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Iran Says U.S. Did Not Demand Zero Uranium Enrichment; U.S. Supreme Court Rules Trump's Sweeping Emergency Tariffs are Illegal. Aired 10a-11a ET

Aired February 20, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:38]

ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Abu Dhabi, this is CONNECT THE WORLD.

ELENI GIOKOS, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Welcome to the second hour of the show. I'm Eleni Giokos live in Abu Dhabi.

Iran's foreign minister says the U.S. has not asked Tehran to halt uranium enrichment and Iran has made no offer to suspend it.

White House border czar Tom Homan telling CNN top Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino should be investigated if a judge declared he lied under

oath.

And in New Delhi, the future of artificial intelligence on display at the India A.I. Impact Summit 2026. World leaders, tech executives and investors

mapping out the rules of the A.I. race. But beyond the big speeches, a moment of very public tension between two industry heavyweights turning a

high level into something close to a high school standoff.

We are learning new details about the U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations that took place this week. The Iranian foreign minister says the United States

did not demand zero uranium enrichment from Tehran in order to reach a deal.

Take a listen to this exchange on MS NOW from a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBAS ARAGHCHI, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: We have not offered any suspension, and the U.S. side has not asked for zero enrichment. The

question is how --

JOE SCARBOROUGH, MS NOW ANCHOR: Let me stop you there. Let me stop you there because I'm just -- that has been reported. So I just want for people

that are watching the show that have read that, your position is that the United States didn't ask for a permanent suspension of enrichment? Is that

what you're telling me?

ARAGHCHI: Yes. What we are now talking about is how to make sure that Iran's nuclear program, including enrichment, is peaceful and would remain

peaceful forever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIOKOS: Well, that contradicts what we heard just this weekend from U.S. President Donald Trump. And he insisted he didn't want any uranium

enrichment, completely scrapping the program that has been a redline for Iran.

CNN's senior national security reporter Zach Cohen is now live in Washington for us.

Zach, good to see you. What do you make of that statement from the foreign minister that the U.S. did not demand they halt enrichment when we very

well know that uranium enrichment has been very central to negotiations with Iran.

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And as you mentioned, it would seem to run counter to what President Donald Trump has

demanded of the Iranians publicly as this military buildup has been taking place in an attempt to apply pressure to Iran to accept some sort of an

agreement. But it really underscores, I think, how there's still this lack of clarity around the terms that are being discussed by U.S. and Iranian

negotiators behind closed doors.

Obviously Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff, his top envoy to the Middle East, have been meeting to discuss the Iranian

issue, but really have not emerged with any sort of details about the terms that are under discussion. And if you take the Iranian foreign minister's

word for it, it sounds like one of the key demands that have at least been publicly expressed did not come up.

And look, this also really points out or points to the fact that this is an incredibly complicated topic that Donald Trump has demanded be negotiated

in a very short amount of time, yesterday saying that the U.S. would know from within 10 to 15 days if the Iranians are willing to make some sort of

a deal, to negotiate some sort of an agreement involving its nuclear program.

We also know that when President Barack Obama negotiated the JCPOA, when he was president, that took about two years to hammer out the details and one

of his key negotiators was a nuclear physicist. Donald Trump does not have a nuclear physicist in the room during these negotiations.

I would also just note that the chief of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, coming out and saying what I think U.S. and foreign experts have long suspected

that most of Iran's enriched uranium remains where it was at the time of the U.S. strikes last year, so clearly not obliterated as President Trump

previously claimed.

GIOKOS: Yes.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: White House because we have breaking news from the Supreme Court. It has reached a major decision.

CNN chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid has the details.

What's this case about, Paula?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: This is one of the most significant cases that the justices have decided in recent years.

[10:05:03]

Here the Supreme Court ruling that President Trump's use of these emergency tariffs that he has implemented are illegal. It's the most significant

economic case to reach the high court in years. Sweeping implications for the economy and of course for presidential power. And at stake here are

billions of dollars in revenue that have already been collected by the government.

Pamela, Wolf, the other significance here is that this is the first time that the 6-3 conservative court has ruled against President Trump in one of

these major cases that have gone before the court since he returned to power in January.

Now we are still going through this case, but this is something we have been waiting for. The court said that it would take up this case on an

expedited basis so they're deciding, even though it's a significant case now, because of course this has enormous implications.

So as we go through this opinion now with our team, another outstanding question is what now happens to all that revenue that had been collected.

This is something it really wasn't clear from the arguments what they would say about that, if they're going to lay out a plan. So we will continue to

go through this. But this is an enormous decision and a rare loss for President Trump before this conservative court.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: This is, Paula, a major slap at the president of the United States who has made a major effort over these many, many months

to impose all these tariffs. And just to look at some of the background I have here, over these many months, the administration has collected $150

billion, billion, in these tariffs.

So what happens to that money? Do they have to refund that money to the firms, to the people who paid for those tariffs?

REID: That's one of the big questions that came up at arguments. And it's something that we are looking through now in this opinion. The top line is

that these are illegal, that the president cannot rely on this 1977 emergency law to impose tariffs without authorization from Congress because

this question is really about the extent of presidential power.

And we know in both his terms in office, President Trump has really worked at the edges of what has largely been recognized as executive authority.

But in these arguments back in November, they went on for two and a half hours, it was clear that the justices were skeptical that President Trump

could rely on this vague federal law to impose a global tariffs.

Now, they did appear to likely be willing to decide that these were illegal. But what is not clear, we haven't gotten to this part of the

opinion is what happens to all that revenue that has been collected by the government. And President Trump has said himself that this is, you know,

this is a massive decision for him. So we're waiting for reaction both from the Justice Department that argued this on his behalf and also from the

White House.

But we're going to keep going through this, Wolf, to try to see if the justices laid out any plan for what happens to that revenue.

BLITZER: All right, Paula, stand by. I know you're going to be reading all these opinions and everything. I want to get back to you. But I want to

bring in our senior legal analyst, Elie Honig, right now.

Elie, as I said, this is a huge setback for the president of the United States and this has been a traditionally conservative Supreme Court but

they ruled that all of these tariffs that Trump has imposed over these many months are illegal. It's a big deal.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Wolf, it's a monumental ruling and the bottom line is that the tariffs Donald Trump announced back in

April on liberation day are gone. They have been ruled illegal by this U.S. Supreme Court.

An interesting array of justices here. In the majority ruling that the tariffs are illegal are Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Gorsuch and Justice

Amy Coney Barrett, three conservatives who teamed up with the three liberal justices, Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson, to rule these tariffs

unconstitutional. The dissenters are Justices Thomas, Alito and Kavanaugh.

And the basis for the ruling is this. Congress, not the president, Congress typically holds the tariff power. Now Congress passed this law back in 1977

called the International Economic Emergencies Act. And Donald Trump tried to use that law to say, well, I'm declaring an international economic

emergency. Therefore I'm imposing tariffs. But the majority here said, no, that law does not authorize you to impose tariffs and no, there is not a

valid international economic emergency here.

So the end result, we are still going through this, but the end result is that Donald Trump's tariffs have been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court

but really important point I want to make, Donald Trump has said, various White House officials have said, if he loses on this basis, he will try to

reimplement other tariffs through other laws, which he can try to do. However those other laws are much more restrictive.

They would not allow him to apply the type of sweeping, massive, across- the-globe tariffs that he tried to impose here but have now been struck down. Look, Donald Trump said these tariffs are the single most important

thing he has done in his presidency. He said that and now they've been struck down by the court.

BROWN: So you're right, the administration has made clear that if the court strikes this down, that they'll look at other tariff authorities to use.

But bottom line here, Elie, how big of a mess does this ruling create given the fact that the administration says it has already received $150 billion

in revenue largely paid for by American businesses.

[10:10:11]

Do they get a refund? What happens now?

HONIG: Yes. So it's hard to think of a case that has broader implications politically and legally and economically than this one. I know a lot of

people are watching for this one. We don't yet have the answer. This was a question that came up during the oral argument. Amy Coney Barrett in

particular, asked the lawyers, well, what do we do with the $100 plus billion that have already been paid by American importers, by American

manufacturers?

We're going to look carefully at this. I know Paula is reading this very carefully but that's a huge question. Will there be some sort of mass

refund program? Will the court rule that the tariffs are dead from here on out but there are no repayments? We will let you know as soon as we get an

answer to that one.

BROWN: All right. As you noted, Paula has been reading through the opinion. I want to go back to Paula Reid because we know that three conservatives

sided with the liberals on the court.

And you have a quote from one of those conservatives, right, Paula?

REID: That's right. Well, this is Chief Justice John Roberts who wrote the majority opinion where the court agreed 6-3 that President Trump's tariffs

exceed his power under the law. He wrote, quote, "The president asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount,

duration and scope. In light of the breadth, history and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional

authorization to exercise it."

And we knew that the chief justice would be a key vote after what we saw at arguments. Now we are still going through this. I want to show you this is

about a third of the opinion. It's 170 pages long. This is just a fraction of it.

BROWN: Wow.

REID: So we're going through it very carefully to try to understand what, if anything, the court said about what happens to all that revenue the

government has already collected. I know that's a big question right now. We are carefully going through this to see if they laid out a plan, if this

goes back to the lower courts. That's what we're working to figure out right now.

BLITZER: And a quick question from me, Paula. Do the tariffs immediately go away as of right now or does it take a few days or at least maybe a few

weeks for them to be removed?

REID: Well, they've been declared by the Supreme Court to be illegal. So we're going through to see if they laid out some sort of plan. But as of

right now, people should not have to pay a tariff today or tomorrow, one would think. But we're looking to see, because the logistics of this are so

complicated to see if the justices waded into that, or if all of that is going to be something that's now going to be tossed down to lower courts

now that the justices have ruled on the larger constitutional question here. The separation sort of powers and who has the authority to do this,

right?

Because while this has enormous economic implications, really this was a question about the extent of executive power. We know President Trump

really plays at the edges of that. And again, this is a rare loss for President Trump since he's returned to office before this conservative

court. So we're going to keep wading through what they said to work out the details.

BROWN: All right, Paula. We'll let you continue to read through that.

I want to bring in our chief national affairs correspondent, Jeff, because this is a ruling that has implications for the everyday American. Anyone

who buys goods, right, especially those imported from overseas.

How are you looking at this from a political perspective, especially as you look at those Republicans running ahead of the midterms?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It's such a great question, Pamela, because, yes, this is the biggest legal setback for

President Trump who in his first year in office has really one through line has been just expanding his executive authority.

I remember back on the day of liberation day, he called it, he used the International Emergency Powers Act, IEEPA, to say that tariffs must be

imposed. The court is saying the president does not have the authority to do that. It is the biggest defeat, there's no doubt. But tariffs have also

been hanging over this White House in a kind of mixed way for the politics of it all. Many Republicans who are running in these midterm elections, I

think Mike Rogers is running for Senate in Michigan, has been worried about defending the president's tariff policy.

So this ruling right now to make it illegal could offer some Republicans relief in the sense that they would not have to defend this terrorist

policy. But it is a huge setback for the White House. The president, even yesterday he was campaigning in Georgia, talked about how tariffs are his

favorite word in the English language. He loves the idea of tariffs. But the trade deficit has not gone down. We saw that report yesterday as well.

So politically speaking this is a huge blow for the president. But there could be a silver lining in it for some Republican candidates out in

America running in the midterm elections who do not have to defend this tariff policy. So that is one of the sort of ironic pieces of a fallout

here. But without a doubt, the White House is going to be sort of furious by this 6-3 ruling. This is a conservative Supreme Court. And Amy Coney

Barrett --

BROWN: Two are conservatives that he appointed ruled in favor with the liberals.

ZELENY: Exactly. And Amy Coney Barrett, I'm thinking of her. I mean, she already has been under fire for many rulings by the MAGA right if you will.

BROWN: Yes.

[10:15:02]

ZELENY: So as we read through this ruling, that is certainly going to be one of the justices will be taking a look at. But bottom line, huge blow

for the president but potential silver lining for some Republicans out there.

BLITZER: And potentially the economic implications are enormous right now.

I want to go to our senior reporter, Matt Eagan, who's following the economic ramifications of this historic move by the U.S. Supreme Court, a

6-3 decision, a ruling that Trump's tariffs are illegal. Important word, illegal.

Matt Egan, what are the economic business ramifications? Will all those tariffs that are imposed, let's say, on Canada, China, European allies

simply immediately go away?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, Wolf, this is a gut punch to the White House on a signature issue, right? The president has become

almost synonymous with tariffs. More than any other president in modern history he's used this shock and awe strategy of blanketing the world with

historically high tariffs. So this is definitely a setback. As Jeff was saying, this is likely the biggest economic setback to the Trump agenda to

date.

And importantly, this will limit the president's ability to slap tariffs on imports on an unchecked basis by citing emergency powers. However, this is

not a fatal blow to his tariff regime altogether because some tariffs like the ones on steel and aluminum and copper, they relied on different

emergency powers so those are likely not impacted. Those are likely not changing based on this decision.

Now, the White House has said that they have backup plans already in the works. This decision was not a shock. Investors, economists, many people on

Wall Street had been anticipating that the Supreme Court was going to strike this down. And so the White House has had weeks, if not months to

try to prepare other tariff authorities that they can rely on to try to impose tariffs once again.

Now those other authorities, they come with more restrictions in terms of the size and scope and the timing of tariffs. But a lot of economists, they

do suspect that the overall tariff rate, it may not change all that much. Now, one of the really important economic factors here is what the Supreme

Court says, if anything, about refunds because the president's tariffs, they have in fact collected, they've generated hundreds of billions of

dollars of tariff revenue.

And if the government were forced to refund all of those tariffs, that would cause a significant budget impact and issue, and that could actually

drive up bond yields. But our teams are still reviewing this order. This is 170-page decision. So it's going to take some time to figure out exactly

what happens on the refund front, but looking at how the markets have reacted, they've been kind of all over the place.

U.S. stocks were solidly in the green earlier. The Dow has moved a little bit lower, but not dramatically lower as investors, like the rest of us,

are still sorting through exactly what all of this means. But clearly it is a significant economic setback for this White House.

BROWN: All right, Matt Egan, thank you so much.

And according to our very thorough right online about the tariffs and how much has been collected through them, the total collected is actually $292

billion collected during Trump's second term.

So I want to go now back to Paula Reid because this big question is, what happens now with all this money that these businesses have paid for these

tariffs?

REID: That is the question right now, Pamela, and we believe we have an answer from Justice Kavanaugh. He said, quote, "It is going to be a mess

because the court here offered no clarity on this specific practical question of what to do with the money the administration has already

collected through the president's tariffs. This will likely need to be sorted out now by lower courts."

And this is something that Justice Kavanaugh really focused on in his dissent. He noted that, quote, "The court said nothing today about whether

and if so how the government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers." And this issue, of course,

loomed large over this case. It came up during arguments and the Trump administration, they have said that potential repayments could have

devastating consequences for the U.S. economy.

So in his dissent, Kavanaugh said, quote, "That process is likely going to be a mess." So while today the court has given us an answer on the limits

of President Trump's power, what we don't have and what will continue to have to be litigated is this question of what happens to all that money.

That is, again to quote the justice, going to be a mess.

BLITZER: Certainly looks like it's going to be a mess. And it comes on a day, and I want to go back to Matt Egan if he's still with us, if he's

still with us.

Matt, this comes on the same day that new economic numbers were just released. Pretty dismal numbers, depressing numbers on the economy and

inflation. Right?

EGAN: Yes. That's right, Wolf. We did get new numbers out this morning on Gross Domestic Product, GDP.

[10:20:01]

It's the widest measure of economic growth in the United States. We were bracing for a slowdown during the fourth quarter. It was a bigger slowdown

than anticipated. GDP coming in at 1.4 percent on an annualized basis. That's a pretty significant slowdown from 4.4 percent in the third quarter.

However, we do need a bit of an asterisk for that because this slowdown was largely driven by Washington.

In particular, we're talking about the government shutdown last year. It was the longest government shutdown in U.S. history and the Bureau of

Economic Analysis says that it wiped out about one percentage point of GDP growth, meaning instead of 1.4, it probably should have been 2.4 percent

growth.

And the good news is that history shows that GDP that's lost because of a government shutdown, it is almost fully recovered during the next quarter.

So that means that we should see a bounce back during this quarter in GDP because that government shutdown was over. The government spending and

investment that was sidelined, it will return. But still, when you look at the overall outlook for GDP last year, it was a weaker year.

The president has argued that 2024 was an economic disaster, that he inherited a mess. But GDP was actually stronger in 2024 than it was in

2025. But, again, a lot of that has to do with the government shutdown. And just one other point for you, and this is relevant to tariffs and the

Supreme Court ruling, is the Federal Reserve's go-to inflation metric, it came out this morning as well for the month of December.

And it showed that inflation heated up in December to a 21-month high, the highest level since March of 2024, and notably, one of the drivers on that

was the fact that prices on goods increased significantly. And we know that the president's tariffs have lifted the prices for toys, appliances and

other goods as well. And so that does appear to have been a factor in why the inflation rate has moved in the wrong direction.

Back to you.

BLITZER: Yes. Bad numbers today released coming on the heels of a major, major defeat for the president of the United States when the U.S. Supreme

Court ruled 6-3 that the tariffs he has imposed over these many months in his second term as president of the United States are illegal. Illegal.

Rana Faroohar is taking a look at the international implications of all of this.

We know Trump imposed significant tariffs on all these countries, including friendly countries like Canada and the European allies, not just China, for

example. What's going to be the international impact of this decision?

RANA FAROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Oh, boy. Hang on to your hat, Wolf, because we are in for months if not years now of legal wrangling. You

know, just start with the immediate impact. You're going to see a lot of businesses, a lot of countries saying, hey, we want our money back. There's

going to be a raft of lawsuits at multiple levels of folks, you know, different entities, countries and companies, looking to recoup some of the

losses from tariffs.

You know, I think that there's -- there are second and third tier impacts, too. The fact that the Supreme Court, which, you know, many people have

accused of being political under this administration, has said, you know what, Trump overreached. You know, this isn't working. This is not

constitutional. I think in some ways that's a signal of court independence and that could be taken as a positive thing for the overall political

economy in the U.S.

But we are just at the beginning of, frankly, a real mess. And one more thing I'll say. We shouldn't think that the topic of tariffs is now going

away somehow even beyond potential lawsuits because the president has any number of other ways that he can continue to try and push for tariffs and

impact, you know, levies. So we'll be watching for that.

BROWN: And just to follow up with you, I know this is a little bit messy. But not all the tariffs were under this law that the president used for the

emergency tariffs that he announced on liberation day. So can you help us sift through which items, whether it's furniture or toys, electronics, may

go down now as a result of this ruling and which items we expect to remain higher because of the tariffs used under other authorities?

FAROOHAR: Yes, it's a great question. So there are, as you say, any number of ways that the president can levy tariffs. During the first Trump term,

for example, we saw tariffs on China going up. And that was because the administration was able to use various legal mechanisms to prove that China

was not using market practices, that the trading paradigm wasn't fair.

You could still see the president going industry by industry, sector by sector, toys, furniture, shoes, you know, these are things that I think

certainly you could still see tariffs happening. Tech products, semiconductors, you may still see tariffs particularly on China, because it

is a country that you can say pretty clearly, hey, they're not abiding by market practices.

[10:25:01]

I think what you're going to see a pullback on is these blanket tariffs on adversaries and allies alike, which frankly a lot of people, most

economists, but also a lot of people in the Republican Party, in the president's own party, have said we're worried about that. We don't like

that. We don't like the idea of ever changing blanket policies on countries as a whole. And so that's what you're going to see big fights about now.

BROWN: All right. A lot to continue to follow because it's not very clear how this is going to play out. We're going to continue to read through the

opinion here. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

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