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Vance: Iran Agreed To Let Nuclear Inspectors Back Into Country; U.S. Temporarily Lifts Sanctions On Iranian Oil As Talks Continue; Poll: Few Think U.S. Achieved Its Strategic Objectives In Iran; Trump Threatens 10-Yr Prison Sentence For Reflecting Pool "Vandals"; Material Peeling Off Bottom Of Reflecting Pool After $14M Renovation; Trump Admin Threatens To Withhold Millions In Homeland Security Funds Unless States Adopt Election Changes. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 22, 2026 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: And yes, it does carry right over to the field and not just for the Americans, obviously, the Mexicans and the Canadians are also hosting, and they're seeing waves of support for their country (Ph).

WOLF BLITZER, CNN CO-ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: These underdogs are doing well too.

BRENNAN: Well, Cape Verde, that's the country, with ten -- ten volcanic islands, Wolf. Less than a half million population, 491,000. Never been in a world cup before. They've now had two ties.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: He's the star right here, the goalkeeper, right?

BRENNAN: And they could, yes, 40-year-old goalkeeper. And they could -- they could right now move on into the knockout round. Best story, best surprise, best underdog of this tournament.

BROWN: Yeah.

BLITZER: Christine Brennan, thanks very much. And to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

BROWN: Inside Politics with our friend and colleague, Dana Bash, starts now.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Vice President Vance sees progress with Iran, but most Americans still need convincing.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

Vice President Vance is heading back to Washington after what he calls very, very good negotiations with Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT: This is probably what we're most excited about, as Americans, the Iranians have agreed to invite IAEA inspectors back into their country. That is a major milestone for the American people, and the first step in permanently denuclearizing or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran. And that's exactly what we wanted to do. That's exactly what we asked to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: If that sounds familiar to you, it's because it is international inspectors that was part of -- really an important part of President Obama's Iran deal that President Trump scrapped in his first term. And as talks continue, Washington is moving ahead with the key aspect of the agreement with Tehran by temporarily lifting sanctions on Iranian oil.

I'm joined here by a terrific group of reporters. Happy Monday to all of you. Alayna, I know that you've been talking to your White House sources. What are you hearing at this moment, because I know things change literally by the minute, and it depends who we're talking to, but what are you hearing right now about the talks?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Look, Vance was very eager, I think, to come out and argue that they were good and progressing, even after, of course, we saw the president almost threaten to derail these with his comments about Iran and Iran's president yesterday. But look, I think that they're in a very fragile place. Obviously, the memorandum of understanding, getting that done and signed, was a big first step, but so many of the thorniest issues that they need to sort are being played out now in this 60-day technical talk negotiating period.

But one of the things that's been fascinating, I talked to some of the U.S. negotiators involved in this last week when I was in Switzerland, and over the weekend, as well, so much of what they are relying on in this period is what they called in this MOU the gentleman's agreements, and kind of these back channel promises and commitments that Iran has made to people like J.D. Vance, to Jared Kushner, to Steve Witkoff, but weren't actually written in the text.

And I think they're at a point where they really have to see whether or not Iran is going to honor those commitments. From what I've been told, the speaker of Iran's parliament, Mohammad Ghalibaf, he's really emerged as the key negotiator on the Iranian side. He actually gets along well, I'm told, with J.D. Vance. That's partly why he's been so involved in this process.

And from what I've been told behind the scenes is that they do feel like Ghalibaf and some of the Iranians in the room with them are sincere in wanting to honor these commitments and carry this out, including even more than some of the things we've learned, like with these inspectors. The U.S. side really wants them to destroy, have the IAEA go in and destroy the stockpile, and all these other things.

The problem is going to be, though, if they can go back to some of the hardliners in Iran, the IRGC, the Ayatollah, and be able to sell that to their people, and that's where we're going to see whether or not these talks are actually successful in the end. BASH: Especially, given what you say that you have the memorandum of understanding, which you know, throughout the week last week was obviously so confusing, and people were confused based on who was putting the information forward and that was actually what was written. And if there's more that is gentlemen's agreement behind the scenes, how is that enforceable?

SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, AP: Right. I mean, broadly, the vice president has spoken of the fact that he doesn't necessarily trust the Iranians, neither does the U.S. But the key thing here is that there will be penalties for Iran's behavior, and there will be benefits for Iran's behavior, depending on what they do from the U.S. perspective.

That's the way he's been trying to defend this deal against the particularly the Republican critics in his own party, but there is still so much confusion, there is some clarity coming out this morning from Switzerland about what the negotiators had agreed to. These are very sort of top-level agreements, and it really gets down to technical nitty gritty negotiations from now on, led by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.

[12:05:00]

But the other complicated thing is too that we're not hearing from the Iranians are not necessarily confirming what the U.S. says it had agreed to. Obviously, the vice president said this morning that one idea is that the unfroze and the unfreezing of assets, the U.S. could potentially have their agricultural products bought by Iran. That is a novel idea, and but we will see if that's actually put into practice, or how that's executed, especially from the Iranian perspective.

BASH: So, I mentioned at the top of the show that some of what we're hearing sounds familiar, because it is, because some of these points were actually in the, what's known as the JCPOA, the key points during the Obama years, during the deal that he and other countries agreed to reducing the number of Iranian centrifuges by two thirds, capping Iranian uranium enrichment for 15 years, requiring access for IAEA inspectors, sanctions removed from Iran's oil industry, and Iran gained access to frozen assets.

This last part, the frozen assets is one of the things that then candidate Donald Trump really railed on during the entire 2016 campaign. I mean, you see them there, the president talked about President Obama negotiating rather than completing successful negotiations in July of 2015, I remember this is the first time I actually talked to candidate Obama at his winery, because, of course, it was.

He said we shouldn't -- we shouldn't give them their money back, we're giving them billions of dollars, we shouldn't give them their money back. And then in 2016, we took the sanctions off, we got nothing for that.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, this is why there's been so much blowback from Trump's own party. Republicans on the Hill see this as no different, maybe even worse in their view than the Obama nuclear deal that they railed on for years, that Trump railed on for years, that Iran was going to get all sorts of money and sanctions relief, and all the rest. And that's essentially what they're putting into practice here, which is one of the big reasons why he's having a very hard time selling this to his own party.

Will be interesting to see is this week the president is going to come to Capitol Hill on Wednesday. He's going to meet with Senate Republicans. The Senate Republicans are the ones who have been the most vocal in their criticisms, the people like the Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, someone who is not typically going out there on alleged to criticize the president very much, so in this regard.

So, how does the president sell this to his party? Will anyone push back on him to his face? I'm skeptical that will happen, but nevertheless, it just shows you the high road he has to go in trying to sell this to the public and to the GOP.

BASH: And they're connected because of the way that the public, these Republican lawmakers, never mind Democrats, what they're hearing from their constituents, and we see it in just the latest poll. This is from CBS. Has the U.S. permanently stopped Iran's nuclear program? Yes, only 31 percent, no, 69 percent. And then the question was about the U.S.-Iran agreement. Again, there is a lot of confusion, understandably about it, but still, just in what people have learned so far. Who is it better for? The U.S., only 22 percent, 37 percent Iran, about equal 41 percent.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: I think that the question here is, is the Iran war over? Is there an agreement? What's in the agreement? Nobody even knows the answers to these questions. And then that feeds into this larger issue of people saying, OK, this was eight-plus weeks of war and bombing, and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on all the munitions and all the things that it did to our international relationships, and what's gone on with Israel in America, and people killed --

BASH: And rising gas prices.

DOVERE: And well, that's what going to say, is that the only effect that a lot of people can see from it is that the gas prices have gone up. And then it becomes a question of, so what was the purpose of this? This was, it's worth remembering a decision that President Trump made after the decision that he made last year to bomb the facilities, which he said then was about setting back the Iran program, and had been successful in doing so, and then decided to do this.

OK. So, what came of it? And if what came of it is an agreement that he is having, as Manu said, trouble even convincing Republican senators is better than the deal that they all hated by Obama. That's going to be a little bit of an issue, at least.

BASH: It could be an issue, and but then I think ultimately the real -- the rubber is really going to hit the road with the first thing that you mentioned, which is, is the war really over? And how do you define the war, and politically, obviously the first thing is, are American men and women in the military, are they in harm's way? And right up there is, are these gas prices coming down, and is Iran's retaliation in the Strait of Hormuz actually over?

[12:10:00]

TREENE: Absolutely. And a couple things on the political part about this, as well as one of the things I actually hear from Republicans, including people on the Hill, is with the Obama deal, there wasn't this whole war about this. A lot of people believe this is a war of choice, that the president went in for this, that it wasn't really necessitated by an imminent threat, despite what he had said. He also did not go to Congress for approval for it, so he really is kind of on his own here, the White House, in having to sell this.

And then a question is, what is going to happen, because if these talks do fail? And again, what they -- what the U.S. and the Trump administration is seeking is so much more than what they have in that MOU. There's so much --

DOVERE: I saw Jake Sullivan, who was Biden's national security adviser, but before that helped negotiate the Obama-Iran deal. A few weeks ago at an event, and he said, a lot of people say we don't have a problem with the Iran -- with making a deal with Iran. We just -- we don't just don't like that deal, you should have gotten a better deal. And Sullivan said, that is the best deal that we could get, and now it seems like President Trump and his administration is facing that same situation.

BASH: All right. Up next, from reflection to deflection, President Trump claims, without evidence, that vandals are to blame for a giant green mess in the reflecting pool he renovated. Plus, if a Democratic socialist can't make it in New York, can they make it anywhere? A series of primaries in New York City are testing the strength of Mamdani era politics.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: It's a new case of who done it in Washington, or maybe more accurately, did anyone do it? The reflecting pool overrun by algae and littered with blue material that may or may not be peeling paint. Right now, it is an ugly shade of green instead of American flag blue, and it needs new repairs.

The president claims the $14 million restoration project he spearheaded went great, instead blaming without evidence that vandals caused the damage, including a quote, 300-foot-long gash and chemicals illegally placed in the water. That post is just one of many by the president this weekend, focused on what has gone wrong with the pool. And what you're looking at there are other renovation projects, which we'll get to in a second. But in the meantime, my panel is back here. Seung Min, this is just a fascinating fascination, but if you, you know, if you study the president for more than four seconds, you know, that obviously his interest far and above anything else is building and reconstruction and everything else. And so, let's just start with the management or mismanagement of this particular project.

KIM: Right, right. I mean, this is a project that's overseen by the Interior Department, much like anything -- much like other things throughout the Capitol. And the president has been fixated on this, and so many other projects, because, as you know, at his roots, he is a real estate person. He's a builder. He took much care in building, you know, Mar-a-Lago and other parts of his properties.

And just as someone who was working through the weekend and covering the Iran negotiations from afar, I was actually struck by how little he was talking about these really high-stakes negotiations that the vice president was spearheading overseas, and he did talk about it. He did one interview about it. He did one or two posts about it, but everything else was so focused --

BASH: I think -- I think we might have some posts as you keep going from the president over the weekend --

(CROSSTALK)

KIM: -- was focused on this pool, because again, he's --

BASH: Here it is.

KIM: I feel that he sees.

BASH: And that is not -- and that is not complete.

KIM: He sees so many of these renovation projects, just he -- it's personal to him because he takes so much pride and so much interest in a borderline obsession with this idea of beautifying the Capitol. So, if something goes wrong, if something may be peeling, if something's not the right color, he will focus all of his attention onto it.

RAJU: He's the one who elevated.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: And let's just actually show some examples of that. So, this is just a combination of conversations that the president has had, kind of with himself, but cameras were there about the reflecting pool from May 4 until June 10, during which most of these events were about other things.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Glass, beautiful color, beautiful everything. You could never get any -- anything like that. 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. It's going to be something very special, and it's going to be a beautiful color. I'm using swimming pool material. It's going to be blue, beautiful blue, which is what they always wanted. Everybody's looking at that reflecting pool, they can't believe it reflects. We used a dark blue, it's called American flag blue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: I mean, this is why it's an embarrassing moment for him, because he has boasted about this so much. He could be, you know, there's a noteworthy goal to say, OK, I want D.C. to be -- have improvements, look beautiful, et cetera. You know, I mean, because America 250 and all the rest. But the fact that he has compared himself to a, Obama dealt with it, and Biden deal with everything is going to be great.

It's going to be inexpensive. It's going to be American flag blue. When it's cost, he said, what $1.7 million or something like that. There it's cost about seven-fold, that's about 14 million bucks, and it went to a no-bid contract to someone who's close to the to the president of the president's team.

[12:20:00]

So, a lot of questions about how all that played out. It clearly is not American flag blue, which is why he's now saying vandals, and many people arrested when it seemed that their cameras all over D.C., they could release some of this video footage as requested.

BASH: Yeah. Well, that too. On the whole note of no-bid contract. This is a conversation that I had with the interior secretary who is tasked -- the president is in-charge, but he's tasked with actually implementing it. And I asked about this no-bid contract a couple of weeks ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Is expedited mean no-bid?

DOUG BURGUM, INTERIOR SECRETARY: Expedited, I think you're implying that if you have an expedited process, that somehow there's something untoward going on. But if you've got one vendor that has the material, has the labor, has the ability, can meet the timeline, and can get it open --

BASH: It's also the price, right? I mean, you know this better than I do, that Times said the company doing the reflecting pool has a 20 percent profit margin, standard is six to 12 percent going through that process.

BURGUM: That was a -- again, that's -- I always say it's a fake news is too simple, but --

BASH: They're not true.

BURGUM: Well, it's true that someone can say that.

(END VIDEO CLIP) TREENE: I mean, that has been -- yeah, complicated and clearly trying to defend it in the best way he can. Look, I mean, yes, I think the issue, too, to your point, Manu, I think is the biggest one, is that the president is the one who has elevated it. He has fixed it on it, as you said, part of that is because he really thinks that making D.C. beautiful is going to be a key part of his legacy. It's going to be fascinating.

How all of these arrests actually play out, because I mean, I was just reading through all of the different interviews that the Post and The Times and CNN was down there, doing with the people who they are now accusing of vandalizing. They were saying this was just floating on top of the water.

BASH: Yeah, exactly.

TREENE: One of them said they were -- they thought it was litter that they were taking out of it. I mean, it's going to be hard to see if that's actually what happened. They can't get charged if they were to face it --

BASH: And on that, as you come in, Isaac, I mean, one of the people arrested is a three-time Olympian. David Hearn, and he said that he -- first of all, he also has a background in material science. He said that he was on a BACRA (Ph) bike -- excuse me, bike ride after reading reports of algae in the water, and he sort of leaned in and felt the end of it, and bent it around a little bit, and then he ended up getting arrested.

And the fact is that Jeanine Pirro -- Judge Jeanine, who is now the U.S. attorney in D.C. She's obviously trying to elevate this, because the president is elevating it, claiming that people are going to be charged, but they aren't going to have to see this through in an actual court to prove it.

DOVERE: We'll see. I'm neither a lawyer nor an allergy specialist, but --

RAJU: Not yet.

DOVERE: Not yet, but we'll see if this is like that incident with the person who threw the sandwich. They're trying to get an indictment over something like this may be difficult. But the other question that's going on here is, look, there's a lot of money that's been spent and there's a lot of time, and obviously the president's attention to it. It does seem possible that what he did actually made the situation worse there, and that the reason why the algae is growing, again not an algae specialist, is because --

BASH: I think you're kind of are.

DOVERE: -- the darker color creates more heat in the reflecting pool, and that has led to a new bloom of algae, a different type of people who have looked at this. Despite the fact that they keep pouring hydrogen peroxide into it, despite the fact that there are national guardsmen who now, again, these more taxpayer dollars, these are people who were detailed to Washington because the president said he needed them to keep Washington, D.C. safe, are guarding the reflecting pool. It's a very strange situation.

RAJU: Chief allergy correspondent --

(CROSSTALK)

DOVERE: I'm going to get the business cards up.

BASH: All right, up next. A new report on moves the president is making to force states to run elections the way he wants. We have exclusive new CNN reporting on the DHS election demands they're about to put on states.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Now to a jarring CNN exclusive report. The Trump administration is threatening to block tens of millions of dollars in homeland security funds from states that refuse to run elections the way the president wants them to. That's according to multiple sources and internal documents obtained by CNN. Of course, the president is obsessed with railing against widespread voter fraud, even though multiple studies, investigations, and court cases have repeatedly failed to back up his claims.

CNN's Gabe Cohen has this reporting and joins me now. Thank you so much for doing this, as you've done so many on this topic. On this particular story, you've gone through guidelines that are expected to go out next week. What are you learning specifically?

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, Dana, what this appears to be is the administration trying to use homeland security funding really as leverage to pressure states to implement their election priorities. So, these specific grants that we're talking about, these are large programs. They'll distribute about a billion dollars this year. It's really the main tool that the federal government has to help cities and states prepare for cyberattacks, for terror attacks, for major disasters.

And now the administration is saying to the states, if you want all of that money, you are also going to have to implement these mandatory election reforms. And if you don't comply, you need to be ready to forfeit 20 percent of that money, which could be for a lot of places millions and millions of dollars.

So, what are they specifically asking for? Well, these are the reforms. They're talking about having states transition away from electronic voting systems, the kinds that use QR codes and bar codes, because they want them using hand marked paper ballots. It's something we have heard Trump allies and this administration