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Trump Gets Request About Iran Strike; Bomb Explodes At Moscow Restaurant; New Sites On UNESCO World Heritage List. Aired 3-3:30a ET

Aired August 02, 2026 - 03:00   ET

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

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BEN HUNTE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, wherever you are in the world, you are now in the CNN Newsroom with me, Ben Hunte, in Atlanta, and it is so good to have you with me.

Coming up on the show, President Trump says he has received a request from Iran and other Middle Eastern countries. What that means for attacks on Iran that seemed so imminent.

A homemade bomb explodes at an upscale Moscow restaurant. What we know about that attack.

And we'll look at some of the 25 new sites added to UNESCO's World Heritage list.

Welcome. We begin in the Middle East, where the imminent U.S. attacks on Iran have been canceled for now. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social saying, based on a request from Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, quote, I have agreed for the future benefit of the world, and likewise the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a deal.

President Trump's announcement comes after CNN learned that he and the Saudi crown prince spoke on Saturday. Sources tell us Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed de-escalation efforts and raised concerns about the plans for new U.S. strikes on Iran.

NPR reporter, Arezou Rezvani, joins us now from Los Angeles. It is good to see you.

President Trump says he has paused what appeared to be imminent military strikes. What do we actually know about why, and what are your thoughts?

AREZOU REZVANI, NPR REPORTER: Well, frankly, I don't know what is new here. I mean, it seems like the MOU was supposed to be the perimeters of a deal, and that hasn't really held up.

And Iran has continued to assert its control over the Strait of Hormuz. So the question really is this some new contours for a final deal, or is this a renewed commitment to the memorandum- the memorandum of understanding? There are a lot of details that are still pretty thin, and it raises a lot more questions than it does answers.

I will say it's now morning in Tehran. State media is starting to report on President Trump's post and announcement, and a lot of state media, they are dismissing this. They're calling it rhetoric. They say that this is a lie.

And to put this into some context, I mean, President Trump and the administration, they have in the middle of negotiations struck Iran, and they have made deals and introduced new terms to deals as we saw most recently with Saudi Arabia and their declaration to pursue nuclear ambitions.

And so there's just a great deal of skepticism in Iran right now over what President Trump is saying.

HUNTE: There's a lot there. Has anyone publicly confirmed any of these terms, or are we still largely hearing the U.S. version of events? What makes this different?

REZVANI: Yes, we are largely listening to the U.S. version of events, and not a lot more detail has come out beyond President Trump's post.

HUNTE: Even with this pause, Iran has continued warning that any new U.S. attack would trigger retaliation against American interests. How much has the immediate risk of a wider regional war actually fallen over the last few hours do you think?

REZVANI: I don't know that it has diminished much, to be honest. I mean, I think the important thing to keep in mind with Iran is that the Iranian officials doing the negotiations aren't always in line with the Iranians who are carrying out the war.

The Iranians carrying out the negotiations are under tremendous pressure by the hardline flank in Iran, in the media, in the military, in the government, not to negotiate, not to make concessions, especially when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz because they've discovered that it is such a tremendous tool for leverage.

And so the members of the negotiating team are just having a very hard time knowing exactly what to take and what moves to make.

HUNTE: The Strait of Hormuz still remains so central to all of this. If negotiators can secure guarantees that commercial shipping can move freely again, how significant would that be?

REZVANI: Oh, I think it would be hugely significant because the cost to, you know, blockading or keeping ships from moving through the Strait of Hormuz has inflicted a lot of pain on the U.S. economy, on the global economy.

[03:05:02]

So, that's a really big push for the Americans. And I think it's not clear that the Iranians are going to budge on that front. Again, they have realized that this is an enormous tool of leverage. In the ways that they don't have an upper hand on the military, in the military, on the battlefield, they have found that they actually have an edge when it comes to the economy and inflicting economic pain.

And so I don't think that we're going to see them easily, readily give up the control that they have found.

HUNTE: There have been several moments over the past few months when diplomacy did appear so close, only for fighting to resume. What do you think is different this time, and what are the biggest obstacles that could still cause these talks to collapse?

REZVANI: Well, I think that the pressure that the Gulf states are putting perhaps on President Trump to let up a little bit, to make concessions, I think that's notable. I think the fact that Saudi Arabia has become involved and has reportedly called President Trump to ask him to rethink and reconsider additional strikes is pretty notable.

I think what's different now is that the threat of striking power plants and power infrastructure is pretty notable. The fact that Iran very quickly declared that they would also retaliate by attacking power plants in the region is significant. I mean, it establishes a new kind of mutually assured destruction on the energy sector, and I think the Gulf states really can't afford that, and I think they've realized it, and I think that they're now applying some new pressure on the United States, and might be also discreetly having talks with Iran to see if they can come up with some arrangements on their own if the United States and Iran can't work out some kind of an arrangement.

HUNTE: Okay. Well I'm sure we're going to be speaking again very soon about all of this, but for now, Arezou Rezvani, thank you so much.

REZVANI: My pleasure.

HUNTE: The Israel Defense Forces says it destroyed several Hamas weapons depots in Gaza on Saturday. The attacks come just days after President Trump announced that Israel and Hamas agreed to advance a ceasefire plan. The IDF alleges one storage target near a hospital was being used as a Hamas shelter. Gaza's Health Ministry says the strike destroyed two medical warehouses containing vital supplies for local residents.

The ministry's director general also says the attack devastated a nearby civilian displacement camp.

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FATIMA SHARAB, DISPLACED PALESTINIAN: The strike hit, then we went back to the camp. There was no camp. This camp had safe tents with sick people and people in tragic conditions and so on, staying in the vicinity of the hospital, and storage units for kidney dialysis patients.

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HUNTE: A bomb described as homemade has exploded at an upscale restaurant in Moscow, killing two people, as well as the woman who was believed to have been carrying it in a package. Reports say 21 others were injured, too.

A Russian business newspaper says the bomb was set off remotely. It was apparently intended to target guests at a private event at the restaurant. There is no official word yet about who she is or what the motive might be, and it's also unclear if the woman detonated the device herself. Preliminary accounts indicate she may not have known the device was inside the package that she held.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Washington will make a new push to put talks between Russia and Ukraine back on track. This is what a top U.S. diplomat told Fox News in a pre-recorded interview that aired just a few hours ago.

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MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: You're going to see some efforts over the next few weeks to see if we can't restart talks between the two sides and bring this war to an end. But we also understand that both sides have some pretty strong red lines. And until we can bring those red lines a little closer together, we're not going to be there yet.

But we're ready to go, and the president's told his team, if you see an opportunity to be a force that brings about some momentum behind peace talks, let's do it.

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HUNTE: President Donald Trump promised to end the war on day one of his presidency, but despite repeated efforts, he has little to show for it. Kyiv is now recovering from a second back-to-back strike in just two days, which left at least nine people killed and 30 wounded on Saturday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later said Moscow feels emboldened to carry out such strikes because Ukraine is facing a shortage of U.S. Patriot missile interceptors.

In the last hour, I spoke with Peter Zalmayev, a director at the Eurasia Democracy Initiative, and I asked him, what is Russia's game plan behind the latest strikes?

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PETER ZALMAYEV, DIRECTOR, EURASIA DEMOCRACY INTIATIVE: The military strategy really concentrates on continuing to rain down terror on civilians in Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, and all the major Ukrainian towns, simply because Putin cannot show significant successes on the battlefield.

[03:10:07]

The advancement there has essentially slowed to a crawl, and it's costing Russia a lot in terms of troops by some calculations up to 30,000 Russian soldiers dead and wounded per month. This is quite unsustainable. Maybe it's finally sinking in for Vladimir Putin as well. That is a big question, of course. But Putin is banking on creating just enough chaos within the political and military command in Kyiv and enough unhappiness on the part of the residents of the cities to where there's some kind of an explosion of social political upheaval in Kyiv, which will allow Putin to achieve his goals this way. And his goal remains essentially controlling Ukraine as essentially as a colony.

HUNTE: Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the U.S. will make a renewed push to get Russia and Ukraine talking again. From Moscow's perspective, is there actually any incentive at all to negotiate while Russia believes it still has the upper hand?

ZALMAYEV: Well, you know, Russia keeps talking about the spirit of Anchorage, whatever unwritten gentlemanly agreement that Putin claims he had reached with Donald Trump. They're sticking to it and anything else will not satisfy Vladimir Putin. So, we're talking about essentially terms of an agreement that essentially means they mean Ukraine's capitulation and a hard no to its, you know, conduct its foreign policy, et cetera.

So, when we see that Donald Trump finally realized that this sort of peace agreement would not be something that he could show to his voters as, you know, a winning strategy then he kind of backtracked, and we see now and hear from Trump officials quite something quite different. And, of course, Zelenskyy's quite triumphant visit to Washington also has essentially put to any hopes Russia had that Donald Trump would simply give the Russians whatever they wanted.

So, I think we're going to be back to square one and I suspect that yet another round of such negotiations will produce nothing but disappointment for the American negotiators.

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HUNTE: Spanish authorities have installed a floating barrier off the coast of Ceuta. That's a Spanish territory in North Africa. It's to prevent people swimming over from Morocco. 50 to 60,000 migrants swam or jumped border fences on Thursday and Friday. At least 67 people died by doing so, many by drowning.

Spain now says the border crossings have stopped, and that nearly all of the migrants have returned to Morocco. But some remain, and they hope to make it to mainland Europe.

CNN Portugal's Helena Lins reports.

HELENA LINS, CNN PORTUGAL REPORTER: After a day in Ceuta, we are in Algeciras, the Spanish city in the southern point of the peninsula that has ferries to Ceuta and back from Ceuta. And this is where most migrants would like to come next, to this side of Spain, something that seems quite difficult since they have to show a European document or a visa on their passport, which they don't have.

So, for now, they are stranded in Ceuta. This Saturday, we saw a lot of them, hundreds of them, near the shelter for migrants but they don't seem to find any help there because it says that it's overcrowded with people, so they don't let anyone in. So, they just stay around hoping to eventually get some help.

Some even told us that they hope they will be welcomed in, and in about some time be sent here, which seems very unlikely for now. European most European member states are calling for coordinated action. They want to strengthen the external borders of the union, and on Tuesday the European Union is holding an emergency meeting to discuss the emergency crisis in Ceuta after some tense exchanges between Spain and some member states.

HUNTE: The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has quickly grown to be the second largest in history. The World Health Organization is reporting over 3,500 confirmed cases since the surge was detected in mid-May.

CNN's Jacqueline Howard has more details for us.

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JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER (voice over): The Ebola outbreak has taken a rapidly increasing toll on the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the past week, the number of deaths has risen from 1,000 to over 1,500, pushing the outbreak to the second largest ever recorded globally, and many officials are sounding --

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CARL SKAU, ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WFP: We need to step up. I think all the strategies, all the lessons are here, all the elements are here in terms of the strategy, but it needs to be done four or five times more, and it needs to be done urgently.

HOWARD: In May, the World Health Organization officially declared the Ebola outbreak in the DRC, marking the 17th significant outbreak in the country since the disease was first identified.

According to the U.N., this year's outbreak is the fastest growing ever. Cases have taken just weeks to reach high levels, when in previous outbreaks, it took months or even years.

SKAU: To make a comparison in the past two months, 1,000 people have died. That took eight months for 1,000 people to die in West Africa. So, that means that there is a fourfold in terms of the number of death in this short period of time, and I think that itself requires world attention.

HOWARD: Officials say other crises in the area are hampering the response to the outbreak. There's widespread hunger and violence. The conflict in eastern DRC has displaced thousands of people.

STEPHANE DUJARRIC, U.N. SPOKESPERSON: The fighting has disrupted supply routes leading to critical shortage of medical supplies needed to treat the injured. The renewed fighting is also having a negative impact on our operations, delaying planned humanitarian assessment in areas that are already hosting more than 200,000 displaced human beings.

HOWARD: Most of the deaths are among people who never received care in a healthcare facility, driving up spread in the community when bodies are handled unsafely. It also leaves family caretakers most at risk of infection. To combat this, officials urge those with symptoms to seek professional medical care.

JULIEN HARENIS, U.N. SENIOR EBOLA COORDINATOR: So there are ways to work on Ebola and for people to survive, but only if they come in quickly.

Jacqueline Howard, CNN.

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HUNTE: Mount Olympus, the fabled home of the Greek gods, is legendary, and now it's among the places that UNESCO has added to its list of World Heritage Sites. We'll show you some of the others just ahead.

See you in a moment.

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HUNTE: A new fire in Washington State has forced thousands of families to suddenly evacuate their homes. This is all happening in the city of Spokane, and is being called the Old Trails Fire. The Washington National Guard says it is sending units to help in Spokane County.

As you're seeing there, several homes have already been destroyed. About 3,000 acres have also burned. That is about 1,200 hectares. About 4,000 buildings are currently threatened. The exact extent of damage won't be known until later this morning after the sun rises. At least ten large fires are now burning across the State of Washington.

The ongoing wildfire danger across Europe, too, has now reached Greece. Hundreds of firefighters with dozens of trucks are now battling the flames there. Three firefighters have died and evacuations have been ordered in parts of some cities. Emergency alerts have also been issued in the regions of Attica and Evia. In some places, farmers are now helping firefighters by using their tractors to plow fields and to create fire breaks.

Residents describe what it's been like for them.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It doesn't matter that my house wasn't burned. My neighbor's houses were. It's the same.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can't keep living every summer with the fear that our homes will burn down or that our forest will be destroyed.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNTE: In France, the farmers are also joining in to help firefighters. They too are using their tractors and water tanks to refill fire trucks in the Gros Bessillon mountain region. This fire reignited on Friday and has already burned an additional 1,500 hectares. That is about 3,700 acres.

High heat and strong winds are also contributing to these fires. Here's a quick look at the European forecast. Firefighters are hoping for calmer winds and lower temperatures to help them get control of the flames.

UNESCO has added 25 new sites to its prestigious World Heritage List. It celebrates some of the planet's most remarkable cultural and natural treasures. CNN's Lynda Kincade has more for us.

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LYNDA KINKADE, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Mount Olympus in Greece, the Polish city of Gdynia, and a Buddhist temple in Thailand, what do they all have in common? They were just named as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Two Amazonian theaters in Brazil also joined the 25 sites inducted this year, named by the U.N. committee as having cultural, historical, or nature importance.

CANDIDO GERERNIAS, PRESIDENT, AMAZONIAN AGENCY OF CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT: The Teatro Amazonias, as an architectural treasure in the state and in the Amazon, has a fundamental role, and now it will bring more tourists to our region, our state. We will have more chances to preserve it and greater protection.

KINKADE: Also newly named, the beaches of Normandy, where Allied forces landed on D-Day. The site is characterized by the World Heritage Committee as a cultural property, the location of a decisive stage of the battle to liberate Europe from Nazi Germany during World War II.

The committee also added six sites to its danger list, which are sites facing major threats from war, natural disasters, or other risks. The archeological site of Sebastia in the Israeli-occupied West Bank was added to the list this year. According to UNESCO, the site once served as the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the Hellenistic, Roman, and Islamic periods.

Countries nominate their picks for World Heritage Sites and demonstrate their significance.

MICHAL MIEGON, GDYNIA TOUR GUIDE: Gdynia Gdansk should be a UNESCO site because it's a unique combination of architecture, history of Pomerania, history of Poland.

KINKADE: A selection process by the World Heritage Committee is conducted, and once chosen, the sites are given legal protection by an international treaty, making them eligible for financial support and emergency protection from the fund.

[03:25:02] MIEGON: And also the people that are welcoming all the tourists to Gdynia, and we are all very proud of the city. We want to show it to all the world.

KINKADE: Lynda Kinkade, CNN.

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HUNTE: The character actor, Vincent Pastore, a large and imposing figure in mob movies like Goodfellas and the T.V. series, The Sopranos, has died. While he epitomized the tough guy and mafiosos, he is best known as a rat. In his 30-episode run as Tony Soprano's friend, he was an FBI informant who was shockingly executed by Tony and his gang.

In real life, his manager says Pastore was actually the kind of guy who would help anybody. He died at home at 80, survived by his daughter.

Hamburg celebrated its annual pride parade with a very clear message: hate will not win. About 300,000 people attended a march on Saturday, just a week after a deadly extremist attack at Berlin's pride event. Extra police were added in the German city, and there was a float from the Berlin parade.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The atmosphere is absolutely amazing. And why it's important for me to be here? Simply to show that we are louder, we are more beautiful, we are more colorful, and we are a community. We stick together no matter what happens.

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HUNTE: And in Amsterdam, hundreds of thousands of people watched a pride-themed canal boat parade. The city was chosen for this year's World Pride event because it's marking 25 years since hosting the world's first legally recognized same-sex marriage.

All right, that's all I've got for you. Thanks for joining me and the team. I'm Ben Hunte in Atlanta. Quest's World of Wonder is next. Then CNN Newsroom continues at the top of the hour.

I will see you tomorrow.

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(QUEST'S WORLD OF WONDER)

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