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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
U.S.-Iran Truce on Shaky Ground with New Attacks, Hormuz Confusion; Israel: 100+ Strikes in 10 mins. Across Lebanon, Says Ceasefire doesn't Apply there; Iran: Strait of Hormuz Closed Amid Israeli Strikes; Anthropic Warns Its Latest A.I. Model Could Allow Hackers to Attack Every Major Operating System and Web Browser; U.S.- Iran Truce on Shaky Ground With New Attacks, Hormuz Confusion; Trump is Considering Joint Venture With Iran for Strait of Hormuz Tolls; Republican Clay Fuller Wins Georgia Special Election to Replace Former Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene; Live Update From Artemis II Crew Now at 10:45 p.m. ET. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired April 08, 2026 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: ...Republican Nancy Mace said on social media, "Pam Bondi cannot escape accountability simply because she no longer holds the office of attorney general. The cover up continues, the innocent don't run".
Epstein survivors are calling for Bondi to be deposed immediately as well, and it remains a mystery why Bondi and others, including the President of the United States, have blocked the full release of the Epstein files. Thanks so much as always for joining us. AC360 begins right now.
[20:00:33]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Good evening from the Newsroom. Topping our Global War coverage, a ceasefire under fire, a truce the public has yet to see in writing, the details of which both sides are disputing, right down to whether all the parties have to cease all their firing.
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
COOPER: That's what the ceasefire looked like today in Beirut as Israel launched what its military officials are calling the largest coordinated strike on Lebanon since the war began. According to the IDF, more than a hundred Hezbollah sites were hit today in the space of just ten minutes. Officials from Lebanon's health ministry telling CNN that at least 182 people were killed, nearly 900 wounded in the attacks, which Israels Prime Minister today suggested would continue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL (through translator): We have more goals to complete and we will complete them. I'd like to reiterate this is not the ending of the war. This is just a station on the way to achieve all of its goals.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: In response, Iran said it was stopping oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz after allowing two ships through. After the ceasefire took effect, oil prices, which settled today sharply lower, began ticking back up in after hours' trading. At issue, whether Israel is a full party to the ceasefire, meaning it includes Israeli strikes on Lebanon or just strikes on Iran.
Pakistan's Prime Minister, who brokered the truce, said yes, they are, so does Iran. President Trump says no and Vice-President Vance today said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE (R), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn't. We never made that promise. We never indicated that was going to be the case. What we said is that the ceasefire would be focused on Iran, and the ceasefire would be focused on America's allies, both Israel and the Gulf Arab States.
Now, that said, the Israelis, as I understand it again, I'm supposed to get a full report when I get on the plane, have actually offered to be a frankly, to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon, because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful. That's not because that is part of the ceasefire. I think that's the Israelis trying to set us up for success. And well, of course, see how that unfolds in the next few days
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: It's just not possible to report who is right here, because there's no single written truce for all to see. This morning, in a social media post, the President said, "many of the 15 points have already been agreed to".
Last night, though, he said, we received a ten-point proposal from Iran and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Now, we do know that the U.S. had earlier sent through Pakistan a 15-point plan for ending the war, and that Iran responded with their own ten. What we do not know is how many are part of the ceasefire, or even if any of them are. And there are mixed messages about whether Iran is living up to one of President Trump's central demands of maintaining the ceasefire.
In his announcement last night, he conditioned ending strikes in Iran to Tehran, "agreeing to the complete, immediate and safe opening of the Strait of Hormuz.
This morning, the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, said Iran had done that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SECRETARY: What we know is that Iran is going to say a lot of things. A lot of people are going to say a lot of things, claim a lot of things. What has been agreed to, what's been stated is the Strait is open.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So that was this morning. By this afternoon, though, the Vice President was suggesting at best the Strait is not quite open.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANCE: Well, we've already seen an increase in traffic today. Hopefully we'll see an increase in traffic tomorrow. We actually think that we are seeing signs that the streets are starting to reopen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Starting to reopen could be a best-case scenario. Listen to what the chief energy advisor for the big oil company Gulf told CNN's Jake Tapper tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM KLOZA, CHIEF ENERGY ADVISOR, GULF OIL: I would emphasize these are really baby steps right now. There's no real indication that the Strait is going to reopen. And it seems like a flimsy ceasefire to say what's obvious.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, for more on all this, I want to start with CNN's Jeremy Diamond, who is in Tel Aviv. So, do Israeli officials believe the ceasefire will hold or even want it to hold, given their airstrikes on Lebanon?
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's a good question, Anderson. I mean, publicly, the Israeli Prime Minister today gave his full backing to President Trump's ceasefire deal here to his efforts to end this conflict diplomatically, but privately, there's no question about it that Israeli officials have had enormous misgivings about this ceasefire, and, in fact, that the Israeli Prime Minister was not in the loop as the United States and Iran were closing in on this deal. Only informed by President Trump very shortly before the announcement ultimately surfaced.
And the Prime Minister insisted on Hezbollah, on Lebanon not being a part of this ceasefire agreement, maintaining that he wanted to continue to carry out these strikes. As we saw today, very deadly strikes that resulted in at least 180 people being killed inside of Lebanon.
But ultimately, it's not just about what Israel does or doesn't want, it's also about what the United States is ultimately willing to pressure Israel to do or not. And what we've seen today is that the United States is really backing Israel's right to continue carrying out strikes against Hezbollah.
[20:05:58]
We heard from the President, the Vice President, the White House Press Secretary, all of them basically insisting that Israel still has the right to carry out these strikes in Lebanon, that it's not part of this broader ceasefire agreement with Iran. But the question now is, could it ultimately lead to this ceasefire collapsing? Because we're seeing the Iranians keeping the Strait of Hormuz close and raising questions about whether this ceasefire is viable, whether these negotiations can take place if Israel continues carrying out these strikes in Lebanon.
COOPER: And what's the latest you've heard about the status of the Strait of Hormuz?
DIAMOND: I mean, Anderson, there's no indication that the Strait of Hormuz is open at this time. The Iranians have said that it is closed, that they closed it once again after Israel began carrying out these very deadly strikes that we saw in Lebanon today, strikes that even France is condemning as indiscriminate tonight, the French President calling them indiscriminate.
What we have seen is that two Iranian vessels apparently went through the Strait earlier in the day, and one Chinese vessel went through, that's according to the Iranians. Tonight, you know, ship tracking data from Marine Tracker is showing no evidence of any ships passing through this Strait. And as you heard from the Vice President there, he has said that if the Iranians don't open this Strait, it's going to be problematic for the United States. And whether the U.S. keeps up its commitments to this ceasefire, that it doesn't carry out strikes inside of Iran.
So, it really just seems like were in a very tenuous position here. Something's going to have to change. Either Iran is going to have to reopen the Strait, the U.S. is going to have to pressure Israel not to carry out strikes against Hezbollah or perhaps we see a return to war -- Anderson.
COOPER: Jeremy Diamond, thanks very much. I'm joined now by retired U.S. Army general and former head of U.S. Central Command, David Petraeus. He's also a former CIA director.
General Petraeus, you famously and rhetorically said to a journalist, tell me how these ends about the Iraq war back in 2003. Do you think the ceasefire, tenuous as it seems to be, is likely to bring the Iran war to an end in the next two weeks?
GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS (RET), U.S. ARMY AND FORMER HEAD OF U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: Very uncertain, Anderson. In fact, I think the real question that is begged right now is whether when it is finally ended, Iran clearly will be weaker militarily but could they actually end up in a stronger position strategically and the situation with the Strait of Hormuz suggests that that is possible. They can use that leverage not only to get America to seek this temporary ceasefire, which I suspect will be extended for a period of time.
The negotiations can't conclude with the parties as far apart as they are. You know, comparing the to the 15-point plan we put forward and the ten-point plan put forward by Iran, and there are numerous items on the Iranian plan that there's just no way we can accept removal of all U.S. Forces, right to enrich, right to control the Strait of Hormuz. And apparently, they're even going to charge in cryptocurrency to navigate the strait. I mean, they want to turn this into their Panama Canal.
So, there's a lot of very tough negotiating that's going to have to take place. But you do see the leverage that Iran is able to wield by this control of the Strait of Hormuz, and it could lead to President Trump insisting that Prime Minister Netanyahu cease operations in Lebanon. In fact, I think one reason why you saw such intense operations today was Israel taking advantage of whatever remaining time they have to degrade Hezbollah as far as they can. And they have done a great deal of that to ensure that they can't threaten Israel the way that they have in the past.
COOPER: To your point, though, strategically, if Iran has de facto control over the Strait of Hormuz right now, and if that continues months from now, years from now, that puts Iran in a much better position than they were previously. I mean, yes, there has been tremendous damage to facilities and, and, and weapons, but, you know, they have partners, they can get more missiles from down the road.
[20:10:10]
PETRAEUS: Well, it could conceivably give considerable leverage, although what's going to result from this is, is that the Gulf States are all going to find other ways to get their crude oil, natural gas, fertilizer, all of the other products that come out of the Gulf, they're going to figure out ways to avoid that control, limiting their ability to export these key items. But that's going to take a lot of investment, a lot of time, energy and so forth. But it is a very different dynamic than what obtained prior to the start of this operation, which without question, again, our military men and women have done magnificent work in dramatically degrading the capabilities of Iran militarily.
But this does show in some ways, this is a real deterrent for Iran against action that they don't want visited on them until at least the Gulf states have alternative routes to export. What now goes through the Strait of Hormuz.
COOPER: It is remarkable, though, that what started as whether I mean, there were different, sort of propositions put forward about what the U.S. agenda was, but whether it was regime change or whether it was the nuclear program and the nuclear threat that is now, seems like the primary interest for the us right now is the Strait of Hormuz. And if Iran ends up both with no new treaty on the nuclear program and control of the Strait of Hormuz, and though the President says there's been regime change, technically, yes, there have been a change of individuals. But in terms of the rhetoric, the hard line of this Islamist regime, that continues.
PETRAEUS: This is why this is a tenuous ceasefire. Again, I'm pretty confident that the current ceasefire of two weeks will end up being extended because there won't be a full resolution of the issues, given how far apart the parties are, but we'll have to see what happens in the weeks and even perhaps months down the road. Whether some of the Iranian desires are so again, unacceptable to the United States that we have to resume military action.
COOPER: General Petraeus, thanks very much for being with us tonight, I appreciate it. When we come back, a live report from CNN's Clarissa Ward in Saudi Arabia on how the Kingdom there in the Gulf States are assessing the truce so far.
And later, why Anthropic has chosen not to release its newest generation of A.I. model to everyone, despite the power could have to identify security holes in other software. We'll tell you about the potential downside to that remarkable upside ahead tonight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:17:12]
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
COOPER: One of more than 100 Israeli strikes in Lebanon today. Iran's foreign minister responded, saying Washington cannot have both a ceasefire and continued Israeli attacks in Lebanon. As for Iran, multiple reports say Iran hit Saudi Arabia's primary oil export pipeline. That's according to "The Wall Street Journal," "Reuters" and others.
CNN has asked pipeline owner, Aramco for comment; the company has yet to reply. Our chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward, joins us now from Riyadh. Do officials in Saudi Arabia or other Gulf nations believe this cease fire is going to hold?
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think there is still some optimism, and certainly this morning, Anderson, there was just a palpable feeling of relief that a catastrophe had been averted. You know, the Gulf states very much thinking that if President Trump had carried out his threat to decimate Iran's civilian infrastructure, that they would be the ones potentially bearing the brunt of Iran's retaliatory attacks.
So, the day started with a sense of positivity that things were moving in the right direction. Then, of course, we have gradually seen that ceasefire coming under more and more pressure, in part because of those devastating Israeli strikes on Lebanon, which have then led to Iran saying it would close the Strait of Hormuz again.
But then also, we have seen Iranian strikes throughout the day on the UAE, 17 missiles intercepted, 35 drones on Bahrain and also here, and Kuwait and here in Saudi Arabia, at least nine drones intercepted one of those drones, as you mentioned, according to multiple reports, hitting that crucial East-West Pipeline, which really has become an essential artery for Gulf countries to export their crude oil out through the Red Sea while Iran continues to maintain its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz -- Anderson.
COOPER: And is it clear to you what negotiations in Pakistan later this week are going to look like, assuming they in fact take place?
WARD: I think at this stage, it's really not clear. I mean, we saw this post on X from the speaker of Iran's parliament, who basically outlined what he views as three violations of the ceasefire agreement as it stands and effectively calling into question whether there's any point in even maintaining a ceasefire or bilateral negotiations taking place, though he stopped short of saying that Iran would back out of those negotiations.
And look, it's clear, Anderson, and you've been discussing this throughout your show already, that there is just a glaring chasm between how the U.S. sees this moving forward and how Iran sees this moving forward.
Very little, if any, overlap at all between the two sides, except for one crucial factor, which is it does appear that both sides would like to see an end to these hostilities, and certainly the majority of countries here in the gulf very much want to see an end to the hostilities, but they want to see it ended on substantive terms that address their security concerns, because their big fear right now is that at a certain point, the U.S. is going to call it a day, pick up sticks and leave, and they will be left to contend with the fallout of an increasingly unstable, belligerent and emboldened Iran -- Anderson.
[20:20:59]
COOPER: Clarissa Ward, thanks very much from Riyadh.
Tonight, Vice President Vance will lead the U.S. negotiating team that will travel to Pakistan this weekend for talks aimed at ending the war. Vance will be accompanied by President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the special envoy, Steve Witkoff.
My next guest is an expert at dealing with Iran. Alan Eyre is a distinguished diplomatic fellow at the Middle East Institute, who was a key member of President Obama's negotiating team for the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, which President Trump pulled out of in 2018.
Alan, thanks for being with us. How is it possible that Iran and Pakistan think the ceasefire includes the Israeli strikes on Lebanon and the U.S. and Israel do not? Isn't that the kind of thing that would pretty much be cleared up in any kind of actual ceasefire agreement?
ALAN EYRE, DISTINGUISHED DIPLOMATIC FELLOW, MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE: I think with normal administrations, that's the case. Normally you have a text and all the sides look at it and change sentences or words or phrases. This latest ceasefire, which evidently was at the initiative of the U.S. administration and they used Pakistan to bring it about, seems to have been off the cuff and it seemed to have included, full secession of all hostilities to include Lebanon, but evidently Israel wasn't consulted enough or agreed to disagree. So, this is why we have a ceasefire that never took hold, that no sides are living up to except the U.S. military, which is where we are now.
COOPER: And if the Strait of Hormuz is essentially still closed tonight, it's certainly in Iranian control, what did the White House actually get from the Iranians?
EYRE: Well, I think the White House is seeking to declare victory and just get out of this quagmire as soon as it as it can. So, I don't think the White House was fixated on details. I think they wanted to announce a ceasefire and just lash everything together with duct tape and hope it holds. And that's pretty much where we are now.
COOPER: Which is, I mean, if that is the case, that's pretty terrifying.
EYRE: It is terrifying, but it's the least bad option. No one is saying this is a real win. Even the spin coming out of the White House is not believable, but it's the least bad option given the war, the unnecessary war that was started on February 28th.
COOPER: If -- I mean, Iran is now in control of the Strait of Hormuz, they were not, previously they didn't have official control over it, certainly. The Iranian nuclear program, obviously they've suffered huge losses in terms of infrastructure and ballistic missiles and the like. They're still obviously able to shoot down some U.S. planes and they're able to fire drones and others at neighboring countries. But their nuclear program or their nuclear desires remain and the regime seems the same and/or perhaps more hardline, less experienced. Do you believe Iran is in a stronger position now than before the war? In a strange way.
EYRE: Not a strange way and an obvious way. They're strategically they have a position of strategic strength going into the negotiations. The U.S. had a big stick at brandish for years, it's military. They used it. The dreadful has already happened. And now Iran realizes that it can take that punch.
Additionally, Iran has found a big stick of its own that that up until now it didn't hesitated using. Which is control of the Strait of Hormuz. And don't forget, even though its closed now, even when its putatively open under the ceasefire. Iran says they're only going to let through about 12 ships a day.
So, Iran is found a piece of hyper strategic deterrence to replace the three pillars it lost before and finally, you're quite right, Anderson. The new government that we put into place as a result of decapitation is far more militaristic and far more hardline. So, any type of deal the U.S. can get out of this now is going to be far worse than the deal we could have gotten on February 27th.
COOPER: Wow, Alan Eyre, I really appreciate you being on tonight. Thank you. We're going to take a look tonight at a major development, artificial intelligence, which is obviously played a crucial role in this war.
Now, Anthropic, a leading A.I. company behind the chatbot Claude is declining to release its latest model to the general public because of how advanced it is. They're concerned over what it may be capable of doing in the wrong hands. It's a stunning development. We'll talk about it with "New York Times" columnist Tom Friedman.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:29:47]
COOPER: Anthropic has decided not to release its latest A.I. model, called Claude Mythos, to the public. Now, this version is apparently so advanced it can find vulnerabilities in a huge variety of software applications, which is both a great advancement, potentially for improving cyber security and also a huge danger if used by criminals or others to hack into systems.
For now, Anthropic is only making this system available to some of the biggest tech companies so they can test it and improve their own systems. The fear, of course, if it falls into the wrong hands, cyber criminals, spies, the fallout could be catastrophic.
[20:30:22]
My next guest, Tom Friedman, lays out those concerns in his latest New York Times op-ed with the headline, "Anthropic's Restraint Is a Terrifying Warning Sign." He's also the author of the best-selling book, among many others, "From Beirut to Jerusalem."
So Tom, you write, this is potentially as fundamental and significant a turning point as was the emergence of mutually assured destruction and the need for nuclear non-proliferation. That's a huge statement. How do you say that and what is your biggest concern?
THOMAS FRIEDMAN, NEW YORK TIMES FOREIGN AFFAIRS COLUMNIST: Well, you know, Anderson, our economy now, all our biggest systems, our water systems, our airlines, our airports, our transportation and telecommunication systems all run on software and operating systems, as do those of every other major economy in the world that we are interlinked with.
And if basically, we now have a software that not only is fantastically good at writing new code, but it turns out is fantastically good at finding bugs in your own code or other people's codes, that tool, that power now can be used all over the world. It would be in the hands of everyone.
Imagine a world where everyone had a nuclear bazooka, basically. And because it's so easy, a threat, a cyber threat that used to be confined to intelligence organizations, big companies, was very hard and very expensive to do is to become really cheap and really easy. And that's why Anthropic --
COOPER: Yeah. And Anthropic, what they've actually said, what they've disclosed is that, quote, "They say the vulnerabilities in this program it has spotted have in some cases survived decades of human review and millions of automated security tests." I mean, that's mind blowing that all the current, you know, humans looking at it and all the current, you know, A.I. security tests that they have run programs through and software through, all of it still had bugs that were detected by this new powerful A.I.
FRIEDMAN: Well, you know, this is a point that my technology tutor and partner in this column, Craig Mundie, keeps making that these A.I. capabilities, they're coming so much faster than people realize. And that we aren't, as Craig says, birthing just a new tool. Anderson, we're birthing a new species.
It's not carbon based like we are, but silicon based. But it is a new species that we are going to have to learn to control and collaborate before it makes us its pet. So this is the front end of a really big problem.
COOPER: Well, regulation, control is not a word that this White House is very interested in, in terms of artificial intelligence. Anthropic is probably one of the few A.I. companies, Dario Amodei, who left OpenAI years ago with his sister and several others to form Anthropic. They're probably the most kind of safety forward. Do you think that there will be, given now this development and others, some sort of move to, you know, really look at kind of regulation or even government to government?
I mean, even with some of America's adversaries, you've written about the idea of the U.S. and China kind of getting together on this.
FRIEDMAN: Well, I think, Anderson, this is the front end of a fundamentally new problem we have as a species. OK? So I started out in journalism and you started out when the world was connected. During our tenure with the Internet, the world became interconnected. What's happened today is the world has become interdependent. OK?
As my teacher, Dov Seidman, likes to say, interdependence is no longer our choice. It's our condition. Now, we are going to rise together or we're going to fall together. But baby, whatever we're doing, we're doing it together. Now, we can discover that early or we can discover that late, but we will discover that.
It's true about climate, but it's also true now about cyber tech and all of these communication systems. No company alone can solve this problem. Therefore, no country alone can solve this problem. And therefore, sooner or later, the two tech superpowers, the U.S. and China, are going to have to sit down and work out this problem together, learn how to compete and cooperate on A.I. because we are interdependent. That is our condition. It's not a choice.
Trump can learn that early. He can learn that late. But he will learn that.
COOPER: If you have, though, these powerful A.I. weapons at your disposal and if it's an American company that has it, if there's an A.I. arms race, which is how many people describe what is happening around the world, isn't there a kind of a push at some point or a pressure at some point for an American company to, in some way, use this for the benefit not only of their own company, but for, you know, a country's benefit?
[20:35:18]
The idea of some sort of, you know, China-U.S. alliance on this seems far, far difficult to imagine right now. FRIEDMAN: Hard to imagine. But you know, it's -- when I say it to people they say, God, that's incredibly naive. I say no, no, no, no. What's naive is thinking we're going to be OK if we don't do that because there's no way -- both China and America will be hugely vulnerable to criminals within their own societies when they have these tools, much more vulnerable than they're going to be to any threat the other would pose.
So again, we're in the middle of a giant meta transition. You know, I've been working on a new book on this. We have become Godlike as a species. We've just created this super-intelligent being. There's just one problem. We've become Godlike without the Ten Commandments. And you know, we're going to sit down and together with the biggest companies and our biggest rivals and write a new Ten Commandments, 10 for us and 10 for the new species we've just birthed.
COOPER: Tom Friedman, thanks very much. Appreciate it, Tom.
Coming up next tonight, more on the war and the state of the ceasefire from a legal and strategic standpoint. Also, CNN's John King talks to people in rural America where Democrats are looking to turn red districts blue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:40:49]
COOPER: Looking at damage there from another of more than 100 Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon today. Joining me now is former Army JAG lawyer and combat veteran, Margaret Donovan and CNN National Security Analyst, Alex Plitsas.
It is confusing to me how there's a situation where there are conflicting 10- and 15-point plans, and some fundamental disagreements somehow slipped through about the status of Lebanon and whether that was a viable target for Israel to continue bombing. How is that possible?
ALEX PLITSAS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think, well, the fact that there's no common document that they're operating off of is really the root cause of this. In speaking to mediators in the region prior to the conflict kicking off and afterwards, if it were to happen, they said, look, the last time this ended, we're not doing another round of conflict that's going to be ended by a tweet or a post on Truth Social. There needs to be a document that's going to guarantee regime survival.
They kind of went through their demands. And where we're at now is we don't have a common document, and that's the problem at the moment.
COOPER: Just, I mean, from a legal standpoint, does this make sense for any kind of negotiation? I mean, I just talked to a former negotiator for the 2015 agreement. It took, I mean, he was working on it for five years --
MARGARET DONOVAN, U.S. ARMY COMBAT VETERAN, SERVED IN IRAQ AND SYRIA: Yeah.
COOPER: But it took 18 months of negotiating.
DONOVAN: Yeah, yeah. It's not exactly breaking news, I guess, that you really want to nail down the terms and make sure both sides agree to them before you enter into the agreement. And to Alex's point, yeah, you generally want to put pen to paper on that type of thing so that there is no confusion, which is what we've seen now in the first 24 hours.
COOPER: Also just the strategic objectives, what the U.S. goal is, the strategic objectives is, right now, it seems to have completely, you know, the pendulum has swung to this being all about the Strait of Hormuz. I understand the economic imperative of that.
But the Iran nuclear program was supposedly the big-ticket item going into this.
PLITSAS: Yeah, it was the catalyst in terms of the two main sticking points leading up to the disagreement in Geneva that eventually led the president to determine that there wasn't a path forward and we were going to take military action. It was over domestic enrichment and not allowing Iran to possess the technology that would allow them in the future to have a breakout period where they would be able to not only enrich uranium for civilian purposes, but to the military grade if they needed to for weaponization, as well as that 60 percent enriched uranium and taking it out of the country.
And so, the Speaker of the Parliament released his own statements on social media today kind of highlighting where he thought violations were. One was around Lebanon and Israel still bombing there, but largely against Hezbollah. And that's what Vice President Vance spoke to when the media kind of asked him about it before he took off today.
But the bigger problem, as you mentioned, that was in his statement from the Speaker in Iran, was the right for Iran to have domestic enrichment and its nuclear program, and that's where the disagreement was. So my bigger concern is not getting past Lebanon, asking Israel to hold back, it's can we find common ground on the nuclear agreement, when that was the sticking point before we started.
COOPER: I mean, you're a military lawyer, what right does Iran have to charge tolls for the Strait of Hormuz?
DONOVAN: They don't have any right to do so. And so that's why it's such an interesting dynamic that we have now when we're talking about, originally, it was nuclear proliferation and getting a nuclear agreement in place. Now we're in a situation where Iran is actually leveraging the ability to illegally impose a toll, and that appears to be something that the United States either is going to agree to or even there is a suggestion to participate.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Take part. President Trump has talked about the idea of this being done -- the U.S. and Iran together. DONOVAN: Yes. It would be illegal for Iran. It would absolutely be illegal for us. Iran is so sort of excited about this that their own parliament has started to try to codify their rights to the Strait of Hormuz and say that actually this is now our domestic law, which would normally be laughable, except when you have the United States basically implying that it's endorsing this.
But to the point that we just mentioned, that's why it's really important to have written down points when you have this level of gravity of an agreement.
COOPER: I mean, hasn't the U.S. for generations cared about the freedom of the seas, I mean, freedom of movement on the seas?
DONOVAN: Yeah, absolutely. So before this conflict began, you had basically free navigation through that passage. You didn't have to pay a toll. And international waters and countries traveling through international waters could freely pass through that.
And now, we're in a position where we're far worse off than we started.
[20:45:00]
And yet simply getting to a new place, which is probably illegal if you're going to allow a toll, is suddenly the goal of ending this conflict.
PLITSAS: I mean, I think where this may be politically convenient is, what Iran has sought as part of its terms is they want reparations from war damages, is basically what they're calling it. They've attacked all of the Gulf neighbors who otherwise may have been willing to assist, and from what I'm hearing from them, they said, we will forgive, but we will never forget, and we're not going to participate in reconstruction.
Russia is broke after its war in Ukraine. China is largely not going to help. The U.S., you know, I don't think it's politically convenient, particularly in an election year, for the president to be wanting to send a lot of money over there, and we've told the Europeans they need to increase spending from three to five percent for defense. There's nobody to pay for this.
However, if you leave an option for 100 ships a day coming through there on average at $2 million a pop for $200 million a day, plus your profits off the oil, all of a sudden Iran's got a very steady revenue stream coming in for reconstruction that doesn't cost the United States any money directly, and that gives a political out.
DONOVAN: Yeah, and you can see how this is turning into just a very diplomacy-heavy resolution to this. So I think all the firepower in the world isn't going to get you out of the negotiations that need to occur, the international agreements and the international coordination that needs to occur to reopen the Strait (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK) COOPER: But what's so interesting is, I mean, the negotiating team, I mean, Jared Kushner doesn't work. He's not like a U.S. official. He's a guy who lives in Miami, who's the brother --
DONOVAN: Iowa (ph) citizen, yes.
COOPER: -- the son-in-law of the president. And Steve Witkoff is, I guess, an employee of the government.
DONOVAN: The special envoy, yeah.
COOPER: Marco Rubio has multiple jobs. It's not as if there's a huge -- it doesn't seem like there's a huge brain trust of negotiators working on documents for months and months and years. I mean, this is incredibly complex.
DONOVAN: Yeah. This is where you would want a really robust and experienced State Department staff to come in and sort of fill those gaps.
PLITSAS: So old-fashioned, so old-fashioned.
DONOVAN: I'm very old fashioned, yeah.
COOPER: Margaret Donovan, so legal. So, Margaret Donovan, thank you, Alex Plitsas as well.
Up next, a new "All Over the Map" report from our John King. A look at how Democrats are hoping to make big gains in rural America. We'll be right back.
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[20:51:13]
COOPER: That is Republican Clay Fuller last night, winning the special election for the northwestern Georgia House seat formerly held by Marjorie Taylor Greene. It was a deep red district, but in other parts of the south, the climate might be improving for Democratic gains in November. CNN's John King is "All Over the Map" tonight with that.
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ED WINEBARGER, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: Everywhere there's sprout, that's where they'll produce a vine.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR OF "ALL OVER THE MAP" & CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ed Winebarger is a farmer and a chef with family ties to this North Carolina land dating back 200 years. Everywhere you look, key staples for his catering business. The hillside garlic patch, tree limbs stacked along the stream, a brilliant nursery for shiitake mushrooms.
WINEBARGER: I got to the gym this morning but this is good. KING (voice-over): A visitor put to work. Early spring, the best time to borrow the fingerling potatoes. The fall harvest will be not long before the midterm election and North Carolina has a Senate seat within reach for the Democrats. Plus maybe, just maybe a House seat or two.
But Winebarger sees the party is still missing a critical ingredient.
WINEBARGER: This right here, getting it under your fingernails, Democrats have a hard time with this. They can't show a connection to the working class.
KING (voice-over): Rural America is synonymous with Trump country, but Winebarger says Trump policies are making a tough economy worse, first tariffs, now Iran.
WINEBARGER: Everything is expensive. Inflation hasn't stopped. It's continuing, for supplies and now for fuel. Now we're at war. Transportation costs, fuel, machinery, equipment, labor amendments, fertilizers, all more expensive.
KING (voice-over): The North Carolina success could help the Democrats make a good midterm year great, but it would require reversing five decades of rural decline. Take a look. Here are 1,322 counties where at least 75 percent of the population live in rural areas. 50 years ago, 1976, Jimmy Carter carried 798 of the 1,322. See all that blue? And won 54 percent of the vote in them.
In 2000 though, Al Gore carried only 213 of the 1,322. His share of the vote in rural counties dropped to 37 percent. And in 2024, a rural red tsunami. Kamala Harris won just 79 of the 1,322 counties and just 25 percent of their votes. The then and now is stunning.
KING: Here in North Carolina, that rural shift from blue to red looks like this. It's been 11 years since North Carolina was represented by a Democrat in the U.S. Senate and the state's House delegation in Washington, right now, just four Democrats and ten Republicans.
WINEBARGER: There's a lot of anger with the voting base and America has traditionally gone after the angry candidate. They feel represented by that anger. Democrats need to do more to connect to rural America.
KING: Again, be skeptical, but even a modest rural rebound for the Democrats would greatly expand their map, their targets, the possibilities in this critical midterm year. House races here in North Carolina, for example, and in places like Texas, Montana, Iowa and elsewhere, and the party is hoping to find Senate pickups, U.S. Senate pickups. Where would they look? Texas, Ohio, Alaska, Montana, Iowa and right here in North Carolina.
KING (voice-over): Marshall is along the French Broad River in North Carolina's 11th congressional district. Hurricane Helene's floodwaters rose above this bridge and pummeled the town.
[20:55:00] 18 months later, yes, a lot of progress. This was the American Legion post during our visit nine months ago, rebuilt with a patriotic new mural now. Sounds and signs of progress, but also lingering scars, lingering frustration.
KOREY HAMPTON, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: It still feels slow. It still feels like we haven't seen the government step in, in ways that are meaningful.
KING (voice-over): Tourism is the economy here.
HAMPTON: Right. Lean back. You're good to go.
KING: See you.
KING (voice-over): Korey Hampton's outdoor adventure company saw sales dropped 40 percent last summer. Hikers and campers, rafters and zip liners thought it best or safest to stay away.
HAMPTON: We all knew that that first season after the storm was going to be difficult, but we're hoping that this is the turning point for us.
KING (voice-over): But now a new worry.
HAMPTON: That folks are just not going to be as willing to travel. And on top of everything else that's happened to us --
KING (voice-over): You drive a lot if you live in a rural place like Marshall, or if you want to get to and from a place like this for a family vacation. The price of gas matters, especially if things are already tight.
HAMPTON: It's just terrifying. You know, we're helping 100 of our staff put food on the table, and even they're thinking about can I afford a house? Can I afford health care? Can I get to work? I mean, that's going to make it even harder for us this season.
KING (voice-over): They say looks can be deceiving, and they say one picture is worth a thousand words. So which is this? A recent Monday night in tiny Marshall, a packed fish fry for a local farmer running for Congress. Madison County voted 61 percent for Trump. Jamie Ager is a Democrat.
JAMIE AGER, DEMOCRAT PRIMARY CANDIDATE, NORTH CAROLINA: We're all thinking about our garden this spring, which is something that mountain Democrats do, grow a garden.
(APPLAUSE)
KING (voice-over): Josh Copus owns this hotel and restaurant. He went to college with Ager, works his real magic in a ceramic studio on the outskirts of town.
KING: Why the Democrats struggle so much here? JOSH COPUS, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: I think we lost our way. I don't know. Like we got caught up doing something that didn't connect with the people in rural America, and that's why we need to run candidates like Jamie because he is of this place, like he is our people. So I don't think it's a lost cause.
KING: The smart money and recent history says be skeptical when Democrats talk up their hopes here in North Carolina, especially in this congressional district. Donald Trump won North Carolina 11 with 54 percent of the vote in 2024. And the Republican House incumbent, Chuck Edwards, ran even stronger, winning 57 percent.
KING (voice-over): But pain at the pump is just one sign of tougher times for Republicans. Even in these rural areas, they have dominated in the decade of Trump.
COPUS: I get it. You know, I know why people like voted for Trump around here, because, you know, everyone feels like that's stacked against them. But that hasn't changed like that. I don't think any of those people are like, Oh, we're doing better now than we were because we're not.
KING (voice-over): 18 months of struggle and remarkable resilience. Seven months more until we learn if all the rebuilding here extends to the Democrats.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: John, you were in North Carolina. What do the results in Georgia last night say about voters in rural areas?
KING (on camera): So Anderson, once again, the margins Democrats lost that race. You see right here, Clayton Fuller will be the next Republican congressman in Marjorie Taylor Greene's old district. So Republicans say we win.
Why do Democrats say this is good for them? Well, look at the margin. You say that's a big race, right? He wins there by 11 points. But look at this. Marjorie Taylor Greene won this district just two years ago by 29 points. And this is part of a pattern in Georgia, in New Jersey, everywhere in 2025 and 2026, as we watch elections, last night, in a Wisconsin state Supreme Court race as well.
A mayoral race in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Here's just a few of them. Kamala Harris wins Virginia by six points. Remember, Abigail Spanberger wins the governor's race by 16. In New Jersey, it was Harris six. Mikie Sherrill wins by 14.
In a Tennessee special election, yes, the Republican won, but the previous Republican had won by more than twice that. In Marjorie Taylor Greene's district, as I said, she had won by nearly 30. The new Republican wins by 12.
So what that tells Democrats, not just in rural America, but in a lot of places where they lost last time by six points, eight points, 10 points, maybe even 12 points. What six months ago would have been impossible, three months ago was improbable, now, especially in these rural areas, because of the rising gas prices, becomes possible -- possible. So Democrats have more opportunities.
Doesn't mean they're going to win places like North Carolina 11. Doesn't mean they're going to win in Tennessee. Doesn't mean they're going to win in Iowa. But places where six months or a year ago they thought impossible, now they think maybe.
[21:00:00]
COOPER: John King, thanks very much. Quickly, before we go, pictures from Artemis II. It's not a crescent moon in the window you're seeing, it is a tiny crescent Earth getting closer by the minute. However, scheduled press conference from space is not. It was scheduled at 9:45 Eastern. It is being pushed back an hour to 10:45 Houston, saying it's so they can troubleshoot a propellant tank issue.
The news continues, "The Source" starts now.
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