaking moments ago, we just got key new data about the U.S. economy showing it slowed down. Why? What's next?

And wild video of a police chase shows a shoplifting suspect clinging to the side of a car driving down the highway. How this one ended.

John is off today. I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, a war that is once again spreading. Egypt has now come under attack for the first time since the war with Iran began. Brand new video showing smoke from drone strikes hitting vessels at an Egyptian port, sparking fires there. Overnight, the U.S. military delivered on President Trump's threat to retaliate against Iran for targeting U.S. military bases, launching a heavy wave of strikes on Iranian military command centers and missile and drone sites. Iranian state media reporting explosions across the country's south. New video is also in from an island in the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian state media says a missile hit a home there. Several children, they reported, were pulled from the rubble.

CNN's Betsy Klein at the White House for us this morning.

For the first time we're seeing this war expand towards Egypt. What are you learning this morning on the latest here?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, Sara, there are no signs of diplomatic progress here. As you mentioned, this war appears to be widening. Multiple new fronts expanding across the region. And it comes after the U.S. has been intensifying strikes after we saw Iran target Egyptian infrastructure for the first time during this conflict.

All of that together really underscoring how challenging it is going to be to get back to the negotiation table. CENTCOM said in a statement that the U.S. targeted in a heavy wave of strikes, military command centers, missile and drone facilities, maritime capabilities, among other targets. And Iran, meanwhile, says that the Strait of Hormuz is going to remain closed.

President Trump, in recent weeks, has really been escalating his threats of targeting things like critical infrastructure, roads, bridges, the key oil hub of Kharg Island. He has yet to follow through on those threats. But doing so some warn could constitute war crimes.

It also comes after a key meeting. We learned yesterday that the U.S. had teamed up for the first time with Saudi Arabia to launch strikes on Iranian proxies in Iraq. And that came after Saudi Arabia had been very hesitant to get more directly involved in this conflict. Yesterday, we learned that President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance separately met with a key Saudi official, the defense minister, Khalid bin Salman, who was briefly in Washington yesterday.

Now, sources tell our colleague, Jennifer Hansler, that Saudi Arabia's assessment is that Iran is seeking to create leverage by escalation in the region. Saudi Arabia, she reports, still wants to see de- escalation. All of that likely communicated to President Trump as he plots a path forward.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, Betsy Klein, thank you so much.

[09:05:01]

Great reporting from you this morning there from the White House.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Joining us right now to discuss, CNN global affairs analyst Brett McGurk. He's also the author of a new book, "Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages."

It's good to see you, Brett.

Betsy and Sara were just talking kind of a lot that has happened this week, though it also feels like we're still in the same place. In watching all of this, what would you say we've learned this week?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Kate, I think we've learned a few things really over the last month, but this week just reinforces it, that Iran, whoever's in charge in Iran, and I assume it's the Revolutionary Guards and Ahmad Vahidi, who's a new leader of the guards, they do not want to deal with the United States unless it is entirely on their terms.

So, what happened? We had the MOU a month ago. Iran honestly got massive sanctions relief even beyond what was in the Obama era JCPOA. And they didn't like how some things were going. And they attacked two commercial ships. And that kicked off a new round of fighting.

Earlier this week, when I was on with you, Kate, on Monday morning, we were talking about a tactical pause because both sides said, let's stop the strikes, see if diplomacy can move. There was talks going on in Oman. And what did Iran do? They launched a missile at a U.S. facility in Jordan, a missile attack, and now we have these attacks in Egypt. That tells me that the Iranians who are in charge and have the power, they don't want to deal unless it's solely on their terms.

It reminds me, Kate, of a hostage negotiation. I've done hostage negotiations with Iran before. And the dynamic there is basically, they say, we have what you want. We have what is valuable to you. And if you want it back, you have to meet our price. That's what makes a hostage negotiation so pernicious and so difficult. And they are treating the Strait of Hormuz as the hostage. So, basically, they're saying what the price is and they're telling President Trump, you meet it, or this is just going to continue.

And that means we have three very difficult options, Kate. One is, you can concede to Iran's terms and basically concede sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. I don't see the United States doing that. I don't see President Trump doing that. Second, you can just endure a kind of low level every now and then there's tit-for-tat strikes. You try to have backchannel talks. You keep the blockade in place. That's going to increase pressure on Iran, but also pressure on the global economy. Or you can escalate. And I think CENTCOM is presenting options that would have a kind of a new set of targets presumably that would escalate the war, put more pressure on Iran, try to -- try to get them back to the negotiating table with reasonable terms. But Iran has cards there too, as they're showing. They can respond asymmetrically. That's what the Egypt strikes are about. And that's what the strikes against Saudi Arabia, which also happened, are about.

So, that's the backdrop. And there's really no great options here. But that's Iran's judgment. They are treating this as a hostage negotiation. You meet our price or else.

BOLDUAN: Then, you tell me what this then adds into it. President Trump said yesterday that he would be, the way he put it was, quite disappointed with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, if he provided weapons to Iran. And this comes after Reuters reported that Iran is expected to receive a shipment of like 300 or 400 Chinese-made shoulder-fired air defense missile launchers -- I think I got it all in -- within weeks. Like a multi-million dollar, you know, deal, if you will.

MCGURK: Yes.

BOLDUAN: If true, what does this add to this war?

MCGURK: Kate, it's deeply concerning. And it is -- there are glimpses -- I don't want to be an alarmist here, but there are glimpses of kind of world war dimension, global conflict dimension. This started in 2022, when Iran joined in with Russia and Russia's war against Ukraine, providing drones and all sorts of technology to the Russians to prosecute that war. If China is providing these kinetic capabilities, which are anti-air capabilities, to target basically U.S. aircraft, that's a massive escalation. And it would just play into this alliance of countries Russia, Iran and China, which, you know, they have different interests, but they do coordinate with each other to boost pressure on the United States. It's a deep, deep concern. If I was in the White House, this would be a top of my agenda. I'd be talking to the Chinese or whatever channels you can and try to stop this. I think we probably should have tried to maybe do more before the Iranians started supplying all those drones to the Russians. It's very difficult to stop. But you got to try to draw a line and stop it or this can just continue to expand.

This gets into the Ukraine front, the Middle East front, and then watch Taiwan. China, still, even in the past week, is increasing pressure on Taiwan in the ways that it does, below the level of war. But that is also happening. And if you look ahead to 2027, in which we know from U.S. intelligence sources been publicly reported, Xi Jinping has told the People's Liberation Army to be ready to seize Taiwan as early as next year, doesn't mean he'll do it, that makes this an even more dramatic and concerning backdrop, Kate, to where we sit (ph) this morning.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Absolutely.

It's great to see you, Brett. Thank you so much.

Sara.

[09:10:03]

SIDNER: All right, thank you, Kate.

This morning, President Trump's pick to be the next U.S. attorney general, in jeopardy. The Senate Judiciary Committee was set to vote today on advancing acting A.G. Todd Blanche's nomination, but that has now been postponed after a key Republican refused to sign off. That Republican, Texas Senator John Cornyn, who lost his re-election fight after the president backed his primary opponent. Well, he isn't budging at the moment.

At the center of it is the Trump administration's scrapped $1.8 billion anti, as they call it, weaponization fund, which Democrats called a slush fund, that could have given taxpayer money to people claiming they've been wronged by the Justice Department. And those people could have included January 6th defendants. Yes, even those who were violent. Blanche has said it's not moving forward, but Cornyn wants a written guarantee that the fund is really dead.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz watching all of this now.

What are you learning, Katelyn?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John Cornyn, he wants it in writing from Todd Blanche, and it's holding up Blanche's ability to be confirmed as the attorney general. An issue of Blanche's own making, a crisis of his own making even, as he seeks to be the attorney general. He's currently the acting attorney general of the Justice Department.

This is all about a settlement agreement, a contract that Donald Trump and the IRS entered into with Blanche's approval to end some litigation that Trump had about his tax returns being exposed. That issue gave rise to this anti-weaponization fund, $1.8 billion, that the federal government said they would set aside for Trump to be able to award to people that may be his supporters, including January 6th rioters. That was the way in where Cornyn initially was taking issue with. A lot of Republicans were taking issue with. Thom Tillis as well, another Republican key vote on that committee. He also had an issue with that fund.

But Blanche, over and over again, has said, both in public and then under oath during his confirmation hearing, the fund wasn't moving forward. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's totally dead because there still is that contract between Donald Trump and the IRS.

Here's a little bit more of an exchange that our own Manu Raju had with John Cornyn yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): It's just that they refused to commit to writing what he testified to under oath. And it's not a big ask.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Why do you think they're not getting the message from you?

CORNYN: Maybe they think they can roll me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POLANTZ: Now, our reporting is that John Cornyn has sent over to the Justice Department his own counter proposal for how to get this nomination unstuck, how he could get to yes with Blanche around this settlement agreement. But it's not just as simple as Blanche saying, even in writing now, that the anti-weaponization fund is dead. There may be other assurances that Cornyn seeks, including potentially having Donald Trump agree in writing, in court, that he is going to take away his ability to try and enforce this contract in the future. That means when Trump was entering into it with the IRS, it established the weaponization fund, but it also was an agreement that the IRS, the Treasury Department, potentially the U.S. government broadly, would forever be barred from doing any sort of investigation into Trump and his family's taxes. We don't know where Trump stands on this. He's denied being knowledgeable about what Cornyn wants and what the sticking point is here.

But, Sara, this is a big issue. And the only people that can fully rescind the plan to either potentially award January 6th rioters, as well as protect Donald Trump in perpetuity for any financial impropriety, the only people that can do that would be Trump and the U.S. government in agreement.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you so much, Katelyn Polantz.

Joining me now, CNN's senior legal analyst Elie Honig. We're going to talk about a couple of things.

First, of course, to Blanche. When you see what's happening here with Blanche, he -- is there a difference, I guess, between writing it down and having it handed over in written form and testifying under oath that you're not going to do it?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: This is much ado about not quite nothing but very little, right? He's already said this fund is dead. We're not moving forward with it. There is some perhaps theoretically way that someone somewhere down the line could try to revive it, but he's already testified under oath that it's dead. Putting it in writing would maybe be two percent more protection. But isn't it strange that this whole nomination, when Todd Blanche, with his history of mishandling the Epstein files, of being behind overtly political prosecutions, the big hang-up is, he said it into a microphone, now we need it in writing. If they work this out, you know, that will probably get him through. But it's strange to me that that's the sticking point of all the things to deal with, with Todd Blanche.

[09:15:04]

SIDNER: And Todd Blanche, if they do not push forward on this, if somehow they cannot come up with a deal for these two senators, Republican senators, who are saying right now you don't have the -- you don't have the numbers, he could stay in office, right?

HONIG: He can stay in office indefinitely as acting attorney general. The law says there's a 210 day limit on acting, seven months, but you can end run that if you renominate the person. Then, as long as the person's nominated, they can serve as an acting for indefinite. Joe Biden had a labor secretary who was acting for two years.

Now, Blanche, obviously, wants to avoid that, right?

SIDNER: Right.

HONIG: There's less prestige. There's less political heft to being the acting. But, yes, even if the Senate does not put him through, he will, in all likelihood, continue to serve in that role.

SIDNER: OK. Now to the other story that really, I think, legal story that caught people's attention.

You have the situation where you're now seeing how the Trump administration and the DOJ, Trump sort of pushing them, to try to find enough evidence against James Comey for his social media post that showed a picture of seashells on the seashore that spelled out 8647. They -- we're seeing the march on how they're trying to prove that 86 actually meant kill.

HONIG: Right. The first thing that I think is notable about the reporting is that Donald Trump was directly involved in this, getting real time updates, getting FBI interview notes on the spot. So, so much for Blanche's claim that we're completely separate from the president.

SIDNER: Right.

HONIG: The new papers that have come out now, and these are government's papers, these are from the prosecution, show how desperately prosecutors are trying to make 86 mean murder and only murder, and they're failing. First thing they did is they ran that term through the FBI's sentinel database, which is essentially everything the FBI has. Came up empty. Then they pulled files from an old mob case that Jim Comey had tried 30 some years ago, came up empty again. And finally, they stumble on Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, a guy who has been off the streets since 1990, so anything he knows is 36 years old, a guy who got a huge break for committing 19 murders and then got out early and then became a drug trafficker and got sent back to prison. A guy who I once talked to on the phone, we were thinking about calling him as a trial witness for about three minutes and I said, absolutely not. This guy has zero credibility. That's their star witness now. And if your basis for your case against Jim Comey is Sammy Gravano from 1990 thinks it could mean that, you're going to lose, I promise you.

SIDNER: It is fascinating to look at just how much energy and time was used to try to find this one thing that 86 means kill when, if you look -- just go look it up. The definition is sort of like 86 means throw away.

HONIG: In common parlance.

SIDNER: Yes, common parlance (ph).

HONIG: It has to be unambiguous, by the way.

SIDNER: Right.

HONIG: If it can be used either way, that's not -- just real quick, an example.

SIDNER: Yes.

HONIG: There was a Supreme Court case from 1969 where a guy was protesting Vietnam, and he said, if they put a rifle in my hands, the first person I want in my sights is LBJ, the president. The Supreme Court said, that is not a criminal threat. If that's not a criminal threat, how are seashells of 8647 possibly a criminal threat?

SIDNER: A very good comparison, as we expect from you.

HONIG: Thanks, Sara.

SIDNER: Elie Honig, thank you. Appreciate it.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Moments from now there's going to be a key vote on President Trump's new pick to lead the CDC. What to expect with this one. We're keeping a very close watch on that.

And what we're learning from new video that's been released of the arrest of the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback, Tony Romo.

And a hiker impaled himself with one of his own trekking poles and still managed to climb six hours back down a mountain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was pretty convinced at that point that I was -- I was going to get off that mountain, and I was going to do it under my own power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:22:45]

BOLDUAN: Breaking news coming in. New data just released this morning shows the U.S. economy lost steam heading into the summer as the Iran War, of course, continues to rock energy markets.

CNN's Matt Egan, he's got all the information for us, all the data and working through it.

Matt, what does this new data tell you?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Kate, it tells us that the economy slowed down during the spring. U.S. GDP coming in at 1.5 percent. That was softer than expected, right? The forecast was for 2.1 percent. And this is a slowdown from the first quarter, when growth was at 2.1 percent. So, this is soft. It's not terrible. But it's certainly not blockbuster growth by any stretch.

So, why did this happen? Well, a lot of this was driven by trade. Imports skyrocketed. Anytime imports are going up faster than exports, that just mechanically subtracts from GDP. Notably, one of the factors here does appear to be the fact that a lot of companies that are importing a lot of A.I.-related chips and equipment, and that has driven up imports.

However, when you really dig in here, some of the underlying drivers of the economy, namely business spending and consumer spending, they really did hold up here. The fact that consumer spending actually accelerated during the second quarter, that is a good sign, especially given the fact that this happened during an energy shock driven by the war with Iran. So, yes, growth slowed down, but I don't think this is going to alarm too many investors or economists because a lot of it was trade related.

Now, we also just got some new numbers out on inflation for the month of June. This is PCE. It's the Fed's preferred inflation metric. Now it showed that, on a monthly basis, between May and June, prices actually fell by 0.1 percent. That's the first time we've seen that since Covid back in 2020. On an annual basis, it did come down as well to 3.7 percent. That was in line with expectations.

However, let's remember, the goal here from the Fed is for two percent inflation. And even during a month when energy prices were coming down, inflation was still well above that target, almost twice as high.

And the other thing to remember is, this is June. And we know that since then the ceasefire has collapsed. We've seen energy prices surge and race back to life.

[09:25:01]

Gas prices have come back up. So, any sort of progress that we learned about for the month of June, unfortunately, likely to be short lived because, as you can see on your screen, energy prices are back up above $80 a barrel.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: And we're waiting -- minutes away from opening bell on Wall Street. The Dow yesterday finished out with its worst day of the year. What's then expected today?

EGAN: Yes, well, U.S. stock futures, they are signaling a rebound. A modest rebound this morning. Dow, S&P, Nasdaq, as you can see, they're all solidly in the green. But as you note, this comes after a pretty steep selloff yesterday. The Dow falling more than 1,100 points on a percentage basis, the worst day since April of 2025, back during the -- during the tariff turmoil when the president was rolling out his liberation day tariffs.

So, what's happening today is I do think that those oil prices, the fact that they've come down and they've stabilized after a spike yesterday, that is helping to calm some of the nerves on Wall Street. But the other big focus here, of course, is the Federal Reserve.

So, yesterday, the Fed kept interest rates steady for the fifth meeting in a row. That was not surprising. However, we did learn that this is an increasingly divided Fed. There was not one, not two, but there were three Fed officials who dissented. And all of them, they voted in favor of an interest rate hike. So, that suggests that Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, he is under some growing pressure to take some action here.

Now, during the press conference, Warsh, he did talk tough on inflation. He said the Fed is committed to getting it back to that two percent target and that, yes, two percent is the target.

However, I think the problem here is that Warsh, he was pretty cryptic when reporters tried to pin him down about what his exact strategy is, and that is unsettling some investors here.

So, look, we are expecting rebound, but a relatively soft one here.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Matt Egan, thank you.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you so much, Kate.

This morning, the family of one of Jeffrey Epstein's most prominent victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre's family, is slamming a former Obama White House lawyer with ties to Epstein. Giuffre's family furious after former White House Lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler said that some of Giuffre's claims about Epstein, quote, "lacked inherent credibility." Ruemmler evidently said that during her closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee. Giuffre's brother and sister-in-law say Ruemmler is trying to downplay her own ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

CNN's Annie Grayer joining us live this morning.

I mean, so many people caught in this Jeffrey Epstein debacle. What are you learning this morning about this particular part of it?

ANNIE GRAYER, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Sara, there is a new drama unfolding with the House Oversight Committee's investigation after they received this testimony from a top lawyer with ties to Epstein, Kathryn Ruemmler, who said that she didn't know if Virginia Giuffre was even a victim of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

So, I'm going to first read for you a portion of her testimony that she gave to the House Oversight Committee behind closed doors earlier this month. She said, quote, "if she says that she was referring," to Virginia Giuffre, "I don't have a reason to doubt that. However, there were allegations that she made that were, I believe, based on my experience as a former prosecutor and as a defense counsel, that were of such a nature that they were -- they lacked inherent credibility."

Now, Giuffre's family came out quickly condemning this testimony from Kathy Ruemmler, completely criticizing her testimony here. I'm going to read for you their statement in response to Kathy Ruemmler's testimony where they said, quote, "the only person who lacks credibility is Kathy Ruemmler, who is trying to get people to believe she didn't know Jeffrey Epstein was actively engaged in sex trafficking. To attempt to cast doubt on Virginia, whose bravery was the reason so many other survivors stepped forward, resulting in more than 50 people having to step down from their positions of power, is reprehensible. She should be ashamed of herself," end quote.

Now, Ruemmler's team has said that her testimony wasn't trying to paint Giuffre's allegations in broad strokes. That she was -- she was not broadly dismissing Giuffre's allegations. She was expressing skepticism on specific points. And her spokesperson said, "As Ms. Ruemmler told the committee, she had no knowledge of Epstein's ongoing criminal activity and there is not a shred of evidence to suggest otherwise. Ms. Ruemmler would never turn a blind eye to any criminal activity and if she had seen or heard anything to suggest that Epstein was harming women or girls, she would have taken action to stop it."

So, now all of this, Sara, is in front of the House Oversight Committee, who is going to have to reconcile with these different perspectives as they're trying to wrap up their investigation. After Ruemmler's testimony, there aren't many others that they want to hear from. They still want to hear from Alan Dershowitz. They want to hear from Leon Black. There is a question of whether they're going to hear from Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who, of course, whose nomination for attorney general is now in limbo a little bit.

[09:30:08]

So, this committee is trying to