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First Deaths Reported In Cyclosporiasis Outbreak; Officials: Both Cyclosporiasis Victims Had Underlying Health Conditions; Two Key GOP Senators Say They Will Now Back Blanche's AG Nomination; Trump Gives Iran A "Last Chance" To Sign Agreement With U.S.; Oil Prices Sink After Trump Says Peace Talks With Iran To Restart; Trump: Pirro "Choked" In Reflecting Pool Vandalism Case; New Testimony In Trial Of Mother Accused Of Killing Her Three Kids. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 03, 2026 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:00:37]

BRIAN ABEL, CNN HOST: The Senate is back in session, just as two key Republican holdouts say they will now back Todd Blanche for attorney general. This after the acting AG rescinded President Trump's anti- weaponization fund.

And Spokane, Washington, facing the biggest natural disaster in the city's history, a catastrophic fire that has forced some 65,000 families to flee their homes. Now, local officials are trying to verify the safety of more than a dozen people.

And a new update on the cyclosporiasis outbreak. Health officials now confirming two deaths in the outbreak in Michigan.

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We do begin with breaking news into CNN. Health officials say two people have died in Michigan in connection with the outbreak of cyclosporiasis. They were the -- they are the first known deaths related to this multi-state outbreak of a parasite that causes many symptoms, including explosive diarrhea in the U.S. CNN's Jacqueline Howard is with us now.

Jacqueline, tell us what you're learning.

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Brianna, health officials in Michigan say those two people who sadly died, they did have significant underlying health conditions that may have been impacted by cyclosporiasis and dehydration.

And what we know with cyclosporiasis, Brianna, like you said, one of the main symptoms include having explosive diarrhea. And that can lead to severe dehydration in some cases. But cyclosporiasis, it is not usually life threatening, especially in people who are otherwise healthy. So, it's not very common to -- to see deaths like this. But sadly, like you said, Brianna, these two people who died in

Michigan are the first known deaths in this ongoing outbreak. And Michigan really has been hit hardest in this outbreak. In the state of Michigan, more than 11,000 people have gotten sick with this illness. Among them, about 193 people have been hospitalized.

And when you look at those numbers, that means one in every 1,000 people in the state of Michigan have been affected by cyclosporiasis. So, that's how impacted that state is. And this is, you know, really in connection to the multi-state outbreak that's concentrated in the Midwest. But we also know, Brianna, several states outside of the Midwest have been reporting higher than normal numbers. So, this is an ongoing outbreak where there are several investigations happening across the country.

KEILAR: Yes. And do experts, Jacqueline, have a sense of how long the outbreak of this parasite will last?

HOWARD: That's the major question here, because with this illness, it can take anywhere from two days to up to two weeks for symptoms to develop. So, health officials are bracing themselves for possibly more cases to emerge and possibly the outbreak to continue. But, again, this is ongoing at the moment. And we really have to wait to see if we do see an increase in numbers or if, hopefully, we see a decline in case numbers. So, really, all eyes are looking at the data right now as time goes on, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Jacqueline, thank you for that. Brian.

ABEL: And, Brianna, happening right now, Senate lawmakers are heading back into session just as two key Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee did an about-face and agreed to back the nomination of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. That's after they threatened to derail his chances over President Trump's controversial anti- weaponization fund. So, what changed?

Well, late Sunday, Blanche gave written reassurance that he was rescinding the fund and limiting the tax protections it offered the President and his family. The Judiciary Committee vote on Blanche's nomination is set for tomorrow. Texas Senator John Cornyn releasing a statement today announcing the deal, saying in part that he and Senator Thom Tillis are, quote, "Pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund.

[15:05:06]

Additionally, the department has acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the Treasury, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share."

CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju is on Capitol Hill with the latest.

And Manu, does this mean his confirmation is virtually assured now?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it certainly means that tomorrow, during the committee vote before the Senate Judiciary Committee, that Todd Blanche's nomination will have enough votes to get out of committee. Remember, that had been the big concern among the White House, why they decided to scrap last week's committee vote, because it requires just one Republican defection along the straight party line vote in committee for that nomination to be deadlocked and essentially be derailed, which is why the chairman of that committee, Chuck Grassley, delayed this committee proceeding until tomorrow, trying to get a deal with Cornyn and Tillis and the Justice Department, and that deal was inked between them, meaning that Cornyn and Tillis are yes votes, and we expect this to advance on the floor.

Then, the question is going to be the full United States Senate. Remember, the Senate is expected to recess for five weeks by the end of this week. They're going to need an agreement with Democratic senators to get this onto the house -- the Senate floor quickly, before potentially a weekend session, and then there's going to be a question about whether or not they can actually get the Republican votes.

We expect all Democrats to vote against Todd Blanche on the Senate floor, which means that there will be very little room for error for Senate Majority Leader John Thune with Mitch McConnell, the Senate -- former Senate Republican leader, still out. That means he can only afford -- Thune can only afford to lose two Republican votes in the full United States Senate, and there's going to be a lot of attention paid to Senator Susan Collins of Maine, someone who's a frequent swing vote, who's up for reelection in a difficult race. Senator Lisa Murkowski has another key Republican swing vote, and Senator Bill Cassidy, also a Republican who lost his primary earlier this year because of opposition from Trump, who backed his primary challenger, will any of those three Republicans break ranks? Someone we need to look at, Senator John Curtis as well.

So, their -- their work will be cut out for them to lock down the votes. But no doubt about it, Brian, the Justice Department, the White House, feeling a lot better at this moment about getting Todd Blanche confirmed now that they -- now that they got Tillis and Cornyn on board, Brian.

ABEL: A lot of work behind the scenes over the weekend. Manu Raju for us on Capitol Hill. Manu, thank you.

Still to come for us, oil prices drop as President Trump says he ordered U.S. troops to hold off on new strikes against Iran.

Plus, the latest testimony in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial. She's the Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three children.

And later, President Trump lashes out at Jeanine Pirro over her handling of the Reflecting Pool case, and now sources are telling CNN he's considering replacing her as the U.S. attorney for D.C. That and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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ABEL: President Trump with a new warning for Iran today, an ultimatum, as he insists, new peace talks are ongoing. Over the weekend, President Trump says he called off a massive attack at the request of Iran and allies in the Middle East and that his decision was contingent on a proposed deal with Tehran being quickly agreed to. But today, the President made clear his patience is running thin, especially when it comes to the flow of oil export in the Strait of Hormuz.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is the last chance. This is not something that, if it doesn't happen, this is the last chance for them to sign a good document. I'm not going to let them charge. If anybody's going to charge, we'll charge. We're the one that has total control. We have total control. You know, we have a thing called a blockade with his Navy. And that Navy is, they call it a wall of steel, the United States wall of steel. And no, no, there's not going to be charging. We're not talking about charging at all. There won't be charging.

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ABEL: The President's announcement of new talks with Iran has oil prices sinking today, despite no indication that Iran was prepared to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Here with me now, the managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, Kevin Book. And Kevin, how is the oil industry viewing this plan by Iran and Oman to establish this safe, temporary route, as they're calling it, for vessels through the Strait?

KEVIN BOOK, MANAGING DIRECTOR, CLEARVIEW ENERGY PARTNERS: Well, I think most operators in the region and those who work in the region, U.S. companies, foreign companies, don't want to pay more to travel through what would ordinarily be known as innocent passage, through territorial waters adjacent to -- to the countries that are proposing to charge fees. That would be a big change. They don't want to do it.

ABEL: Okay. And then, you know, President Trump announcing plans to pause attacks on Iran. We see oil prices tumble 5 percent, 20 percent. Why does the oil market continue to believe that Trump, who CNN's David Goldman calls the President who cried peace, why does the oil market continue to react the way it does?

BOOK: Well, there's a -- a very important role that he plays in deciding whether or not there's going to be an attack. So, we have very little information coming out of a war zone. The fog of war is thick. There's a lot of mystery. And so you can -- you could track ships. You can look at fundamentals. But a very significant change of the order that the President had been discussing. The biggest attacks since World War II could very easily disable a lot of capacity in the region. Reprisals could disable a lot of capacity. If he says it's off, the market sells off until it learns something else.

ABEL: So, does it react more so on words than action or inaction? Well, fundamentals matter. There's a lot going on besides what the President says.

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So, oil that doesn't come out of the Strait of Hormuz is a shortage. And that shortage drives up prices. But there's another shortage, a bigger shortage, a shortage of refined products, fuels, gasoline, diesel, the fuel we use. Now, one of the things that's happening is that the oil price isn't going up as much because the refineries that can't get the oil aren't using it. The fuel prices are going up more as a result. You see a divergence in these prices.

So, there's different prices that are responding in different ways. But, look, we're not getting the volume out of the Strait of Hormuz that we were getting before the war. We're not getting the volume we were getting during the MOU days, which means that we're coming back on that -- that moment when inventories are drying and questions are arising.

ABEL: Well, despite not having that volume coming out of the Strait, prices -- the profits for oil companies is -- is something that the President actually talked about just today, long ago in the Oval Office. What -- what did you make of those comments?

BOOK: Well, it's been a recurrent theme. Secretary Bessent brought it up in April and said that, you know, oil prices are falling. The gasoline and fuel prices should fall, too. In June, the President said he wanted to see lower prices. He said it again today.

The reality is that the industry isn't causing these prices to go up. Shortage is causing these prices to go up. That is what -- that is what, in fact, the President said today. And so, it is war that is behind this. Now, as for -- for what goes on in -- in the retail, you -- there has never been any evidence found of systematic manipulation of prices at a retail level. And refineries are effectively price takers. And so, they're buying crude oil at the global price and selling at sort of the commodity price of the fuels that they produce.

So, it's very difficult to understand how they could respond to this. But one of the things that -- that they have been watching, that investors have been watching, is whether or not the administration would look at limiting exports, limiting the outflow of fuels from the United States to try to force those prices down. They have said that they wouldn't do that. They said that earlier this year.

But as we go further into the summer with high prices, those questions are likely to come up again, Brian.

ABEL: You know, and -- and we also have the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen warning they would target Saudi shipping in the Red Sea. So, this has moved beyond just the Strait. What are the impacts there of -- of a potential blockade? BOOK: Well, that's the exit valve for a lot of the crude that had been

previously going through the Strait of Hormuz. So, if the Houthis actually block cargoes going through the Red Sea, through the -- the Bab al-Mandab Strait that goes into the Gulf of Aden at the bottom of the Red Sea, then those cargoes at minimum have to go north through Suez. They have to offload of their large tankers to the Sumed pipeline, which has pipeline capacity constraints of its own.

And then, they have to take the route all the way around Africa to get to the Asian markets they previously would have served in relatively short order through Bab al-Mandab. So, that's a pretty significant change if it happens.

ABEL: And also in the Oval Office today, President Trump seemed to be irked by the profits of some of the oil companies. What -- what did you make of those comments?

BOOK: Well, you know, it's consistent with what he'd been saying again in June and what the Secretary of the Treasury had been saying in April. The profits coincide with shortage. Oil companies don't usually get a lot of sympathy when they're -- when they're experiencing significant losses at times of surplus. We as consumers tend to be pretty happy in those times, and we're not out there to -- to -- to complain about that, so it's cyclical. They make investments over the long haul. Prices go up and down, and their profits reflect that.

ABEL: Appreciate you helping us understand everything that's going on here, Kevin Book. Thank you.

BOOK: Thanks for having me on.

ABEL: Sure. All right. Coming up, testimony resumes in the trial of a Massachusetts mother accused of strangling her three children. What the psychiatrists who examined Lindsay Clancy in the days after the killings said in court.

Plus, President Trump reportedly furious with his D.C. U.S. attorney, Jeanine Pirro, over the handling of the Reflecting Pool vandalism case. He says she choked under pressure, and it could cost Pirro her job.

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KEILAR: President Trump is lashing out at U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro after she dropped a case against a former Olympian accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool.

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TRUMP: I guess she choked. I don't know what the hell happened.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you reconsidering her role? (INAUDIBLE) ...

TRUMP: I don't know what -- you -- you don't -- you're fake news. Don't -- don't ever talk again.

KEILAR: The DOJ acknowledged in a court filing that the President's $14 million renovation of the Reflecting Pool was hasty and botched and said it was dropping the criminal case against Olympian David Hearn. CNN's Alayna Treene is with us now.

Alayna, there's new reporting that President Trump is now considering removing Pirro. What are you learning?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, that's right. I was -- I was catching up with some sources this morning, Brianna. Two people have been having these conversations with the President, are familiar with his thinking on Pirro. And they told me that he's considering removing her from her position as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia because of this filing from the Justice Department on Friday, which essentially said the damage done to the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial was a result of essentially a botched renovation, a flawed renovation, and not vandalism as they had previously believed.

And of course, as you've heard from the President himself and the Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum. Now, the President, I'm told, was furious and fuming about Pirro all weekend long. I'd remind you, this just dropped on Friday. And then on Saturday, I'm told, he actually got on the phone with Pirro and had a conversation with her.

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One of the sources I spoke with, who was read out on this call, their senior administration official, they told me essentially that the conversation, quote, "wasn't pretty." Now, you heard him fuming, again, in the Oval Office today about this, really showing just how angry he is with Pirro for that court filing on Friday.

We're told, essentially, though, that Pirro has been telling the President that it was career officials in her office who had written that filing, not her directly. But still, you could hear, really, that palpable anger spilling out into public view today when he addressed reporters. At one point, the President said, Pirro folded like an umbrella.

KEILAR: Those are some choice words. So, what does Trump make of the accusations against Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, then, in this DOJ filing?

TREENE: Yes, I think that's important to note because what you heard from this court filing was essentially, I want to read part of this for you, they said, quote, "had DOI," the Department of Interior, "been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment."

Now, the sources I spoke with, Brianna, essentially said that Pirro, they believe, feels like she was lied to, that there wasn't this major -- this massive amount of evidence that was provided and shown that there had been people who'd gone in with box cutters, as they had accused people of doing, to rip up the lining of the Reflecting Pool. They said there wasn't enough evidence, particularly to try and prosecute the Olympian, and that they had to legally drop this case.

But from the conversations I've had with the people who've been discussing this with the President, Brianna, they say that he's not buying that. He still believes that vandals were responsible for what happened at the Reflecting Pool and that he agrees with Doug Burgum. I'd remind you as well, we have heard from Burgum since this filing dropped on Friday.

He said, quote, the evidence is clear. Vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool. I'm told Trump does not have any sort of anger directed at Burgum at this time. It's all directed at Pirro, and that he could be removing her in the near future. We'll see right now. They simply said it's a serious consideration.

KEILAR: Yes, that Reflecting Pool is very important to him. That has been extremely clear here over recent months. Alayna Treene, thank you very much. Brian?

ABEL: Brianna, we are hearing from more witnesses in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mom, accused of killing her three children. Today, jurors have been hearing testimony about Clancy's mental state after the children were strangled back in 2023. Prosecutors allege that she intentionally killed them. The defense says she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and should not be held criminally responsible.

CNN's Randi Kaye is following this case and joins us now. And Randi, what did this doctor say on the stand?

RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Brian, this is a forensic psychiatrist who testified. She just finished testifying just a -- a few minutes ago, and she examined Lindsay Clancy after this suicide attempt. She was in the hospital, and she was paralyzed after jumping out a second-floor window at their home. So, she said that Clancy had asked for a pen and paper in order to answer some of the questions that she was asking her, and she said that she did believe that Clancy understood what she was being asked. Here's a little bit of what she told the jury.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you ask her about her mood that day?

DR. JHILAM BISWAS, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST WHO EXAMINED LINDSAY CLANCY: I did ask her, her mood.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what did she write?

BISWAS: She wrote "horrified." She wrote down, "do I have an attorney?" And I said with my team that at this time, we're just getting to know you and getting to know the -- the case, and we're not sure exactly, you know, what -- what is happening. And we -- we asked her, do you have questions for us? And she asked, is my body broken? Are my legs straight? And she -- she then asked about can she have visitors and, you know, where her family is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: And that doctor also testified that Lindsay Clancy did not show any signs of psychosis or hallucinations. She said she appeared goal- oriented. That was her exact word, and thoughtful. She did, though, recommend suicidal precautions, Brian.

ABEL: And, Randy, we heard her asking about her own injuries there. We see in this video that she's in a wheelchair. So, what were those injuries?

KAYE: Yes, we heard from several doctors today about her injuries specifically. She had a thoracic spine injury from her fall out of that second floor window. She did not have a head injury, according to this one doctor, but she did have superficial wounds on her wrists and also on her neck, and that really is in line with what her now ex- husband, Patrick Clancy, had testified. He said when he got to the house, there was blood in the bedroom. He found her in the backyard, certainly suffering from injuries and bleeding. And this is all really important because it speaks to, of course, this criminal responsibility that the prosecution and the defense really are trying to get at.

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