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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Trump Lashes out at Iran; New Israeli Strikes in Lebanon Threaten Fragile Ceasefire; Melania Trump Blasts "Lies" Linking her to Epstein; Iran: Talks Contingent On Ceasefire In Lebanon; U.S. Prepares For Truce Talks As Israeli Strikes Threaten Ceasefire; House GOP Ignores Dems' Attempt To Introduce War Powers Measure; "Kara Swisher Wants To Live Forever" Premieres Saturday 9P ET. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired April 09, 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: ...these seemingly antiquated production lines for those traditional missiles, it is stunning. Elex, thank you so much.
And don't t miss Elex on "The Story Is" weeknights midnight eastern, 9:00 P.M. Pacific Time on CNN, excellent show. I hope you'll watch it tonight. And thanks so much for joining us. In the meantime, AC360 with Anderson begins, right now.
[20:00:30]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Good evening from the Newsroom. Topping our CNN Global War coverage tonight, new strikes by Israel in Lebanon and a flurry of new threats from the President against Iran. Posting on his social network he says: "There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait. They better not be and if they are, they better stop now." This is the latest threat the President has made, as you know, he's backed off from many of them.
His anger over possible fees being charged is interesting given an answer to a question he gave just yesterday from ABC's Jon Karl. Karl asked the President if he was okay with Iran charging a toll on ships, and Mr. Trump told him, "We're thinking of doing it as a joint venture," adding, "It's a beautiful thing." Yesterday's beautiful thing is now apparently not so beautiful.
In a follow-up post a few minutes later, the President said, "Very quickly you'll see oil start flowing with or without the help of Iran. And to me it makes no difference either way."
Unclear how that will be accomplished, he then posted this. "Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable, some would say, of allowing oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz. That is not the agreement we have".
Now, again, a reminder we do not know whether that is true, because whatever agreement may exist, the public has not been shown it yet. In any case, very little oil is flowing through the Strait right now. Just two oil and gas tankers have gone through since the ceasefire began, according to one leading maritime data tracking company.
About a hundred ships a day transited the Strait before the war. Right now, more than 400 oil and liquefied gas tankers remain bottled up in the Persian Gulf.
Also tonight, Kuwait reporting new incoming drone strikes, though it's unclear from where and a short time ago, air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv, reportedly over an incoming Hezbollah missile from Lebanon. They capped a diminished, but still active second day of Israeli strikes in Lebanon. The IDF saying it was targeting Hezbollah facilities, including missile launchers.
We also learned that the death toll from the attacks, like this one in Beirut yesterday, have now topped 300 more than 1,100 wounded.
Israel's Prime Minister today restated his government's view that the truce with Iran does not apply there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAEL PRIME MINISTER (through translator): I want to tell you there is no ceasefire in Lebanon. We are continuing to strike Hezbollah with force, and we will not stop until we restore your security.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The Prime Minister said he had asked for direct talks with the Lebanese government aimed at disarming Hezbollah. When Lebanese officials responded, telling CNN there would be "no negotiations under fire."
The President, meantime, confirmed to NBC News today that his phone conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday included a call for restraint, quoting the President now, he said, "I spoke with Bibi, and he's going to low key it. I just think we have to be sort of a little more low key".
He himself was less so in a social media post shortly before midnight last night about what would happen, he says, if Iran does not comply with whatever agreement emerges from the upcoming talks, which get underway on Saturday.
Again, quoting the President, "... then the shooting starts bigger and better and stronger than anyone has ever seen before." In the meantime, he adds, "... our great military is loading up and resting, looking forward actually to its next conquest."
The conquest and military terms means taking control of land or people through force. That is what the President of the United States now says our military is looking forward to.
Just to give you a sense of how far that is from what American presidents have said in the past, I want to play you something that President Franklin D. Roosevelt said on the night of June 6th, 1944, which is D-Day. And credit to "The Bulwark's" Bill Kristol, who wrote about this today.
D-Day morning, American allied forces had landed on beaches in Normandy. A daring, incredible operation that took years of planning. Many Americans had lost their lives that day, but the tide of the war would turn. The President addressed the country on the radio. His statement was in the form of a prayer for the troops going ashore, and he, too, talked about conquest or at least he used the word conquest, but not in the way this President did.
FDR rejected the notion that American troops were there for conquest.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest, until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.
For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise and tolerance and goodwill among all thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:05:35]
COOPER: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
For more on this, CNN's Kristen Holmes joins me now from The White House. Is it clear just how upset President Trump is about the Strait and whether the ceasefire -- I mean, is it in jeopardy or what are you hearing at The White House?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we have what President Trump is saying and honestly, Anderson, these kinds of brief phone interviews that he does for five minutes with reporters aren't that helpful because he'll often say two different things within five minutes of each other.
But what we know is happening behind-the-scenes is that this administration is working desperately to make sure that these talks actually happen on Saturday.
They are bending over backwards to lay all these traps, to make sure that Vice President J.D. Vance is in Islamabad with Iranian officials. They want this ceasefire to hold, and that even goes to President Trump talking to Bibi Netanyahu and asking him to be more low key, to have these direct conversations with Lebanon.
We know that the back channels are working nonstop.
Steve Witkoff is in touch with various countries in the region. They are trying to tone down what's happening in Lebanon. They are trying to work around that issue. And as you saw, until President Trump went off on Truth Social, he had also and The White House been fairly low key themselves on calling the Iranians out and that was intentional.
They don't want to get into another skirmish that could potentially end these talks. And from all the sources that we've talked to about this, if someone was to pull out of these negotiations, of these talks on Saturday, at this point, it would still likely be Iran, because the U.S. really wants to make this work, as we know and have been reporting, they are looking for an off ramp.
COOPER: "The Wall Street Journal" has a report out tonight that the White House staff has been ordered to refrain from betting on the Iran war and online prediction markets. "The Journal" says there's no evidence of wrongdoing. Do you know anything more about that? Why was that directive issued? Was there, do they know that people in The White House have been doing that?
HOMES: They don't have any actual direct evidence, but there was a flurry of activity about a month ago when President Trump abruptly stopped those strikes in Iran, and essentially a bunch of people were quietly betting on futures. That spiked a lot of awareness and a lot of attention to this.
The White House putting out a memo. Of course, this is according to "The Wall Street Journal" that said that you cannot leverage your position of power and knowledge to bet on any futures markets. And that pertains directly to the Iran war betting on strikes ending, a ceasefire deal, strikes starting back up again. We have reached out to The White House, of course, for a statement as well.
COOPER: Wow, that's fascinating.
Kristen Holmes, thanks very much.
Joining us now is retired Army Lieutenant General Karen Gibson. She's the former Director of Intelligence for U.S. Central Command and played a key role in the U.S. led effort to defeat ISIS. She's also a former Deputy Commanding General of the Army Cyber Command.
Also, with us, retired Navy Rear Admiral Kenneth Braithwaite. He served as Secretary of the Navy in President Trump's first term, as well as U.S. Ambassador to Norway.
General, let me start with you. What do you make of these talks that are coming up, and what does it mean for the war?
LT. GEN. KAREN GIBSON (RET.) U.S. ARMY: Yes, so I think the talks are really important de-escalation measure. I mean, it took, it lowered the heat in the region, at least temporarily and to provide some breathing space to have some conversations about where this goes next.
I do think that Iran's strategy all along has been to survive, avoid total capitulation, preserve the Islamic Republic and make the war so economically and politically intolerable to the United States that we are incentivized to negotiate something short of their total surrender.
COOPER: Mr. Secretary, it started out understandably so as a focus on the nuclear program in Iran. It seems now that the administration's biggest concern right now is just the Strait of Hormuz. Do you worry that the nuclear issue isn't even really being talked about right now?
KENNETH BRAITHWAITE, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S FIRST TERM: Yes. So, as you and I spoke recently about that, Anderson, I mean, nothing more important than the enriched uranium. There's a thousand pounds of it there, right? So, that's a red line for the United States. That and always for the United States is freedom of navigation. I have to tell you, your clip of FDR, though, my father was in the first wave, third landing craft in that invasion on June 6th of 1944, so my family --
COOPER: Really, that's incredible. Did he talk about it much afterwards?
BRAITHWAITE: Not until I was about 16 years old but we went back for the 50th when he was still living. And then I was very honored to be able to be part of the delegation, the official U.S. delegation for the 75th, and be able to take my son, Harrison, with me.
COOPER: I've always wanted to go.
BRAITHWAITE: You have to go, Anderson. It's what the President, said -- President Roosevelt said was absolutely right. That is a red line, no enriched uranium, freedom of navigation through straits. If we lose that tactically, you can claim victory strategically we've lost.
[20:10:29]
COOPER: Well, that's the thing, we have freedom and navigation which has been a bedrock principle for the United States going back a long time, freedom of the seas, navigation.
BRAITHWAITE: Barbary pirates, that's why the Navy was created.
COOPER: Prior to this, Iran didn't have control over the Strait of Hormuz, officially. They now have de facto control over it.
GIBSON: Well, I think they've always had the ability to do this. They just did not. And so --
COOPER: They never really been tested out and now they know they know --
GIBSON: Right, it's their chief leverage and I would say to the to the nukes versus the Strait issue, they are both critical. But opening the Straits is urgent. They're not going to build a bomb within a week or a month. You know, we've done a lot to set them back very far in that program and we need to take additional steps to ensure they never have a bomb. But today, their ability to choke off commerce and navigation in the Straits makes that an urgent issue to resolve.
COOPER: For both of you, if Iran remains in control of the Strait of Hormuz, is that an acceptable outcome? I mean, I talked to General Petraeus last night who was saying, look, a lot of countries in the region, they're already developing plans. You know, pipelines over land, things, subterranean pipelines. That's going to take time.
Is it acceptable to have Iran in control?
GIBSON: I would say as long as there's -- as long as the Islamic Republic has the will and the capacity to choke off global commerce, we will not have solved the foundational issues that have brought us to this war. It would be extremely problematic.
COOPER: I've also, Mr. Secretary, talked to a number of people involved in the, you know, the prior negotiations that led to the court in 2015. And obviously, you know, different people look at it differently, whether you liked it or not, that took 15 to 18 months, years even before that of set up work. Can anything be accomplished in two weeks with the Iranians?
BRAITHWAITE: So, Ambassador Nicholas Burns wrote about this recently, and, you know, there are few better experts on that part of the world than Ambassador Burns. And, you know, no, these negotiations take time.
I mean, and this administration, this regime, as you and I spoke about, is a very wily, a very calculated regime.
What we don't realize in America is the cultural differences, right? I mean, we are focused in the West. We understand the West. I mean, it's a completely different mindset there.
COOPER: So, what's the saying, like, we have the clocks, they have the time. Like, the time frame that they are looking at and can separate --
BRAITHWAITE: That time is on their side, Anderson, yes, absolutely.
COOPER: You -- I mean, you have a lot of experience in this region. You have seen that time after time.
GIBSON: Yes, well, as I said, I think really, I mean, their strategy right now and I can't say that its failing is to make this so untenable for the rest of us that there's pressure on the United States to stop the war.
COOPER: Which seems to be working.
GIBSON: Well, it is their chief leverage, and ours is an ability to impose punishing strikes on Iran.
COOPER: But if your enemy knows that you have a clock that you want to get out of it, that is an advantage.
BRAITHWAITE: To them absolutely, right. Ten points, 15 points, right. How are you going to square that away during these negotiations? And if it's an objective to get there in as quickly as possible, you're not going to resolve that. You're not going to come to an understanding.
I mean, this will be two weeks of frustration. I'm kind of surprised that the cease fire has lasted as long as it has so far, right.
You know, this is -- we've got to remember that the strategic objective was to remove Iran's ability to create a nuclear weapon. That is job number one. And no matter how that's achieved, we need to commit ourselves to that. But we have to make the case to the American public, and we haven't done that yet, right.
So, this should be a time that the administration begins to work on that to justify why we're there. Because again, as I mentioned to you the last time, we were together, once you put boots on the ground, it's a completely different war.
COOPER: Also, the U.S. relationship, obviously, with our allies now is completely different than it was in past administrations, even past years in the first Trump administration. Does that complicate matters?
GIBSON: So, if you mean with Europe or NATO, I think it doesn't necessarily complicate it for this conflict because they're not directly involved. I think certainly some of our other adversaries, like China, are looking at our process for alliance management and it will provide them or Russia with some advantages, perhaps in other conflicts.
In terms of our relationship with Israel, which is the key ally in this conflict, I don't believe there are any issues there.
[20:15:15]
COOPER: What do you think, where do you see this going? I mean, what should people be looking for, what are the signposts that you --
GIBSON: I would just say that I think, you know, anyone who thought we would come to an agreement within two weeks was that's just ridiculously naive. But within two weeks you might begin to have a conversation about what the framework looks like, or even what I think we don't have yet is an understanding of what these ten points are.
You know, if Iran says, well, it's supposed to include Lebanon and we say it's not, you know, I did think it was a positive step to kind of de-escalate, take a breath, lower the temperature and that's required to have the kinds of healthy conversations that are needed. But two weeks to get an agreement, I don't think that was even the President's intent.
BRAITHWAITE: Yes, no, I concur. You know, I think this is going to give us the time to build a framework to come to a consensus of an understanding if we can get there. The big question there is if we can get there, I'm not sure we can, Anderson.
COOPER: Secretary Braithwaite, thank you, General Gibson as well, thank you. Great to have you here.
Ahead tonight, the President's first term National Security advisor, John Bolton, on the President's statements tonight and Washington's negotiating position when talks with Iran begin this weekend.
Next, though, the surprising statement from a podium in The White House by Melania Trump, the First Lady talking about Jeffrey Epstein.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELANIA TRUMP, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:21:10]
COOPER: Extraordinary moment at The White House today. First lady Melania Trump making unexpected remarks in a very formal setting about Jeffrey Epstein. She said that lies linking her to him need to end today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
M. TRUMP: For years now, be cautious about what you believe. These images and stories are completely false. I'm not a witness or a named witness in connection with any of Epstein's crimes. My name has never appeared in court documents, the positions, the victim statements or FBI interviews surrounding the Epstein matter.
I have never had any knowledge of Epstein abuse of his victims. I was never involved in any capacity. I was not a participant, was never on Epstein's plane and never visited his private island. I have never been legally accused or convicted of a crime.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The First Lady also said Epstein's victims need to be heard on Capitol Hill under oath.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
M. TRUMP: Now is the time for Congress to act. Epstein was not alone; several prominent male executives resigned from their powerful positions after this matter became widely politicized.
Of course, this doesn't amount to guilt, but we still must work openly and transparently to uncover the truth.
I call on Congress to provide the women who have been victimized by Epstein with the public hearing, specifically centered around the survivors.
Give these victims their opportunity to testify under oath in front of Congress with the power of sworn testimony.
Each and every woman should have her day to tell her story in public if she wishes, and then her testimony should be permanently entered into the congressional record. Then, and only then, we will have the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: We're joined by journalist Tara Palmeri, author of "The Red Letter" on Substack and host of "The Tara Palmeri Show".
Is it clear to you why the First Lady said what she said today? Because again, Mrs. Trump has never been accused of any wrongdoing related to Epstein, as she said, nor has anyone ever really suggested she has a significant association with him.
As far as I know, there -- I'm assuming there are things circulating online that bother her, which I certainly understand how irritating that can be. Why speak out now?
TARA PALMERI, AUTHOR OF "THE RED LETTER" ON SUBSTACK: Anderson, I think we're all wondering that including people close to The First Lady inside The White House too. Why today? Why now?
It was referred to me rather than the people outside of The White House who generally deal with her, her press. I mean, she usually refers you to her lawyers when you write anything about her. That's how she handles press and this was a White House thing.
The entire decision by Melania to come out and speak, it's completely out of the blue. And we know that she has threatened lawsuits. She's filed lawsuits.
Harper Collins removed an entire passage out of Andrew Lownie's book, the biographer who wrote about Prince Andrew in his book "Entitled".
So, she's extremely litigious. She tends to default to legal and to see her come out like this is really quite shocking. I thought it may have been preempting some sort of story, but people close to her say that this is, there's nothing coming out. I mean, unless she believes that there's more because that's exactly what she's saying. She's saying, don't believe what you see or hear. And we've pretty much seen most of it, e-mails, even files where witnesses say that they remember Melania around Epstein and pictures.
[20:25:43]
COOPER: A source familiar with the matter told CNN that the President was aware the First Lady planned to make the statement, though the President himself told another news organization that he didn't know anything about it. Is there any upside for him in her going public like this? Because obviously, you know, he's obviously sought to move on from this in recent weeks.
PALMERI: I've always gotten the feeling that he was particularly sensitive about Melania in this story, and that was a big part of the reason why, you know, he has really distanced himself from it. In addition to the fact that he was a friend of Epsteins and he's been accused in connection to Epstein to assault. But I always sensed that there was something about his wife that made him very uncomfortable with the story because, you know, Melania --
COOPER: He's obviously denied any wrongdoing. PALMERI: Right, both of them have, and/or any connection really. But Melania came into the world through the same world that Jeffrey Epstein and I mean, came into the world, came into the world that Donald Trump was in, the modeling. you know, 90's kind of world where he met Melania through Paolo Zampolli, who owned a modeling agency like Epstein did, and Epstein and Paolo were rivals and friends at the same time.
And, you know, Epstein trafficked a lot of women through this modeling agency from Eastern Europe. And, you know, a lot of the way that they did this was that they withheld visas and access.
The person who actually propelled Melania's modeling career, Antoine Verglas, the one who shot her inside of President Trump's plane for the famous "GQ" modeling shoot where she's just naked on that rug, he remained very close to Jeffrey Epstein after he was, you know, prosecuted, indicted, and went to jail for soliciting a minor for prostitution, Antoine Verglas. It's in the files, they spent time together, reported on this for "Vanity Fair," and he shot Melania about 11 times in her most iconic photos, many of them nude.
So, she has a lot of really close connections to Jeffrey Epstein, not just, not only the fact that she clearly had a very friendly relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell, which you can see in the files, they're sending e-mails to each other. She's calling her -- Ghislaine called her "Sweet Pea".
I don't think she can make this blanketed statement that she was not in any way associated with him.
COOPER: She mentioned, she said that they were kind of perfunctory e- mails or just like, you know, meaningless e-mails, essentially. Why do you think Mrs. Trump is now calling for them to get a congressional hearing at this stage? Because obviously, there was you know, they were on Capitol Hill multiple times.
PALMERI: It is a bit strange, and Pam Bondi never met with them. And now the President, as you know, Kaitlan Collins, asked about the victims and survivors. He brushed her off completely. He never really has seemed to care at all about them and their story.
He has never met with them and yes, the First Lady seems to have a different story, but it's kind of is in line with her position on a lot of things. You know, focus on the victims focus -- and it takes away, I guess it puts the direction away from her story, but they were almost certain -- we know that they were in the same circles together.
We know that, you know, a person who remained very close to Jeffrey Epstein helped her create her career and who she is now and the modeling world in that time, in the 1990s, when she was trying to get a visa, it was sort of the game was, you know, you use the modeling to get the visa and she got an Einstein visa, H-1B.
COOPER: It was a surprising press conference. We'll see if there's any more statements from the First Lady. Tara Palmeri, thanks very much, appreciate it. Coming up next, back to the war. The President's latest remarks on the Strait of Hormuz and what his former National Security advisor, John Bolton, expects of the upcoming negotiations.
And later Democratic lawmaker and former naval officer who has sailed in the gulf and through the strait. His take on what the President's been saying and the role he believes Congress needs to play in the war.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:33:58]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Some breaking news from Iran. A foreign ministry spokesman tonight saying that talks to end the war are contingent on the United States adhering to its ceasefire commitments. Those commitments, this spokesman said, include a ceasefire in Lebanon.
I want to get perspective now from former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton. He was also U.N. ambassador during the George W. Bush administration. Ambassador, the President is clearly unhappy with Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz, as I imagine anybody would be. Should he be surprised that nothing has really changed despite the ceasefire?
JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: No, I don't think so. I mean, I think this is going to turn out to be a mistake. The President so obviously wants a way out of this current situation that I think Iran senses weakness. And it's going to push and push until it sees how far it can get. And particularly before the face to face talks in Islamabad scheduled for this Saturday, they're going to see what they can get by forcing Trump to make concessions without them having to bargain for them.
COOPER: It is interesting -- you know, we play this FDR clip earlier of him speaking on the evening, the first of D-Day on June 6, back in 1944, rejecting the word conquest.
[20:35:14]
When the President has repeatedly made threats and then backed off them and is repeatedly, you know, late at night putting on social media more threats and threatening, you know, about not -- even the latest one about not, you know, having a toll in the Strait of Hormuz, does it risk at a certain point people just not -- I mean, adversaries just not believing him?
BOLTON: Well, I think that's what taco means. Trump always chickens out. They watch what he does and he thinks he's bargaining and they think he's just blustering. So they wait for him to bluster away and then see if they can move him down into some other position without having to give anything up.
And, by the way, that clip from Franklin Roosevelt, just so everybody understands it historically, was a prayer. It begins almighty father and goes on from there.
COOPER: Yes. Which we said, the U.S. has obviously degraded Iran's military capability. Do you think the Iranian regime is in a stronger strategic position now than it was before the war?
BOLTON: No, I don't think so. I think on balance, the damage that we've done to their capabilities is very significant. The potential to stray -- to take control of the Strait of Hormuz has been around for a long, long time. And we, for decades, discounted the possibility it would happen.
Obviously, we're not going to do that again in the future. But I think it's really critical to understand that what Iran has been doing here has been visible for a long time. They've been fortifying islands in the Gulf and in the Strait right in front of us and we haven't done anything about it.
So I think we have to understand that as bad as this seems now, it will be infinitely worse if they get nuclear weapons. I don't think they're going to negotiate giving up control of the Strait. I think the way to do it is to take it from them. And obviously, the President's that's about the farthest thing from his mind at this point.
COOPER: How do you think the U.S. should take the Strait of Hormuz from Iran?
BOLTON: Look, our military has known of this contingency for decades. And I don't know what the latest plans say, but I'm sure they've thought about it. As my understanding, they were doing many of the things one would need to do going after the manufacturing of mines, going after the manufacturing of drones, going after the mine laying ships, going after the fast boats.
They may not be in a position to do it yet, but I think they should be. They should have continued to work on it. Obviously, they're not during a ceasefire. Ceasefire gives breathing room for the Iranians. It doesn't help us.
COOPER: Does it make sense to you that there would be confusion over whether or not Israeli attacks on Lebanon were included in the ceasefire?
BOLTON: Well, there's no confusion between Netanyahu and Trump. They -- and JD Vance, for that matter, all three said the ceasefire did not include Lebanon. The confusion was on the Iranian and Pakistani side. And I think that shows what happens when you negotiate at great distances through intermediaries and people don't really understand what they're agreeing upon.
We'll see if that changes on Saturday. I have a feeling that that this is going to be a very interesting test of the preferred Iranian negotiator for the U.S., JD Vance. They wanted Vance to lead the delegation and they got him.
COOPER: Ambassador Bolton, thanks very much. Democrats are vowing to force a vote on a war powers measure to limit the President's ability to conduct the Iran war without oversight. Congressman Chris Deluzio, an Iraq war veteran, joins us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. CHRIS SMITH (R), NEW JERSEY: The House state adjourned until 2:30 p.m. on Monday, April 13th, 2026.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:43:14]
COOPER: Republicans ending today's brief House session, ignoring an attempt by Democrats to introduce a measure to restrain President Trump's authority in the Iran war. We're joined by Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman Chris Deluzio. He serves on the Armed Services Committee and is an Iraq war veteran who sailed through the Strait of Hormuz as a naval officer. Also with us, another combat vet, former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger.
Congressman Deluzio, if most Republicans don't want to pass a war powers resolution even after President Trump threatened to kill off Iran's entire civilization, why should anyone think they're going to change their minds in the days ahead?
REP. CHRIS DELUZIO (D), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Well, I think they're seeing, like the American people, this war that Mr. Trump started has been a strategic disaster, and that's maybe putting it lightly. And look, that vote we had some weeks ago was close.
We have procedural tools that we can use to force a vote. I'm not naive, but I'm optimistic some Republicans may wake up to what's happening and decide they want to assert themselves and our role in the Constitution and put a stop to this. And it's never the wrong time to do the right thing.
So I invite them. This does not have to be a partisan thing. Let's stand up for the Constitution of the American people and bring our troops home.
COOPER: Congressman Kinzinger, I mean, the President's clearly unhappy tonight with how Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz. Was he ill advised to think that this ceasefire would change much? Or do you think he's also said he wouldn't mind some sort of joint toll sharing agreement with Iran?
ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Of course he wouldn't, because, you know, I'm sure he'll profit from that. Look, this is -- the Strait of Hormuz is whatever the official word is, a public waterway. The idea that Iran would have any control and any ability to toll, it's literally like the mafia, you know, for 100 bucks, we'll make sure your business doesn't burn down. And to accept that is atrocious. And so, yes, I think the President was ill advised to take this ceasefire, especially because they don't know what they agreed on. And it looks like we're going into negotiations having emboldened Iran.
[20:45:10]
This is the difficulty with like the war powers vote is at this point, if you are going to begin a war, you need to make sure that you have the ability and the strategic patience to actually finish the job. And right now, clearly, they haven't done that.
And part of the issue, Anderson, is that Donald Trump is negotiating with himself in public. And if you're the Iranian regime, you're like, hey, we may be feeling a lot of pain. But this guy is clearly panicking, trying to get out of the war. So let's just wait him out a little bit. Donald Trump and his hosts have done more damage to the effort to actually end this favorably than I think almost anything.
COOPER: Congressman Deluzio, I mean, if you are negotiating something and you know you're -- the person you're negotiating with, wants to get out of the situation that they are in, just wants a deal to, you know, cut and run, that puts the -- that puts you -- that person at an incredible disadvantage. That's a huge advantage for Iran.
DELUZIO: Yes. Well, and look, that's part of why you shouldn't have rushed into this war in the first place or got into this war at all. And think about what the beginning 10 points of negotiations the Iranians have in front of them. Adam Kinzinger just mentioned part of it, getting revenue from the Strait of Hormuz? That's a worse condition than we were in before the President started this war.
Lifting of sanctions, continued enrichment and more, again, that is all worse than the situation in the Gulf before this war and worse than what was happening under President Obama's nuclear deal that then President Donald Trump in his first term took our country out of. So he has managed to spend American lives and billions and potentially get to a place that is strategically worse for our security in this country of ours.
COOPER: Yes. I mean, Congressman Kinzinger, if you look at what Donald Trump said about that nuclear deal in 2015 and why do you -- why he wanted out of it and tore it up and walked away from it to the Congressman's point, everything that's on the table now, it's not getting any better from what that deal was.
KINZINGER: No, it's clearly not. And they're going to do their best to spin it. And, you know, to certain audiences, anything they spin works. But you look at where we are now, right? They went into this initially saying regime change, and then they tried to pretend like having a junior Ayatollah is now regime change.
When, by the way, when we actually did a regime change in Iraq, we had to take out Saddam Hussein's sons because we understood you have to clear the regime. So there was no regime change. And then on top of that, the next thing became denuclearization. And right now they're saying Iran will never get a nuclear weapon again. First off, there's nothing in the agreement that says that.
There's still the enriched uranium exactly where it has been at the beginning of this. And I'll also say the Iranians have shown their ability to close the strait without significant pushback is basically as powerful as a nuclear weapon. So they have a nuclear weapon in a different name only now, which is why allowing them to then toll like a mafia toll puts us in a far worse situation than, frankly, had we done nothing at all.
COOPER: Congressman Deluzio, you're calling on Congress to get answers about that Iranian attack on a U.S. facility in Kuwait that killed six American service members in early March. At the time, CNN reported that there were no warnings or sirens that the building didn't have the kind of fortification to shield it from drones or missiles. CBS just spoke to some of the service members who survived the attack who reiterated that it was not a fortified position and that it was a known target.
Is there any -- have you seen any appetite among your Republican colleagues on the Armed Services Committee to investigate what happened?
DELUZIO: Yes. And there have been an effort from many of us to push for oversight and investigation when word first got out of what happened to those Americans. And now with CBS's reporting, talking to some of the service members, I would think my Republican colleagues would wake up and decide this is a time to put our troops and their safety ahead of protecting anyone at the Pentagon.
I did see Chairman Crawford of the Intel Committee say something to that effect. He might be open to this. I think, of course, that Congress has got to look at this. This goes back to a tradition. I'm thinking of Harry Truman and the Truman Committee of looking at misconduct and war profiteering and more that put our troops at risk.
This is the exact kind of oversight we've got to do. It should be bipartisan. But if it's not after November, Democrats will do this.
COOPER: Congressman Deluzio, appreciate your time. Congressman Kinzinger as well. Thanks so much.
I want to take an advanced look at something that Kara Swisher has been working on. On Saturday, she premieres a CNN original series, "Kara Swisher Wants To Live Forever," which looks into the longevity industry and the effects that pursuing longer lives have on society as a whole. Here's a quick preview.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KARA SWISHER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR (voice-over): Most people don't feel the way I do about cemeteries. But I'm not like most people.
[20:50:00]
I love lying in cemeteries. I always do that. I don't think there is a body underneath me, but I just like it. It's very peaceful. I think about death every day.
This is my dad, Dr. Louis Bush Swisher, Jr. He died from the complications of a brain aneurysm that burst without warning one sunny Sunday morning in 1968. He was 34 years old and I was only five.
So it should come as no surprise that most of my life has been and still is about his death and about how not to die too soon.
I got close once when I had a stroke while traveling to Hong Kong when I was 48.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And I spoke with Kara Swisher earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: I'm really looking forward to this. I did not know that your dad died when you were five years old. My mom's dad died when she was 15 months old.
SWISHER: Right.
COOPER: And she used to all her life quote an author named Mary Gordon, who said -- who wrote a number of wonderful books. One of the things she said is a fatherless girl thinks all things possible and nothing is safe.
SWISHER: That's correct. That's exactly right.
COOPER: That applied to my mom completely. Does that apply to you?
SWISHER: Completely. It's that you become highly functional, I think it's a different way of putting it. And my brothers and I are very functional because the worst thing in the world happened and we survived. And therefore nothing is that hard in a lot of ways.
And so a lot of people who have death at a young age, it's a very well-known trend. In this series, I talk about Steve Jobs, who, of course, tragically died relatively young. He wasn't very young. But one of the things he talked about is death being the greatest motivator for innovation and for himself.
And he said, when I do anything several days or I keep saying no, I leave it, and it gives you the permission to leave and move on and be innovative or don't stay in bad things. And so that's one of the positives.
COOPER: I mean, are you fascinated by longevity? I mean, are you -- is the kind of the other side of this you want to live for a long --
SWISHER: No, that's what it was. It was that I like the Steve Jobs attitude. Is I only have so much time I'm going to do the most I can. And I'm going to push myself and I'm not going to put myself --
COOPER: Because you talk to this guy, Brian -- SWISHER: Brian Johnson.
COOPER: -- who, I mean, I got to say, I've, you know, try not to look at too much online because it just creeps me out.
SWISHER: It does. And what's interesting, I knew him before this transformation. And he's actually -- it's actually -- I find it sad, but I see what he's doing. He's on a journey of himself, right, except it's narcissistic.
COOPER: You see -- I mean --
SWISHER: Yes, he thinks he's helping humanity, but he's helping. All we know is how to keep Brian Johnson alive and not everybody else.
COOPER: He's pitching products, isn't he?
SWISHER: He is also --
COOPER: OK.
SWISHER: He has supplements.
COOPER: All right.
SWISHER: And that's often the case with a lot of these wellness grifters. And so I was irritated by all the negative -- all the misinformation around health. I was irritated by the tech bros all wanting to live forever. And for what? What is it for?
And then I thought there's amazing scientific breakthroughs happening. It's going to give us much more of a health span than a lifespan. And that's the delta between health span and lifespan. Health span usually last to 65 --
COOPER: Very much like Peter Attia.
SWISHER: Well, except, I'm not going to obsess on it and just focus in on bros. What is -- what can we do for the rest of us? Not what we can do for our narcissistic self. So we have better pecs or thighs or take creatine. That's not the point. The point is to use science to help all of us have a healthier life for a longer amount of time.
I think a lot of those people are all about the me. And this should be about the entire community. But what's interesting is the physical transformation is interesting to them. And what's -- what I find most interesting is when women do it, it's body dysmorphia. When men do it, it's body maxing -- body -- or whatever it is.
And you're like, what's happening here? Why are you doing this? Are you doing it for health? What I'd like to have happen is -- and the question I put to Brian is he's spending $2 million a year to do these things on himself doing this. Why not take that money and try to alleviate poverty or food or something that would help a vast amount of people or pay for gold medal tests around some of these things? And and it's in the backdrop of most incredible scientific innovation happening right now with mRNA, GLP, AI in cancer, gene editing, CRISPR. These are things that will help longevity. And yet we focus in on, can I take creatine? What about NADs? What about this?
And so it's not a new thing in this country. We've had health fads forever, you know, going way back to Ponce de Leon. Like, let's be clear, the Fountain of Youth was way back when.
And so my thing is, what can we do so -- for the rest of us to make us a healthier society? And why do we have double the costs in health care than most countries that are similar to us? And we're at the bottom of the health charts. How did that work? Why are we paying double for much less health?
COOPER: Kara Swisher, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
SWISHER: Thanks a lot.
COOPER: I look forward to watching.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Kara's new series premieres Saturday night, 9:00 Eastern Time on CNN.
And more ahead for us right after a short break. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:59:03]
COOPER: In just about 17 minutes at 9:15 Eastern Time tonight, I hope you join me for All There Is Live. It's my new streaming show online about grief and loss, a companion show to my podcast. You can watch it right live in 16 minutes at CNN.com/AllThereIs.
I'm speaking tonight with a woman named Julie Devaney Hogan, a 40- year-old mom of three young kids with a very aggressive and terminal form of brain cancer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JULIE DEVANEY HOGAN, 40-YEAR-OLD MOM OF THREE YOUNG KIDS WITH A VERY AGGRESSIVE AND TERMINAL FORM OF BRAIN CANCER: I call what I'm living in now radical acceptance. This is what it is. I have to be honest and realistic to prepare myself and my family.
My grief is less about me. It's actually not about me at all. I have three kids and my grief is preparing for their grief. And what can I do now at this time? I have to make sure they're prepared. I call it goer's grief. Like, I will be gone.
But all of the destruction that's caused when a child loses their parent young, that anticipatory grief, that goer's grief is the grief I carry now as I navigate stage 4. I'm a student now of my children's grief. Like I'm studying to prepare to leave them, which sounds so terrible. But I want to use this time to do everything I can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So join me about 15 minutes at CNN.com/AllThereIs.
That's it for us. CNN's The Source starts right now.
