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Trump Vows to Unleash Hell on Iran if No Deal by 8 p.m. ET Tonight; Qatari Official Says Iran War Could Spiral Out of Control; Iran Calls for Human Chains Around Power Plants Amid Trump Threats; Rapper Offset Hospitalized After Being Shot in Florida; Delta Raises Checked Bag Fees as Jet Fuel Prices Surge; Michigan Tops UConn for First National Title Since 1989; Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired April 07, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:30:10]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": President Trump's deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz and make a deal with the United States is now six-and-a-half hours away. He raised the stakes this morning in grave terms when he posted, quote, "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will."

Sources say that overnight the U.S. struck military targets on Iran's Kharg Island, though it did not hit critical oil facilities there, instead focusing on military targets. Civilian infrastructure, however, was hit elsewhere in Iran.

Israel says it attacked Iranian railways and bridges. CNN Chief Global Affairs Correspondent, Matthew Chance is in the region in Doha, Qatar for us. Matthew, we've seen since the war broke out how Iran tends to retaliate against some of the Gulf neighbors, including Qatar, where you are. How worried are they about any action by the U.S. or Israel?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Boris, look, they're very worried. They're fearful, in fact, about what the coming hours could bring, because while President Trump is speaking about essentially killing a civilization, bombing Iran's civilian infrastructure, its power stations, things like that, its desalination plants, I mean, what he doesn't seem to be appreciating and the main concern here is, you know, the retaliation that Iran has vowed to undertake if that happens.

I mean, you're right. Iran has already been tossing missiles and drones sort of towards these Gulf Arab states over the course of the past five or six weeks since the war began, sort of targeting civilian infrastructure, energy infrastructure, things like that. But the Revolutionary Guard in Iran has vowed that that retaliation will be stepped up enormously if Trump carries out his threat to attack civilian infrastructure in Iran.

So an enormous amount of concern that could be catastrophic economically for the region, for the broader global economy, as this region is now on the brink of yet further escalation. Earlier, I spoke to a Qatari official, he's the foreign ministry spokesman person, and we discussed that exact issue. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHANCE: Given that we're now approaching President Trump's latest deadline, I think it's his fifth deadline, do you have any reason to be confident that this crisis can be defused before it's too late?

MAJED AL-ANSARI, SPOKESMAN, QATARI FOREIGN MINISTRY: We have been warning since 2023 that escalation left unchecked will get us into a situation where it cannot be controlled. And we are very close to that point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHANCE: Yeah, it could spiral out of control, very strong words there from the normally reserved Qatari foreign ministry. No one is ruling out, though, that in the hours ahead, there could be some sort of diplomatic solution. There are initiatives that are still being -- still underway, a Pakistani-led initiative. There's a 10-point plan that's been put out by the Iranians to bring the war to an end as well.

There's nothing public to suggest that any compromise is in the offing, but, you know, the alternative is an absolutely, potentially catastrophic escalation in this Iran war. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Matthew Chance, live for us in Doha, thank you so much. With us now to discuss, retired Army Major, Harrison Mann, a former official with the Defense Intelligence Agency who's now an Associate Campaigns Director for Win Without War, and Steven A. Cook, a Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Thank you both for being with us.

Major Mann, first to you. As far as these strikes on Kharg Island go, is this a precursor, do you think, perhaps to the United States attacking energy infrastructure itself?

MAJ. HARRISON MANN, U.S. ARMY (RET.): I think actually more concerning than that, it's meant to threaten a ground invasion there, because that's why you need to take care of the fortifications on the island to -- as preparatory strikes to land troops. This is something the administration has been threatening for weeks now.

I've said before, it would be a suicide mission. We saw over the weekend, how much effort and risk it took just to extract two aviators out of Iran. Think about getting an 800-man battalion out of there after you've landed them.

So why this might be a threat, I think compared to the infrastructure strikes that the administration is playing with, this is something the Iranian regime might welcome, in fact.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": And it's happening as the president has threatened to wipe out a civilization tonight. And he is prone to using bombastic rhetoric, but that is -- it's really an amazing statement that he's making. How are you seeing it, and is that something that even works to exert pressure on the Iranians?

STEVEN A. COOK, SENIOR FELLOW FOR MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA STUDIES, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Well, look, the president has -- there's a pattern here. The president has threatened tremendous amount of force.

[13:35:00]

The Iranians have essentially said, we're not intimidated. The president uses that force, and then the Iranians retaliate by hitting America's Gulf allies and Israel. If the president uses huge amounts of force, it will further undermine Iran's military power, but they have demonstrated a significant amount of staying power.

Through all of these five weeks of pounding that they've taken from the United States and Israel, they still are able to fire major numbers of salvos at Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, which has been under the radar screen, which has taken a terrible beating as a result, as well as Qatar and Kuwait.

This threat of this escalation is likely to, as the Qatari foreign ministry spokesman said, lead to further violence and more damage to those American partners on the western side of the Gulf.

KEILAR: And Major, I wonder how you see the threat and also how you see Israel, the U.S.' partner in this, attacking the targets that it's been attacking, transportation routes, including railways, bridges, and major highways, that they are seeing as legitimate military targets.

And with a note to our viewers, I want to note, you made the decision to resign from DIA because of U.S. support of Israel and how it was prosecuting the war in Gaza. That was a bridge too far for you. So I wonder how you're seeing this.

MANN: As somebody who left the military, because I did not want to be implicated in war crimes, I think it's important to note that both the U.S. and Israeli militaries have already been carrying out war crimes since the start of this conflict, from hitting schools, some by accident, but there's also been dozens of universities bombed, medical facilities.

The bridge that Trump bombed last week with the express intent not of achieving a military purpose, which theoretically could have made it legal, but to pressure the Iranian government. If that happened here, we would call that terrorism. We would know it was a war crime.

And so, something that has worried me from even before this war started is how the Trump administration is putting more and more senior officers and troops at every rank in the position where they have to either disobey an order, which is an extremely difficult thing to do, even if it's a patently unlawful order, or prosecute war crimes or otherwise break the law. And whatever happens tonight, I think we really -- you know, I want a lot of the officers out there to think really hard about how they want to look back on these years and, you know, whether they're willing to try and do the right thing now and take the licks that come with that or live with the stain that a lot of my colleagues do and potentially face Leavenworth in 2029.

You already had Ted Lieu today, a Representative from California, threatening, if you don't disobey unlawful orders, we are going to seek accountability for members of the military. It's a horrific position to be in that I don't envy any of these officers. But it's Trump who put them there.

And sadly, they've got to take a hard look at themselves and about how they want to behave in this historic moment.

SANCHEZ: If some of these orders are carried out against infrastructure that is untethered from any sort of military interests that Iran or the IRGC might have, what message does that send to the world?

COOK: Well, look, let me just underline a point that I think Harrison alluded to. There are moments, there are specific moments when infrastructure like railways and bridges are legitimate military targets. The transfer of missiles, drones, those kinds of things, which the Iranians have used. But of course, you know, the kind of mass force that the president is threatening doesn't seem to qualify for, you know, every bridge, every railway station don't seem to qualify as legitimate military targets.

I think what it says to the world is something that the world has already understood, which is the United States has strayed from many of the norms and principles by which we like to believe that we live and our conduct in the world.

And the president has, going back to his first administration and throughout this first year and a number of months of this administration, has almost used this as a badge of honor that he was going to bust these norms and principles by which the United States likes to believe it conducts itself in the world. And you see it already in the statements from American allies around the world, saying that they expect this conflict to be prosecuted in line with international law.

The president doesn't seem to believe that that applies to him.

KEILAR: Steven, how does it change when you have Iranians answering the call of the Iranian government forming these human chains through -- across bridges, around power plants, and we've been seeing video of that. How does that change how the U.S. or Israel should approach this?

COOK: Well, this makes it extraordinarily difficult for those people who have to carry out these orders because they know that these regimes are using civilians as human -- and they are putting them specifically in harm's way. Look, it strikes me that the president does not care and he will give the order anyway, and that people are going to suffer as a result.

[13:40:00]

This is one of those things, however, I think it's important to recognize that many Iranians have wanted to be liberated from this regime but the United States is at a point where it may be overplaying its hand here and by deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure and killing large numbers of civilians, that might change things.

SANCHEZ: Major, when it comes to reopening the Strait of Hormuz as a top priority for the administration, is there a middle ground between an overwhelming threat of violence, even potentially committing war crimes, and seeming to back away with allowing Iran to pursue nuclear weapons or perhaps a ballistic missile program, some of the other priorities that the administration has said this conflict aims to eliminate.

MANN: So Iran agreed to not build nuclear weapons long before this war started and has reiterated that -- I won't even call it a concession, but that policy throughout negotiations last month. So that we can say that's already off the table and I hope it's something Trump will point to, to say mission accomplished. Asking them to give up their ballistic missile program is, you know, we may like that, partners in the region may wish that to happen, but that's de facto asking them to disarm themselves and neuter their main offensive or defensive capability, so I think that's really unlikely.

In the immediate term, unfortunately, I think some kind of unilateral U.S. disengagement is probably the best option because what we've done with this war, is teach Iran that they had this power that they were afraid to use in the past, which was controlling basically the global economy and dominating this waterway which, I got to reiterate, was something they were afraid to experiment with before we put them in this position.

And so, right now, you hear Iranian leaders saying, now we want to basically have formal control. We want to charge a toll which they're already doing. Maybe we can talk them down from that position but I think it's not realistic to expect things going back to the status quo ante, unfortunately.

SANCHEZ: Major Mann, Steven Cook, thank you both for the perspective. Appreciate it.

Still plenty more news to come this afternoon. Artemis II leaving the lunar sphere of influence as it makes its way back to Earth. We're going to take a look at what their journey home will entail as we wait to hear from members of the crew.

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[13:46:33]

KEILAR: Now to some of the other headlines that we're watching this hour. Grammy-nominated rapper, Offset is recovering after a shooting in South Florida. A spokesperson says the artist, a former member of the rap trio Migos, was shot outside the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. He's now in stable condition.

Police say one person was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in connection with the incident. Another person was detained but has not been charged.

And Delta Airlines says it is increasing its baggage fees for travelers starting tomorrow. Fees for first and second check bags going up $10. A third bag goes up by $50 for domestic flights and on some select international flights. So that brings total fees for the first bag to $45, $55 for a second, $200 for a third.

Delta now joining United and JetBlue in raising those baggage fees as the industry is grappling with a spike in jet fuel prices that have been brought on by the war with Iran.

And a moment of triumph, 37 years in the making, killing my bracket, the University of Michigan capping off a dominant March Madness run to win the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship last night, their first since 1989. So much excitement for this. The Wolverines came out strong in the first half against UConn. The Huskies battled back. They got within four points in the game's final minute. But Michigan held on to win 69-63.

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DUSTY MAY, MICHIGAN HEAD COACH: When you bring a group this talented together and they decide from the beginning that they're going to do it this way and they never waver and they never change, that's probably the most uncommon thing in athletics now. But for these guys to cut down the nets after all they sacrificed is pretty special.

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KEILAR: And check out the celebration back on campus in Ann Arbor, a lot of excitement there. Some students lining up as early as 10 p.m. Sunday to get a prime spot for the party. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Happening now, the Artemis II astronauts are making their way home after their historic and record-breaking trip around the moon. The Orion capsule is exiting what's known as the lunar sphere of influence, where the moon's gravity is stronger than that of Earth. During this voyage, the four astronauts traveled deeper into space than any humans in history. And they're giving us some breathtaking glimpses from the far side of the moon.

The crew is scheduled to return to Earth on Friday with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego. Let's dig deeper on this history-making trip with Miles O'Brien, a CNN Aerospace Analyst. Miles, great to see you. Thanks for being with us.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AEROSPACE ANALYST: Hey, Boris. Good to see you.

SANCHEZ: Just wondering what you made of all the pictures that we saw yesterday, some spectacular images.

O'BRIEN: Wow. Yeah. It's like the difference between watching the color television we had in our basement in 1968, you know, with the rabbit ears, and now, I guess, a 5K image is what you're looking at right there. Pretty spectacular.

The detail on the craters of the moon, the eclipse there was fabulous. Look at the corona kind of coming across there. Really high-resolution take on something we thought we knew, 16-millimeter versus 5K, I'll take it any day. And you can only imagine what it was like with the naked eye. That crew had quite a privileged view of our little corner of the cosmos, didn't they?

[13:50:00]

SANCHEZ: Indeed, they did. And they said a few things that I thought were notable. One, the moon was browner than they expected. Do you have any indication why?

O'BRIEN: You know, I don't know why it's browner. You know, the Apollo astronauts reported this as well back in the day. For some reason, through our atmosphere, the browns get filtered out somehow. This is beyond my scientific capability at the moment. But there are more shades there than we see.

And, you know, famously, Harrison Jack Schmitt, the only scientist to fly on Apollo, found that orange rock which had volcanic origins. And there are shades of green up there as well. And maybe that's the green cheese. Who knows?

SANCHEZ: Yeah, I was wondering that. What kind of cheese is brown on the outside to make a comparison? But Miles, we just learned that Artemis II has left the lunar sphere of influence, which means that now they're heading toward Earth because Earth's gravitational pull is getting stronger and stronger as they approach.

Talk to us about the significance of that being a moment, but also when it comes to these images and being able to see it with the naked eye, what it does for science.

O'BRIEN: Well, you know, this is as far as science goes, let's not kid ourselves, there's no huge breakthroughs that happened on that flyby at 4,000 miles of altitude. But, you know, science is a process and every little bit of information helps.

And there were subtle pieces of information that added to the whole mix. They got an opportunity to see some things in a little different way. So I wouldn't, you know, overstate this as being, you know, Nobel award-winning science for sure.

(LAUGH)

O'BRIEN: But what this mission does is, it's the first step on a long campaign that would put an encampment on the moon potentially. And then you start doing some real science.

SANCHEZ: Obviously, before we get there, we have to have a successful splashdown. When we were there at the launch site at Kennedy Space Center, we talked about the importance of the heat shield. What are you going to be watching for as they approach Earth?

O'BRIEN: It's going to be a nail biter, I think, Boris. That heat shield on Artemis I three-and-a-half years ago didn't do so well. And there were some numerous hotspots on it. It's designed to burn away on purpose to shed the heat in an even fashion. And it's called ablative.

And it only works if it burns evenly. And that heat shield, the way the material was applied, it had hotspots, some gases got up underneath it. And you don't want that to happen because it's a 5,000- degree Fahrenheit re-entry, much hotter than the shuttle, I'll point out, because it's coming in that much faster.

They changed the technique for applying this ab coat, as it is called, and they changed the flight plan coming in. So hoping that will solve the problem is an understatement. We're just going to be holding our breath for a little while.

SANCHEZ: It'll be exciting to watch. Miles O'Brien, thanks so much for the perspective. Appreciate it.

So the daughter of an American woman missing at sea in the Bahamas is calling for a full investigation into her disappearance. We have the latest on what happened and the search right after this.

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[13:57:59]

KEILAR: Recovery efforts are underway right now for a Michigan woman who has been missing at sea for nearly three days at this point. Authorities say 55-year-old Lynette Hooker and her husband Brian seen here in an old photo, hit rough weather during a weekend boat trip in the Bahamas.

They say the husband told investigators that his wife fell overboard and was swept away by strong currents. Let's go to CNN's Brynn Gingras for the latest on this. Brynn, tell us how all of this went down.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Brianna, Lynette's daughter really pleading for any information about what exactly happened to her mother, Lynette and her husband there, as you showed viewers, David, they were traveling in the Bahamas. They're documenting their travels all on social media.

They were in a large sailboat and apparently, on Saturday night, at one point, they were in that small dinghy which is that video. There's a sailboat, you can see Lynette there in the front of those of Bahamian waters. But again, at one point, they were in that smaller dinghy only eight feet long in size.

There you see there and what we're hearing is that David told authorities in the Bahamas that at one point, those weather came through, strong currents came through at about on Saturday evening and swept Lynette overboard and he basically told police he saw her get swept away, he thought he saw her swimming towards shore and then he lost her, and has really no idea of what happened. Apparently, she also had the key to the engine of that dinghy around her neck and so the engine basically stopped. He told police he had to paddle his way to shore overnight for several hours, reaching the shore, and that's when a full-scale, you know, rescue mission basically took off in the early morning hours on Easter Sunday.

At this point, she has not been found and there are a lot of questions exactly what went down. All of this, of course, going -- this information going to police. The daughter asking a lot of questions, basically giving us a statement saying that she has been privy to very little information at this point. She's telling CNN that her sole concern is to find out what happened to my mother, make sure full and complete investigation is performed into her disappearance.

The U.S. State Department has told CNN that they are --