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Text of 14-Point Agreement; Ravi Chaudhary is Interviewed about Iran; Trump Speaks at G7 Summit. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired June 17, 2026 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:32:24]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: All right, here's the breaking news this morning.

CNN has obtained the text of a 14-point memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is in Geneva, Switzerland.

Kevin, can you tell us about what you've learned so far?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Right. And this text, Audie, has not been officially released by either side of this. We've heard from American officials over the last couple of days that they were planning to release this officially after it is formally signed here in Switzerland on Friday. But now CNN has obtained a copy of it. We've gotten a copy from a U.S. official. We've gotten a version of it from a diplomat who has seen copies of it circulating here at the G7 Summit, and two additional sources. So, we have four sources from which we have obtained the text of this document.

In some ways, it does reflect how American officials have been characterizing it over the last several days. It is vague in a lot of its terms, particularly when it comes to Iran's nuclear program. It lays out in broad terms how the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened, how the U.S. will lift its blockade on Iranian ports. And it does spell out what the financial relief that Iran can expect as part of this deal if it meets its commitments.

And so, it does specify, for example, that Iran will be able to gain access to a $300 billion development fund. American officials have been explicit that the U.S. will not provide the funding for that, but that $300 billion figure is included in this document. It also specifies that Iran will be able to start exporting oil, and that the U.S. will lift some of the -- or it will issue waivers for some of the sanctions immediately upon the signing of this memorandum of understanding. And so those are some of what is included in the document. It's 14 points long. And I do want to pull out one of those 14 points specifically as it

relates to Iran's nuclear program, because I think this is important. And this, at the end of the day, is one of the reasons that the president has said that he started the war in the first place is to eliminate Iran's ability to obtain a nuclear weapon. And this is what the memorandum of understanding says on this point. It's point number eight. It says, "the Islamic Republic of Iran reiterates that it will never produce nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States have agreed that the fate of enriched material and the fate of all other mutually agreed nuclear related issues, including Iran's nuclear needs, will be adequately addressed in a final agreement.

[06:35:12]

The final agreement will confirm the provisions of this article."

And so, it is what we expected. It's punting the really thorny issues about enrichment, around the fate of Iran's nuclear stockpile to these future technical negotiations. The memo specifies that those will last 60 days, but that they could also be extended.

You know, we have been talking to American officials about the language in this document. And in a lot of ways they have been downplaying it. They have suggested that this is essentially a political document meant to create the conditions to get Iran to the table for these much more technical negotiations going forward.

But I still think the lack of specificity around the nuclear issues, I think, will be a surprise to some people who have been following all this. And in particular the fact that it doesn't say anywhere in the document that the United States will be involved in the destruction of Iran's highly enriched uranium. You know, President Trump has been saying that for the last several days.

What American officials have told us is that they have confidence that Iran has agreed to some of those provisions because of these backchannel commitments that they've received as part of putting this memorandum of understanding together. And what, you know, one official told us yesterday is that, quote, "people shouldn't read too much into the language of the MOU, and that's what's more important than the actual document is the understandings that we have with each other."

Of course, all of that is, I think, going to risk some backlash from Iran hawks, even from some of the president's own allies, who will argue that the U.S. is putting too much faith in the Iranian's word in all of this and not necessarily in what they're willing to put in writing in these documents. But certainly, what you've heard from the president over the last days, including here at the G7, is really proclaiming this as a triumph. You know, talking about how he was able to secure some of these commitments from Iran and suggesting that the future negotiations will, in fact, be easier. But just reading the document and reading all of the issues that are left to those future negotiations, I think it's clear that there are still some very difficult talks to come.

Audie.

CORNISH: That's Kevin Liptak with a lot of detail out of Geneva. We are -- CNN has obtained a copy of this memorandum of understanding between Iran and the U.S..

Thank you so much, Kevin, for giving us that.

We're going to talk more about it now with Ravi Chaudhary. He's the former assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy and installations. So, relevant to both the Strait, to energy issues.

I'm going to talk with you about number five in this memorandum that CNN has obtained, where they say that "the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately take steps to ensure the movement of merchant ships from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman, and vice versa, within 30 days," they say to pre-war volumes, since before U.S.-Israeli strikes. But then it says, "taking into account the need for the removal of technical obstacles and neutralization of mines by Iran." So, to be clear, there are still obstacles physically -- physical danger in the Strait of Hormuz?

RAVI CHAUDHARY, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY, AIR FORCE FOR ENERGY AND INSTALLATIONS: Absolutely. In fact, when you take a look at the brass tacks of this, we have to ask ourselves as Americans, was this war worth the cost in lives and dollars? And when you talk about what this agreement looks like right now, I mean, as a military planner, you think about, if this agreement allows us to dictate terms, we sold this as a major victory, and that should give us the ability to dictate the terms. And it looks like the opposite has happened here. Iran will still retain the ability to hold the strait at risk, and also hold infrastructure at risk.

So, I would describe this as fragile at best. And we should, I think, pump the brakes when it comes to talking about this as an agreement and really mostly a memorandum that sets the conditions for more discussion.

CORNISH: Why do you think that Iran still has power based on this agreement? And I ask because I don't think Iran would agree unless it saw something in here that they felt they could spend time on beginning on Friday, when the administration hopes to sign this.

CHAUDHARY: Well, you know, the biggest flag here was the fact that we were unwilling to release the terms so -- early enough to affect any sort of important discussion here. And I think Iran, in general, feels like they want to have an upper hand in this particular discussion. And so, being able to have a roughly 50 to 70 percent of your military capabilities, particularly with your accurate drones and accurate ballistic missiles, gives you that ability. And I think Iran really is weighing that going forward and keeping that leverage point.

[06:40:02]

CORNISH: But you're calling it a leverage point. Can't it be said that, you know, it was a double blockade. That the U.S. also imposed a blockade in the region. And I was reading just from Reuters, just in the last day, that the U.S. was able to smuggle millions of barrels of oil through the Strait despite Iran's claims of a total blockade.

And then Vice President J.D. Vance appeared to confirm this. I want to play this for you.

CHAUDHARY: Yes, sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We shut down any access they had to the Strait of Hormuz. They couldn't get anything in or out. But while that was happening, we were getting sometimes it was 12 million barrels, sometimes it was three million to four million barrels, but it averaged out to many millions of barrels every single day that us and the Arab allies were getting out of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran was getting nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, there he is on "The Megyn Kelly Show." He's been talking about the Iran deal.

Can you address this? Because doesn't this undermine the idea that Iran sort of has all the leverage with the Strait of Hormuz now?

CHAUDHARY: Yes, I think you need to talk about the orders of magnitude in this particular situation. And it's, again, it's a testament to our U.S. military and their ability to adapt to this situation and create channels where we can increase the flow. So, I think it's a good step, but we have to take a look at standard flow prior to, which we're really talking about orders of magnitude greater than what we're moving right now.

And so, the agreement is going to be important to restoring to pre-war levels of movement and allowing oil to get to markets, even though we had both sides being blocked, the impact on the global supply chain and energy markets is still significant to this day. And so, we need that broader flow in order to get us to where we were before.

CORNISH: Yes. As I said, CNN has obtained these points from this memorandum, giving a chance for my panel to read them as well.

And in the meantime, we should note that President Trump is at the G7, at that summit with European leaders. Right now it looks like he is about to sit with the Egyptian president, Abdel el-Sisi, and European -- I'm sorry, regional allies are also a part of this deal in the form of the money and how it is spent, so to speak. There's supposed to be a $300 billion -- oh, here we go. Here's the president. Maybe he'll give us some details.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Egypt. He's respected all over the world, including by me. And our relationship has been very strong personally for a long time. And we're working together. We're helping him with a little dam project that I think was very -- I think you were very unfairly treated, if you want to know the truth, in Ethiopia. But we'll discuss many things, including trade. And we do a lot of business with Egypt. And we'll be discussing that. We'll be discussing the Nile, because

the Nile's getting a little emptier than it should be. And that's what we're here to talk about, right? A dam was built in Ethiopia, and it's causing tremendous problems for Egypt. And I'm very aware. I had that deal settled. And then we had a rigged election and somebody came in and they didn't know too much about that deal. They were not going to settle anything. But we'll get back into it. We'll see if we can settle it, huh. OK.

Would you have -- say something, please?

ABDEL EL-SISI, EGYPTIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Well, first of all, let me express my highest appreciation and respect of your kind person. And thank you very much for allowing this opportunity despite all of the hard work and very busy schedule that you have, Mr. President.

Well, let me start by expressing big congratulations for the breakthrough that you have achieved, Mr. President, of restoring peace to the Middle East.

Once our -- once the deal was announced, there has been great appreciation. But the admiration has increased in this marvelous management of such crisis at the highest level.

TRUMP: Thank you.

EL-SISI (through translator): We're -- we are waiting for the deal to be declared as a final -- as a final deal so that we can react appropriately.

[06:45:04]

TRUMP: OK.

EL-SISI (through translator): And state our positive views and perspective of that great deal from the presidency and on behalf of the Egyptian people.

I'd like also to express highest appreciation and respect of the com (ph) person for the productive and excellent relations between Egypt and the United States and all the support that the United States is providing for Egypt.

For the record, again, Mr. President, I cannot overemphasize how much respect I have for you, for your understanding of the challenging issue of the dam to Egypt.

I don't know if I'm going to say is appropriate or not, but I observed during the (AUDIO GAP) last night that you were surrounded, Mr. President, by all world leaders. They didn't leave you a moment to enjoy your dinner.

TRUMP: There was a lot of surround. Well, we had a great time, but it was -- it was a lot. It was a lot of work last night. You saw that? Yes. EL-SISI: Thank you, Mr. President.

TRUMP: Thank you very much. It's a great honor.

EL-SISI: (INAUDIBLE).

TRUMP: Really fantastic. So, I'll be doing a news conference at about 4:00 today. Before we leave, we're going to Paris and then we'll be going home tonight, I guess, if you really figure it. So, we'll be heading to Paris, where we have a big dinner meeting with a lot of the same people. And then we're going home. And it's been a very successful trip. A lot of things have happened that have been very good. And we'll be discussing a little bit about the deal with Iran at the 4:00 news conference. It's a great deal for a lot of reasons, but, number one, by far, 99.9 percent is they will never have a nuclear weapon. And you can't give Iran a nuclear weapon. And they will never have a nuclear weapon. So, that's very, very strong. It's a very strong deal. Nobody knows what it is, but it's very strong. And most people seem to be very happy.

Who's really happy is the market because the market's gone up thousands of points over the last four or five days since hearing about it. And the Strait is going to be opening. It's already partially opened. It's going to be opening up soon in full over the next day or two. And the market has gone wild. And oil has come tumbling down. Oil is at $73, $74, and it's getting to very close to where it was before the crisis. The difference is now we have Iran without a nuclear weapon. So, we'll see how that all plays out. I think people are going to be very happy. But there's nothing so smart as the market. And the market loves it beyond anything that I've actually seen.

Again, the stock market has gone through the roof and oil has come tumbling down. I guess it's in the low 70s now, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.

TRUMP: That's amazing. So, that's what speaks. That speaks louder than words. The alternative would be a worldwide depression. You know, the stupid people want to have a worldwide depression. And -- the stupid people. So, you can only go so far. Drive somebody into the ground and a lot of bad things happen.

Number one, the Strait would never open because they don't like floating billion dollar ships up and down a Strait when there are rockets flying over them and mines all over the place. So, the Strait would never be open. It wouldn't be open for a long time. So, we have -- we have a very hot stock market and we have a very -- started to be a very low oil price. And that's going to have a huge impact on affordability caused by the Democrats.

The Democrats have caused so many problems. You have no idea. But I'll never forget, I took over and I'm in the office for one day, and I have my first news conference. And they said, affordability, sir. Affordability. What are you doing about it? I said, I've just been here one day, they're telling me about -- they're the ones that caused affordability. It's just another con job. They made up the word affordability.

But we're bringing prices down a lot. And they're coming down fast. And with the settlement so worthwhile, with the settlement where you're not going to have a nuclear weapon, and then we bring them down on top of that. And I think oil prices might get lower than where they were before the war.

[06:50:03]

So, I'm going to see you at 4:00. And we'll discuss that a little bit. And we'll discuss other things. But we've had a great meeting. It's been a great summit. And France has done a fantastic job. President Macron has been really -- he's really done a great job. It's been very well received. Everybody here has been -- I don't know if they've been happy. Some are not doing so well, but some are doing very well. But they've done a beautiful job.

Thank you very much, everybody.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, press.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, press.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, press.

REPORTER: Mr. President, can you address the MOU that's been reported that includes --

TRUMP: Have I read it?

REPORTER: Well, it's been reported that it includes a $300 billion --

TRUMP: It's false.

REPORTER: Construction fund, funded by gulf allies.

TRUMP: (INAUDIBLE).

REPORTER: That's false?

TRUMP: No, it's false. People are -- people -- you can invest if you want. I mean, what am I going to do, say nobody's ever allowed to invest? No, we're not investing. We're not putting up 10 cents. And people can decide to do that, but that's up to them. I mean, do you want me to say nobody's ever allowed to invest in a country? I'll say it with Egypt, nobody's allowed to invest in Egypt. Am I supposed to say that?

REPORTER: I'm asking whether --

TRUMP: We are not investing in it, and we do not have a fund.

REPORTER: Are you asking gulf countries --

(CROSS TALK) TRUMP: No, I'm not. I'm not. If they do it, fine. But I would say they won't be doing it for a while until they find out the behavior. It's a behavior thing. But we are not -- invested -- that's a false story that got picked up incorrectly from a statement that was pretty well made, I think. Maybe a little bit -- could have been a little more accurate, frankly. But it's a story -- we're not investing 10 cents.

Don't forget, there's never been anybody that's been so tough on Iran. This should have been done by Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama. It should have been done by Biden. It should have been done by Bush. It could have been done by a lot of people. This has been going on for 47 years. They've ripped you off for 47 years. And I'm the only one that did anything about it. They never shot missiles at anybody.

We wiped out their navy. We wiped out their military. We wiped out their air force. They have no anti-aircraft. They have no radar. You know, the reason oil stayed low is because we were taking ships out every night that you didn't even know about. Two days ago, three days ago, a month ago, we took out 22 ships. We averaged from 15 to 25 ships a night. Nobody know that. Our Navy did a great job. Nobody knew what was happening. That's why oil didn't go to $300 a barrel. It went to $125, $115. Now it's at $72, $73. I heard it's lower than that now. I haven't seen it in the last couple of hours.

No, we were very tough and we took out a man named Soleimani. Remember that? You know, you think this would have happened if he were alive? The evil genius. He was an evil genius. People forget that. I took out Soleimani in my first term. Without that, you don't have -- probably you don't have the situation that we're in today where we dominated. We dominated. We wiped out their military. And because we did that, and then we put up the blockade, which was totally effective. Not one ship got by.

Steve.

REPORTER: Is the text of the agreement now final or are you still --

TRUMP: No, it's not final. It's a memorandum of understanding. And if I don't like it, we'll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs on their head.

REPORTER: When do you -- when do you expect the wording --

TRUMP: If I don't like it, if they don't behave, we'll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, OK, because they've misbehaved for 47 years. All right.

REPORTER: Does it include a --

TRUMP: But nobody could have made this deal. I mean, the JCPOA, done by Obama, he handed them $1,000,000,007 in cash, gave them hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of -- gave them billions and billions of dollars. But he gave them $1.7 billion in cash, green cash, from banks, into a Boeing 757 and flew it into Iran. And they stood at the plane. I have pictures of it like, oh my God, look at this money he's giving us. He tried to bribe his way out. I didn't do that. Nobody mentions that.

$1.7 billion and hundreds of millions of dollars. They tried to bribe their way out of it. And you know what? The Iranians did? They laughed at Obama and they said, he's a stupid son of a bitch.

OK, thank you very much, everybody.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, press. Thank you, press.

(CROSS TALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, press.

(CROSS TALK)

CORNISH: OK, we're losing some audio here. This is President Trump at the G7, sitting alongside Egypt's president.

REPORTER: Right (ph).

[06:55:01]

Water security.

(CROSS TALK)

TRUMP: Well, that's what we're going to be talking about. You don't listen.

REPORTER: If there is -- how and when.

TRUMP: Yes, that's what we're talking about. Of course I support Egypt. He's a friend of mine from day one. You know, I met him early in the campaign when crooked Hillary and I were running against each other, right? And I was told that the president of Egypt is here. That was a big deal. It's still a big deal for me to be with the great president of Egypt. But not as big as it used to be before I ran.

So, he was in a hotel and I met him. And we fell in love. Deeply in love. And he didn't even want to see Hillary. He said, you're going to win. I don't want to meet her. He said, you're going to win. He didn't want to see her. Remember that?

So, we had a good relationship right from the beginning. No, we met. We didn't know each other before that. We had great chemistry. And we -- I stayed twice as long as I was supposed to. Took up her time. And then when it was her time, he didn't want to meet with her. But he did, because he's a gentleman. But it lasted about one minute.

Thank you, everybody, very much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, press. Thank you, press. (INAUDIBLE). Thank you, press.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come on.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, press. Thank you, press. Thank you, press.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, press.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE), thank you.

(CROSS TALK)

CORNISH: OK. We were just listening to President Trump speaking in France at the G7 Summit. He's sitting next to Egypt's president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, as the G7 has invited some Middle East leaders to come, especially in context of the memorandum of understanding that the U.S. is trying to sign with Iran.

We want to talk about some of the things the president said just now. One of which is that he hoped, at the end of this agreement, that people would be happy. And, in fact, he said, the people who will really be happy is markets.

He also said the alternative to moving forward with some sort of ceasefire and deal would be worldwide depression. And that only stupid people would want to have a worldwide depression.

He also went on to talk about affordability, which is language that we've been using here in the U.S. and our sort of local political conversations about the ripple effects of the Iran War and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

He also was asked questions about that $300 billion investment fund that this deal proposes, where countries in the Middle East would be releasing money that they have sanctioned from Iran in order to get -- welcome them back into the world economy via investments.

I have Ravi Chaudhary here. He's a former acting deputy assistant secretary for the Navy. So, that's important here.

What did you hear in what the president said?

CHAUDHARY: I think going over this plan and listening to the president, I -- my biggest takeaway from this is it's a positive that we have moved from hostilities and cessation of hostilities to a peaceful discussion.

The negative, I think, is that we may very well be seeing, as it stands right now, a JCPOA minus 300 billion and minus the ability to manage the Strait. That's a potential. But there's a lot to be worked out in the details. And we'll look for that in the next 60 days.

But again, we've got to take a look at what the implications are, what -- whether it was worth our life and treasure in the United States to truly understand if this war was worth it. And I think we'll be talking about that in the coming days. But ultimately, the trust but verify piece of this has yet to be discussed. And so --

CORNISH: We should say, that's one of the points of the memorandum --

CHAUDHARY: Absolutely. CORNISH: Coming up with a mechanism to verify whether or not Iran is doing what has been agreed to. And the president said, look, it's just a memorandum of understanding. If we don't like it, we can go back to shooting at them. That was one of the quotes today.

I also notice he immediately turned to language. Domestic, political language. Slamming Democrats on affordability, blaming him for affordability, trotting out the old nicknames for Democratic rivals like Clinton or Obama. What did you make at how he was talking about this?

ELEANOR MUELLER, WHITE HOUSE ECONOMIC POLICY REPORTER, "SEMAFOR": I think his comments tell us everything about the pressure that he's under, right? It's economic. He wants to bring gas prices down. He wants Americans to feel like he's doing things to make life more affordable for them. And the financial incentives in here speak volumes about that goal, right? The lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil. Yes, it's going to make Iran a lot of money. It's also going to, theoretically, bring down the price of oil worldwide. That's what he wants.

CORNISH: Yes. And they've been talking about how oil is down to $75 a barrel, right, which is better than $100, which is what people were dealing with.

MUELLER: Yes.

CORNISH: Thank you so much for being with us this morning.

Just bringing you up to speed on what has happened. We just heard from President Trump at the G7 in France, where he was talking about the memorandum of understanding with Iran. CNN has actually obtained the details of that memorandum. So, today, you'll be hearing people report on some of the things that are appearing in that proposal, how it sets the table for further discussions on Iran's nuclear program, for example, how it purports to bring Iran back into the world economy, whether that means by easing sanctions or by somehow getting money to them.

[07:00:13]

Maybe not by plane, as the president has long criticized Barack Obama, but certainly through an investment mechanism. All those details you're going to hear about next.

I'm Audie Cornish. Stay with us for the headlines.