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New Reporting on USS Gerald Ford Fire; Airport Delays; U.S. Intel Official Steps Down Over Iran War; Interview With Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT). Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 17, 2026 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: To people on the ground in Minneapolis, they're still demanding changes, but those things aren't in the headlines anymore, which probably is why Republicans don't feel the need to negotiate as much.

ELI STOKOLS, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, POLITICO: And I asked a White House official earlier this week, what happens? When does this end? They said, when the president gets involved. Well, when's that going to be? He's obviously focused on other things right now.

It could take this getting to a crisis point, where you see airports closing, you see those TSA lines, the president sees that on TV and decides, OK, I need to cut this off, I need to get involved now, because he hasn't been, from what I'm told, for several weeks.

BASH: Thank you all so much. Thank you for joining "INSIDE POLITICS.

"NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: Stepping down and speaking out. A senior U.S. intelligence official appointed by President Trump says he's quitting because of the war with Iran. The president reacting just moments ago.

And twice the price. Delta's CEO warns the war is causing jet fuel costs to double and could cause some ticket prices to rise, as the TSA troubles show no signs of slowing down at America's airports.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And convicted of murder. A mother of three who published a children's book on grief after her husband's death is found guilty of fatally poisoning him.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

JIMENEZ: All right, we're going to start with the breaking news on the war with Iran.

President Trump's pressure campaign to get NATO allies involved in the Iran war so far coming up empty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I didn't do a full- court press, because I think, if I did, they probably would be. But we don't need help.

NATO is making a very foolish mistake. And I have long said that I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us. So this is a -- this was a great test, because we don't need them, but they should have been there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: At the same time, a top counterterrorism official the president appointed is questioning the administration's rationale for this war, the senior intel official resigning in protest and writing -- quote -- "Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation."

It goes on to say, "It is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel," to quote him there. We will have more on the president's response to that in a moment.

First, I want to bring in CNN's Jeremy Diamond in Tel Aviv, where we have more breaking news on yet another top Iranian official Israel says it killed, Jeremy.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right.

Ali Larijani was a senior national security official in Iran, by many people viewed as the de facto leader of Iran following the assassination of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in those opening strikes by Israel more than two weeks ago. But he has now been assassinated in an Israeli strike carried out overnight, according to Israel's defense minister.

Ali Larijani, the Israelis believe that his assassination will debilitate the Iranian regime's ability to carry out this war, its operational capabilities. There's no question that Larijani was a key figure in the Iranian regime. He was charged with carrying out the lethal suppression of those protests at the beginning of this year inside of Iran.

He oversaw the negotiations that ensued with the United States. And he was also a key figure in terms of coordinating with Iran's allies.

But there are questions about what the long-term effects actually will be of killing Ali Larijani, because, despite all that I just listed, he was also viewed as a relatively pragmatic figure inside the Iranian regime, someone who could perhaps serve as somewhat of a counterweight to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is now the overall overwhelming influence inside of Iran, in particular following the elevation of Khamenei's son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as the country's new supreme leader.

He was also viewed as very close to the IRGC. And it appears that Larijani's killing is likely, according to Iranian experts, to embolden the IRGC, the military hard-liners inside that regime. Now, we also know, understand that Israel also carried out an assassination killing the commander of Iran's Basij forces.

That's that paramilitary organization that acts as its internal security forces, another move that Israel says is intended to weaken the Iranian regime to create the conditions for regime change in Iran, but as we heard from President Trump today, a very clear acknowledgement that the protesters in Iran face deadly threats from the Iranian regime.

And that may be why we haven't seen kind of overwhelming protests since this war began.

JIMENEZ: All right, Jeremy Diamond for us in Tel Aviv, appreciate the reporting -- Brianna.

[13:05:02]

KEILAR: President Trump is now responding after a senior U.S. intelligence official said he's leaving his post in protest over the war with Iran.

In his resignation letter, Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, claimed that the president was deceived by high-ranking Israeli officials and members of the American media -- quote -- "into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States."

Here's President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I read his statement. I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security.

When I read his statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out, because he said that Iran was not a threat? Iran was a threat. Every country realized what a threat Iran was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: And we're joined now by Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut. He's the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Sir, thank you so much for being with us.

And you actually tweeted out Kent's resignation letter. You said: "At least someone in the administration is willing to stand by their principles." Do you agree with Joe Kent's reasons that he explains quite in depth for opposing the Iran war?

REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT): Well, it was really stunning to see, and it's not just the administration, right? It's my Republican colleagues, Republican congressmen and senators.

I mean, for a year now, it's been whatever Donald Trump wants, Donald Trump gets. And Joe Kent made a stand on principle, which, agree or disagree, wow. And, by the way, that raises interesting questions about Joe Kent's boss, Tulsi Gabbard.

I remember Tulsi Gabbard before she joined this administration. She devoted herself full time to attacking the very idea of intervention in any other country's foreign affairs, much less the Middle East. So we will see where this goes.

Look, one piece of Joe Kent's argument, which the president tried to deny, was that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States. And Joe Kent is 100 percent right about that. I spend day in and day out as a member of the Intelligence Committee looking at the intelligence around our threats.

And Iran, make no mistake, is a very dangerous country. The regime is evil, but in the moment that we attacked, they posed absolutely no imminent threat to the national security of the United States.

KEILAR: He did say that in his letter, but most of the rest of the letter was about Israel. And he said Iran wasn't a threat to the U.S., the U.S. started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. He says that Trump has been deceived by high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media into thinking there was an imminent threat to the U.S. and that there was a clear path to a swift victory.

He says it's the same tactics the Israelis used to draw the U.S. into the Iraq War. And he blames Israel for his first wife's death in Syria in 2019. That is, of course, Shannon Kent, who was a linguist and was killed in a terrorist attack there. Do you agree with those sentiments?

HIMES: Well, Brianna, I can't -- I can't -- I'm not invited into the Oval Office. I wasn't sitting there with Tulsi Gabbard or with the CIA when the president was deliberating the strikes. So I have no idea whether any of what Joe Kent said in that regard was true.

I can tell you, and I have spent a lot of time in the company of the Israeli prime minister, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who for decades has been single-mindedly focused on Iran, and not wrongly so, as an existential threat to the Jewish state, to the state of Israel.

What the prime minister or what Israel may have said to Joe Kent or to Donald Trump, I cannot comment on. Now, what I can remind you, of course, is -- and this was said to me. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said any number of times, including to camera, that the reason we got into this was not because there was an imminent threat, but because he had determined that Israel was going to strike Iran and that Iran was inexorably going to attack the U.S. as a result of that.

And what troubled me about that was not so much what Joe Kent was saying, but, my God, we're the most powerful superpower in the history of mankind. To say that we have no role in maybe arguing to the Israelis that maybe that strike right now is not the right idea, or arguing to the Iranians that, if the Israelis do strike, maybe you don't want to attack us, it did feel to me like Marco Rubio's explanations made us sound like the state of Liechtenstein, like we were sort of passive observers, reactive to what was happening in the region.

That never made any sense to me.

KEILAR: There were a lot of questions after Rubio said that. Of course, administration officials tried to counter what he said, but what he said certainly raises a lot of questions.

Kent says -- again, I just want to ask you this. He says the Israelis drew the U.S. into the Iraq War. Do you believe that?

HIMES: Look, again, I just -- I have no way of knowing what the prime minister said to the president.

[13:10:00]

KEILAR: OK, well, then -- OK, well, then let me -- no, this -- that's not what -- this is about what's in the resignation letter.

And I don't know if you read the whole letter before you tweeted supporting that he stood on principle.

HIMES: Yes, of course I did. Of course I did, yes. Yes.

KEILAR: But -- OK, well, so I mean, do you see this as...

HIMES: I have a bad habit of reading things that I tweet about.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: I mean, that's fantastic, right?

But I guess I'm asking, do you believe that this is completely legitimate beef, or do you think perhaps there is a lens through which to see some of Kent's objections differently because of how vehemently anti-Israel he is? Because his critics actually say that this is or borders on being antisemitic, some of this, especially considering he has associated repeatedly with white nationalists and has had to disavow those associations while running for office or under scrutiny for an appointment.

How do you see it?

HIMES: Yes, look, I'm not your guy to comment on Joe Kent. I have been in a room with him two or three times. And I -- and I'm aware of his background.

But let me say two things that I do know to be true. Number one, I know where the Israeli prime minister has been on the subject of Iran for a very, very long time. He's expressed his views on Iran and the necessity to take on Iran very, very clearly to lots and lots of people, including me.

Number two, and I would say this to your point, I think you have to tread extremely careful. And I read Joe Kent's letter very, very, very closely. You need to tread very, very carefully in the words you use, because, sadly, Joe Kent's language plays into traditional antisemitic tropes of the Jews controlling this or that or controlling the media.

And at a time when synagogues are being attacked, when there is a massive upwelling of antisemitism, I think you should be a great deal more precise than Joe Kent was in his letter.

KEILAR: Are Democrats in danger of lauding someone's sort of opinion here that perhaps they may not want to fully associate with?

HIMES: Well, I can only speak for this Democrat. And you can reread my tweet if you want.

Again, I had my differences with Joe Kent, many differences with Joe Kent, but I do have to hold him up as a guy who -- and this is extremely rare in the Trump administration -- as a guy who is willing to resign because of his principles. I don't see that anywhere in this administration otherwise.

I don't, frankly, see it much in the Congress the United States. So don't take my admiration for his resigning as a matter of principle as an endorsement of anything else that Joe Kent believes. But principle matters.

KEILAR: Congressman Jim Himes, thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it.

HIMES: Thank you.

KEILAR: Now still to come: Delta's CEO says airline prices could soar as the war with Iran drags on. So, ahead, how this could impact your future travel plans.

And it's not just ticket prices, long security lines once again impacting travelers across the country, including at the world's busiest airport. We will take you there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:17:25]

JIMENEZ: The chaos inside U.S. airports amid a partial government shutdown is growing more dire by the day. Airline passengers are facing hours-long TSA lines as they wait to get past security checkpoints.

This morning in Atlanta, for example, the wait time was close to two hours, as DHS says more than 300 TSA agents have quit since the monthlong shutdown began. So far, workers have missed one full paycheck, but here's a warning by one TSA official.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADAM STAHL, ACTING DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION: We're fully stretched. And so, frankly, there's not much else we can do. As the weeks continue, if this continues, it's not hyperbole to suggest that we may have to quite literally shut down airports, particularly smaller ones, if call-out rates go up and we can't -- a lot of these officers can't afford to come in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: CNN senior national correspondent Ryan Young is at what is notoriously the world's busiest airport, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

Been there many, many, many times. Been traumatized many times there as well. But what are you seeing there today?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Omar, we take this as a sense of pride. You're from Atlanta so you understand this. Look, we take pride in this airport. So when you see times like this, you understand what the situation is.

This is actually down right now. You see 70 minutes, 37 minutes, 23 minutes. At one point, it stretched above 128 minutes for people to wait in the line. And the impact is real. We're going to flip this around, Omar. And a lot of times, this happens.

And as we do this, we're going to try to dance between all the people as we walk this direction. This has been consistent, this line right here, as far as the eye can see. That sign way down there, that sign actually shows you where it will take you another hour to get through security.

This has been ongoing since this morning. At one point, the line here stretched outside. So you can understand the pain point for so many people who are traveling. Then you have to deal with cancellations and the issues that they've had to try to position planes all the different places.

But when you stand and talk to the people here, they're really feeling the impact. I mean, we're still walking and we probably won't make it to the end of this before the end of this live shot. But this has been going on all day long. We saw it yesterday and it happened on Sunday as well -- Omar.

JIMENEZ: And for people who haven't been to that airport often, that line that Ryan is showing is not the main setup for where the line is supposed to be. That is something they've extended out based on where they've kept people in from that red rope there.

YOUNG: Yes.

JIMENEZ: I want to ask you about another aspect because Delta CEO Ed Bastian, obviously Delta headquartered there, said airfares are going up because its fuel costs have doubled.

[13:20:03]

Have you talked to passengers about that? Are they aware of that?

YOUNG: Look, this is a company city when you think about it. Delta is so strong here. A lot of people fly Delta. They're really loyal to Delta. So when the CEO of Delta talks, people understand it's going to have

impact. We have been talking to people who had to rebook, and they have been shocked by the prices that they're starting to see as they start to rebook their flights to try to get on that spring break that they desperately want to get on.

In fact, take a listen to the CEO from Delta talking about this impact of the war and everything else that's going on right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED BASTIAN, CEO, DELTA AIR LINES: Jet fuel prices have almost doubled just since the start of the quarter, and that's a fairly significant hit for us, about $400 million in the quarter. That said, the demand strength has been really, really great. There's been a number of fare increases just in the last two weeks.

The industry -- Delta's brand is really strong. And so when you have that level of resiliency, you have that strength of pull for demand, customers understand, if fuel prices are up, you need to -- cost of doing businesses. It's incumbent upon us to figure out ways to recover that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Omar, I know we have to go, but, on the international side, we have been told they have been impacted greatly too. At one point, their wait times on the international were 90 minutes.

And as we flip around here just as we go, I want you to see that sign right there that says north checkpoint. We're told, when people get there, the wait is still an hour and 10 minutes to get through security, just to give you some perspective.

JIMENEZ: Man, people really have to pay attention to what the wait times are showing at their local airports.

Ryan Young, thanks for showing us Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson. Enjoy it out there.

Still ahead: new details about a fire on board America's largest warship. Conditions are far from ideal in the wake of that fire, with some 600 sailors now having to sleep on tables or floors. We will have the reporter who broke this story next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:26:28]

KEILAR: New reporting from "The New York Times" on the ordeal faced by service members at sea in the war zone.

We're learning how a 30-hour fire aboard the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier has impacted life on board. More than 600 sailors and crew members have lost their beds because of it. They're now sleeping on tables or in some cases on the floor. People on the ship say dozens of service members suffered smoking inhalation. CENTCOM says two were treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

The Ford is now in its 10th month of deployment. Next month, it will break the record for longest carrier deployment since the Vietnam War.

And I'm joined now by Helene Cooper. She is the Pentagon reporter for "The New York Times." She wrote this article and broke this news.

Helene, thank you for being with us.

What happened here?

HELENE COOPER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Hi, Brianna. Thanks for having me. This was a fire that according to sailors and Navy officials started in the laundry room and is looking like, according to sailors, that the fire started in the dryer vents.

These -- now, you have to keep in mind that the Gerald Ford, which is the newest aircraft carrier that the country has, has been deployed for, as you said, 10 months. It's going in. It's verging in on a record and it hasn't had a lot, the kind of standard maintenance -- there hasn't been time for the kind of maintenance stops that it normally would.

It was in Venezuela as part of the Maduro operation in last fall and then it booked all the way from the Caribbean to the Middle East across the Atlantic to join this war in Iran, so without a lot of shore time, without a lot of time for maintenance. And this is the sort of thing that ends up catching up with you.

This fire went on for more than 30 hours, according to the sailors and the navy officials that I talked to. Bunks -- some of the bunks where sailors slept kind of almost melted into each other, and you have had all these sleeping quarters eliminated or burned out in this fire. So it's been pretty tense on board this ship.

KEILAR: Yes, I mean, what does this mean for life on the ship, but also the mission they're carrying out that they're sleeping on tables and the floor?

COOPER: Yes, those are two really interesting questions that you're asking, Brianna.

The first one for life on the ship, look, war is hell. War is always -- as you know, it's supposed to be hell and it's never going to be a picnic, but it makes things a whole lot harder. You have smoky interiors. You have -- they haven't been able to use the laundry, so they're sleeping and they're wearing the same clothes over and over.

Some say they're washing out clothes by hand, they're washing out their underclothes by hand, and it's not easy. It's not supposed to be easy, but what was always going to be difficult has become even more so.

Anybody who's been on a carrier can tell you just how cramped the conditions are. I was on a carrier on the T.R. in the Persian Gulf for -- the Teddy Roosevelt -- for four nights, and it was extremely -- the ceilings are low. The bunks are very, very small. You have very little enclosed spaces.

And then you're limited into where -- which areas you can go to. Most of the crew can't go strolling along on the flight deck where those -- because they're doing flight operations all day, and those fighter jets are taking off and landing on the carrier.

So, they're continuing all of this while at the same time their interior circumstances, their living circumstances have gotten a lot harder.