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Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) is Interviewed about Iran; Polling on Cigarette's Decline; Arctic Sea Ice at New Low. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired April 22, 2026 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:31:46]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's continue talking about the breaking news out of Iran. Iran's Revolutionary Guard now saying just this morning they have seized two ships traveling in the Strait of Hormuz. State media also saying a third vessel is, quote, "disabled" off Iran's coast.

This happening just hours after President Trump indefinitely extended the ceasefire with Iran. The president blaming the Iranian government, what he says is a seriously fractured Iranian government for its lack of cohesive, clear leadership for this pause in negotiations.

Now, officials in Iran, though, putting it bluntly this morning, saying the ceasefire extension means nothing.

Joining me right now is Democratic Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania. She's an Air Force veteran, sits on Armed Services and the Intelligence Committee.

It's good to see you. Thank you for being here.

What does an indefinite ceasefire mean to you, especially in light of now seeing that the IRGC says they've fired upon and seized ships in Hormuz, in the Strait?

REP. CHRISSY HOULAHAN (D-PA): Good morning and thank you for having me.

I was just trying to muddle through what I thought an indefinite ceasefire actually meant. And on the one hand, first, I'm grateful that there is an extension of the ceasefire. And rather than being threatening whole civilizations, we are in the place of trying to negotiate peace, which is good.

But the idea that something can be indefinite is also cloudy and murky in a time when we can't afford that. We've got the military might of the United States right there in that area. And, of course, the intent of the Iranian military, we don't know. And that's just a tinder box waiting for some match to be thrown. And so we need a peace. We need a durable and lasting peace and a temporary or indefinite peace is not that. BOLDUAN: The president very clearly suggesting today that it is not

clear, he thinks, who is in charge of the decision making in the Iranian regime. The president, though, had also called it a seriously fractured government and also said they're waiting for a unified proposal to come from whoever's in charge.

But repeatedly, and very recently, the president has also suggested he does know who's in charge, saying, they're in serious discussions with a new and more reasonable regime. How critical is it that the president know who he is negotiating with?

HOULAHAN: Again, this is -- you know, again, this is the murkiness of the communication style of our president. He says one thing one day or minute and the other the next. Of course, it's almost kind of hysterical to hear him say that there's no one in charge. We have annihilated, we have killed many of the people who were in charge. And so it should be in no surprise that we don't know who to be negotiating with.

I'm unclear who he's negotiating with. I am clear that there are a set -- a small set of negotiation points that we are trying to accomplish. Many of them look just like the JCPOA that he tore up years ago. And so, I don't know how we land in a more optimal place than we were years ago, when we were actually not at war.

BOLDUAN: This war has raised now worries over U.S. weapons stockpiles and concerns also of soldier readiness and fatigue.

[09:35:00]

I mean you have an aircraft carrier who has now broken the record for how long it's been deployed.

It also made me think of your automatic registration requirement that was passed as part of the massive defense bill that was signed in December. What -- it mandates automatic selective service for eligible men ages 18 to 26. It is not a reinstatement of a draft, to be clear. But are you regretting that move now or seeing it in a new light now that the president has taken the country to war?

HOULAHAN: No, I don't regret that move. I think that this was simply an automatic registration of a program that all men over 18 years old are required to execute upon. Unfortunately, we had been seeing a significant drop-off in the people who were registering for that because there were no longer places for them to do that in applications or having -- signing up for a driver's license. Those were being diminished.

There are punishments, real punishments for those 18-year-old and above young men if they don't register. And so, an automatic registration was literally a mechanism to be able to make sure that we had the names and information for all of them and they weren't punished for not registering. So, no.

But speaking to readiness and speaking to the fact that we now have a war that has been going on for almost 60 days and a cost to $1 billion to $2 billion a day, and many of that -- much of that cost is munitions that, once blown up, are no longer retrievable. Yes, this is deeply expensive and deeply worrisome in terms of our readiness in other theaters. So, as an example, are we ready if something happens in the Pacific? I can't say with confidence that we are, because we've loaded up our resources and were blowing up our resources in a totally different theater of war unnecessarily.

BOLDUAN: But you really -- you really -- you're that concerned about military readiness now? You do -- you think that the U.S. military would not be capable of fending off an attack somewhere else right now?

HOULAHAN: Let's be clear. Our military is exquisite and our men and women in uniform are enormously capable. And our capabilities are unmatched across the world. No, I would never say that we're not ready. But I will say that there is a consequence to having, as you mentioned, the Ford out there for hundreds and hundreds of days with the sailors without a break. That does impact their readiness. And so, we need to -- we can't have a constant battle with them. Literally, we need to have a purpose and a reason for the wars that we're in. And I'm just not clear, and I think the American public is not clear of why we are in this war, particularly.

BOLDUAN: A critical, critical moment, for sure. And what is paused negotiations in this ceasefire.

Congresswoman, thank you for coming in. I appreciate your time.

Coming up for us, some Mets fans have a bone to pick with New Yorks Mayor Zohran Mamdani. And it has nothing to do with how he's running city hall.

And your family's conversation around the dinner table could soon find their -- find its way into the Library of Congress courtesy of Prego pasta sauce. Huh?

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[09:42:29]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: In the U.K., parliament has passed a bill putting a lifelong ban on anyone born after 2008 from buying cigarettes, expected to become law next week and create what lawmakers there call a smoke free generation. They hope it will end tobacco use altogether over time and break the cycle of addiction and health issues caused by smoking.

CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten is here.

OK, so you've got this ban.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yes.

SIDNER: They're trying to see if they can keep an entire generation from smoking and to end it all together. How do people in the U.S. feel about cigarettes and smoking now? ENTEN: Yes, you know, I think back, and I think to myself, I was

looking at my aunt and uncle's, you know, wedding album and like half the people there were smoking. And then I look at my parent's wedding album, and that happened 20 years later, and there was like no one smoking. And, I mean, this is just part of the long term trend here.

I mean, Americans who smoke a cigarette in the last week, you know, back in 1954, we're talking about nearly half the population, 45 percent. By '74, it was still 40 percent. But then down we go, 27 percent by 1994, 2014, 21 percent. And in the last year, tied for a record low, just 11 percent of Americans smoked a cigarette in the last year. That is one-fourth the number, essentially, that we had back in 1954. Smoking is just something that most Americans no longer do, at least smoking a cigarette.

SIDNER: And that's the next question, because in many states they're legalizing marijuana or they have legalized or they're moving towards it. So, what's the difference there between smoking marijuana and smoking cigarettes? I mean you're seeing a rise in one and a fall in the other.

ENTEN: You know, if you watch, you know, the show "Freaks and Geeks," which is a great show that was on in like 1999, essentially what you saw was all the kids outside, you know, smoking a cigarette. But now, if anything, the, quote/unquote -- the, quote/unquote, cool kids, what are they doing? They're actually smoking marijuana.

And take a look here. Americans who smoked or smoked a cigarette in the last week, its just 11 percent, a cigarette. Marijuana, more people actually smoke marijuana at least somewhat regularly than smoked a cigarette in the last week, which is just not something you could have possibly imagined 40, 50 years ago. But here we are today, where marijuana has been rising in terms of its usage, while cigarette smoking has absolutely fallen off the cliff.

SIDNER: There's another big thing that I do see young people using, and that's vaping or e-cigarettes. What does that look like in comparison with regular cigarettes?

ENTEN: Yes, OK. So, let's add e-cigarettes to it, right? The vaping to it. And you still see this downward trend, right? Smoked a cigarette in the last week, including e-cigarettes.

[09:45:01]

You know, in '54, I mentioned, 45 percent. Then 27 percent. Even there, if you include that number, we're still only talking about 16 percent of Americans who either are doing e-cigarettes or smoking a traditional cigarette in the last week. No matter what way you count it up, smoking is just way down from where it was, say, 70 years ago. And it's also down from where it was a decade ago. Cigarette smoking, simply put, has been on the decline. Though I will note that most Americans don't want it banned, they just don't want to do it themselves.

SIDNER: But you -- but you note here that it's up just a tick from smoking cigarettes when you add in the vaping.

ENTEN: Correct. When you add it in, you add essentially about five percent to your population.

SIDNER: Yes, it's interesting. I remember when people were smoking and drinking in the newsroom.

ENTEN: That ain't happening right now.

SIDNER: That's how old I am.

ENTEN: Yes.

SIDNER: Harry Enten, I do appreciate it.

ENTEN: Oh.

SIDNER: Well, we're -- oh, sorry, we've got one more. My bad.

ENTEN: What are you doing? Sidner's ruining my jam (ph) here, folks.

SIDNER: I swear I wasn't smoking anything.

ENTEN: That -- oh. Chance that -- look, we're talking about, you know, the fact that marijuana outrunning smoking. I mean, just take a look at this, the chance that the U.S. reschedules marijuana before the end of Trump's term, it's right now at a 79 percent chance. It was 89 percent a few months ago.

But the bottom line is this, we're seeing potential real movement in federal regulations as well. We might not close smoking, but it may be much easier to smoke marijuana or do marijuana, at least nationally.

SIDNER: Without worrying about the federal government coming after you, because some states already made it legal.

ENTEN: Correct. That's --

SIDNER: And that's a thing.

ENTEN: That's a big thing.

SIDNER: It's a big thing.

Harry Enten, it is a pleasure.

ENTEN: Thank you.

SIDNER: Thank you. There's a lot of jokes I could say in the brain (ph) --

ENTEN: A lot of -- a lot of jokes, but we're high on life. That's what we're high on right now.

SIDNER: That's right, Harry. Good for us.

We'll be right back.

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[09:51:03]

SIDNER: A big score in Connecticut. A bear cam on a bear's collar captured the animal's POV while rifling through someone's back porch looking for food. Eventually, it hits the jackpot in a bag of Doritos, which I think are Cool Ranch, it looks like. The State Department of Energy, Environmental Protection, or DEEP, set up the bear cams. Connecticut reported more than 12,000 bear-human interactions last year. Watch yourself.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ever since that hug, I don't know what's been happening lately. And Citi Field does not deserve what they're getting right now.

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SIDNER: Some New York Mets fans say that video showing Mayor Zohran Mamdani hugging the mascots is the reason for the team's 12th game losing streak. "The New York Post" is even calling him "Mayor Mambino." That's a nod to the curse of "the bambino," Boston's 86-year championship drought after selling Babe Ruth's contract to the Yankees. Mamdani, unfazed by the nickname.

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MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK: I will accept being addressed as "Mayor Mambino" for the day.

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SIDNER: The Mets will try to break their losing streak tonight. I really -- it's been a long time, I don't think. Long before Mamdani they've been having troubles. Poor things.

All right, a new secret ingredient in Prego's pasta sauce is your conversations. Parent company Campbell's Soup is pairing up with nonprofit StoryCorps to preserve dinner table conversations with a device called "the connection keeper." It will record your dinner chats, and then you can upload them to StoryCorps' special Prego collection to be preserved in the Library of Congress. There is no way I'm using that.

BOLDUAN: No, then it will expose how --

SIDNER: Our dinner conversations?

BOLDUAN: I mean --

SIDNER: Absolutely --

BOLDUAN: It includes, please eat your protein. Please eat your protein. Please sit down. I mean, there is no conversation, actually, now that I'm --

SIDNER: In your household. Mine's a little different. And they may include inappropriate conversations that I don't want anyone to hear.

BOLDUAN: Oh, no, you have a --

SIDNER: (INAUDIBLE).

BOLDUAN: You have Delphine. Totally inappropriate (INAUDIBLE) conversation.

SIDNER: Oh, that's right.

BOLDUAN: OK, let's move to this. This is Earth Day, today is. Scientists are worried on this Earth Day. Arctic ice is now at its lowest amount observed since 1979. The sea ice at the North Pole should be about half a million square miles larger than it is right now. And the amount missing is enough to cover apparently the state of Texas twice.

CNN's Bill Weir is in the Arctic Ocean right now joining us from Norway, actually.

And we are hoping this beautiful connection holds.

Bill, tell us everything.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Kate, greetings from the top of the world. We're rocking and rolling a little bit. Probably the highest live shot anyone has ever done in terms of degrees latitude north.

We're around 79 degrees north in this beautiful chain of islands of called Svalbard, the cold edge, as it were. And it's one of the most unique places in the world. One, because it's heating up much faster than the rest of the world and is giving us a glimpse of what climate change looks like in the near future for the rest of the Arctic as well. And it's also a really interesting place based on a treaty that goes back to World War I that pretty much lets any citizen of any country move to Svalbard. Although geopolitical tensions these days have changed that. We can talk about that in a second.

But I've been meeting with these scientists who spend their lives up here trying to understand the changes of these glaciers that are going away, the sea ice melting. The North Pole could be ice free within 25 years or so.

And one in particular, Hedda Andersen, a Norwegian glaciologist, was really frustrated by what's going on and really hoping people this Earth Day look at the signs and take notice.

Here's a little sample with her.

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HEDDA ANDERSEN, GLACIOLOGIST AND RESEARCH ADVISOR, NY-ALESUND RESEARCH STATION: This is all connected, right? The California is connected to the Arctic and it's connected by the oceans. And what happens in the oceans, is what drives climate change up here.

[09:55:02]

And what happens up here impacts the rest of the world.

It's like we need to wake up globally and understand that this is -- this is not something that just impacts the arctic. It impacts everyone. If you think oil and gas is expensive now, wait until the Arctic melts.

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WEIR: The Arctic council, comprised of the countries that touch the Arctic, but Russia was kicked out after the invasion of Crimea. Donald Trump, in the United States, has pulled so much funding for climate science that there's this real sense of frustration and desperation that 50 percent of the Arctic is not at the table right now, trying to figure out how to mitigate, how to adapt to these changes up here as well (AUDIO GAP) the politics in the states changes that and some of that science comes flushing -- rushing back north.

But right now it's really tense. And Norway, which has generally been wide open to their neighbors, starting to tighten up. You see their military ships around more. They're trying to exert their sovereignty, taking the votes away from other foreign residents right now. So, the Arctic, a hot spot in more ways than one.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: I was going to say, in more ways than one. Bill Weir bringing it to us in only the way Bill Weir can.

Bill, thank you so much. Much more to come from him on this Earth Day.

SIDNER: Hold on, man. He was rocking and rolling.

BOLDUAN: Bill Weir. He and his crew man. Can you imagine being his photographer right now?

SIDNER: No, it's really hard. It's both beautiful and brutal. Like watching that.

BOLDUAN: All the things.

SIDNER: But I would sort of love to be there.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Yes.

SIDNER: Right?

BOLDUAN: Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

SIDNER: OK. We'll try to work on that.

Thank you for joining us. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "THE SITUATION ROOM," up next.

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