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One World with Zain Asher
Iran Denies with Negotiating with U.S. after Trump Announces Talks; Oil Prices Sink After Trump Says Peace Talks with Iran to Restart; Crew Battle Wildfires Raging Across Spokane, Washington; EU Ministers to Hold Emergency Talks on Ceuta Tuesday; Trump Says Iran Talks to Resume After Strikes Called Off; UEFA Threatens Legal Action Over Infantino's Selloff Plan. Aired 11a-12p ET
Aired August 03, 2026 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAIN ASHER, CNN HOST, ONE WORLD: All right, President Trump says that talks with Iran will resume today, a day after he canceled a planned attack. "One
World" starts right now. Oil markets are reacting in the hope of new peace talks between the U.S. and Iran. But how close are they to striking a deal?
Plus, a tale of fire and wine. Even if their grapevines survive the wildfire, some French winemakers say the extreme heat is changing how they
work. And UEFA threatens FIFA with legal action over Gianni Infantino's plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors.
All right, coming to you live from New York. I'm Zain Asher. You are watching "One World". Iran's Foreign Ministry denies that any talks with
the U.S. are currently taking place, and says that Iran is in discussions with Oman over a temporary safe route through the Strait of Hormuz. That
comes after just hours, rather after U.S. President Donald Trump told journalists aboard Air Force One that negotiations would, in fact, resume
today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They said we'd like to make a deal now. You know, I don't know what they say because a lot
of times, they'll say that to me, and then they'll go out and say, we don't know what he's talking about. Obviously, they don't want to be attacked.
And they knew -- they knew the extent of the attack because they saw it forming.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible).
TRUMP: Well, now what we're doing is we're talking to them in the form of a negotiation. It begins tomorrow afternoon, and we'll see if it's true. I'd
love to do that, save a lot of lives, save a lot of -- a lot of unnecessary powers to be honest with you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ASHER: Trump said the U.S. was ready to unleash quote military terror, strength, and power not seen since World War II. But as he has done
repeatedly, the president called off a threatened attack, saying that progress was being made on a deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz as
well as end Tehran's nuclear threat.
Iran, for its part, appears unfazed. Instead, focusing on talks with Oman on how to manage the Strait of Hormuz. CNN's Alayna Treene joins us live
now from the White House. So, Alayna, we've seen this back and forth, this sort of seesaw before, whereby you have the president threatening something
huge in Iran, then backing off, saying that there's going to be negotiations, that there's going to be talks.
Usually, also sprinkling in there the fact that Iran is begging for a deal, in his words. Just explain why things are different this time, Alayna?
ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's not entirely clear that they are. I'd argue, Zain. I mean, we are in a place where we've seen now
the same kind of thing play out over and over again. The president threatening these types of attacks just to pull back.
And I think one of the key things that we've seen remain unchanged is that depending on who you're listening to, the U.S. versus the Iranians, you're
getting a very different picture of what they believe is moving forward. As you mentioned, the president continuing to argue that negotiations are back
on track, that they're going to begin this afternoon to discuss not only the Strait of Hormuz but also what he's calling the denuclearization of
Iran.
And the Iranians arguing, no, that's not happening. They say that they are having talks with the Omanis about a temporary agreement to get the Strait
back Oman and have safe passage of different vessels, but they're arguing that they're not negotiating with the United States. I guess perhaps one of
the things that is different is why we saw the president call off what he was previewing last week, which would be a major attack on Iran.
They were expecting to have major strikes on Iran, the U.S. over the weekend. But he pulled out of that after having conversations with many
different Middle Eastern allies, countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Iran, or excuse me, yeah, and Iran. All of them kind of speaking with
the U.S. trying to convince them to pull back from those attacks.
One, worrying about retaliation for their own countries, but also, of course, arguing that it could get in the way of potential negotiations. And
this is something actually President Donald Trump addressed while traveling back to the Washington DC yesterday on Air Force One. Listen to what he
said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: -- to go, but when the allies ask to call it off, they got to sort of say, well, let's see. And the reason they ask is, I think there's a
deal. There's a deal on Hormuz, and then there will be a deal on the nuclear, or you might call it the denuclearization of Iran. I call it the
denuclearization of Iran.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[11:05:00]
TREENE: A few things I'd point out here, Zain, is one there's no question that it still remains the key objective and hope, really, of the Trump
Administration to find some sort of negotiation to end this war. They do want the fighting to cease, but of course, we've seen them try and fail at
that many different times.
It's unclear how this time will be different, especially after all of the attacks we've seen exchanged in recent weeks, degrading the trust between
the key negotiators on both sides. So, we'll have to see whether or not these talks actually do proceed as the president is previewing, and whether
or not they can actually result in a substantial change as they look ahead, unclear.
But one thing that is clear is that many partners in the Middle East do not want these strikes to continue, and they also want to find some sort of
diplomatic solution out of all of this.
ASHER: All right, Alayna Treene is live for us at the White House. Thank you so much. All right, let's bring in Toluse Olorunnipa. He's a Staff
Writer at The Atlantic. He joins us live now. So, as Alayna was saying, it's not entirely clear why or if things are going to be different this
time, or whether or not these negotiations are going to proceed.
Talk to us about why this war has not worked out the way the United States would have anticipated and predicted on February 28th?
TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: It does feel a little like deja vu once again. The president is saying there's a deal in the works,
and that he's pulling back from some major strikes that he had planned. And the Iranians are saying, wait a minute, we do not agree to have these
discussions, or we do not agree that there's some big deal happening.
Right now, the reason this war has continued on for months on months is because President Trump thought this would be an easy victory, a total
victory, and that Iran would come to total surrender. And that is just not the way the Iranians work. It's not what they see as their best prospects
in coming up against the great superpower of the United States.
President Trump has seen some of the limitations of the American military. A lot of the stockpiles of military assets have been dwindled during this
war. And the Iranians see some of the weaknesses that are on full display because of the way that President Trump has tried to move forward with this
war, and so that's part of the reason this has taken so long.
It's part of the reason the president's idea of a four to six-week excursion that would come to an end with a complete U.S. victory has not
been the case. This has been much more challenging for the president than he thought possible when he first launched this war.
And the Iranians have not been willing to capitulate, and they've been willing to hold fast to their pretty hardline demands. And that is part of
the reason why we've not been able to find some kind of resolution over the past several weeks.
ASHER: Yeah, I mean, not only are they not willing to capitulate, but all the sort of threats seem to have the opposite effect. It sort of makes them
dig in their heels a little bit deeper. And the one thing that this president is used to is that he's used to sort of making threats, and then
the other party either cowers, surrenders, you know, sort of finds some kind of way to negotiate.
The way the Iranians are working this is very different to what this president is used to. So, my question to you is, if he knows that, we've
all sort of seemed to learn that over the past five months or so, why does the president continue to try to use the same tactics?
OLORUNNIPA: Well, he's the same man that he's been for the last 50 years or so. He's thought about American power in the same way. He's thought about
using the full force of American leverage against foes and allies alike to try to extract victories from them.
And so, he's struggling to realize that those strategies aren't working the way that he envisioned. And the way they, to be honest, they have worked in
some cases with other countries where he's imposed tariffs or he's threatened major threats, and he's seen those other countries either
capitulate or come to the negotiating table and maybe not give him 100 percent of what he wanted, but gave him 50 or 70 percent of what he wanted.
And he has been able to spin those into wins. Iran has not played by those rules. They are not willing to give the president much of anything of what
he's called for, and instead they are pushing back in a very significant way, closing the Strait of Hormuz, challenging the president when it comes
to his domestic politics by challenging the U.S. economy and raising the price of oil and the price of goods.
And so, that's part of the reason the president has continued to go through this loop of saying we have talks and we're right on the verge of a deal,
and then basically saying I'm going to go back to bombing again because I can't trust the Iranians. We've seen that that loop happen three or four
times just in the last couple of months, in part because the president is relying on an old playbook.
It does not seem to be one that works very well with the Iranians. But it's what he has is what he has in his toolbox. And it does seem to calm the
markets at least for you know for the short period that the president seems to be focusing on as he thinks about winning the day or winning the week.
And that's part of the reason why we see the repetitive approach of the president saying we're just on the verge of a deal, seeing the oil markets
calm down, the stock market go up.
[11:10:00]
And then you know inevitably some weeks or days later the president is back to threatening to bombing Iran back into the stone ages. And so, we have
seen this multiple times, and it's not clear that we're on a different pathway now than we have been in the past.
ASHER: Obviously, we have just a few more months until the midterms. If you have a president who campaigns on no new wars, I promise you no new wars,
and I'll end sort of the wars that America is currently embroiled in tangentially.
And then that president later authorizes military action. And by the way, many would say that this military action wasn't necessarily even necessary.
Under what circumstances are voters more likely to be forgiving?
OLORUNNIPA: Well, the president's voters have forgiven him for quite a lot. They've given him broad leeway, and they've trusted him quite a bit. But
that trust is starting to break down, and we have to remember that the president's voters do not make up a majority of Americans. The president's
supporters do not.
The people that are the die-hard supporters do not make up enough to win the midterms. And so, he needs to win over Independents. He needs to
continue to have that coalition of some, you know, Democrats and Independents and die-hard Republicans, and even moderate Republicans, who
in some cases held their nose, who then voted for him in 2024.
The president has lost a lot of those voters because he's broken that promise of no new wars, because he's launched this war. And because he's
taken the focus away from the top thing that the American voter has said that they want the president to be focused on, which is affordability and
the cost of living and the economy.
President has done things that have made those things worse, especially with this war and the fact that it's driven the cost of gas up. It's driven
the cost of goods up, and it's been incredibly expensive to the taxpayer. And so, it does beg the question for the president: how he plans to turn
this around with just less than 100 days to go before voters start voting?
It doesn't appear that he has much of a strategy for that. It doesn't appear that voters are going to change their mind in any significant way
between now and November. And because of we've seen this repetitive nature of the war in Iran, it doesn't appear that we'll have some kind of major
deal or resolution or nuclear deal-the kind of thing that takes months or even years to put together before the midterms.
And so, we could be in a place where we have elevated prices and a crisis in the Middle East on Election Day, and that could be very detrimental for
the president's political stance as well.
ASHER: All right, Toluse Olorunnipa, thank you so much. Appreciate it. All right, a small sigh of relief in the oil markets. Let's take a look and see
where things stand right now. You see prices are falling after Donald Trump said that he called off an attack on Iran and would restart peace stocks.
Brent Crude, the European benchmark, is trading at around $83 a barrel. The U.S. benchmark WTI is down about 6 percent to about $79 a barrel. The U.S.
stock market is up. All three Indices there all up thanks to the news. Matt Egan joins us live now from New York with a quick look at the markets.
I mean, it's interesting because over the course of the weekend, I think there were about 20 vessels, 20 ships that passed through the Strait of
Hormuz. Only a fraction of what we're used to. Still some, but it really is just a trickle at this point.
Obviously, there is some cautious optimism, but as Alayna and Toluse, my previous guests, were just saying, you know, it's unclear. Despite what the
president is saying, it's unclear if things are actually going to end differently this time. Take it away, Matt.
MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah, Zain. Well, what is clear is that the roller coaster ride in the oil market continues, right? I mean, it just
feels like one day prices are skyrocketing on fears that there's going to be a massive escalation, and then the next day they're crashing on these
diplomatic hopes.
And so, yes, Brent and WTI down sharply. Look at that, almost 5 percent for Brent, 6 percent decline in one day for WTI. Now these are big moves, and
it does come after yes, President Trump says that he canceled these planned attacks over the weekend. He talked about progress on the diplomatic front,
even though Tehran denies that direct talks between the U.S. and Iran are actually happening.
And look, the market is clearly relief that instead of more shots being fired in this war, that there's at least talk of progress on the diplomatic
front. But make no mistake, I mean, oil prices are still very high, right? $84 a barrel start of the year for Brent at about 60, so well above there.
However, prices have also come down, right? I mean, on the right side of your -- of that of that chart there, you can see that Brent was above $100
a barrel briefly less than two weeks ago. So, it really has been up and down. But look, it's not lost on anyone that we've been here before, right?
We've had pauses.
[11:15:00]
And unfortunately, they've just sort of devolved into more fighting. And I think the market understands that. It was best summed up by Paul Hickey
this morning. He said, if this all seems a bit Groundhog Day ish to you, that's because this same thing happened last Monday when, again, oil prices
were plunging, stock markets were surging because of an apparent pause in the war.
Now, some oil watchers that I'm talking to, they're skeptical that all of this is going to produce a durable deal that actually lasts between the
U.S. and Iran. Clearview Energy Partners they noted that the president, President Trump has expressed frustration in the past with negotiating with
Iran, and that Iran they've shown a willingness to really kind of run the clock out on the president.
And it's also really important to remember that even if a durable deal does come into picture sometime soon, this is not going to be easy. It's not
like flipping on a light switch, right, to try to ease this supply pressure caused by the war in the energy market, you need to really restore the
confidence of the shipping companies that need to go through the Strait of Hormuz and go through the Red Sea.
You've got to get the insurance companies on board as well. And then, you've also got to repair all of the energy infrastructure in the region.
So, look, Zain. Hopefully, this is all a good sign, and there's more progress on the diplomatic front. But as always, we are just one Truth
Social post away from another massive rally in the oil market. Back to you.
ASHER: All right, Matt Egan, live for us there. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. All right; the Acting U.S. Attorney General says that he is
formally rescinding President Trump's so-called anti-weaponization fund. Todd Blanche put it in writing after some Senate Republicans threatened to
block his nomination over the controversial agreement.
Lawmakers have criticized the $1.8 billion fund, calling it a slush fund that could be used to reward people convicted in the January 6th Capitol
riot. But the president continues to defend it. Here's what he said Sunday before Blanche's announcement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: This would be a reimbursement for the pain that they suffer. A lot of people like it. If they don't -- if they don't approve time, I put it
back on the table. A lot of people like it. A lot of big supporters of Trump like it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ASHER: Republican Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis had threatened to withhold critical votes for Blanche's confirmation. The Senate Committee
that is considering his nomination meets tomorrow.
All right, still to come, wines may have survived flames, but French winemakers are facing a different kind of heat. How extreme weather is
changing the harvest ahead? Plus, fires unfolding in Washington State, forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes. What officials say
it's the worst fire season in more than 30 years.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:20:00]
ASHER: All right, firefighting efforts in Greece took another tragic turn on Sunday. Two helicopters collided in mid-air as they were trying to
battle a fast-moving wildfire near Athens. One helicopter crashed and erupted into a fireball, killing two crew members. The blaze, now in its
fourth day, has gutted homes, and led to evacuation orders. People in the area tell us that the situation is out of control.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not a good situation. This is extremely sad. The wind is very strong. It keeps changing direction. It's difficult to deal
with. The firefighters who are trained and experienced can't contain it. How can we?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now it's flaring up again from above. What can I say, really? The situation is desperate. More police than firefighters. That's
what I see.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ASHER: Sunday's helicopter crash follows a grim week for Greek emergency services, where three firefighters died in two separate incidents.
Elsewhere in Europe, heatwave conditions have sparked new wildfires in France. One day after the prime minister said the flames were under
control; the government says that fire has consumed nearly 120,000 hectares of land so far this year. That's an area more than 11 times the size of
Paris.
Businesses that are reliant on the weather, like winemaking, for example, are being forced to adapt to the extreme heat. And even those who have been
lucky enough to escape the wildfire say the weather will change the taste of this year's vintage. CNN's Melissa Bell reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Not very far from the edge of the Gironde wildfire, some of the Bordeaux region's
finest grapes are ripening. The owner of Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte says they were lucky. The flames were 18 kilometers away, and the smoke never
made it here.
BELL: And looking at these grapes, it isn't simply that the smell came to you for a couple of times, a couple of hours. You didn't get the smoke.
FLORENCE CATHIARD, OWNER, SMITH HAUT LAFITTE WINERY: No.
BELL: We're far from the fires, and the grapes are such that they are impermeable at this point, anyway.
CATHIARD: Totally, because you see, if you touch them, it's very hard, and we have maybe two hours of bad smell, not ashes, nothing. So, it's perfect.
BELL (voice-over): The vineyards here go back to the 14th century. From the vantage point of the chateau's tower, Florence Cathiard explains that the
real challenge this year has been protecting her organically grown grapes from the summer's extreme heat.
BELL: Oh, it's beautiful from up here.
BELL (voice-over): Under the Chateau's floorboards, you get a glimpse of what's at stake. They call this paradise, where the property's most ancient
and expensive wines are kept.
YANN LAUDEHO, WINEMAKER, SMITH HAUT LAFITTE WINERY: This is a very special piece. And in fact, you can have -- you can see here all the bottles, the
oldest we have here. It is 1878.
BELL (voice-over): As we taste 2016, Yann Laudeho says this year's vintage will be unharmed by the fires, but redrawn by the heat.
LAUDEHO: I try to make the best wine we can make for each vintage.
BELL: So, it's a reinvention.
LAUDEHO: Exactly.
BELL (voice-over): Unlike recent vintages affected by wildfires in Napa, those of the Bordeaux region appear to have emerged relatively unscathed.
ROBERT JOSEPH, WINE EXPERT & INDUSTRY ANALYST: It looks as though the problems of smoke taint, which is the biggest fear. There may be some, but
there won't be very much by the sound of it. But it certainly won't be anything like what we saw in California in 2020, for example.
BELL (voice-over): Leaving now just the question of what sort of vintage such a hot and dry summer will yield, even now that the fires appear to
have been tamed. Melissa Bell, CNN in the Bordeaux region.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ASHER: All right, here in the U.S. the Pacific Northwest is suffering its worst fire season in more than 30 years. The country's worst air quality
right now is in and around the City of Spokane, Washington. Nearly 65,000 people have been forced out of their homes in Spokane County. As crews
tackle three wildfires' hundreds of homes have been destroyed, and authorities say the battle is on to make sure that no more are lost.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARIA CANTWELL (D-WA): This is the most risk and resourced fire in the United States today. It is the top fire in our nation. That means they are
going to give us the resources that we need here on the ground.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ASHER: Fire officials say that it will likely be weeks before the fires are out. CNN's Julia Vargas Jones is in Spokane with more for us.
JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: People are waking up to see just the extent of this tragedy. As you mentioned, 65,000 residences evacuated to
places like this, to shelters where they're faced with that uncertainty of whether or not they will even have a home to return to?
[11:25:00]
And some of them who have been able to go and see their properties completely destroyed, engulfed by the fire, and just spit out as just
almost charcoal. They had really interesting insight into whether or not they could even return and build a life in these areas again, take a
listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think I'm going to rebuild here because I don't ever want to have to relive a fire coming up this hill again. And I've been
in Spokane my entire 64 years because my little brother died in an accident when he was six, and that's why I stayed close to my family. I think it's
time for me to leave Spokane.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: We saw so many people grappling with that very decision as we drove past these neighborhoods with row after row of home destroyed. Now
officials here from National Guard is urging people to please be patient. It will take some time to return to their homes.
There's a lot of work to be done here. As you mentioned the fire is still at 0 percent containment, so there is that part of the work being done, but
also clearing the roads, clearing debris for people to come back. That can take some time. Still, 10,000 people without any kind of electricity around
this area, it will be a difficult path to recovery.
ASHER: All right, many thanks to CNN's Julia Vargas Jones for that report. All right, still to come, why is Ukraine targeting an online retailer?
Details of recent attacks on a string of warehouses in Russia. Plus, difficult questions over a border surge, we'll take a look at Spain's
migrant crisis.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ASHER: All right, welcome back to "One World". I'm Zain Asher in New York. Here are some of the headlines we are watching for you today. Just hours
after President Donald Trump claimed that negotiation with Iran would resume today. Tehran is denying that any talks with the U.S. are taking
place.
[11:30:00]
But the country's foreign ministry says negotiations are happening with Oman over safe passage routes through the Strait of Hormuz. Over the
weekend, Trump backed down from his threat to hit Iran very hard, citing progress towards a deal.
The top diplomat overseeing the Board of Peace in Gaza is urging de- escalation and slamming Israel's deadly strikes there over the weekend. Nikolai Miladinov is in Israel today to discuss the implementation of a
Hamas disarmament agreement, which also calls for the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces.
At least 28 people were killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza since President Trump announced the disarmament deal last week. Cuba once again faces a
nationwide blackout after its electrical grid collapsed. It is the fourth island-wide blackout over the past month. Cuba has struggled to import oil
thanks to a U.S. embargo.
Ukraine's President warns the country their defenses are being overwhelmed. Over the weekend, Russia targeted Kyiv and surrounding areas. Ukrainian
officials say at least nine people were killed and several more wounded. Officials also say that over the past two months, Russia has struck
hundreds of Ukrainian gas stations.
For its part, Russia is accusing Ukraine of attacking its e-commerce giant Wildberries, officials say several Ukrainian drones have struck their
warehouses in recent weeks. Wildberries has been described as Russia's answer to Amazon's online marketplace. CNN's Clare Sebastian has more on
the attacks.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We're losing our business in front of our eyes, says this woman. Another, through tears, says she's
lost 12,000 items of children's clothing. I hope I have enough strength and courage to get through this, she says.
Over the past two weeks, Ukraine's deep strike campaign usually focused on oil refineries or military facilities, has taken a sharp turn into e-
commerce, hitting multiple warehouses belonging to one company, Wildberries, Russia's equivalent of Amazon, with around a 50 percent share
of the country's online retail market.
ALEXANDER KOLYANDR, EUROPE DIRECTOR, EURASIA GROUP: It provided thousands upon thousands of individuals sellers with income, and it created the whole
universe of online retail.
SEBASTIAN (voice-over); A universe that Ukraine says now also includes sanctioned components for drone production and navigation equipment. We
found drones and drone parts, helmets and bulletproof vests all available. One reviewer of this vest writing, I sent it to my son in the special
military operation, Russia's official euphemism for the war. He's very pleased.
Before the attacks, Wildberries Founder Tatyana Kim was Russia's richest woman, worth over $8 billion. A self-made entrepreneur, now well connected
in Kremlin circles and deeply intertwined with the banking sector. One of Russia's biggest banks, VTB, recently took a stake in Wildberries financial
arm, and through its mounting debt burden.
A fact Ukraine is fully aware of says the co-owner of one of Ukraine's leading long-range weapons producers.
DENYS SHTILIERMAN, CO-OWNER, FIRE POINT: If we take it down, it will inevitably lead to the collapse of a huge number of banks, including at
least VTB.
KOLYANDR: Wildberries is too big to fail, and the state will definitely support wild berries in this or that form.
SEBASTIAN (voice-over): It's still burning after three days, says this seller who drove to survey the damage at a Wildberries warehouse just
outside Moscow. She says she lost around $100,000 worth of goods. Lives at risk, livelihoods up in smoke. A Russian success story, the latest casualty
of Putin's war. Clare Sebastian, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ASHER: All right, residents in Ceuta, Spain, are grappling with the aftermath of the border surge that saw tens of thousands of migrants pour
into the Spanish enclave in North Africa, while most of the migrants have now left. The incident has reignited the debate around immigration in
Europe. Saskya Vandoorne has more on this humanitarian crisis.
SASKYA VANDOORNE, CNN PARIS BUREAU CHIEF: Although most of the migrants have now returned to Morocco, last week's events really have laid bare the
deep divisions within Europe when it comes to this sensitive issue of migration.
Now, to try and deal with the crisis and the political fallout, EU Ambassadors are meeting today, and on Tuesday, EU interior ministers are
expected to meet over video conference call, and they will essentially be trying to answer two very difficult questions. Firstly, how do they ensure
that crossings on this scale never happen again? And secondly, how did it happen in the first place?
[11:35:00]
Because it appears that what fueled the sudden surge wasn't, in fact, the people smuggling networks, but rather messages that were circulating
online, encouraging people to head to Ceuta. Now, there are also efforts to try and defuse tensions between European Leaders. That's because Pedro
Sanchez, Spain's Prime Minister, is furious.
Over the weekend, he accused some EU Leaders of attacking Spain during this crisis, of essentially playing political games, weaponizing what happened
in Ceuta, rather than showing solidarity, and that was of course aimed at Italy.
Following those dramatic pictures in Ceuta, Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has long been critical of Spain's immigration policy, announced
that Italy would be suspending its visa-free travel agreement with Spain for about a month, so there are now random visa checks taking place in
seaports and airports in Italy on travelers arriving from Spain.
Now Sanchez isn't just feeling the heat abroad; he's also feeling it at home. Far right Spanish politicians were in Ceuta this weekend, saying that
Sanchez's government has lost control of its borders. Now, meanwhile, Spain is reinforcing its Ceuta border. It has built a 1,600-foot barrier that
will sit on the sea on that border with Morocco. Saskya Vandoorne, CNN, Paris.
ASHER: All right, still to come, Iran says it's in talks with Oman to establish a safe, temporary passage through the Strait of Hormuz. We'll
have the latest on the war and some analysis ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ASHER: All right, threats followed by reversals. More now in our top story, the U.S. President calling off what he says would have been a massive
attack on Iran. Donald Trump claims peace talks between Washington and Tehran will resume in the coming hours. Iran says that there are no
negotiations due to take place with the U.S. but it is in talks with Oman to establish a temporary corridor for vessels transiting the Strait of
Hormuz.
This as Iranian state media report Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke with senior Saudi and Pakistani officials Sunday night, and President Trump
just posted on social media writing that nothing gets through to Iran unless we want it to.
[11:40:00]
And nothing will get through unless a deal or total surrender is accomplished. His latest piece for CNN, Stephen Collinson writes as he
wrestles with the monumental and the absurd, Trump forgets what voters actually want. Stephen joins us live now from Washington.
So, within this social media post that my producers just read to me during the commercial break, you had essentially Donald Trump admitting that the
Iranians are actually only going to be discussing with Oman at this point. That perhaps there might necessarily be negotiations taking place today,
after all.
And we are used to this sort of seesaw, this whiplash Stephen. On the one hand, you have the U.S. President saying, listen, I was planning to attack
Iran, but I'm not going to. I'm going to de-escalate because there are going to be talks, and then inevitably something happens to derail those
talks.
This is exactly what a lot of us were predicting. Just take us through what we actually know so far about whether or not there are going to be
negotiations taking place between the U.S. and Iran.
STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah, there's been some reporting this morning that the U.S. was involved in those talks with Oman.
That seems to be ruled out by the president in this post. I think what this Truth Social post shows is strategic confusion, frustration.
The fact that Iran seems to be calling all the shots in this showdown with a far more powerful country, the United States. And that the president has
got himself into a situation in a war that he started, which still, as we go into the sixth month, doesn't seem to have a way out that will either
fulfill his goals when he started the war, or be palatable to him politically or diplomatically.
He starts off that post by saying that Iran and its leaders are duplicitous. That's exactly what Iran has been saying about the United
States, not just in the way that Trump often breaks off diplomacy and then tries to use military force to coerce it to surrender.
But some people I've talked to, who've been talking to people in Iran, basically argue that Iran now believes that there's not a great deal of
point in diplomacy, because anything that it agrees to will be countermanded by the president's volatility.
And so basically, we're in a situation which would have been hard to countenance before this war. That Iran's word seems to be just as good as
the President of the United States's word, and I think that tells you a lot about American foreign policy at this moment.
ASHER: Yeah, that is such a good point. So, we are in August now, right? We've only got a few months left until the mid-terms. This is like, this
appears to me to be a sort of fork in the road moment, whereby if the war was to end in the next couple of weeks, and perhaps America is deemed as
the most successful party.
Not sure how that's going to happen, but you know, for argument's sake. You could argue that there is enough time for voters to put it behind them and
sort of forgive you know, this is a president that did say no new wars, et cetera. But perhaps there's enough time where the voters might be
distracted in terms of focusing on other issues, and this will be sort of relegated to the past.
As you get into September and October, Stephen it becomes a lot trickier. I mean, the president has a very narrow window to end this war before it does
really start to have an effect on the midterms.
COLLINSON: Yeah, and there's quite a lot of political science literature that points out that voters tend to make up their minds who they're going
to vote for in November over the course of the summer. And it's quite hard after that, especially in a mid-term election where you don't have big
events like presidential debates to change the narrative.
Obviously, Iran understands that as well. They've shown themselves to be quite shrewd during this war in trying to build political and economic
pressure on Trump. Perhaps they're believing that the president will climb down because he's so desperate to get this war over.
The problem, I think, is that as if this blockade, the U.S. blockade, and the effective Iranian control of the Strait continue for much longer,
you're then going to see some of the really serious consequences build that didn't happen when the war was put on hold the first time. You know, a lot
of oil reserves are quite depleted around the world.
We're getting closer to the European winter. Those countries in Europe don't keep typically a lot of natural gas in reserves, so they're quite,
you know, affected by the volatility of supply and prices. So that could build economic pressure.
If the high gasoline prices in the United States continue through September and October, you know, that's just going to make the president's argument
that he's made everyone's lives better economically more difficult domestically, so all of these pressures are building. So, you can
understand why that frustration is coming through Trump's Truth Social post.
[11:45:00]
But how to get out of this absolute mess doesn't seem any clearer now than it did three months ago?
ASHER: So, what are the wins? Because I mean that is going to have to be his focus. I mean just like any president during the midterms. He has to
focus on this idea of look; my party has made your life better over the past two years or so. What are the wins that he's going to focus on?
I mean, obviously, I imagine that immigration is going to be one of them, but just take us through what the president is going to be touting here?
COLLINSON: Yeah. And he often talks about how he's secured the southern border? That is true. The problem is on immigration. Some of his harsher
deportation tactics have started to turn away some voters who turned to him on immigration two years ago. Seems to have weakened his support among
critical Hispanic communities in some battleground states as well.
One of the problems is Trump doesn't really concentrate that much on the wins that he has. He doesn't talk that much about higher-than-expected tax
rebates that a lot of people got this year because of his economic policies. The Trump RX Website, which is designed to lower prescription
drug prices in a fairly limited but still genuine way.
He argues that because the stock market is soaring or has been, that America is in a golden economic age and everyone is feeling great. The
problem is, is the evidence of most people's lives with higher prices. It's very difficult to get housing for many people, for young people to get on
the housing ladder, grocery prices are still high. All of those things play into this fact that people are not feeling economically secure.
And after all, they brought President Trump back into office. Many voters in those key battleground states that he won over Kamala Harris because
they thought that he would bring down prices and strengthen the daily economy rather than the bigger economy as reflected in the markets and
everything else.
So, there's a feeling I think that the president hasn't delivered on his policies in 2024, and that is at the root of his problems. And the Iran
war, with all the extra economic consequences that it's causing is only compounding those issues, you know, threatening higher inflation and higher
prices and gas prices and everything else, which a lot of people feel.
ASHER: All right, Stephen Collinson, live for us. Thank you so much. All right; all eyes are on Michigan as the state gets ready to hold its
Democratic Senate Primary on Tuesday. It's a key race that could help determine whether the Democrats can take control of the Senate later on
this year?
But it's also another critical test for the party itself, putting a rising progressive candidate against a more moderate member of Congress. CNN's
Jeff Zeleny reports.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF U.S. NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: We are in the final hours of campaigning here for the Democratic Senate Primary in
Michigan. This is a marquee Senate Primary contest, and here is why?
Democrats must hold on to this Senate seat in Michigan to fill the seat of retiring Senator Gary Peters, and they must flip four Republican seats as
well if they want to have the chance to claim the Senate majority. But all eyes are on this primary because it is a very hard-fought contest between
Congresswoman Haley Stevens and Progressive Insurgent Abdul El Sayed.
We've been following the candidates around to events like this all day long. Haley Stevens will be here in Oakland County, which, as you know
well, is a critical area for Democratic votes as well as Republican votes later in the year. But this has been an impeccable (ph) fierce contest
between Stevens and El Sayed into the final hours.
I mean, Stevens is being propelled by the Democratic establishment. She has the endorsement of, of course, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, but
also here in Michigan of Governor Gretchen Whitmer and many other elected officials as well.
El Sayed has been traveling around Detroit, campaigning with a few other members of Congress, like Ayanna Pressley from Massachusetts and some
others. He is making the case that it is time for change.
Now, this has really been a referendum, as we've seen throughout the year. Progressive winds in New York and other deep blue areas are being tested
anew here in Michigan, a critical battleground. And the question is which one of these candidates is the strongest, most electable candidate to take
on Mike Rogers, a former member of Congress here in Michigan in November.
And the question of electability has been a central one. There's no doubt about it. We caught up with El Sayed earlier today, and he said voters know
electability; they will decide that. He said that pundits and analysts should not be making claims of electability.
There's no doubt that he has some energy and momentum on his side, but the Democratic establishment is on the side of Haley Stevens. That's why this
test here in Michigan is going to be such a central one on Tuesday in this primary testing whether this insurgency we've seen, this deep blue
progressive insurgency, can play in a statewide contest here in Michigan?
[11:50:00]
ASHER: All right, still to come, FIFA may be backing down for now on its planned World Cup sell-off, but its legal problems may just be getting
started. We'll have that after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ASHER: All right, UEFA, the European football governing body, is threatening to take legal action against FIFA. It says that Gianni
Infantino's failed plan to sell stakes in future World Cups was incompatible with proper governance of the game. Last week, UEFA's 55
member associations voted to boycott all FIFA events if the proposal went ahead.
Let's bring in CNN's World Sports, Coy Wire. I mean, when you think about it, it's interesting because Gianni Infantino was the man after Sepp
Blatter who was brought in to clean up FIFA. I mean, obviously, we all remember the sort of multi-million-dollar corruption scandals that Sepp
Blatter and Michel Platini were involved in about a decade or so ago. Can Infantino survive this Coy?
COY WIRE, CNN WORLD SPORT: That's the big question. And you know, next March will be the rebid for election if he were to choose to do that. And
this is arguably coming off of what many called the best World Cup of all time, and now a headache bigger than any of them would have wanted.
These aftershocks from the World Cup just keep getting bigger, despite FIFA and President Gianni Infantino scrapping their plans to sell those stakes
in FIFA competitions, including the World Cups, to private investors. The backlash from the global football community just keeps coming.
Just days after UEFA voted unanimously to boycott FIFA competitions over that initial proposal, European football's governing body has now
threatened FIFA with legal action and said that any potential evidence should not be destroyed.
Lawyers informing FIFA that UEFA is quote actively considering legal action, arbitration, and/or regulatory complaints arising out of and in
connection with the FIFA Forward Enterprise Plan, which was proposed by FIFA and all related matters.
The letter named 18 FIFA executives who it said should retain data, documents, and electronic messages as potential evidence. So, Zain, to your
question, what's next for Gianni Infantino and FIFA? David Bernstein, Former English Football Association Chairman, thinks the pressure needs to
stay on for an eventual removal, listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID BERNSTEIN, FORMER CHAIRMAN, ENGLISH FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION: Oh, it's extremely serious. I don't think he can survive.
[11:55:00]
I mean, I think that UEFA have taken a very strong line, and they threaten to, of course, withdraw from the World Cup next time if the proposal was
not withdrawn. Well, it has been withdrawn, so that's good.
Well, I think they should maintain that position pending Infantino's leaving FIFA, because the deal and Infantino are now joined together at the
hip, and I think they've got to absolutely push maximum at this time now to get him out and move on. Otherwise, football is going to be bitterly
divided over the next period.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: CNN also understands that the English Football Association is set to write to FIFA President Infantino to withdraw its support for his re-
election. This comes after Wales became the first nation to do so. Those FIFA presidential elections, Zain, are set for March.
ASHER: All right, Coy Wire, live for us, and we'll be actually continuing this conversation in the next hour. Just what is next for Gianni Infantino
after his plans to sell stakes in the World Cup obviously clearly backfired. All right, Coy Wire.
And as you argue, it was on the back of one of the most successful World Cups in history. So many people are saying this was an own goal for
Infantino himself, to use a football metaphor.
WIRE: Yes.
ASHER: Coy Wire, live for us there. Thank you so much. All right, stay with CNN. There is more "One World" with my colleague Bianna Golodryga and
myself after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
