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Trump Ramps Up Pressure on Allies; Michigan Terror Suspect's Family; Sprawling Storms Across U.S.; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) is Interviewed about the Strait of Hormuz. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired March 16, 2026 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:00:00]

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN ANCHOR: And so the drugs that got in the hands of Eric to take were actually fentanyl.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A really interesting preview of what we might see today. Again, shortly when we hear closing arguments in this case.

Jean Casarez, I know you'll be covering it all day long, as you have been. Thank you very much.

A brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, President Trump threatening NATO allies. He's no longer asking them, he's demanding they send ships to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face, quote, "a very bad future."

Some of the longest security lines we've seen so far. Travel chaos just beginning at airports during spring break. The DHS shutdown is causing TSA workers to go without pay and leading to workers quitting or having to call out sick.

And weather whiplash. Tornadoes and blizzards in one part of the country, scorching temperatures in another.

I'm Sara Sidner, with Kate Bolduan and John Berman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: It is not -- it's not NATO's war. That is how a spokesperson for the German chancellor is responding now to President Trump's new demand that U.S. allies and China send ships and help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The president overnight said that NATO members could face, his words were, a very bad future, if they don't act.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I think we're getting a good response. If we do that's great, and if we don't, that's great too. But remember, like, as an example in many cases in NATO countries, we're always there for NATO. We're helping them with Ukraine. It's got an ocean in between us. Doesn't affect us. But we've helped them. It'd be interesting to see what country wouldn't help us with a very small endeavor which is just keeping this strait open.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Very clearly allies and even adversaries do not think is a small endeavor to reopen the strait right now. This morning the British prime minister is speaking out, saying his country would work with the coalition to bring together what he calls a viable plan, but one that very clearly has not yet been found to reopen the strait.

President Trump also now saying he might delay a much anticipated summit with China's leader Xi Jinping over this. Beijing, so far, not answering any questions about President Trump's demands.

CNN's Kevin Liptak at the White House tracking all of this for us.

Kevin, what is going -- does the White House believe that they are going to get this coalition together after the responses that we're already seeing coming in?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: I think they do. And when you talk to administration officials, they seem relatively confident that they'll be able to announce a coalition at some point soon. But who that consists of and what exactly they're committing here all remain open questions.

You know, you have heard an extreme amount of caution from a number of U.S. allies about this prospect of sending navy ships to the Strait of Hormuz to escort tankers through, despite the pressure that you're seeing from President Trump. And it has been now an extraordinary amount of pressure that you've seen building and building over the weekend. In a lot of ways it's the first time that the president has actually seemed eager to bring other countries into this effort.

You know, they weren't consulted beforehand. Many of them said that the attack, when it began, came as a surprise to them. Now the president says, quote, this should have been a team effort. And arguing that because the United States is not as reliant on oil that comes through the Strait of Hormuz as some of these other countries, that they should take more responsibility for policing it and for trying to get it reopened.

We just heard, in the last couple of minutes from Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary. Here's what she had to say about this new diplomatic effort.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president is absolutely right to call on these countries to do more, to help the United States, to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, so that we can stop this terrorist regime from restricting the free flow of energy. And the fact that they are doing so just underscores why President Trump needed to take this action in the first place. (END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: Now, the president, last night on Air Force One, offered, I think, quite an ominous warning to NATO allies who wouldn't necessarily agree to go along with this plan. He said, quote, "we will remember," which, when coming from a president who has openly mused about withdrawing support for NATO, I think should be taken seriously.

So, even despite this pressure, you're hearing a variety of sort of denials, at least for the immediate term, from U.S. allies. The German foreign minister saying that he did not see NATO assuming responsibility for the Strait of Hormuz. Keir Starmer saying that the U.S. will not get drawn into a war with Iran. And even outside of NATO, you're hearing allies somewhat cautious to this idea. You know, the Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, who will be here at the White House on Thursday, saying that she had not made any decisions on deploying the naval vessels to the strait.

[09:05:07]

When it comes to China, of course, there is this question of whether the president will delay that summit in Beijing that was due to happen in two weeks' time. What we heard from the treasury secretary earlier today was that this actually had nothing to do with the Strait of Hormuz, that this was a question of logistics. But, of course, China is the number one purchaser of Iranian oil. And so clearly, this question of the war there and of the Strait of Hormuz will be an overriding topic for the two men when eventually they do sit down.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Kevin, thanks so much for the reporting, starting us off this hour.

John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now CNN military analyst, retired Lieutenant General Mark Schwartz, also CNN national security analyst Alex Plitsas.

Alex, even though you're outranked by the general, you're here with me, so I'm going to start with you.

I want to talk about maybe the competing time constraints here. The Strait of Hormuz all but shut right now. That 20-mile waterway. A two- mile sea lane there all but shut. Iran, obviously, wants to keep that closed. How long can they, and how does that compete with the relentless air campaign that continues over Iran?

ALEX PLITSAS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So, what's come out is the U.S. and Israel appear to have several weeks of strikes left to compete their -- complete their military objectives inside of Iran. And we're seeing strikes continue. We got an update from Admiral Cooper this morning saying they had sunk about 100 boats. So, they're progressing through those targets. But to your point, there is a competing timeline here that's putting

pressure on the military operation, and that is here in the Straits of Hormuz. And so, what we're hearing from executives in the industries across, whether it's from oil or other places. If this doesn't get freed up -- and, by the way, it's not completely blocked. Right now the shipping channels are open..

BERMAN: Yes, I can show you this right now. You can see the marine traffic. This is sort of a live picture of it.

PLITSAS: Yes.

BERMAN: You can see the stretch here. This is the 20-mile gap here. Basically empty. Every once in a while you will see a boat, a ship, something, go through one way or the other. We know one or two have but not the 20 million barrels a day that have been going through.

PLITSAS: Precisely. And we look at really where all this is stemming from is that we've had some vessels that have been attacked nearby. And so what it's done is created fear in the minds of the ship owners that their boats could be subject to attack, even though the straits aren't physically closed or blocked themselves. So, this is the root cause of the issue and where its coming from.

BERMAN: All right. So, General, I want to bring you in to this discussion here and thank you for waiting.

What we saw over the weekend was that the U.S. carried out a bombing mission over Kharg Island. This is a crucial area for Iran. It is a big security location for them, but also where they run their entire oil industry. The targets were not part of the energy infrastructure. But what do you see as the options next, the military options next for the United States?

LT. GEN. MARK SCHWARTZ (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, I think if you look at the campaign over the course of the next couple of weeks, John, ultimately there's going to have to be some agreement made. The targeting that's taking place right now by Israel and the United States is obviously denying areas where Iran can project missiles, drones into the gulf. That's certainly a focus. As well as going after a lot of the technology centers in terms of science and technology to support weapons development, their space program, and a whole series of other, you know, technical capabilities that Iran has in the past.

So, in my view, I believe that over the course of the next couple of weeks, we are going to run out of -- out of targets, other than those that directly threaten the gulf and the freedom of navigation. So, we're going to have to see a shift, I believe, in what the end state objectives are going to be to enable the strategic flow of oil, obviously, but a whole lot of other commercial goods out of the gulf.

BERMAN: What might those targets be? What might those areas be? And I will add that there is a Marine expeditionary force headed to the region here, about 2,500 Marines. Is that something that you see being utilized in the near term? SCHWARTZ: I see the -- you know, it's a very capable and agile force,

the Marine expeditionary unit that's coming in with the amphibious ready group. I don't see them used on Kharg Island. And it makes no sense. We have secured Kharg Island and the oil infrastructure there without our physical presence on there. I see the Marines being used for maybe short duration operations along the coast of Iran, maybe, you know, at the mouth of the gulf as you're going into the Strait of Hormuz on the -- on the eastern side, not the west. And then also we -- what has, you know, kind of fallen out of the press is the location of the enriched uranium. So, the MEU also has in one of its tactical tasks, the responsibility to provide, you know, the outer cordon or security, similar to what U.S. Army Rangers or infantry would do to support a special operations. So, the CENTCOM commander has a great deal of flexibility with the ARG (ph) coming in, but I don't see one of those tactical tasks as being putting boots on the ground at Kharg Island.

[09:10:02]

BERMAN: He mentioned the nuclear facilities. David Sanger, in "The New York Times," writing extensively about the fact that, you know, Iran still has this nuclear material here. Is that something where you see the Marines, or maybe separately from the Marines, special forces being deployed to go physically get that?

PLITSAS: Well, I mean, there's been a lot of speculation about that potentially from a number of outlets. And, you know, the main facility where that storage is here is at Isfahan. This is Iran's third largest city. The facility sits about 15 kilometers outside of the city itself, deep buried and supposedly, according to David's article, the information he got from the IAEA, that there's about 200 kilograms of highly enriched uranium at 60 percent that somehow survived the strikes earlier this summer that are buried under there, that may need to be retrieved. Some of it is apparently potentially been moved to other sites, and some may not be accounted for. So, none of that is clear in the public's eye.

But yes, to your point and to the general's point, the Marine expeditionary unit, they always like to advertise that they're special operations capable. So, potentially that could be a blocking force on the outside if you had -- if you did actually have to conduct a ground raid in the facility. We don't know if that's been approved or if that's on the table. It's been widely speculated. The president was rather circumspect when discussing it, probably for security reasons, but that's been widely speculated.

BERMAN: You know, again, as "The New York Times" was reported this morning, very hard for the United States to end this conflict politically, not militarily, if there still is nuclear fuel inside Iran and with the Straits of Hormuz closed or harassed.

Alex Plitsas, great to see you.

General Schwartz, thank you very much.

Sara. SIDNER: All right, thank you, John.

New details this morning about the man who attacked a synagogue in Michigan last week. The FBI says 41-year-old Ayman Ghazali committed a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community after driving a car packed with explosives into Temple Israel outside Detroit. The Israeli military now says Ghazali's brother was a Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli airstrike earlier this month. Ghazali is a naturalized U.S. citizen from Lebanon.

CNN law enforcement correspondent Whitney Wild joining me now. What are you learning this morning about this case?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we're learning is, again, that his brother, Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali, one of two brothers who was killed, was a commander for Hezbollah. He was responsible for managing weapons, and he was killed when the IDF struck a Hezbollah military building that stored weapons.

We also know he had another brother who was killed, Kassem. The IDF made no mention of him. Multiple family members were targeted in this strike. To -- his parents were injured. Two sisters-in-law were injured. And two of Ibrahim's children were killed.

The federal government has offered very few details. Actually, I think it's, you know, notable a lot of the information we're getting about him on the record is coming from overseas, was the mayor in Lebanon who said his family had been targeted in that strike. And now, again, we are learning from the IDF that his brother, Ibrahim, was a Hezbollah commander.

We are still trying to piece together his background here. Certainly, this information is bringing greater clarity to who he was and perhaps what his mindset was going into this attack.

Sara, as you pointed out, he's a Lebanese citizen who -- he was born in Lebanon, became a U.S. citizen in 2016.

Back to you.

SIDNER: Yes, a lot of details there but a lot of questions still left unanswered.

Whitney Wild, thank you so much. Appreciate your reporting this morning for us.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, coming up for us, major disruptions are expected today at airports across the country. Hundreds of TSA agents have now quit after facing their first $0 paycheck this weekend because of the partial government shutdown.

And we are also tracking a sprawling storm system, tornado threats for some, blizzard conditions for others. We're going to bring you the forecast. And it is time to fill out your bracket, friends. March Madness is upon us.

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BERMAN: All right, happening now, some serious weather. About 250 million Americans could feel the impact of this huge storm system, with new threats of thunderstorms, tornadoes, even blizzard conditions. Look at that twister right there.

Let's get right to CNN's Derek Van Dam tracking the very latest for us.

Derek, what are you seeing?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: John, we face the risk of a historic damaging wind threat across portions of the mid-Atlantic today from this expansive storm system marching east, impacting over 20 states. It's already dumped over two feet of snow and blizzard conditions across the upper Great Lakes, and ongoing severe weather across the deep south.

Check this out. Over a half a million customers without power already from the storm as it marches eastward. Let's get right to the radar. We have current severe thunderstorm warnings impacting much of the Carolinas into central Georgia and the Florida panhandle. Heads up, Charlotte, you're about to get clobbered with a 60 mile per hour winds as these storms raced east. You can see into Augusta, the storms just exiting to your east. And then some of these could quick spin up thunderstorms have had radar indicated tornadoes across the south, including southern Georgia.

So, here's a look at the current tornado watch boxes. They are valid through about 2:00 p.m. But we expect these to get expanded and extended a little further north. In fact, look at the greatest risk of severe weather today from the storm prediction center highlighting the nation's capital, southward into Raleigh as well, as Charlotte, all the way to the mid-Atlantic coastline. This is where we have the potential for hurricane force gusts.

So, when we talk about the historic nature of this, we haven't seen this type of setup since 2018. So, that's significant for this area. Timing it out for you. Greatest chance of severe weather, unfortunately, right when you travel home tonight. Baltimore to D.C., that 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. window. Some of those supercells could form. And the storm prediction center is talking about the potential here of strong, long track tornadoes with any of those that do develop.

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Then the line of powerful winds pushes eastward and behind it we wrap in the very cold air. This is incredible. You don't have to be a meteorologist to pick out the cold front here. But this is a 24 hour temperature departure map. So, we're comparing yesterday's temperatures to right now. And just notice this, Kansas City is 53 degrees colder than it was just yesterday at this time. That cold air is going to send shock waves to the East Coast, all the way to the gulf, where a lot of us have already planned many of our springtime crops. Well, guess what? They're under threat with hard freezes as far south as the gulf. The temperatures dropping below freezing into Tuesday morning and once again on Wednesday. An expansive storm to say the least.

John.

BERMAN: Yes, some of those maps really threatening, really threatening in some major population centers. People need to pay very close attention today.

Derek Van Dam, thank you very much for that.

VAN DAM: You got it.

SIDNER: All right, thank you, John Berman.

Ahead, a golden night for one battle after another in "Sinners." We have a look at all the biggest moments from the Oscars, in case you missed it.

Also, we are just minutes away from the opening bell on Wall Street. Let's take a look at futures real quick here. Let's see what we look like. Oh, boy. Everything's looking up right now. This week, energy will remain a big focus with crude oil hovering near the $100 mark. Investors are assessing slow economic growth, setting expectations for upcoming interest rate cuts. Those stories and more, ahead.

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[09:26:06]

SIDNER: This morning, the president is threatening NATO with very bad future if it doesn't help secure the Strait of Hormuz. That threat from the president not sitting well with some European allies. A spokesperson for Germany's chancellor saying bluntly, this is not NATO's war. The U.K. says they will work with allies to try to reopen the strait, but did not provide any details as to what they're willing to do. The situation in the strait helping send oil and gas prices in the United States and elsewhere to their highest level in years.

With me now, Democratic congresswoman from Florida, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Thank you so much for being here.

I'm curious what it says to you about the status of this war if the president is now threatening allies to get help in the Strait of Hormuz?

REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D-FL): Well, Sara, thanks for having me. And, you know, my immediate reaction is, it certainly should not be

this way. I mean in previous wars, where there has been forethought and planning and cooperation and coordination, we've gone in with a coalition of the willing with our allies who understood what our plans were. Frankly, he left Congress out. So, we don't -- we have not been able to really understand what their plans were. We've lost 13 service members. Gas prices, for example, in my state have gone up $0.50 a gallon in just the last week.

So, I mean, the fact that the president has resorted to threatening our allies instead of engaging them in cooperation and coordination kind of tells you a lot about what you need to know about how it's going. The shifting sands of what the president is saying that were even our goals here really are disturbing.

SIDNER: Look, I want to talk about what's happening back here in the states. There was an attack with explosives on a synagogue in Michigan. Israel claimed that the attacker's brother was a commander in Hezbollah, killed in a strike there by Israel. Are you confident that the U.S. has the law enforcement staff it needs to deal with a clearly heightened threat?

SCHULTZ: What I'm deeply concerned about is that the administration and, unfortunately, Republicans, continually refuse when I and others have proposed to -- and the Jewish community across the country, as well as the Islamic community, have implored them to increase nonprofit security grant funding so that we can make sure we're hardening facilities, that we have security around these institutions so that we can prevent loss of life and damage and danger at these institutions. We need far more funding. The Trump administration has only proposed flat funding, and they've refused to increase it. The process to distribute those funds has been chaotic.

You look at Tree of Life, you look at the loss of two incredible young people at the Jewish museum in Washington, this is a confluence of lax gun laws and a horrific rise in anti-Semitism. And there needs to be coordinated, cooperative government action to try to stop it.

We also -- it was not -- also not helpful that Marco Rubio essentially initially blamed Israel for the reason that they needed to attack. And that essentially has really inflamed the feelings that are already causing so much -- so -- such explosive anti-Semitism. And an ancillary attack like this one, I think, certainly couldn't be dismissed from being the result.

SIDNER: I want to ask you, though, because at the same time this threat is real, TSA agents are not being paid because of the government shutdown. What are Democrats willing to do to get funding to critical agencies that have our safety at heart?

SCHULTZ: I'll tell you exactly what we're willing to do. What we -- what we've proposed -- I'm a co-sponsor of legislation that would ensure that we can fund TSA, nonprofit security grants, our Coast Guard, and ensure that you fund the agencies that are not subject to negotiations.

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