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Israeli Barrage on Lebanon Tests Fragile U.S.-Iran Ceasefire; Trump Asked Netanyahu to Seek Direct Talks with Lebanon; Emperor Penguin, Antarctic Fur Seal Now Listed as Endangered; What Happens When You Leave Your Smartphone Behind. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired April 09, 2026 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Israel's long-running conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon now front and center in efforts to keep the U.S. truce with Iran from coming apart. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling for direct negotiations with Lebanon, though a Lebanese official says that won't happen while the country is under attack.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Today Lebanon's prime minister instructed security forces to clear Beirut of non-state weapons, an order likely directed at Hezbollah, though it's unclear if it'll have a significant impact on the current conflict.

We're joined now by a former spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, Hagar Chemali. She's also the host of Oh My World on YouTube. Hagar, thanks so much for being with us.

So Lebanese officials saying they won't negotiate with Israel under fire. We got an update moments ago about Israeli operations currently underway. So what are the contours of this conversation?

HAGAR CHEMALI, FORMER SPOKESPERSON FOR U.S. MISSION TO THE U.N.: Well, we've actually heard a mix of things. So one of the most recent is that there will be talks at the State Department next week, led by U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa. And they would include the Israeli ambassador to the United States and possibly the Lebanese ambassador to the United States, or maybe another -- there have been other names tossed around as well.

But right now there's potential talks happening next week, direct talks, which is super exciting, actually. The prime minister of Israel has said that even with talks, that doesn't necessarily mean that a ceasefire would be in place. That's not uncommon, by the way.

A lot of talks happen while you are having active violence. And I think that the strikes that took place in Beirut yesterday in particular, that caused a lot of widespread panic across the capital and across the country, really motivated the Lebanese government to say that they wanted to pursue talks.

KEILAR: How can Israel get what it wants negotiating with the Lebanese government when Hezbollah is doing its sort of own thing there in Lebanon? CHEMALI: Yes, it's actually, but it's a very unique time. I think this question, the answer to this question, would have been a bit different only a few months ago. But now you have an active effort by the Israelis to degrade Hezbollah as much as possible and to assassinate as many leaders as much as possible.

And you have a government and people who are so irate at Hezbollah, they view it as it has always been, which is a proxy of the Iranian regime. It is an establishment of the Iranian regime, and it takes its orders from Tehran. And now you have the entire population pissed at them for inviting this war into the country that nobody wanted.

The Lebanese government has come out to say that Hezbollah's operations, military and security operations in the country are illegal. They have tried to arrest, tried being the operative or tried to arrest Hezbollah operatives with weapons. They've PNGed the Iranian ambassador, though he has not left yet, but there is a lot of potential there.

So when they negotiate with the Lebanese government, yes, the onus is on the government to show some bravery here and to come forward to these talks in good faith and say, you know what? We really are going to disarm now. We really are going to be partners to the United States and to Israel and really forge a sovereign future ahead for ourselves.

SANCHEZ: Talk to us about this conversation in the context of the broader ceasefire talks that are underway this weekend in Islamabad. How critical is securing some sort of deal in Lebanon for the broader question of Iran's influence in the region?

CHEMALI: So it's clear that the White House doesn't want Lebanon to become an issue in the ceasefire talks in Islamabad. And Iran tried to flex its muscles on that and say, well, Lebanon is going to be part of this. And by the way, the Lebanese prime minister actually came out and said the Lebanese -- no one will negotiate on behalf of the Lebanese other than the Lebanese government.

And that was the right point to make. That was a message in particular to Tehran to say, you know what? You started this.

You're using our land to pursue your ideological fanatical goals and you're not going to go and negotiate on our behalf. So there is no desire on the part of the Lebanese government to let them be swooped up in what's happening in Iran. They have a desire to maintain that separation.

Washington wants to make sure that things in Lebanon are not so violent or not so hairy, if you will, that it ends up undermining those talks in Islamabad. And you see that now they're trying to manage that.

KEILAR: There was this extraordinary moment yesterday as we look towards the vice president heading towards these talks this weekend, where he was saying that this confusion over whether Lebanon was included in the ceasefire was the result of a legitimate misunderstanding. Incredibly charitable he was being towards Iran. [15:35:00]

And I wonder if you took that as a sign that the U.S. is so wanting an off-ramp here, or if you took that as a sign of just how disorganized these negotiations may be, or is it both, or is it also other things? What did you read in that?

CHEMALI: Well, so from what I've heard, there's no deal yet. There's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of confusion.

And as a result, you have a lot of folks coming out, including the Pakistanis, saying things that Washington is vehemently disagreeing with. So yes, definitely some disorganization. It's not perfectly organized.

I will tell you that the president's tweet on Sunday, on Easter, where he said, you know, get out of the Strait.

KEILAR: You mean the one where he threatened to destroy a civilization?

CHEMALI: That was the next day.

KEILAR: OK.

CHEMALI: Yes, that one too. It showed desperation, in my view. This is not something I would have ever advised the president to say, no matter what he's thinking.

Because to the Iranian regime, they see a tweet like that, and they think that's exactly where we want to have you. You seem desperate. That's exactly where we want you.

So you do see a sense of maybe some disorganized, maybe a little bit of desperation because of the Strait of Hormuz. But I also don't think that this is over. I think this is going to be very tenuous.

You already see the regime still causing problems in the Strait, or just not really living up to what Washington said they wanted. And it's not, you know, it's going to be a while. It's not over till the fat lady sings.

KEILAR: All right. We'll wait for that. Hagar, thank you so much.

And still ahead, an iconic species known for surviving the harshest of conditions in Antarctica is now on the brink of extinction. How the warming planet is causing these happy feet to disappear.

SANCHEZ: Plus, our CNN team trying a digital detox to better understand social media's impact on your brain. The results, you have to see to believe.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SANCHEZ: Climate change is pushing two iconic species closer to extinction. Emperor penguins and Antarctic fur seals are now being listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The group citing factors like warming ocean waters, melting sea ice and declining availability of food.

Joining us now to discuss is wildlife and conservation expert Jeff Corwin, also the host of the TV show "Wildlife Nation". Jeff, thanks so much for being with us.

Emperor penguins lost about 10 percent of their population between 2009 and 2018. The fur seal population shrank more than 50 percent since 1999.

Is the blame squarely on climate change? Is that the only factor at play?

JEFF CORWIN, WILDLIFE AND CONSERVATION EXPERT: Well, climate change, Boris, plays a significant contributor to the demise of these iconic and symbolic species. So interestingly about the fur seals of Antarctica, they were pushed to the brink of extinction 60, 70 years ago from overhunting. They were protected and then their population rebounded so successfully that they were no longer endangered.

But now they are collapsing because the environment that they depend upon, that sea ice, those incredible white stretches of ice in Antarctica are literally melting away beneath their flippers and their feet.

SANCHEZ: What would it mean to see the emperor penguin population decline as it's projected to by about half in the next 50 years or so?

CORWIN: Well, there is nothing more glorious in the world of penguins than the emperor penguin. This is a creature that stands as tall as a seven-year-old kid and weighs about 100 pounds. But they need that ice.

Yes, they swim and they hunt in the cold waters of Antarctica, but they need that ice to nest, to raise their offspring, to breed, to sleep. And what a loss it would be to our natural heritage to lose these species.

The same for these, the Cape fur seal. They're integral to the ecosystem in the cold waters of the South. And the krill that they depend upon, this is the food that they eat, is going deeper and deeper and literally is beyond their reach for a creature that is designed to survive in the wild of a watery ecosystem.

SANCHEZ: So help us understand some important distinctions about this. The ICUN red list is different from classifications under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Help us understand that.

CORWIN: Sure, that's a great question. Well, the U.S. Endangered Species Act is our policies that protect species that we recognize in the United States. Sometimes those are international species, but our species, for example, bald eagles were critically endangered and then they've made this huge recovery.

The IUCN is a group, a collaboration of thousands of the world's leading scientists that put together this global list of species that are in trouble. But even for us, Boris, the United States, we are the pioneers of this technology and of this science and of this environmental stewardship. But even our own Endangered Species Act is now in the crosshairs.

We literally just had what is known as the God Squad. The God Squad is a group of folks that have determined in a secret meeting that we can allow species in the Gulf of Mexico to go extinct. For example, endangered species like the rice whale or our precious manatees.

[15:45:00]

Literally, we will excuse that extinction in the interests of petroleum and excavating for minerals and for oil. This is something that's happening today.

So it's not just Antarctica. It's in our own country where literally these regulations, these time-tested pragmatic regulations, which, Boris, are politically agnostic. We're talking about regulations that were created under Republican administrations.

These are literally going away, and our own shared natural heritage is going to pay that price.

SANCHEZ: Jeff Corwin, thank you so much for helping us get the message out.

CORWIN: My pleasure.

SANCHEZ: Brianna.

KEILAR: Call it the digital detox deluxe. Today, the Washington Post profiled what it reports is one of the largest studies of its kind probing what happens when people get off of their smartphones. The result, participants may have erased what amounts to be about 10 years of age-related decline. Can you believe that?

Researchers said more than 460 people use an app that turned their smartphone into a dumb phone so they could only make calls and texts. And after two weeks, researchers say screen time went down from 314 minutes to 161 minutes, and their sustained attention vastly improved.

CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir is with us now. Bill, you were not part of this study. You did do a very similar detox. Is your attention just like amazing now?

How's it going?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: It's noticeable. I am here to vouch for this. I mean, there's a really a dearth of data on this.

This is emerging science. As we now understand the costs of these devices for the 50th anniversary of Apple. I looked at both what these things are doing to us, pros and cons, and went up to the University of Western Ontario. Dr. Emma Durden studies screen time on brains, especially teen brains. Among teens, it's like eight hours a day, screen time. Adults, four to five. I was up around six before I did this sort of thing.

So she measured my brain waves. We did some tests. And then I spent two weeks on an old school dumb phone.

Just put my iPhone in a box, and here's a little sample.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WEIR: Hello? Yes, I'm on the dumb phone.

WEIR (voice-over): After two weeks of iPhone fasting, my social media cravings are fading. My keypad typing is improving, but I really miss the camera. I strap on the brain sensor, repeat the tests, and send the results to Emma Durden.

DR. EMMA DURDEN, STUDIES SCREEN TIME ON BRAINS: Your reaction time improved by about a fifth of a second over that time period.

WEIR: That's a 23 percent improvement in reaction time.

DURDEN: Yes, so you did. So you improved, yes.

WEIR (voice-over): By every measure, she says my dumb phone brain outperformed by a surprising margin.

WEIR: Pre-detox, I'm below zero brain activity. And then after the detox, look at that red line. It just jumps up there.

DURDEN: Big jump, yes. I have to admit, I was pretty surprised when I saw these differences.

WEIR: By how big the changes were?

DURDEN: Yes, I mean, the connectivity in your brain became even more coordinated and organized over that time period.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WEIR (on camera): One other research, we use the analogy of as we're scrolling all day, it's sort of like writing information on a whiteboard, erasing it, writing again, again, and again. And sometimes those remnants get in the way. That's where brain fog comes from.

And actually, you know, the part of your brain, the hippocampus, is shrinking as a result of using GPS to get around instead of navigating the world like our parents and grandparents used to right now. This is all part of a movement. You can go to the first phone-free bar in Washington, Hush Harbor.

You'd love it, Brianna, there. there's a month offline challenge where they'll give you the dumb phone that I had as part of their initiation there. But it feels like we're an inflection point where I want to use these as tools instead of being used by them.

They're so hypnotic.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly true. And I guess I can say to my kids, it's true. When I told you, you don't want one of those things because it's rotting your brain, I wasn't lying.

Bill Weir told me that that's what happened to him. Bill Weir, thank you so much. Really fascinating.

Great experience there. And you can catch Bill's full report on CNN "ALL ACCESS". We'll be back after a quick break.

[15:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Eva Longoria is back. And this time she's in France in a journey that takes her all across the country from Paris to the French Riviera. Longoria meets with some of the world's greatest chefs to learn about the culture, cuisine and history of each region.

KEILAR: And her first stop is the City of Lights. And it brings her to take a deep dive into one of the specialties that France is most known for, patisserie. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You push, you pipe.

EVA LONGORIA, CNN SEARCHING FOR FRANCE: Yep.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And after you cut.

LONGORIA (voice-over): Looks easy, but getting each one identical and precise, this is years of craftsmanship on display.

LONGORIA: Oh, wow. Do you just know this size by heart?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I pipe so many macaroons.

LONGORIA: In your life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can make without the --

LONGORIA: When you're blindfolded.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

[15:55:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And after, just before to wait to put in the oven.

LONGORIA (voice-over): So aggressive for something so delicate.

LONGORIA: Oh, that's what makes it bigger. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: S'il vous plait, madame.

LONGORIA: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Perfect.

LONGORIA: Oh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The piping bag a little bit more straight.

LONGORIA: Straight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

LONGORIA: Told you, Julian, I'm coming for your job.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bravo.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good job.

LONGORIA: OK. Now do your --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

LONGORIA: Do that thing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Joining us now to discuss her travels is Eva Longoria. What fun, Eva. And that's a clip where you're with the executive pastry chef of Laduree, who actually made a special macaron flavor just for you.

That is not what I expected about the process. Tell us about that. I didn't know that you had to spank the baby macaron.

LONGORIA: Yes, apparently, it's a very aggressive process. But yes, I mean, we did a whole episode of patisserie. So everything from bread and desserts, everything that is baked.

And that was, let me tell you, it was a tough job. It was a tough job to eat all of those things. But to be at Laduree, which was such a, it's such an institution, it really brought the macaron to popularity all over the world.

And to be able to be in that kitchen and make my own flavor was pretty remarkable.

SANCHEZ: Was that your favorite French pastry that you tried?

LONGORIA: No, no. I love an eclair. Like I'm a purist.

I love a chocolate eclair. But now there's so many other creations. There's these beautiful custards that are shaped like a mango or shaped like some other kind of object. And you break it open and it has the hard exterior white chocolate shell, but a custard inside. There's so many patisseries. Obviously chocolate and chocolatiers are very famous in France as well.

So that was a fun episode. We did that one in Paris. But we went to -- we have eight episodes.

So we went to Brittany, we went to Burgundy, Bordeaux, Provence. We really made our way around. And Alsace, which was the German side.

KEILAR: And what did you think about the regional differences? I think a lot of people, they think of Paris when they're thinking of cuisine, or maybe it's sort of, they have an idea, but it's a little bit two- dimensional for them. And that's not what you found in this.

Tell us about that.

LONGORIA: Yes, no, I think we associate France with just Paris. And there's so much more to France. Like I said, Alsace is a beautiful country.

It's Strasbourg, Colmar, really a lot of German influences, great Rieslings come from there. Burgundy, if you go to Bonne or Dijon, you have truffles, you have escargot, of course, burgundy wines. And in the south, Provence, you have amazing Mediterranean food.

One thing I did learn was, I think one of our assumptions about France is it's all butter, so much butter. There's a lot of butter, but it's in the north. So the north of the country's butter, south of the country's olive oil.

So they don't really cook with butter in the south. So yes, I think we have preconceptions of what we think France is, and this show will show you the full diversity of the gastronomy.

SANCHEZ: Lather the butter with your heart. The more butter, the better. Olive oil, maybe?

KEILAR: Put them together, I say. Cook with both.

SANCHEZ: Why not? We're looking forward to this back-to-back premiere of the series this weekend.

What are you most excited for viewers to see?

LONGORIA: Oh, you know, I like when viewers get to travel through this show, and I am the perfect way in because I'm so curious. I get very excited about food. I'm a foodie.

I'm a traveler. I love culture. I love history.

You know, you will see in the show how much research we do and how politicized food has been historically. When I did Searching for Mexico and Spain, you really saw how colonization or immigration really changed the food culture in these countries. And France is no different. It's really a diverse country with a lot of tradition, but a lot of innovation. So I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised, not to mention how beautiful the food looks.

KEILAR: Yes, gorgeous.

SANCHEZ: Yes, we're going to be living vicariously through you and envious of everything that you got to eat.

LONGORIA: Good.

SANCHEZ: Eva Longoria, thank you so much.

LONGORIA: Yes, I got the dream job.

SANCHEZ: You do. You do, for sure. Be sure to tune in for the back-to- back premiere of the CNN original series, "EVA LONGORIA, SEARCHING FOR FRANCE."

It airs Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on CNN.

KEILAR: And don't forget, CNN special coverage of the Artemis II splashdown starts at 7 p.m. tomorrow. Watch that history-making crew return back home with us.

THE ARENA with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

END