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The Situation Room
Israel Preparing Possible Strikes on Iranian Nuclear Facilities; DOJ Opens Investigation for Andrew Cuomo; FDA Could Limit COVID-19 Boosters; Musk to Do a Lot Less Political Spending. Aired 10:30-11a ET
Aired May 21, 2025 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:30:00]
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: New intelligence suggests Israel is preparing to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, that according to multiple U.S. officials familiar with the latest intelligence obtained by the U.S., such a brazen strike would certainly be a brazen break with President Trump as his administration has lately been engaged in diplomatic talks with Tehran about its nuclear program, and as Western allies are now turning up the pressure on Israel to stop its latest round of fighting and allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Joining us now CNN's Chief National Security Analyst Jim Sciutto. Jim. So, where are these intelligence -- what are these intelligence officials seeing that suggested them that an Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear facilities is a possibility?
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It's a combination of things. It's a combination of intercepted Israeli communications, but also the U.S. is observing military movements that suggest that Israel is putting the pieces in place for such a strike, and that includes moving air munitions that might be used to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, and also the completion of an air exercise to prepare for such a strike.
One official that my colleagues Katie Bo Lillis and Natasha Bertrand spoke to said that the chances of such a strike, an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities has risen significantly in recent weeks. It's not clear that Israeli leaders have made a decision to do so, but I do know that U.S. officials are taking these moves quite seriously and it would represent potentially a break with the Trump administration. because as you know, President Trump is quite invested right now on coming to some sort of nuclear agreement with Iran.
I do know this, and I spoke to an Israeli source who said Israel has its limits and it's concern that President Trump might strike a deal that Israel considers, in the words of the source, a bad deal that would not meet its standards for its own national security, in which case it might decide as surprising as this may be, to strike on its own without U.S. support.
BLITZER: It's interesting because during his first term, Trump immediately ripped up the Obama created a nuclear deal that was in the works with Iran saying it was waste. It was a -- SCIUTTO: Listen, and that is Israel's fear that Trump, in the end,
resurrects JCPOA from 2015 just calls --
BLITZER: The Obama plan.
SCIUTTO: The Obama plan. Just calls it by a different name here. Now, Trump administration officials say it will not be that they will, for instance, not have sunset clauses. But the key question is, will Iran be allowed to maintain some uranium enrichment? You'll remember there's been some back and forth. Steve Witkoff put out there that, oh, maybe we could live with a civilian nuclear program. Israelis cannot. And then, President Trump pulled that back and said, no nuclear.
But it seems that that's the wiggle room right now. And it's not clear -- well, first of all, it's not clear that the U.S. and Iran come to an agreement that satisfies them, but it's also extremely unclear that President Trump could make a deal that Israel would find acceptable.
BLITZER: And Steve Witkoff is leading these negotiations with Iran right now, even though so many administration insiders, national security experts don't believe he has the expertise, the history, the knowledge of these sensitive issues?
SCIUTTO: No question. And there happens some questions, some reporting that perhaps Trump is growing impatient with Witkoff's own progress on this or the Russia-Ukraine peace talks as well. But listen, right now, the administration as a whole has not seemed to narrow the gaps between itself and Iran, let alone itself and Israel.
BLITZER: Jim Sciutto, thanks very much as usual.
SCIUTTO: Thank you.
BLITZER: Appreciate it. Pamela.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Wolf, the Justice Department is launching an investigation into former New York Governor and a current front runner for New York City mayor, Andrew Cuomo. This probe follows a referral from House Republicans who accuse Cuomo, who's in the midst of staging a political comeback, of lying over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. And it also comes just weeks after the department ended a separate investigation and his top rival in the New York City mayoral race, current mayor, Eric Adams.
And joining us now with more is CNN legal analysts and former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams. So, you have the New York City mayoral primary just over a month away. What do you make of the timing of this announcement?
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST AND FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: The timing is suspect at best. Now, I want to be clear, if someone has engaged in wrongdoing, of course the Justice Department ought to investigate them and get to the bottom of it, and frankly, that includes perjury. If a senior public official did lie about, of course he should be investigated. Do we have any reason to believe that the administration, based on how they've acted thus far for these months that they've been in power, have not been seeking to target and investigate political enemies? And it just sort of keeps happening with an alarming degree of consistency that you just have to question the timing of the announcement.
BROWN: And it is notable because the attorney general, Pam Bondi, said repeatedly during her confirmation hearings that she will make sure that DOJ isn't weaponized.
[10:35:00]
WILLIAMS: Yes.
BROWN: And you know, this investigation into Cuomo comes days after the FBI announce its investigating New York Attorney General Letitia James over possible mortgage fraud. So, you know, you also had President Trump addressing the Justice Department back in March. I want to listen to what he said then.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: There could be no more heinous betrayal of American values than to use the law to terrorize the innocent and reward the wicked. Our predecessors turn this Department of Justice into the Department of Injustice. But I stand before you today to declare that those days are over and they are never going to come back. They're never coming back.
So, now, as the chief law enforcement officer in our country, I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: So, I'll let our viewers decide how they want to view what steps the DOJ is taking and whether that's in alignment with what the president said. But you also have the Secret Service investigating FBI Director James Comey over a social media post. We've seen a Wisconsin judge arrested and a congresswoman, a Democratic congresswoman charged. And the president's even calling for this major investigation into Bruce Springsteen, who has been critical of Trump.
Do you think that any of these investigations will actually result in, you know, prosecutions or do you see them as political statements?
WILLIAMS: I mean, both can be true. Certainly, their political statements. Again, as I said, if someone broke the law, of course they ought to be held accountable for it. But you know, Pam, it's not the things you see, it's not the investigations they announce or even the speeches by the president, which I would note was a huge departure from Justice Department practice to even have a president show up at the Justice Department in the first place. It's not the things you see, it's the things you don't see. It's the terminations of career employees at the Justice Department. It's the sidelining of independent inspectors, general across the administration. It's half of the Justice Department Civil Rights Division, either being sidelined, terminated, or just quitting. Those are the things that are leading to the weaponization of the Justice Department because the career employees that would be a check on the worst impulses of political appointees aren't there anymore.
And look, and I say this as someone who was hired in the Bush administration, also served in the Obama administration. It happens all the time that career employees provide a valuable check on the political impulses of the political leadership of the Justice Department. That's gone. And you have folks now who are basically carrying out law enforcement with a political -- with vengeance, and that's really what you're seeing here. So, I think far more toxic than any one of those cases you identified is sort of the bigger rot happening in the building.
BROWN: Elliot Williams, thank you so much, Wolf.
BLITZER: He knows this stuff too. Just ahead, more trouble for Target. A public boycott for cutting its DEI policy is cutting into the bottom line. And now, tariffs are putting even more pressure on the company. We're about to take a closer look. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:40:00]
BLITZER: The FDA is changing its approval process for updated COVID- 19 vaccines, and it could mean people who had been eligible for boosters before might not be this fall.
BROWN: Joining us now is Dr. Peter Hotez, the co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. Hi, Dr. Hotez. Good to see you. So, how is the approval process changing and who will be affected the most?
DR. PETER HOTEZ, TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL CENTER FOR VACCINE DEVELOPMENT AND BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Well, the first part, Pam, is not much of a change because it reduces hospitalizations and deaths, the recommendation is to annual -- provide annual immunizations to those over the age of 65 and those with -- or those with underlying risk factors. And in a guidance document they publish in New England Journal of Medicine, they listed what those risk factors are. So, no problem there.
The part that I disagree with is they've stopped recommending universal vaccinations for those individuals under the age of 65. And the reason I think that's a mistake is because they're not really considering the impact of long COVID. There's no evidence to suggest that if you vaccinate, keep up with your immunizations, you're much less likely to experience long COVID. And I think there's a lot of people concerned about long COVID and potentially they're not eligible.
I think another reason is there is some impact on reducing virus transmission if you're vaccinated. So, I'm starting to get e-mails and direct messages on Bluesky and X, from people in their 40s and 50s who are taking care of aging parents and they're worried about giving COVID to their parents. So, I think that's another reason to vaccinate.
So, I think, you know this -- in my view, this should be a decision made between individuals and their physicians if you're under the age of 65. And basically, the federal government has taken that decision away from us. And I'm puzzled by that, given the fact that this administration, at least Department of Health and Human Services, keeps on beating the drum about health freedom and medical freedom. This seems to be the opposite of that.
BLITZER: It's interesting, Doctor, that this change brings the U.S. approval process in line with other countries like the U.K., Canada, and Australia. The FDA hopes this change might help restore public confidence in vaccine safety. Does this change help achieve that goal?
[10:45:00]
DR. HOTEZ: You know, I don't think so. I think what's -- what undermines public confidence in vaccine safety is all of the anti- vaccine activism and rhetoric that you're hearing on other cable news channels and some of the conspiracy podcasts. And that's what's going to help restore vaccine confidence.
If anything, I think this now kind of takes decisions away from individuals making health decisions in collaboration with their physician, it takes away that option. And I don't think that's the way we should go in the United States.
BROWN: In making this decision, FDA officials said there is not enough evidence that healthy children and adults get clinically meaningful benefits from regular COVID-19 shots. They want to see more placebo-controlled trials, particularly in adults 50 to 64 before recommending the shots for other groups. So, what's wrong with that?
DR. HOTEZ: Well, there's a couple of things. One they only consider the acute manifestations of COVID in terms of case fatality rates and hospitalizations. And while that's certainly important, they're not factoring in the chronic sequelae such as long COVID, such as downstream heart disease. Remember, this is thromboembolic viruses, the virus that causes strokes and heart attacks. They're not looking at the chronic implications of COVID, and I think that's a mistake.
And then the other is the idea that they'll allow universal vaccination, provided the pharma companies now conduct a brand-new round of clinical trials for each updated variant. It's not realistic because it can take months and months to do the enrollment. The expense of doing a trial to -- especially now when everyone's been either previously infected or infected and vaccinated or vaccinated and infected, it would be a massive, massive study that would be prohibitively expensive. It basically means the pharma companies are probably not likely to pursue that.
So, it's really a way of denying vaccine access for those who want it. And it goes against what Mr. Kennedy recently said. He made a point of saying he will never deny any American access to any vaccine. And clearly, that's not the case. He's changed his mind apparently.
BLITZER: Yes, my doctor has told me, get the COVID booster shot. You might still wind up getting COVID, but it'll be a much milder case than if you hadn't gotten that COVID booster shot. Dr. Peter Hotez, thanks as usual for joining us. We always appreciate your expertise. Pamela.
BROWN: All right.
DR. HOTEZ: Appreciate it.
BROWN: Well, we have some other news recovering here, Wolf. Putting a break on politics, accelerating on Tesla. Elon Musk says he plans to cut his political spending in the future after he's spending a record sum to help get Donald Trump back in the White House. The world's richest man has been shaking up the federal government through the so- called Department of Government Efficiency. And now, he says he'll turn his attention back to Tesla and plans to lead the company for at least five more years.
CNN Media Correspondent Hadas Gold joins us. Now, Hadas, what more did Musk say about his plans? And it stuck out to me that he definitely kept the door open.
HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: He keeps the door open. But it's stunning to hear from the man who spent more than $290 million in 2024 to help elect President Trump and other Republicans, and then he spent millions more on that Wisconsin judges race to now say, you know what, I'm done. Take a listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELON MUSK, TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: In terms of political spending. I'm going to do a lot less in the future.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And why is that?
MUSK: I think I've done enough.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is it because of blowback?
MUSK: Well, if I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it. I don't currently see a reason.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLD: And I am sure many Republicans hearing that will say wait, wait, wait, there is a reason. We have a very slim majority in Congress. We're going to need your help in the midterms. And as you noted, he did leave the door open, but there's, of course, a question of why is he suddenly changing his tune when six months ago, you know, just a few months ago, he's brandishing a chainsaw on stage and seeing so energized about working in politics.
Now, we can just look at the numbers. First of all, we can look at the approval ratings for Elon Musk. If you look at his approval ratings and polls back in February, his disapproval rating was at 49 percent. In just a couple months, it jumped up to 57 percent, whereas his approval rating did not move at all, and his work in Washington has affected not only his personal approval ratings, but we've seen it affect Tesla's share price as well.
I talked to somebody who has spoken to Elon Musk, who's in his orbit, and he said a few reasons why this is happening. He says, Elon has too many asks coming to him, and everyone sees him as a silver bullet spender. He says that -- he warns Elon Musk has not chosen his midterm bets yet, and he says he is sending a message to the market and his shareholders.
And as we saw from Tesla's share price right now -- right there, Tesla's share prices have gone up ever since Elon Musk has said he's stepping back from politics. Guys.
BROWN: All right. Hadas Gold, thank you so much.
BLITZER: And coming up, pushing back against the tush push in football. The NFL owners now have the fate of the controversial play in their hands. We'll have more on today's vote. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:50:00]
BLITZER: Happening tonight at Madison Square Garden, game one of the Eastern Conference Finals. The New York Knicks hosts the Indiana Pacers. You can watch it by the way, on our sister network, TNT. The game is also streaming on Max.
BROWN: CNN's Andy Scholes joins us with a preview of tonight's matchup. Andy, Knicks fans have been waiting a quarter a century for this.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yes, yes. Pamela and Wolf, you know, the fact that Knicks could legitimately win an NBA title this season, I mean, it's pretty wild. They're eight wins away and their fans could, you know, not be more excited for game one tonight against the Pacers. You know, this is the Knick's first time in the Easter College finals in 25 years.
[10:55:00]
It's the fourth time they've made the East Finals since '94. Every single time it's been against the Pacers. So, these two certainly have a storied history and it's fun that Reggie Miller is going to be on the call for TNT. And you know, Spike Lee, Timothy Chalamet, all those other celebrity Knicks fans are going to be courtside. Knicks are slight favorites in the series, but man, don't be surprised if this one goes seven.
Now, the Thunder, meanwhile, they've been the most dominant team in the NBA all season. They showed wine game one of the West finals against the T. Wolves. Here in the fourth, get the steal. And then Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who had a quiet first half, gets the and one. He had 31 points, showed why he's likely going to be named the MVP later today. The Thunder, they outscored the T. Wolves 70 to 40 in that second half. They held Minnesota to just 20 points in the paint. Thunder, win that one easily, 114 to 88 to take game number one.
All right. NFL players, they're going to be coming to the Olympics in 2028. The owners voting unanimously yesterday to allow the players to compete in the first ever flag football competition at the games. Each team can have a maximum of one American player compete. Olympic flag football, it's five on five, only 10 players on the roster for every team. So, those American spots are going to be hot commodities.
And guys, the NFL owners actually right now are voting on whether or not to ban the tush push. Eagles -- former lineman Jason Kelce, he was there trying to lobby them to keep it in the game. But we will wait and see. Not looking good for the tush push staying around.
BLITZER: I say keep the tush push. I don't know if you like the tush push, but I watch it I like it.
BROWN: I don't really have a -- I don't have a strong opinion on it one way or the other.
SCHOLES: I say get rid of it. It's boring to me, Wolf.
BROWN: I'm a neutral party. I'm a neutral party.
BLITZER: I like the push the tush. I like that. All right. Andy Scholes, thank you very, very much.
BROWN: Wow. All right. And moving right along, coming up right here in the Situation Room, the CEO of Pinterest joins us. He will weigh in on tariffs, prices, and what his platforms users might be planning to do with their money.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:00:00]
possible strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities; Israel prepares to strike Iran's nuclear facilities; DOJ opens investigation into former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo; Trump to DOJ: "No more heinous betrayal of American values than to use the law to terrorize the innocent"; FDA change could limit COVID-19 boosters this fall; COVID vaccine approval change aligns U.S. with other nations; FDA may limit future COVID-19 shots to older people and those at risk serious infection; Musk on political spending: "I'm going to do a lot less"; Musk planning to lead Tesla for at least five more years; Tonight: Game one of NBA Eastern Conference Finals; Thunder rumble to game one win over Timberwolves; NFL players to competer in Olympic flag football in '28>
