I know that you marked a solution as solved, but it seems like it’s more of a workaround than actually getting WordPress to be able to make secure, remote connections.
In troubleshooting this, did you try what’s outlined in this forum topic:
Basically, download a new ca-bundle.crt from the latest version of WordPress and put it in wp-includes/certificates/ca-bundle.crt.
That might help. I’ve also seen issues occasionally when there is some sort of antivirus that will insert its own certificate within the chain, and in the process mangle other CA.
Lastly, if this is a work computer, it’s possible that there’s a custom bundle of CAs that they require and which might be incomplete.
Hope that helps think through other things that might get this working for you without having to resort to an insecure connection!