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Trump Claims Iran Agreement is 'Unconditional Surrender'; Blue Material Peeling from Newly Painted Reflecting Pool; Phone-Free Shows: In the Moment or Missing Out on Memories? Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 19, 2026 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:03]

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN ANCHOR: You know, we'll end the morning on a good note. I love it. That does it for CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS. I'm Danny Freeman. CNN THIS MORNING with Audie Cornish starts right now.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Did Iran surrender to the U.S.? Well, President Trump thinks so.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The MOU doesn't look like unconditional surrender.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Well, it really probably is unconditional surrender.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: There's something blue peeling from the bottom of D.C.'s newly painted Reflecting Pool. So, are these new signs of deep trouble in the shallow green water?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's -- let's be honest. The tone of the administration is not consistently a Christian tone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: J.D. Vance confronted by a conservative Catholic podcaster, the vice president defending the administration's values.

And is Joe Rogan the new Johnny Carson? What America's most popular podcaster has that the King of Late Night never did.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: You know, I've seen skeptics of the deal. People say the Iranians will never change their behavior. Well, maybe that's true. And if so, they don't get any of the benefits of the bargain. But isn't it worth trying? (END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: The U.S. and Iran giving peace a chance. And yet, just one day into it, could it already be on shaky ground?

Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish, and here's where we begin: this breaking news. The peace talks planned today between the U.S. and Iran now called off, at least according to the Swiss foreign minister.

Vice President J.D. Vance was set to travel to Switzerland last night, but the White House said his plans changed last minute, due to unresolved logistics surrounding the next phase of negotiations.

This morning, the naval blockade has been lifted. The Strait of Hormuz is technically open. The clock is ticking. Sixty days to get a final deal.

President Trump is raising some eyebrows, however, with this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You had talked about you only wanted unconditional surrender and --

TRUMP: Well --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- the MOU doesn't look like unconditional surrender.

TRUMP: Well, it really probably is unconditional surrender.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is?

TRUMP: I think so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now, Kurt Volker, former U.S. ambassador to NATO.

Thank you for being here this morning. First, I want to just start with the talks being called off today. Is that bad news? How should we read that?

KURT VOLKER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NATO: Well, good morning, Audie.

And look, I think we had to expect a lot of bumps in the road, because this is a very vague and very partial agreement. It is meant to be the start of negotiations, rather than the end of negotiations.

And secondly, it did not bind Israel to anything. It did not bind Hezbollah to anything.

So, Iran now has a card to play, which is peace in Lebanon. And if Hezbollah attacks Israel, which apparently happened, then Israel responds, they can claim, OK, there's no peace. So, we don't have to do anything.

So, there's a lot to play out here.

CORNISH: Yes. You just mentioned that. Last night, at least 16 people, actually, were killed after Israeli airstrikes.

Vice President Vance had pretty strong words for members of the Israeli government, who have criticized the agreement with Iran and him. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: I don't think Bibi himself has actually criticized the deal, because I think he's maybe a little bit more familiar with the details of what's in it.

But, yes, you've seen people in their system -- Ben-Gvir and Smotrich -- who've attacked the deal. And I guess my response to them would be, what is your exact proposal?

And, you know, you're a country of -- of 9 million people. You can't just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: As a diplomat, how do you hear how he's defending this?

VOLKER: Well, there are several things that come to mind.

No. 1 is that it is an Iranian objective to sow divisions between the United States and Israel. And hearing that kind of comment from the vice president about Israel is fulfilling that Iranian objective of sowing those kinds of divisions.

Secondly, if you're Israel, you're living in a very dangerous neighborhood, and what you need to do is provide security for your people. And that rests on deterring what are very real threats to your people.

[06:05:06]

So, Israel is focused on that.

We may not agree with them as to how they go about that. We may think sometimes they are too aggressive in pursuing that. But that is what the Israeli prime minister's job is, and he's not going to be deterred from that. We have to look at that reality.

And then thirdly, we shouldn't make an assumption that, because there is now this memorandum of understanding with Iran, that everything that is not in the memorandum of understanding is somehow better than it was before.

Iran funds, supplies, trains, supports terrorist networks all over the world, especially those that are targeting Israel. And we have to recognize that that is real.

CORNISH: Yes. And I think a lot of people do, frankly. The people who are loudest in their complaints about this deal are Republicans. And we're just hearing so many senators saying similar things, even, to what you might hear from those loud voices in Israel.

I want to play for you a series of voices.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): Everything I've heard about it causes me concern.

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): I do have concerns that certain aspects of this deal might be a step in the wrong direction.

SEN. JONI ERNST (R-IA): I have to know where that money is coming from, because I don't think my constituents are going to be really happy about it, if that's all U.S. taxpayer dollars.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): History demonstrates that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is an exceptionally bad idea.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, people are kind of up in arms about many things, but specifically, the $300 billion potential reconstruction and development fund, which is supposed to be an investment fund.

And Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi is the top Republican. He was saying, Look, I get that it's not funded by taxpayer dollars, but it's still a payoff. And he's saying it's a payoff that would make Obama's 2015 deal look like a pittance by comparison.

VOLKER: Yes, that's exactly right. That's the one part of this thing that is the most mystifying at all: why there's any money changing hands here, whether it's taxpayers or not. It doesn't matter.

CORNISH: But they're saying there isn't, right? They're arguing that money isn't changing hands.

VOLKER: Well, they say that, but then you look, and you say sanctions are being lifted. Iran is getting oil sales. There will be a reconstruction fund that the Gulf states will organize. That's money.

And what you have to look at here is where we were in January, was Iran's nuclear program had been bombed and substantially destroyed. And the Gulf [SIC] of Hormuz was open.

Now, we had four months of war that we paid for, and the nuclear program remains destroyed. And we are still in an open-ended negotiation about where that goes. And there is some Iranian insistence that they have some control over the state of -- the Strait of Hormuz. OK. But maybe it was worth it to get out of the military conflict, to get

our forces home, to bring down oil prices, to restore some stability in the global economy. You can argue, OK, we can go back and reset.

But then you add on top of that, and Iran gets access to hundreds of billions of dollars. That's kind of inexplicable.

CORNISH: Yes, none of this sounds like what the president said: unconditional surrender by Iran.

VOLKER: Well, I know that's what he wants to say, but the Iranian regime is still in place. They are setting terms over the Strait of Hormuz. They are setting terms for future negotiations about nuclear weapons.

And as we saw today, they're also insisting on demands about Lebanon that is mentioned in the agreement but has no binding effect on Israel or Hezbollah.

CORNISH: That's Ambassador Kurt Volker. Thank you so much for your time.

VOLKER: Thank you.

CORNISH: Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, accused killer Luigi Mangione changes his mind. His lawyers announcing another new defense strategy this week.

And the Reflecting Pool here on the National Mall got a multimillion- dollar makeover. But does President Trump's fix now need some fixing?

Plus, today is Juneteenth, and the Juneteenth flag is now flying over Wisconsin's state capitol for the seventh year in a row. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:13:54]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks bad. I just see green. Green slime.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pouring all that peroxide into it clearly didn't help. I feel for the ducks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: All right. We could call it "Watergate." A new issue after the multi-million-dollar renovation of the Reflecting Pool.

Now we're going to show you this: blue material peeling off the bottom. It's not clear yet if that's paint or sealant.

And earlier this week, crews were working on the algae turning the pool green. Despite these images, the U.S. Department of the Interior insists that the water is crystal-clear and that crews are just vacuuming up dead algae. Quote, "just like the destroyed Iranian navy resting on the bottom of the Persian Gulf." Again, that's the word from the Department of the Interior in charge of the Reflecting Pool.

Joining me now in the group chat, Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor; Michael Warren, politics editor for "The Dispatch"; and Lulu Garcia-Navarro, CNN contributor and host of "The New York Times" podcast, "The Interview."

[06:15:03]

All right. So, both the Reflecting Pool and the Iran war are a win, which if you were here for my interview with Ambassador Volker just now, I'm not sure that's a great analogy.

But I want to point out: at least two companies worked on this project. And public records show that an Ohio company, Greenwater Services, was hired to install the filtration system, and a Virginia- based Atlantic Industrial Coatings to resurface it.

And even though Greenwater Services didn't respond to our request for comment, the owner of Atlantic Industrial Coatings did. They said -- Eddie Wood, he's -- who owns Atlantic Industrial Coatings, said, "The images do not provide enough information to tell exactly what this is. There are several things that we've got to address when we come back for maintenance, and anything like that will be addressed if it's a problem."

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: So first of all, the fact that it was called "Greenwater" should have been a giveaway. I'm just saying you can't make that up. Sorry. Go on.

MICHAEL WARREN, POLITICS EDITOR, "THE DISPATCH": No. No, I --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I had to make the joke.

CORNISH: I'm glad you.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Delivered well. It was good.

WARREN: No, look, I -- I think this is one of these things that was thoroughly predictable, if you read anything, which you know, I know nothing about water filtration. But I was reading about this as the administration was pushing this narrative that they were finally cleaning it up.

Is that this is a long-standing problem in the Reflecting Pool, that these algae blooms happen, because there just isn't enough, you know, water flow out of -- out of it.

And I do think that, you know, two weeks ago, a week ago on social media, you had all these kind of supporters of the president, Republicans saying, finally, the president is cleaning this up.

And it was just -- it was obvious that this was going --

CORNISH: Yes.

WARREN: This was very likely to happen. Now, maybe they're just cleaning up dead algae, maybe just the seal is coming off. That doesn't --

CORNISH: Well, just because I went down the rabbit hole on this. Once you start, you know, hand pouring jugs --

WARREN: Right.

CORNISH: -- of peroxide in there, and it kills the algae bloom, it floats to the bottom. And now you've got to scrape it up.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I feel the ducks, too.

CORNISH: And the ducks. which now --

WILLIAMS: Just the ducks, not the ducts.

CORNISH: So, what do you think of this?

WILLIAMS: You know, it's -- one, it's a question of did this need to happen in the way it did? And perhaps -- right? -- perhaps there -- we all live in Washington, D.C., or around the area. You see the algae there. There could have been a benefit to it.

Once again, it is the Trump -- the Trump and the folks around him making the case aggressively before it, almost as a moral matter. And that when it goes badly now, sort of it's adding to the face (ph), right?

CORNISH: Yes, it was like a metaphor for the cleanup of Washington.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

CORNISH: Well, now it's cost a lot of money. It's basically the $14 million price tag is not where we started. I want to play for you Trump, how he sold it to the public.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: One point nine million. One week.

We had estimates to fix it of about $355 million. And it was going to take three and a half years. You can see by the size of it. And so, we're going to be able to do it for about a million eight -- 1.8 million -- and it's going to take one week. And we'll be finished, I guess.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: You see, that's the point I'm making. He went so far out there making the case as to how quickly it was going to happen, how cheaply it would be done, and how perfect it would be that what could have been an honest problem of, you know, maybe a piece chipped off. People who have been in a swimming pool know that that happens from time to time. What could have been a simple problem now becomes an embarrassment. And it's worse.

CORNISH: Yes. It's been interesting seeing progressives sort of have fun with this analogy. Remember, the Interior is the one that brought up the comparison to the Iran War.

And so now, they're able to say, Oh, really? A thing no one asked for has gone wrong, cost us way more than we expected, and you're trying to do a cleanup? Sounds familiar. And it was like the messaging of --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: The Internet is undefeated on --

CORNISH: The Internet is undefeated.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, there is so many jokes about this. There's, like, the Rothko joke because of the peroxide.

CORNISH: Yes. Actually, the Rothko joke's really great.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You have like blue around.

Yes, it has the blue around the green, and it does actually look like a Rothko painting.

CORNISH: Ducks. We love you, ducks. We hope you survive.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes. Yes. Survive, ducks.

CORNISH: Don't die. I don't want to see an image of a little baby duckling, like swimming past a Costco-size bottle of hydrogen peroxide. It's like -- It's not how I want to end the week.

WARREN: Yes. It's also -- I mean, look, this is all supposed to be sort of in -- in the run-up to the 250th anniversary. And it's -- it's just not a good look to have those bottles of hydrogen peroxide, all the work being done when you did have an administration official say --

CORNISH: I also love the tourists just be, like, Looks green to me.

WARREN: I know.

CORNISH: You know what I mean? Like --

WARREN: It's -- it's just, you know --

CORNISH: Pretty straightforward.

WARREN: Yes, it would have been nice if they had not sort of built this up as some great big restoration that was going to make everything great and beautiful for the 250th, when there would need to be more work.

WILLIAMS: Last point, it could perfectly be the case that pouring bottles of hydrogen peroxide into a big pool might be the way to get rid of algae.

WARREN: Sure.

WILLIAMS: That might -- that might be a plausible way to treat it.

CORNISH: Yes.

WILLIAMS: I just think all of the circumstances around how they got us to this moment.

CORNISH: Right.

WILLIAMS: And how they talked it make it look silly.

CORNISH: It's supposed to be a win. And instead, it's a conversation about no-bid contracts and a failure. So, not -- it didn't end up where they wanted.

[06:20:06]

You guys, stay with me. We've got more to talk about. After the break, we're going to talk about why you all need to put the phone away. I'm not just saying that because I'm on TV. There's a growing number of artists who want fans to experience the music, not stand there with their arms up.

Plus, this was the scene at the Minerva Foundation in Guadalajara last night after Mexico beat South Korea in its second World Cup game. Mexico is now at the top of its group.

And in the meantime, good morning to our viewers in Orange Beach, Alabama. Live look at the coastline.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, no! I need my phone at concerts, because what if I'm at barricade I'm going to get bored. I'll have nothing to do. What if I get bored?

Chit chat. Huh? Are you guys not chit chatting at concert?

[06:25:03]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like, you can still record your phone and then just live in the moment. Like, your eyes are independent of where your phone camera is looking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, there's concerts, binge watching, reading. A lot of us are -- you know, it's summertime. We're getting ready to escape the issues of the real world.

But even how we enjoy our downtime is stirring up controversy. When you look out at a concert, for instance, sometimes all you see are phones. And singer Phoebe Bridgers is the latest artist to say enough is enough. She just announced a phone-free arena tour after a sold-out surprise show at Madison Square Garden last week.

There are some fans concerned about, you know, this taking hold nationwide.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I felt like I was able to enjoy the music more, connect more with the artists. People held up their lighters. I was like, damn, I should have brought my lighter.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If they're going to be locking up everyone's phones, there has to be a better way to unlock them at the end. Because there was basically very few workers unlocking them.

So, it was a big bottlenecking situation, and it took forever to get out. I could see that becoming an issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: All right. So, we're talking about that on this week's episode of "Engagement Party." my co-host, Ari Shapiro, enters the chat.

ARI SHAPIRO, CO-HOST, "ENGAGEMENT PARTY": Hi, friend.

CORNISH: What's the deal with the phone freeze? Is it becoming a trend? Are other artists talking about this?

SHAPIRO: Absolutely. We have seen Harry Styles do it. He handed out disposable cameras to people at his shows, and we've seen other artists, whether it's Madonna or Mitski or whomever, say, you know, fans, I would like you better if you didn't have your phones out the entire time.

I come to this not only as somebody who goes to concerts, but also as somebody who sings with a band called Pink Martini. And we say, yes, use your phones, please don't use your flash.

But I have to tell you, when I'm on stage, and I'm singing, and I'm trying to make a moment of connection with the audience, and all I see are phones and screens, it's a little bit of a barrier.

CORNISH: Yes.

SHAPIRO: I think there's something really special about live performance that phones can get in the way of.

CORNISH: I just want to play one more thing for the group. This is Harry Styles. He was on the "Q with Tom Power" podcast, and he was talking about how he got the idea to do a fully phone-free show. And here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HARRY STYLES, MUSICIAN: I remember, like, standing in the middle of the dance floor. And I like had my hands up, and I was kind of just, like, breathing. And I closed my eyes, and I remember the feeling of like, oh, I'm no longer, like, scanning the room to see if anyone's like, you know, filming or anything.

I just felt like, oh, I'm just on my own right now. And I feel so free.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: This was after an experience at a phone-free club in Berlin last year.

It's sort of funny, because he's just describing what concerts used to be like.

WARREN: Yes.

CORNISH: That's what we did, was stand and sway. Like, I don't know, are you guys phones before the show?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Lighters.

CORNISH: The lighter -- lighters up.

WARREN: Totally.

CORNISH: Yes.

WARREN: But this is -- this has been, you know, sort of standard operating procedure for years now, with stand-up comedy, for instance. And there's a reason for that, right?

A lot of these stand-up comics are working on their hour for a special. And so, they -- they have kept phones out of there, because they don't want people posting the jokes that they're honing and working on.

So, stand-up comedy has been doing it. I think it's been a pretty big success and pretty easy to do.

CORNISH: Yes.

WARREN: So, I'm not a -- I'm not a concert guy. I wish I were. In a previous time in my life, I was. But like, I don't understand how --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Can I --

WARREN: -- you need the phone to enjoy the concert.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm going to give the opposite view.

WARREN: Please.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Which is this. No. And I get it. Like, phones are annoying, and everything's annoying, and la, la, la.

But I also feel that some of these artists are being disingenuous. Because nowadays, these moments, they live on. They're ephemeral, but they live on to a much wider audience. Ticket prices are unaffordable for most people, and so, I mean, I listen and -- and these --

SHAPIRO: We wouldn't ask the carpenter to fix our house for free. We wouldn't ask Nike to make us shoes for free. Why do we believe that every live performance by every artist should be available to everyone at all times forever on the Internet?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm not saying -- I'm not saying that everything should be recorded, and the entire thing should be put out there. And there's rules against that, right?

But I'm saying that some clips, they do live on. And there are these moments that happen that can be shared to a much wider audience that actually helps the artist.

WILLIAMS: This whole fight, not fight. But this whole discussion is really about the rise and aging of Gen Z. Because they're the first -- No, I mean this. They're the first generation to have grown up entirely with devices.

CORNISH: Yes.

WILLIAMS: And now you're seeing the backlash to it. Here, it's the phones, if you know.

SHAPIRO: Or is it the healing?

WILLIAMS: The healing. No, no, whatever it is.

CORNISH: Nature is healing.

WILLIAMS: But it's the tin-can phones. wanting to get away from cellphones.

CORNISH: Yes.

WILLIAMS: It's the disposable cameras. And a lot of that is -- is, you know, because -- because folks who grew up as kids, so inundated with devices, are just backlashing now.

CORNISH: Let me just talk about one more thing they're inundated with: romance TV show content.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

CORNISH: Here is a fan online, talking about this pipeline that goes from book talk to streaming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's also known because my algorithm is just feeding me, feeding me, feeding me, feeding me content. The edits. It's also my fault, because I've watched it four times now. Four

times. Four times all the way through.

At this point in time, I think I --

(END VIDEO CLIP)