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Iran Says It Seized 2 Ships After Trump Extends Ceasefire; Source: Trump's Team Admits Hormuz Blockade Damaging World Economy; United Airlines Says It Will Raise Summer Fares As Much As 20 Percent; Questions Around Future Of Spirit Airlines; Lufthansa Cutting 20,000 Flights Due To Surge In Fuel Costs; U.S. Congressman David Scott Of Georgia Dies At 80. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired April 22, 2026 - 13:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Art of the DLA. President Trump extending the ceasefire, but Iran isn't exactly signaling that it is ready to talk. We are following the latest.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, buckle up. Summer airfares are about to take off, with a major airline just saying that it's raising summer ticket prices by as much as 20 percent. And on thin ice, CNN's Bill Weir braves the Arctic Ocean on Earth Day to show us the impact of climate change.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

KEILAR: The President is giving Iran more time for talk, but Tehran is responding with action. Iranian forces saying they have seized two cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz. A high-ranking Iranian lawmaker appearing to taunt the U.S., posting in part, "An eye for an eye, a tanker for a tanker."

The message fueling even more uncertainty over whether, where potential negotiations go from here. President Trump has vowed to keep his blockade going on Iranian ports, which for Iran has been a non- starter when it comes to talks.

Let's go to Alayna Treene who's at the White House. Alayna, what are you hearing there today?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, I think the last 24 hours or so have been a huge moment for these negotiations and really, as we've seen, the breakdown of talks. And now we've seen the President extend this ceasefire further.

Now, on paper, or at least on Truth Social, the President seemed to give some sort of indefinite timeline to this, saying that he wants to allow the Iranians to have more time, in his words, to put together what he called was a unified response.

But I will tell you from the conversations, Brianna, that I've been having with people familiar with the internal discussions going on in that building behind me is that the President and the administration, more broadly, does not want this to be an indefinite ceasefire.

Really, they are trying to communicate to the Iranians that this is going to be limited in scope, essentially a short window that they want to allow for the Iranians to try to come back to the table with some sort of, again, more unified response.

But really, the way that the administration has been today is kind of in this wait-and-see period. And one of the reasons I think, you know, the -- I want to point out here is that about this, you know, limited scope for a ceasefire. One of the reasons for that is because the President was very wary of an extension to begin with.

He has been advised by the people that he's been meeting with. I should note he did host many of his top officials from the State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA here at the White House yesterday for a national security meeting. They have been telling him that the problem with a longer extension is it gives the Iranians more time to drag out talks. It also kind of eliminates some of the leverage that the administration has.

The President had believed, really, that the deadline for that initial ceasefire, which was supposed to expire today, was putting more pressure on the Iranians to really push them to a place where they could finalize some sort of agreement. So now they're in a wait-and- see period.

But the priority remains, and this continues throughout my conversations today, that they do want to see a diplomatic solution here. It's just very much unclear at this moment how they get there.

KEILAR: All right, Alayna Treene with the latest from the White House. Thank you. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Sources tell CNN that privately President Trump's team has acknowledged the longer the Strait of Hormuz blockade persists, the more damage will be done to the world economy because of rising gas prices and jet fuel costs, the latter of which have doubled since the start of the war.

As a result, United Airlines announced today that it would pass along the cost to travelers by increasing summer fares between 15 to 20 percent, and then keep them high even after fuel prices go back down, apparently because it can. The CEO says that people are still willing to pay to fly and that bookings remain strong.

We're joined now by business journalist and host of Public Radio's Full Disclosure, Roben Farzad. Roben, great to see you, as always. What do you make of these price hikes and the reasoning there from the CEO for keeping them high even after the cost of fuel goes down?

ROBEN FARZAD, BUSINESS JOURNALIST: And I ran, Boris. I ran so far away. I ran all night and day. I know it's pronounced Iran, that's where I was born. But I had to get that lyric in.

Look, the airlines can have their way because of our FOMO economy. Parallel to this, you're getting word that Spirit Airlines is looking for a government investment, right? United and American tried to channel, tried to feel out D.C. for another mega merger last week. The whole world said resoundingly, heck no.

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So what they're going to do is hike prices. If you see these planes are full, the demand is kind of so inelastic that why not stick it to the consumer? Everything else has been variablized. You practically -- you know, the next thing, the next frontier is coin operated bathrooms.

SANCHEZ: Yikes. A flock of seagulls reference and coin operated bathrooms. That's what you get with Roben Farzad.

Roben, you mentioned Spirit Airlines looking for help from the federal government. They've filed for bankruptcy twice in the last 18 months. Do you think some kind of intervention is on the way? A bailout, perhaps?

FARZAD: I think a lot of people who travel Spirit Airlines like me, I was stuck in Fort Lauderdale and they, you know, they dragged this along until 2:00 in the morning and then they told us you're out of luck. Really, you know what you're signing up for when you fly on Spirit. If it's on time, you're very lucky. If not, you know, it's kind of hit or miss airlines.

There's no love lost. So it's curious in that Donald Trump, you know, he, too, is a South Florida President and he's might going to have his presidential library in Miami. And Spirit Airlines is based just west of Fort Lauderdale.

It's interesting that he is signifying that the government might take a golden stake in it. In past times, you would let a weak player like this, a D student liquidate and the others, namely JetBlue and Southwest and the discount carriers would pick up its gates and its equipment and liquidation. But we're living in a whole different era, as evidenced by Intel, as seeing the government's intervention in various companies going back to 2007 and 2008 and GM and the financials.

SANCHEZ: You also noted the idea that was floated regarding United merging with American Airlines. It would create a colossus, a huge, unprecedented scale for any airline carrier. The President weighed in, saying that he would not be in favor of this. Does that effectively quash any potential merger?

FARZAD: I think so. And I think it's a great -- you know, it's like Netflix. Netflix didn't get Warner Brothers Discovery, but it gets a great consolation prize. And the consolation prize for these guys is that their planes are packed. Pricing is crazy.

The variability of pricing, the luxury travel, the business travel out there, the gates that they're getting. I mean, if you see some of these first class lounges and the business class walk up tickets, especially in United's case to travel to Asia, you know, Boris, so much of this is a function of the post 9/11 period, where these guys were in a near death experience and they had a gun to their heads.

And Delta's like, we need to shack up with Northwest. United's like, we need continental, right? Americans like, we need U.S. Air and America West. And all of that consolidation has put us where we are today.

You used to have fare wars. You used to have a free bag or two. Now it's, you know, you're lucky if your flight is barely on time.

SANCHEZ: And lastly, Europe is also facing the potential for a jet fuel crisis. Germany's Lufthansa canceled some 20,000 short haul flights through October. What is the impact going to be for European travelers? Do you see that potentially impacting folks here in the States?

FARZAD: I think it's tactically so smart of Iran to recognize that its nuclear option is now the Strait of Hormuz. If our allies out there are saying, you know what, finish this up, Trump. We can't deal with jet fuel prices in an inflationary period anyway.

That's going to really put the screws, you know, both domestic travelers, both our allies, if you look at Germany and France and others, want us to kind of wrap this up. So it's really at the true intersection of foreign policy and economic policy and trade policy.

SANCHEZ: Roben Farzad, always appreciate the perspective. Thanks for joining us.

FARZAD: Thanks, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Still to come, he cast the deciding vote that gave RFK Jr. his job. But does Republican Senator Bill Cassidy think he should keep that job? We're following the latest from Capitol Hill.

Plus, a brazen heist in broad daylight. Two men armed with assault rifles taking close to $2 million from an armored truck in Philadelphia. A manhunt is now underway. We have a live report.

And later, it's a battle that could wind up in the Supreme Court. A U.S. appeals court just ruling that Texas can require the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms. That and much more coming your way in just moments.

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KEILAR: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seemingly striking a different tone about vaccines on Capitol Hill today. Senators grilled Kennedy about his years of promoting vaccine skepticism before he took the helm at HHS. Today, he was asked to clarify his stance as the U.S. is now grappling with outbreaks of measles.

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SEN. BEN RAY LUJAN (D), NEW MEXICO: At a previous hearing, you seem to almost brag about how well the United States has fared in response to measles outbreaks compared to Mexico and Canada. I think here again today.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: And Europe and all the other countries.

LUJAN: The United States has always been a leader and we demand that it's a leader. That should not be a question.

KENNEDY: We're still the leader.

LUJAN: Can you please tell us here today what you're going to do to reduce the number of measles cases and improve the MMR vaccination rate?

KENNEDY: Improve the MMR? We promote the MMR. We advise every child to get the MMR. That's what we do.

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KEILAR: Let's bring in Minnesota Democratic Senator Tina Smith, who also asked some very pointed questions of Secretary Kennedy today. Senator, thanks for being with us. What is your reaction to what we heard there from Secretary Kennedy on vaccines?

SEN. TINA SMITH (D), MINNESOTA: What we saw today was a highly polarizing secretary who is trying to sell a very unpopular agenda of this Trump administration. And I think he struggled.

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He does not have credibility on vaccines because for so many years, he denied the value of vaccines. And as he tried to sell the Trump's administration's plans for lowering prescription drugs or going -- supporting preventative care, he just flailed. I think it was a big disappointment. And it was interesting to me to see on both sides of the aisle some real skepticism for some of the points that he struggled to make.

KEILAR: What have you seen in Minnesota since he took the helm? Have you seen a significant dip in vaccination rates that is larger than the dip you were seeing before because it has already been going down?

SMITH: So I'm really proud of the public health efforts that we have in Minnesota. And I think that those efforts remain strong despite what Secretary Kennedy is doing. But here's what I see. And I just saw it on Friday when I visited a very small rural hospital in far western Minnesota.

I see a hospital that is struggling to hold it together. And the combination of expected dramatic cuts in Medicaid along with just like their struggles to get affordable prescription medicines for their patients is really putting them on the edge. And there's nothing that the Trump administration is doing to make that better.

In fact, everything that they're doing in their view is making it harder for them to keep their doors open. And, of course, if you lose a rural hospital in a small community like Fergus Falls or Elbow Lake, Minnesota, that is a huge blow to the community.

KEILAR: Can you support Trump's new nominee for CDC Director, Dr. Erica Schwartz? She is someone with a lengthy record of guiding vaccination programs. She is a veteran of public health service.

SMITH: So I'm going to be taking a hard look at that nominee, and I haven't decided how I'm going to vote on that yet. But I'm looking for people who are truly going to follow the facts and the science and the data, which is what we need to be doing when it comes to health care.

I have to say this is one of the reasons that several of us raised questions about Secretary Kennedy's decision to basically disband the preventative services task force, which has always been insulated from politics. And it's just another example of how the sort of Secretary Kennedy's extreme views have been percolating throughout the whole department.

So my big question is, how much autonomy is she going to have? Is she really going to be able to follow the facts and the science as she's making recommendations and running that really important part of the department?

KEILAR: I also want to ask you about DHS, which is still shut down, even as some money has been moved around here to pay salaries. You have Secretary Mullin saying just yesterday that emergency funding will run out by early in May. We're hearing from Coast Guard families.

They are housed under DHS, Coast Guard members, that even as they -- their service members are getting pay, they are suffering tremendous financial hardship. They are out thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of dollars in some case, out-of-pocket expenses for moves that have not been reimbursed for several months.

We're coming up again on moving season, PCS season again for them. There's tuition assistance reimbursement problems for them. We've heard of people skipping meals to save money, running up credit cards, and they won't get repaid, of course, the interest that they're going to owe on that. What is your message to those families about what you will have ultimately achieved at what they feel is at their expense?

SMITH: Well, this is unacceptable. And this is why I have voted countless times to fund all of the Department of Homeland Security, including the Coast Guard and FEMA and other parts of the agency. And, in fact, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have passed bills numerous times to fund everything in the department except for ICE and Homeland Security. And yet here we are because the House has not passed those bills -- KEILAR: But ICE and CBP are funded through the entirety of the Trump

presidency. So how is it anything more than a symbolic win that your base is demanding of you when there are these other folks who are public servants, who are service members and their families who are paying for it?

SMITH: Well, again, to be clear, that is why I have voted multiple times to fund all of the Department of Homeland Security. And understand what's going on now is that the Senate is getting ready to move forward legislation that provides another many multibillion- dollar slush fund for ICE and Customs and Border Patrol.

When -- that money could be used to spend -- could be used to better spend -- much better spend to actually help Americans afford their lives. So I totally believe that we should be funding these agencies. That's why I have voted to fund these agencies. And that's why the situation with these folks being used as bargaining chips is just unacceptable.

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KEILAR: So in the end, what policy changes will Democrats have achieved? I mean, what will you have actually gotten in all of this by not casting votes to fund DHS, all of DHS?

SMITH: We have cast votes. We have funded. We have cast votes. We have funded them. And understand, again --

KEILAR: But there's a shutdown, and that is because everyone's not on the same page.

SMITH: That's right.

KEILAR: So because there is not that agreement, what ultimately -- Chuck Schumer yesterday is saying that there's unity. He was asked if Democrats had overplayed their hand, and he stressed that you all have been unified. What will you have achieved besides unity?

SMITH: What we have achieved is our unified vote to fund everything in the Department of Homeland Security, except for these illegal agencies and Customs and Border Patrol and ICE. And, again, I want to remind everybody who's listening to this that what we wanted was to put some basic, common-sense safe guardrails on how these agents have been acting to stop the worst of the abuses like we saw in my home state of Minnesota.

And we weren't able to even get our Republican colleagues to agree to that. So we might not have power in Congress, but we are not powerless to carry forward what we believe is the best thing for this country. And, again, that's why we have voted multiple times to fund the department and why Republicans are now taking this our way or the highway approach.

KEILAR: Senator Smith, we do appreciate you being with us. Thank you so much.

SMITH: Thank you.

KEILAR: And it is like a scene that is straight out of a movie. A manhunt underway for a pair of armed men who stole as much as $1.8 million from a Brinks armored truck. And the man accused of a killing spree in Atlanta has died in custody. We have the latest on that.

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SANCHEZ: A manhunt is underway in Philadelphia after police say two armed men robbed an armored Brinks truck and made off with what could be over $1 million in cash. Investigators say the brazen daytime robbery happened just as the truck was making a stop at a check- cashing place. Surveillance cameras captured the men jumping out of a getaway car with assault rifles in hand.

Our Philadelphia affiliates, KYW and WPVI, report that the car was later recovered, but those suspects were gone.

Let's get the latest from CNN's Danny Freeman, who's live for us in Philadelphia. Danny, who are police looking for? Do they have any substantial leads that we know of?

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Listen, Boris, as far as we understand at this point, police are looking for those two masked men that you were looking at in those photos that show them holding those long rifles. But other than that, they're being pretty tight-lipped about who they might think those two men might be.

But let me just set the scene for you, Boris, because it really was a chaotic scene here where we are in the northeastern part of Philadelphia yesterday morning. Right here was where that Brinks armored van was around a little bit before 10:00 a.m. servicing this check-cashing place behind me. And that's when police say these two men armed with those large rifles came up and essentially robbed that truck.

And like you noted, Boris, this area of Philadelphia, it's a highly trafficked area. There's a bus stop right here at Dunkin' Donuts, a gas station. And again, in the early, mid-morning hours, so very much in broad daylight, a brazen attack, as you said.

But the key thing here, Boris, that really shocked a lot of people, was that number reported by our affiliate WPVI and KYW that the thieves were able to get away with potentially $1.8 million from that van, and they were able to get away.

Now, this whole area was closed off yesterday. The FBI is now leading this investigation. But I want you to take a listen to the intensity of the radio broadcast when police were looking for their people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was there any dye packs or trackers in the thing they took?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gunpoint robbery of a Brinks truck 7219 Torresdale. Looking for a bright blue Acura MDX tinted out, has an upside down V on the front frill occupied by two to three black males wearing black masks. They're armed with automatic rifles.

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FREEMAN: Now, Boris, according to our affiliates, that getaway car was eventually located, but without the suspects and without the cash. Thankfully, no one was injured in this attack. But again, that manhunt's still ongoing, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Danny Freeman, thank you so much for that update.

We have some breaking news now to share with you. Democratic Congressman David Scott of Georgia has died at the age of 80. Scott's decades-long career in politics started in the Georgia State Assembly back in 1974. He would go on to serve 23 years in the U.S. Congress. Congressman Scott was seeking reelection in his Atlanta-area district this year.

Stay with CNN. We'll be right back.

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