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Resigning Intel Official: "Iran Posed No Imminent Threat" To U.S.; Israel Says Iran's Defense Chief Killed In Strike; Diplomats express frustration U.S. Is Not Using Traditional Diplomatic Channels In Iran Crisis; U.S. Warship Believed To Be Carrying Marine Ground Troops To The Middle East Tracked Off Singapore. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired March 17, 2026 - 15:30   ET

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

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[15:31:46]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We're monitoring several major developments today in the war with Iran. Israel says that it killed two of Iran's most senior military officials, including Iranian Defense Chief Ali Larijani. Iran has not yet confirmed that claim. And earlier this afternoon, President Trump said the U.S. would be leaving Iran in the near future, but also openly questioning the U.S. partnership with NATO. The president revealed that most allies are so far refusing to support his war effort.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Also today, a top U.S. intel official that the President appointed suddenly stepped down. The director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, announced his resignation and really a blistering rebuke of the war with Iran. Kent directly contradicted the White House's reasoning for launching the attacks saying, quote, "Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby," to quote him there.

Here with us now, former deputy assistant Secretary of State under President Obama and author of the briefing book on Substack, Joel Rubin. Also former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council under President Trump, Javed Ali. He's now an associate professor of practice at the University of Michigan.

Javed, I just want to start with you really quickly. Joe Kent signs a one off or signs of larger cracks within the Trump administration. How are you seeing it?

JAVED ALI, FORMER NSC SR. DIRECTOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM UNDER TRUMP: Yes, nice to be with you this afternoon. And it's too early to tell, so it could just be a one off or it may suggest that there are growing fissures in the MAGA camp or broader Republican Party over the war in Iran and other policy issues. But in Joe Kent's statement today, he made it sound like this is -- his decision is based on his disagreement over the war with Iran. And there could be other factors as well that we don't yet know, but that's the position that he has taken so far. KEILAR: Yes. And Joel, I would really encourage anyone who's looking at this story to read the entirety of the resignation letter because he does say Iran didn't pose an imminent threat. But there's so much in here about Israel. 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. He says it's the same tactic Israel used to draw the U.S. into the Iraq war.

He blames Israel as well for his first wife Shannon's death in Syria in 2019. She was in the military. She was unfortunately killed in a terrorist attack. He has also associated himself repeatedly with white nationalists in the past and had to disavow those associations when he was either running for something or seeking confirmation. So I just wonder how you're viewing this.

JOEL RUBIN, FORMER DEPUTY ASST. SECRETARY, OBAMA ADMIN.: Yes, look, Brianna, this is, first of all why every Democrat voted against him, getting confirmed back initially when he was nominated. But you know, Joe Kent is an original America Firster, and I mean that of the 1930s variety. He's the America First type that supported Hitler, wanted American isolation. He is a conspiracy theorist. He blames Israel for everything.

He's blaming, as you point out, Israel for ISIS killing his wife, who's an American service member in Syria. That is a classic Assad Russia trope, attacking Israel. And so the anti-Semitism that permeates his letter is stark and direct. And anybody who looks at this letter and says there's a kernel of truth in this should be ashamed of themselves. This is not a truthful letter.

[15:35:09]

This is a letter to get him back on the talk show circuit. I'm sure he'll go on Tucker Carlson in a day or two. And this is a letter should be ignored by all Americans.

JIMENEZ: You know, to this point, Javed, I want to bring you in here because Israel says they've killed Ali Larijani, the head of Iran's National Security Council, Israel's defense minister, said the military will continue hunting Iran's leadership. I wonder, do you see Israel and the United States' goals aligned here and at least how they're -- how they're strategizing moving forward in this war?

ALI: So Israel has had the ability to have very precise intelligence on so many key senior Iranian officials going back to the opening days of the -- of the campaign with the strikes on Ali Khamenei and other senior members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. So now with the death of Ali Larijani, I would argue that is as big as a development for Iran in the regime's stability as the death of Ali Khamenei, because Ali Larijani had been running Iran's national security apparatus for months even before the conflict started and had been delegated to lead Iran's response after conflict emerged, which it obviously has. So with his removal, it's unclear who will now step up and take his place. And will they be as capable as Larijani was or is trusted by the IRGC and another senior clerics? And that's an open question right now. KEILAR: What do you think, Joel?

RUBIN: Yes, no, I think Javed is completely right. This killing, this assassination, this was the figurehead. Larjani, who was really running the country behind the scenes and was one of the top harsh, very violent leaders in Iran for decades. So his leaving the stage really opens up an opportunity for the people of Iran to think differently.

There was another assassination as well. The head of the Basij, the group that sort of the paramilitary street enforcers, the thugs who drive around in motorcycles and kill innocent civilians who are protesting. That targeting is a sign. It's a good sign, quite frankly, for the Iranian people. A big question I've always been wondering is, will we support the Iranian people after this military action is done, meaning targeting the Basij and others.

These strikes, Israel doing them effectively demonstrate. So that is a possibility.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, there's a big question moving forward with the United States at least, how much will American allies support and when will that support come if it does. CNN is reporting some American, European and Asian diplomats are growing frustrated with the Trump administration's sort of refusal to use those traditional diplomatic channels when it comes to the war. If there was more investment in those channels, could America -- would you see America's allies get more on board? I mean, how do you change the nature of the relationship right now?

RUBIN: Yes, you know, Omar, I think it's a -- it's a fair critique. Look, we can't go into a war alone if we want the globe to be supporting it. We need to build these relationships. Our allies are skeptical of us. That said, they are all affected now by this war.

The oil flow through the Straits of Hormuz, the damage that it's occurring, affects the entire global economy. That is an opportunity for conversation. We can't be alone for good. But there was a vote, I want to point out at the United Nations last week, where the U.N. essentially unanimously condemned Iran for shooting missiles into third countries, into the Arab countries and elsewhere. So there's a lot of latent support out there.

I think the administration would do well to try to cultivate that rather than sort of threaten it or demand it.

KEILAR: Javed, I wonder what you're thinking about the timeline here, because we actually had a retired army general with a lot of experience in the region and with special operations taking a look at some of these Marines who appear to be coming in to the region, have been spotted coming into the region and the administration has confirmed that they are. They're not saying exactly where they're going. And he's saying, you know, those could be used to go on shore to secure the Strait of Hormuz. And I mean that -- while I think maybe not as big of a deal to someone in the military, for the public, that would be a very big move to have those boots on the ground. And that might be more of a commitment of time.

How do you see the timeline?

ALI: So the timeline seems to be advancing along the objectives that the U.S. and Israel had laid out. Degrade the upper echelons of Iran's leadership, which we all know has happened to include the strikes of -- against Larijani today and the head of the Basij, as Joel mentioned, all the operations against Iran's ballistic missile and drone and cruise missile capabilities, production facilities and storage sites, the operations against Iran's navy and it's -- what remains of its air force. So on the military side, things are probably going well. But as Joel also pointed out, the economic pressure that Iran has managed to unleash through the attacks against the Gulf countries and the oil tankers and now ships in the Strait of Hormuz. This is the leverage that Iran is trying to play.

[15:40:10]

And that's where the Marines might come in with a limited operation to seize the Kharg terminal and hold it for a small amount of time. But I don't think you're going to see even a small number of Marines at 2,500 go further inland because it would just be so risky for them and they don't have the right force protection infrastructure in place for them to go deeper than just a -- for a limited amount of time against a relatively focused objective.

KEILAR: And Joel, I just want to revisit something you said. Did you -- did you say that Joe Kent praised Hitler?

RUBIN: No.

KEILAR: OK. He associated him -- I just want to be clear on this. He associated --

RUBIN: Yes.

KEILAR: -- himself with someone --

RUBIN: He -- with Nick Fuentes --

KEILAR: Yes, that's right.

RUBIN: -- who is an avowed admirer of Hitler. And he also has dabbled in conspiracy theory against Jews and against Israel for a number of years.

KEILAR: OK. I just wanted to be clear.

RUBIN: Yes.

KEILAR: It's important. Thank you so much, Joel. And Javed, thank you. We appreciate it.

Power slowly being restored in Cuba after the country's energy grid collapse. We are live in Havana next.

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[15:45:44]

KEILAR: Power is slowly being restored in Cuba after the 10 million people on the island lost that power when the island's electrical grid collapsed. This is the first time the entire country has gone dark since the Trump administration cut off foreign oil supplies. The crisis has protests in the streets as emergency measures have also meant reduced school hours and cutbacks on hospital services. Yesterday, President Trump talked about taking over Cuba. And this afternoon Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it will take a change in leadership to bring change to Cuba.

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MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: The bottom line is their economy doesn't work. It's a non-functional economy. It's an economy that has survived. It's for 40 -- that revolution, it's not even a revolution, that thing they have has survived on subsidies from the Soviet Union and now from Venezuela. They don't get subsidies anymore.

So they're in a lot of trouble. And the people in charge, they don't know how to fix it. So they have to get new people in charge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Patrick Oppmann is in Havana for us.

Patrick, tell us about the situation right now.

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN HAVANA BUREAU CHIEF: Well, power is slowly coming back on. But of course, you always put a bit of a caveat with that because the power comes back and it's immediately collapses or officials simply don't have the fuel to keep power on in all of Havana, all of Cuba at the same time. So it'll come back on for a few hours and then be taken away. That's about as good as it gets these days in Cuba. And so to have a 24 hour island wide power outage, that is very concerning.

But of course, we're only going back in the best cases to having a couple of hours of power each day. And so the underlying causes of this power outage, the fact that no oil is coming in, that the electrical system here is so old, has not been invested in over the years is collapsing. That is not going to change. In fact, going forward, as this Trump oil blockade continues, we'll probably see more and more of these larger blackouts that, of course, are having a major impact on how people live here.

KEILAR: And Patrick, in response to this crisis, Cuba is actually making changes to encourage Cuban exiles to invest in the country. Tell us about this.

OPPMANN: You know, these are reforms that have been discussed here for many, many years. But last night during this power outage, some very few people here saw the announcement. A Cuban official who is a Castro family member and is the minister of Foreign Commerce came on and said that they were finally going to greenlight, these long debated changes that will allow Cuban exiles to come back and set up businesses but not own property. It would open the door to investing in Cuba, but not in the way that Cuban exiles have been hoping for. It's not a full kind of perestroika opening of the economy.

And so you saw Marco Rubio earlier today saying these reforms are simply not enough. If they were meant as concessions, it does not seem like the United States says they go far enough.

KEILAR: All right, Patrick Oppmann live for us in Havana, thank you.

Omar.

JIMENEZ: All right, let's talk about airports because the pain is real. Long lines, even longer wait times for passengers trying to get through airport TSA checkpoints. And then the ongoing partial government shutdown has caused a critical staffing shortage at hubs across the country, as DHS says, at least 366 TSA agents have quit since the month long shutdown began. And so far workers have missed one full paycheck. But obviously they've missed out on a whole lot more before that.

One TSA official said if it keeps up, some airports may have to temporarily close. I want to bring in CNN Senior National Correspondent Ryan Young who's at Atlanta's Hartsfield Jackson International Airport.

Ryan, Hartsfield's GM says about 36 percent of TSA workers called out today. Do -- what is it like right now? I always see some emptiness behind you.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And it's really a tale of the good, the bad, the ugly. Right now it's the good because if you look behind me, you can see the fact that the security line is at 20 minutes. It's one of the lowest we've seen all day. At one point it fell to 10 minutes.

So you look back this direction, that looks like a normal day at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport. But we've seen the line stretch to above 128 minutes here throughout the day. The last time we joined you live, we could walk down that long line to show you how many people were standing here scared of missing their flights. That's not the case right now and pre check is even shorter. But take a listen to passengers who are really upset about what they've been experiencing the last 24 hours or so.

[15:50:15]

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RICHARD ALEXANDER, ATLANTA AIRLINE PASSENGER: It's disgraceful what's going on here. Wait till November and a lot of these people get thrown out because they're not -- they're not legislating appropriately for the people of this country. This is disgraceful. And I hope at a minimum, they are offering all these TSA employees an extra dollar and a half, $2, $3 an hour to show up to work. (END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: So we wanted to show you, Omar, look, this is the main checkpoint and you can see how empty it is. But we walk back this direction you remember that extended line on the north side. And I wanted to walk you back this way because a lot of people have been asking us how this has been and how this has been shaping up. We see more TSA workers who are actually checking folks in. But this is that long line that we've seen all day.

As you can look down this direction, the line is not there anymore. And that's good. Look, this man's pretty much dancing to his gate. But that has been the process throughout the day. The ebbs and flows of this right now is a perfect time to come to the airport.

When we talked to the airport GM, he told us they really try to plan to have more security officials here. We when they see a bulk of the flights leaving the airport right now, this might be one of those lulls.

JIMENEZ: Hey, I'd be dancing too if I saw empty lines like that. I want to ask how early is the GM or others, how early are they asking people to get to the airport with this uncertainty going on right now?

YOUNG: Yes, great question. I'll walk you this way. As we do that, we're told right now they're still suggesting a three hour head start to get here because they are still concerned that people could get here thinking that they see this short line and then get hit. But I wanted to show you this because I think this demonstrates where the workers are not. There's only two lanes open at the main checkpoint right now, maybe three lanes actually with TSA workers checking folks in.

And then you have to get through that other security part of this. So it's still not over. And that's what people should understand. At any moment, you could show up or you could go for an international flight and hit one of these rush hours and then get stuck here for quite some time.

JIMENEZ: Ryan Young monitoring the --

YOUNG: Lot of tears in --

JIMENEZ: -- ebbs and flows. Yes, a lot of tears, some dancing, but again, that's one of the ebbs rather than the flows. Ryan Young, good to see you in Hartsfield Jackson for us.

All right. Meanwhile, in just a few hours, star studded Team USA set to take on Venezuela in the final of the World Baseball Classic. A lot on the line. Details ahead.

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[15:57:03]

KEILAR: Venezuela is headed to the World Baseball Classic final. The team swarming the field after ending Italy's Cinderella run with a 4-2 win in the semifinals on Monday night.

JIMENEZ: They are the first Venezuelan team to reach the World Baseball Classic championship and they're going to face a star studded Team USA tonight. CNN's Don Riddell joins us now.

Don, intense, interesting matchup here.

DON RIDDELL, CNN ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: Intense, interesting in more ways than one guy. So as you say, Venezuela heading to their first ever title game against the American team now who are making their third consecutive trip to the final. Let's show you how Venezuela did it because they were 2-1 down against Italy in the seventh inning with two outs. But Braves star Ronald Acuna Jr. put on the afterburners to beat the throw, knocking in the tying run and juicing the crowd. And I mean, as you can tell, they were just loving it.

The South Americans scored two more in the inning capped with Luis Urias' shot to left which scored Acuna putting them 4-2 ahead. All their hits coming with two outs in this inning. And then Daniel Palencia closed it out in the ninth setting up what we think should be a classic final because both teams tonight are just oozing with MLB superstars. Venezuela, for example, they've got the likes of Acuna Jr., Urias, who is a three time batting champ, and the two time Golden Glove winner, Wilyer Abreu. The U.S. are powered at the plate by captain Aaron Judge of the Yankees.

They've got other sluggers like Bryce Harper and Cal Raleigh, and one of the brightest new stars in the game, Boston's Roman Anthony. The games so far throughout this tournament have been absolute cinema. The fans in the stands have been exuberant, loud, phenomenal. There's every indication this may be the best game yet. And this final, of course, is just as intriguing off the field.

Especially given the U.S.'s recent raid on the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's compound, which led to that spectacular event with the U.S. military, took him back to New York to face drugs trafficking charges. So all of that going on in the background, all to play for on the baseball. And of course the U.S., the Americans in sport recently are on a pretty hot run, so they'll be looking to continue that tonight in Miami at 8:00.

KEILAR: All right, we'll see how that turns out. Don Riddell, thank you so much.

From pitching to the pitch, the 2026 World Cup quickly approaching and U.S. soccer is now unveiling the team USA's new jerseys. The players collaborated with Nike to make two jerseys, one stars, one stripes. It's going to be featured at the summer's games.

JIMENEZ: Fans are going to get a first look at the jerseys in action when the U.S. men's National Team faces Belgium in a friendly this month. Can we bring up that red -- that red version one more time?

KEILAR: Yes.

JIMENEZ: Yes, we just have -- we just got to see a little bit of what they're working with. These are obviously the blue versions, but the red version -- yes -- what's going on here?

KEILAR: OK, I actually really like these, but I want them --

JIMENEZ: Yes.

KEILAR: -- together. Like, I want the shorts to be the blue and I want this. Otherwise, you're -- you might be in danger of like a where's Waldo World Cup edition.

JIMENEZ: (Inaudible) situation --

KEILAR: Right.

JIMENEZ: -- debate hopefully with this.

KEILAR: We'll keep debating this.

JIMENEZ: We'll continue with Kasie Hunt and "The Arena" starting right now.