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White House Says U.S. Achieved and Exceeded Its Core Military Objectives in Iran; Vance, Witkoff, Kushner to Attend Talks in Pakistan This Weekend; White House Says Iran Privately Assures U.S. That Hormuz Strait is Open; Trump Says Israeli Strikes on Lebanon Not Included in Ceasefire Deal; Gas Prices Edge Up as Oil Prices Plunge Amid Fragile Truce; Suspect Admits Strangling Eight Women in Gilgo Beach Serial Killings. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 08, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:42]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Just moments ago, the White House responded to what's been happening with the fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. Fewer than 24 hours after both sides declared it, Iran says it is halting tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iranian State Media.

President Trump had posted that re-opening the key oil transport lane was a must for the U.S. to adhere to the truce.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": But Iranian media says Iran took action after Israel attacked the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon today, saying that is a ceasefire violation. White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt said public reports of the Strait's closure contradict what the president has been told privately.

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KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president was made aware of those reports before I came to the podium. That is completely unacceptable. And again, this is a case of what they're saying publicly is different privately. We have seen an uptick of traffic in the Strait today. And I will reiterate the president's expectation and demand that the Strait of Hormuz is re-opened immediately, quickly and safely.

That is his expectation. It has been relayed to him privately that that is what's taking place. And these reports publicly are false.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Nic Robertson is joining us now from Tel Aviv. So Nic, help us kind of wrap our heads around this, because there is a shaky ceasefire, but the conditions of the ceasefire do not appear to be fully in place or fully agreed upon. So where are things right now? NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, and I think one of the standout issues that becomes clearer is that Israel wasn't part of the agreement that the Pakistanis struck between the U.S. and Iran. And that seems to be an issue right now.

We've just heard from Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu saying that Hezbollah is not part of the ceasefire agreement. That follows what President Trump says. It runs against what the Iranians are saying. Very clearly, the foreign minister saying in the last hour or so that the strikes, Israel strikes in Lebanon today against Hezbollah are out with that agreement. The ball, he said, is in the U.S. court.

The Pakistanis, we've heard from their ambassador to the to the U.N. today, saying that what the Pakistan prime minister put to both sides, the United States and Iran, was inclusive of Lebanon being part of that ceasefire deal, putting Hezbollah off limits to Israel. So it really seems to be a fact that Israel is not party to whatever was agreed between -- the Pakistan prime minister believes he had agreement on.

And perhaps this speaks to the fact that these are incredibly difficult negotiations to potentially have when you don't have all participants around the table. And you do have such significant gaps between the two main protagonists, the U.S. and Iran here, that the gaps are large in terms of what both sides are saying. Everyone is claiming a victory.

That's what Prime Minister Netanyahu just talked about here in a television address, saying that this was a huge victory, that Iran has been substantially militarily beaten back. Very much an echo of what we've heard from the White House press secretary today and from Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense. So it's very hard to, I think, try to frame this in a simple way because it is complex and utterly absolutely at this moment it's fragile.

I know from speaking with sources in Pakistan, they feel that this agreement that they've got is still holding. But the rhetoric at the moment isn't matching from all sides. And this will be tested if and when there are talks in Islamabad later this week.

SANCHEZ: Nic Robertson, live for us in Tel Aviv. Thank you so much for that update. Back with us now, CNN Global Affairs Analyst, Kimberly Dozier; David Sanger, a CNN Political and National Security Analyst, and CNN Military Analyst, retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Colonel Leighton, I want to start with you because what we heard at the beginning of this conflict from various administration officials is that part of the objective was to prevent Iran from developing a conventional shield of drones and all sorts of missiles that would block any, whether the U.S. or Israel, any power from intervening if it decided to go for a nuclear weapon.

[14:05:15] How successful would you say that effort was up until now, given that Karoline Leavitt has described this as exceeding core military objectives?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yeah, Boris, that's a great question, because what you're ending up with here in this regional map, this is basically what the shield would have looked like. Basically, the Iranians would have been able to keep this area safe from anything incoming into their area.

And the idea would be for them to, in essence, establish a kind of missile and air defense shield that would prevent Israel or the United States or any other power, including Saudi Arabia, from attacking them. As far as how successful were we in preventing them from setting this up, well, I think it was definitely set back in terms of those kinds of capabilities. But the problem is, is that the Iranians still have some significant missile capabilities.

They also have some significant drone capabilities, obviously, because one of the things that they've done is they have actually been able to attack the pipeline that goes -- the east-west pipeline that goes from the eastern part of Saudi Arabia, the oil fields right here, to the Port of Yanbu, which is on the Red Sea.

This is how Saudi Arabia has been able to kind of circumvent what's going on around the Strait of Hormuz. But the attack on Yanbu and on the oil pipeline may create a bit of a problem here, because instead of being a shield, what the Iranians are doing is they're basically, which is a defensive capability, the Iraninans are basically able to use offensive capabilities and potentially even cut off this ability of Saudi Arabia to export its oil through the Port of Yanbu, which is right there.

KEILAR: Cedric, how are you seeing this period of time where she's saying the U.S. has achieved and exceeded its core military objectives, and she's emphasizing that the president said this would be a four- to six-week mission, kind of saying, like, there's a line here, that's what happened in the first 38 days. When we know that these American assets, these troops, they are not going anywhere here in the coming days, how are you seeing this timeline, the differentiation between then and whatever is happening now with this fragile ceasefire?

LEIGHTON: Yeah, the ceasefire is definitely fragile, Brianna, and one of the key things that you noted here is basically that the troops that we have arrayed on this side of the Persian Gulf and in the Gulf of Oman and in the other parts of the Persian Gulf, those troops are basically on standby. And as Secretary Hegseth and General Caine mentioned in their briefing this morning, what they're looking at is basically they're staying in place in order to, in essence, monitor the ceasefire.

Now, the question is exactly how are they going to do it? What kind of verification procedures are they going to use? How are they going to enforce this ceasefire? Because the Iranians, they're going to want to contest anything that is really happening in the Strait of Hormuz. And in fact, when you look at the marine traffic that is happening right -- well, that was recorded earlier today, it's very sparse when it comes to the area going through right here, and that means that the Iranians are still effectively blocking most of the traffic, a vast majority of the traffic, and that very fact is really showing us that the Strait of Hormuz is, as far as we can see right now, not open for business.

SANCHEZ: And David, obviously this is the result of the Israeli strikes in Lebanon. We've gone over the dispute between the two parties as to whether or not Lebanon was included in this ceasefire. We heard from Nic Robertson there in Tel Aviv saying that Israel did not play a significant role in the development of this ceasefire.

And in context, we have some reporting from your colleagues at the New York Times about this presentation that Benjamin Netanyahu gave at the White House in the Situation Room, of all places, not a place that many foreign leaders get to enter, and he was trying to sell Trump specifically and the administration on the idea, these sort of four pillars, that Iran could be destroyed militarily, that there would be an uprising from within, and the reaction from some administration officials to aspects of that presentation is notable.

You had the CIA Director, John Ratcliffe, saying that some of this is farcical. Now that we're watching the other side of this, with Israel apparently not abiding to what Pakistan and Iran say was part of the ceasefire, how does all of this come together? Put it into context for us.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL & NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, first, just on Cedric's good point here, we're going to know whether or not there's normal traffic going through the Strait because we know how many ships went through each day prior to the war, and it was between 130 and 140.

[14:10:00]

It's been down to 10, 12, 15 in recent times. So if we're not back up in a few days to those 130, 140, presumably even more, because there's so much traffic bottled up in the Gulf, then you'll know that this is not really open.

To the question of how it could be that our close ally in this does not interpret this ceasefire the same way we do, it's the same pattern we have seen since the start of the war. The president did not consult his NATO allies. His NATO allies did not want to come into the war. The president did not warn his Gulf allies. The Gulf allies are angry that they got fired upon with too little preparation.

And now it looks like he was so eager to get the ceasefire, for understandable reasons, that there wasn't sufficient coordination with the Israelis. On the great story that Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan published yesterday, an excerpt from their forthcoming book, the remarkable part of this was the Israelis presented an intelligence case that said the Iranian people will rise up within days. They didn't. Maybe they will in the future. They didn't. And so that was one of a series of false, or at least overly optimistic, predictions that we heard from Israeli intelligence that U.S. intelligence rejected, and the president decided to go ahead anyway.

KEILAR: To add some lack of clarity to the situation, I'd like to tell you what we are just learning about what Netanyahu has said in public comments. He said that Israel has more objectives to achieve and intends to achieve them either through agreement or renewed fighting. And he also said that the ceasefire came into effect, quote, "in full coordination with Israel."

He insists Israel was not caught by surprise. So he seems to be pushing back against any sort of characterization of Israel not being really a party to them, even though we know that sort of is the case, but certainly not having their input there. And he stressed that they are continuing to strike forcefully.

Hezbollah suffered the most severe strike today since the Beeper operation which, of course, was that 2024 attack, September 2024, on thousands of pagers that Hezbollah had in their possession. How are you seeing that?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Netanyahu has to portray to his own population that he's close and lockstep with Trump because that matters to him for his next election. But also, look, Netanyahu is getting what he wants, in that the White House is saying, yes, you can keep attacking Lebanon.

The IDF even put out a release overnight saying that it hit a flurry of targets after the ceasefire was announced. Netanyahu has always said from the beginning that Israel will continue to fight for its own interests. The White House isn't pushing back on that.

And he can see the writing on the wall that the Strait of Hormuz isn't open yet and that all of the elements are there for this to fall apart. So from Netanyahu's perspective, this is just bookmarking a return to fighting in future.

KEILAR: All right, thank you for the conversation. It's a really interesting time, a critical time, and we'll see where this goes, because it seems it has the potential to go in many different directions. A lot more on this ceasefire still ahead, including what it could mean for the people of Iran. We're going to talk to a former political prisoner who is very familiar with Tehran's brutal regime.

Plus, don't expect cheaper gas prices anytime soon. Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz and the massive backlog of ships there that are trapped in the Persian Gulf could make it extremely challenging to get oil flowing quickly again.

SANCHEZ: Also today, an accused serial killer back in court admitting to killing more than a half dozen women in New York's Long Island. That and much more coming your way on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [14:18:53]

SANCHEZ: New today, Iranian State Media says that all oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has been halted after Israel carried out attacks on Lebanon. Data shows just two tankers passed through the critical waterway since the ceasefire was announced. That, of course, just a drop in the massive ocean of backlog tankers trapped in the Persian Gulf.

Spurred by news of this ceasefire, oil prices dropped today, but still sit significantly higher than where they were immediately before the war began. We're joined now by Director of Economic Policy at Veda Partners, Henrietta Treyz. Henrietta, thank you so much for being with us.

So, as President Trump suggests that the U.S. could team up with Iran to regulate traffic through the Strait, how likely is that to happen?

HENRIETTA TREYZ, DIRECTOR OF ECONOMIC POLICY, VEDA PARTNERS: I think that's quite unlikely. And if they did, you know, what's the new Iran tax going to be? They're charging a toll over there that's generating, if they keep it up, about $7 billion a year just from the Iranian crude that's coming through and the ships that they're going to toll.

So would the U.S. get another dollar on top of that and double that number?

[14:20:00]

The bottleneck is severe, as you mentioned, and I don't see any path towards this being a shared, permissible thing that the Gulf nations could be comfortable with or the rest of the world could digest going forward.

SANCHEZ: What does this mean for energy markets that there's an uncertainty now over the ceasefire and whether Lebanon was included in it or not, if we're walking into the situation where there's a theoretical two-week ceasefire, but it's not really being upheld?

TREYZ: Yeah, the uncertainty component here is really the problem. You know, gas prices are $4.16, not only are we just cycling off of what is left and what we have, but there's only two ships that have gone through so far. 800 are sitting in the bays as you mentioned and getting those guys out is going to take an estimated 200 days to move through the bottleneck. And then what Lloyds is really talking about this morning I think is super interesting, they're saying who's going to be the first guy to go back in and get a refill of fertilizer, of helium, whatever it may be, who's going back in to chance that, especially if the ceasefire isn't holding on Day 1, where are we going to be on Day 7, Day 13, Day 14? The risks are going to last throughout the ceasefire period.

SANCHEZ: Yeah and the follow-up question is, who's going to ensure that. So, what do companies and insurers need to see in order to restart the flow of ships? TREYZ: That's the best question. Some of my best contacts throughout this entire ordeal have been the insurers. There is a backstop program that's sort of fledgling right now. It's led by Chubb domestically. But there are so many details and it's all contingent on how every single day is going and it's a ship-by-ship basis. So it's really not at all streamlined, extraordinarily expensive. I think it's a 300 percent increase just in insurance to get those ships through. For gas prices, that means they're going to stay elevated for months to come. It will not drop overnight and the rule of thumb is gas prices go up about twice as fast as they come down, so we've got a long way to go.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. You mentioned the 200 days that you're anticipating for things potentially to level off. What other hangover effects economically can we expect?

TREYZ: Yeah. Unfortunately, that stat of 200 days, I should mention, was before they blew up the largest LNG facility on earth.

SANCHEZ: Yikes.

TREYZ: So there's going to be a rebuilding that has to start. I mean it is a real mess across the board over there. And again, I can't stress enough that I don't know that there's certainty from the insurers that ships are going to go back in after they get the 800 tankers that have gone in and been stuck there for the last however many days, to get anybody to go back in and start the flow at a regular order again.

SANCHEZ: Is it safe to assume that we're not going to see gas prices get back down to where they were before the war began within the next six to twelve months, maybe more?

TREYZ: I think that's probably about the time frame that you should use towards the 12-month and at a minimum.

SANCHEZ: Wow.

TREYZ: I'm really worried about the fertilizer reserves in the immediate term. You know, nobody has a fertilizer reserve, so you you're going to run out a product before we get anything turned back on. So we're not at the worst of it yet. And I think for the U.S. side, what's interesting to note is that we are still receiving shipments from before the war started. Those stop and come to a full halt around April 15th.

So the talk of reopening and getting back to normal is, I think, premature because we have not yet seen the worst of it. I mean gas prices are trading off of the ceasefire right now, which is great, but the actual functional bottleneck and logjam created by the war over these last six weeks is going to take months on its own to sort out before we can get back to the pre-February 28th level.

SANCHEZ: And that's if the ceasefire winds up lasting. Henrietta Treyz, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

TREYZ: Thanks for having me. SANCHEZ: Of course. Still ahead, accused serial killer, Rex Heuermann comes face-to-face with his victim's families. We have an update on what was a chilling day in court as he admitted to the murders. Next.

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[14:28:50]

KEILAR: Right now, family members and law enforcement officials are speaking out after the Gilgo Beach murder suspect confessed to his crimes. Today, Rex Heuermann admitted in court that he strangled eight women and dumped their bodies across Long Island.

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JUDGE TIMOTHY MAZZEI, SUFFOLK COUNTY SUPREME COURT: Are you willing to waive your right to appeal in this case in return for the plain sentence agreement?

REX HEUERMANN, SERIAL KILLER: Yes.

MAZZEI: Do you waive your right to appeal voluntarily of your own free will?

HEUERMANN: Yes, I do.

MAZZEI: Are you entering this plea bargain voluntarily of your own free will?

HEUERMANN: Yes, I am.

MAZZEI: Do you understand that by pleading guilty, you're waiving any defense you may have in this case?

HEUERMANN: Yes, I do.

MAZZEI: Are you pleading guilty voluntarily and of your own free will?

HEUERMANN: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Jean Casarez is with us now on this. This is very big news in this case. So many families have been waiting for some kind of resolution here over the years. Tell us more about this plea here, Jean.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the plea -- and this was the plea hearing and this case has now become truly historic because we can call Rex Heuermann a serial killer right now. And this morning, late morning, he was in court, and he pleaded guilty to seven counts of seven young women who he murdered that were in the indictments.

And also, surprisingly, another victim who was not charged at all, her name Karen (ph) Vergata, but she was also on Long Island --