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Justice Department Bringing Back Firing Squads for Federal Executions; FDA Approves First-Ever Gene Therapy for inherited Deafness; Economic Confidence at Its Lowest on Record; U.S. Gas Prices on the Rise Again Amid Fears of Long War; American's Approval of Congress Falls to Near All-Time Low. Aired 3:30-4p ET
Aired April 24, 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]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: ... Take steps to try to limit the actual knowledge or awareness of those pulling the trigger about who actually committed the execution, right?
CORINNA BARRETT LAIN, DEATH PENALTY EXPERT: Well, states do it differently. Some states, like Utah, have one member of the firing squad firing a blank. Other states, like South Carolina -- South Carolina has a three-person firing squad, and none of them have blanks.
But as someone who has shot M-16s in the military, I think it's really hard to say that just because you are shooting a blank that you wouldn't know that you were also part of it. And again, you pull a trigger, and there's blood, and there's somebody dying in front of you. And so it is really, really hard for these executioners to separate themselves, whether they are shooting a blank or not.
SANCHEZ: We're so grateful for your time. Thanks for joining us on this news.
Still ahead, consumer sentiment hitting a new low as Americans feel the pinch from high gas prices, the bleak outlook from a new survey when we come back.
[15:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TIRRELL: MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: A year ago, this little boy, Miles, could hear almost nothing. But now his life is filled with sound.
KERRI, MILES'S MOTHER: Shake, shake, shake. He loves music and dancing and running around. I never thought this would be possible.
What does the leopard say? Ah!
KERRI: To find out that your baby is profoundly deaf is just so scary. And I remember sitting in that room, and it was dark, and I just started sobbing. And it was really the start of our journey.
TIRRELL: Miles was born with a rare genetic mutation in a gene known as OTOF. It's so rare, only about 50 kids are born with it each year in the United States. But it turned out that there was a clinical trial going on of a completely new way of treating this kind of hearing loss.
Miles' parents signed him up.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh! Hi.
TIRRELL: In results from about five months after the treatment, 11 out of 12 participants had improvements in their hearing. Six could hear soft speech, and three had essentially normal hearing. Now, that therapy, made by the company Regeneron, has just received FDA approval.
So how does it work? Well, it's called gene therapy. It involves using a harmless virus to deliver a working copy of a gene directly into the inner ear to fix the faulty mutation that's causing Miles' hearing loss.
For his family, the results were incredible.
KERRI: He didn't like music. He wouldn't sit for stories. He would try to interact with his siblings for the best of his abilities, but, you know, it was hard for him.
And then, after the surgery, we quickly started to realize that his hearing was coming back. What is that?
MILES: Daddy!
KERRI: One of the days we were heading to school, I was like, Miles, I love you. And he would head back to me. He turned right around and he went -- and blew me a kiss.
I was like, you heard me! You heard me say that, and you blew me a kiss! It's just amazing.
TIRRELL: The new gene therapy is the first ever for hearing loss. And though Miles' condition is rare, the hope is that this will lead to more breakthroughs that can extend the kinds of benefits that Miles has experienced to many more people.
[15:40:00]
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Brynn Gingras in New York. Well, new numbers out today show Americans are feeling pretty lousy about the economy. Consumer sentiment dropping 6.6 percent in just the last month, according to a survey by the University of Michigan. Now, that's a slight improvement from a preliminary report earlier this month, but it's the lowest level on record, dating back to 1952. Much of the pessimism is being driven by rising gas prices amid the war with Iran. Today, they ticked up another 3 cents to $4.06 a gallon. That's the largest one-day gain since the start of this month. It's also well above the pre-war price of $2.98.
So let's talk more about this with Henrietta Treyz. She's the director of economic policy for Veda Partners. First, Henrietta, what's your takeaway from this consumer sentiment report? Or perhaps it's not a surprise.
HENRIETTA TREYZ, DIRECTOR OF ECONOMIC POLICY, VEDA PARTNERS: It's really the roller coaster of it all. Consumer sentiment doesn't change very quickly, very fast. Voters and Americans have been feeling anxious really since Liberation Day.
You know, two dozen times in 2025, the president changed the price of everything you buy at Target or Walmart. For the last 55-ish days, he's changed the price of gasoline every time you go to the pump from $2 to $3 to now $4.06, as you suggest. And the next 50 days, it's going to be about everything that you pay for at the grocery store.
All the prices of anything that you buy that comes out of the ground is going to be more expensive because so much of it as a global commodity flows through the Strait of Hormuz. So the consumer sentiment is really telling you that people are exhausted. It's a roller coaster and they want to get off.
GINGRAS: Yes, absolutely. And U.S. gas prices, again, they're up 3 cents to $4.06. Now, this was the second straight increase in gas prices after two weeks of prices either falling or staying unchanged. What's your outlook going forward?
Will they keep inching up?
TREYZ: They will keep inching up as long as the Strait is closed. We get this verbal intervention, as investors are calling it, from the president whenever he tweets about there being a ceasefire or a deal pending. And what's happening is that the market price for gasoline that you can buy today can drop, but in the future, there's no change.
I mean, the price is going up. We should be well above $100 a barrel crude. That's what's going to happen when the Strait is closed.
And it's kind of like there's two different worlds out here. One in Asia, where they've entirely shut down the way the pandemic reminds me of, where they only have three-day work weeks, for example.
[15:45:00]
And then you have Europe where they're canceling flights and jet fuel. And over here in the United States, we're singing a different tune because we have our own domestic gas, but it's a global commodity. So prices are going to continue to rise as long as the Strait is closed.
We're not close to a ceasefire that will actually reopen the Strait. So we should expect these prices to increase, not just for gas, but next for food and then iPhones, anything with a semiconductor. We've got a long way to go. GINGRAS: Yes, and just in time for the busy summer travel season. Well, in Asia, gas stations are rationing fuel. The European Union says it has spent an additional $28 billion on energy imports since the start of the war.
And a U.N. representative is warning food shortages will peak in a few months and 30 million people will fall into poverty. That's a big number. What is the scale of the squeeze here on the global economy?
TREYZ: This is the supply shock to end all supply shocks. Truly, the pandemic is really the only corollary that I can think of to use. And it's just that they're disproportionately hit if they're exposed to the Strait.
But the changes that you're seeing across Southeast Asia, across the EU, if you're planning on summer travel over to anywhere in the European Union, think that maybe you're not going. That's what jet fuel rationing is. You're seeing 20,000 flights canceled between the U.S. and Canada, Lufthansa flights. It's a very real reality facing us in the imminent future. And it's unlikely to reverse course even if the president were to declare a ceasefire tomorrow. It's so long to go.
Eighty different facilities across the Gulf are completely bombed out. That's not a day fix. That's months and years.
GINGRAS: And, Henrietta, let's look at the housing market. After jumping at the start of the U.S.-Iran war, we're starting to see mortgage rates actually come down. How is that impacting the housing market?
TREYZ: Yes, mortgage rates coming down is exceptional. And the president is really hoping that he can jawbone the Federal Reserve into lowering interest rates further to keep that going. But it is extremely volatile.
And the problem in Iran immediately impacts the housing market in the United States because the Fed, of course, cannot cut interest rates if we have high inflation. And so that is the issue. And I've just seen in the last week, investors and market participants on the market economy scale, major economists, taking their expectations for interest rate reductions down just in the last week of the Strait being closed.
So hoping for two interest rate cuts this year is unrealistic. Now the market's pricing in just one and probably not until December. So that also is a immediate tradeoff of the higher inflation caused by the war.
GINGRAS: Yes, and we're seeing the stock markets pretty much shrugged off the war. On Wednesday, the S&P and the Nasdaq hit record highs. Today, a Bank of England official said stock markets globally are too high and will fall at some point.
Is that a warning or is that just inevitability? TREYZ: No, I think it is a warning because there are kind of two different things playing out here. On one hand, you've got the AI tech boom, and that's what investors are really seeing and optimistic about, especially here in the United States. But everywhere else that you look, the headwinds coming are overwhelming.
So another piece that I would just offer, having been on the road for the last two weeks, is this idea that you cannot price in higher crude prices and get really bullish on crude rising when you could at any moment be waylaid by a presidential tweet and kind of that chaos that we were talking about at the beginning. If the president can come out and say, hey, we've reached a deal any minute, you can't afford to put that risk in your portfolio. And a lot of hedge funds got smoked in February and March because of that exact reality.
So I think there's a lot of caution in the markets that keep that's keeping it artificially high.
GINGRAS: All right, Henrietta Treyz, thank you so much for all of your insight.
And stay with CNN. We'll be right back.
[15:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: As Eva Longoria embarks on a culturally curious journey through France, she is learning about a major symbol of French cuisine, snails.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
EVA LONGORIA, EVA LONGORIA, SEARCHING FOR FRANCE: How old are these?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's almost finished. They are three months.
The slime, he's slimy.
LONGORIA: I don't know if this is going to help me to like them more. I don't know about this.
Wait, is it a boy or a girl?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Boy and girl.
LONGORIA: They're both?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, they are hermaphrodite. They are both sex.
LONGORIA: Oh, OK. Do I want to know how they -- I don't know if I want to know how they reproduce.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When they find a partner, they begin with a love dance that lasts two hours.
LONGORIA: A love dance?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
LONGORIA: They have like a little flirtation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
LONGORIA: For a couple hours.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. And just before the mating, they throw a little love dart.
LONGORIA: Love dart.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
LONGORIA: So if they like somebody, they go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. And then they are mating.
LONGORIA: Then that's it. They want out. They're mating.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And they have sex during 10 hours.
LONGORIA: They have sex for 10 hours?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
LONGORIA: I got to say, I have a whole new respect for snails.
LONGORIA (voice-over): Land in Burgundy is so expensive that most small winemakers buy in surplus grapes from bigger producers.
LONGORIA: Oh, yes. It's a cellar, cellar.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is.
LONGORIA (voice-over): Loic supplies a handful of local restaurants, but this bijou operation is about pleasure over profit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's tiny, but there's enough space to make a little bit of wine.
LONGORIA: And what do you make?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's two grapes in Burgundy. There is Pinot Noir and there is Chardonnay. These two come from here. We're starting with a Pinot Noir.
LONGORIA: Oh, yes, that's so easy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fresh, easy.
LONGORIA: I've never had such a fresh Pinot Noir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So this is the Chardonnay. LONGORIA: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There you go.
[15:55:00]
LONGORIA: That is so nice. Sometimes Chardonnay can be very perfumy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pure, fresh, elegance.
LONGORIA: It really rivals the Pinot Noir. If they were arm wrestling, it'd be a tie.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: It all looks so delicious. There are two brand new episodes of "EVA LONGORIA SEARCHING FOR FRANCE" that airs Sunday night starting at nine Eastern and Pacific right here on CNN. You can also live vicariously through her by streaming them the next day on the CNN app.
So the midterm elections are just a short 193 days away. Lawmakers are running for reelection and would love to keep their jobs. But voters may have different ideas.
KEILAR: CNN Chief Data Analyst Harry Enten is here now to run the numbers. There he is for us. Harry, Congress not so hot right now.
How much do voters, you know, just straight up hate Congress right now?
HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: You know, I just want to point out, Boris and Brianna, when I come down to D.C., I'm hoping to be together with you. But despite the fact, I know, I know, I know. Look, the bottom line is this.
My approval rating of the fact that I'm not with you is basically on par with Congress's approval rating at this point. OK, I mean, we're talking about record high disapproval rating of Congress. We're talking about 86 percent of Americans disapprove of Congress.
That is tied, get this, with the all time record high back in November of 2013. And they have been polling, Gallup's been polling disapproval approval ratings of Congress for eons now, since well before I was born. At this point, just 10 percent, just 10 percent of Americans approve of the job that Congress is doing.
The Americans, I am here in Washington, D.C., to deliver a message. They hate you guys.
SANCHEZ: Yikes, Harry, to be clear to our viewers, we were supposed to be together in person, but there was a fire alarm on Capitol Hill that went off and there was a thunderstorm that hit us and then a traffic jam on the way back.
ENTEN: Sure, sure.
SANCHEZ: Brianna and I literally ran, ran, we got in a car, but it felt like we were running all the way from Capitol Hill to be here in the studio to join you. So please --
ENTEN: Ah, to bring us together.
SANCHEZ: Cut us, cut us some slack. Historically, this very low poll number, where does it rank?
ENTEN: OK, so I want to put this into some perspective for you. 10 percent of Americans approving or agreeing with something. That is actually lower than the percentage of Americans who believe that we fake the moon landing.
12 percent of Americans say that we fake the moon landing. 10 percent of Americans believe that the earth is flat. So the approval rating for Congress is on par with the percentage of Americans who believe the earth is flat.
The earth is not flat. It is round. And of course, we did land on the moon back in 1969.
But when you can't even meet the Mendoza line, as I like to say it, of the moon landing, you know that you're in deep, deep trouble.
KEILAR: Deep trouble. And so, you know, just after the inauguration, it wasn't so bad, at least among Republicans. How about now?
What's the shift here?
ENTEN: Yes, this is what is driving the record low approval ratings for Congress or the record high disapproval ratings for Congress. Republicans. Remember, Republicans control the House and the Senate.
Look at this. Congress's net approval rating among the Republicans. Look at that.
In March of 2025, it was plus 33 points. That's pretty good. You know, historically speaking, it's not half bad.
Look at how much it has fallen. It has fallen into the basement. Minus 56 points at this point.
That is an 89 point drop and only a little bit more than a year's time. So despite the fact that Republicans control Congress, Republicans themselves absolutely despise Congress at this point.
SANCHEZ: Yikes. What does this mean then for the midterms? Historically, the incumbent party of the White House just doesn't do well.
This seems like a snowball turning into an avalanche.
ENTEN: Yes. So, you know, we've been tracking this, Boris. The last time I was down here with you, we were tracking this number, although we were in the same room at that point.
And what I can -- I know, I know. I'm just going to keep harping on it. But the chance that the GOP holds onto the House, you go back to when Texas redistricted last year, you know, Republicans were thinking, hey, we might be able to hold on.
Maybe we can gerrymander our way to a House majority. It was 33 percent then. But look at where it is today.
It is just 15 percent. The bottom line is this, according to the Kalshi Prediction Market, the chance that Republicans are able to hold onto the House of Representatives, it ain't too hot to trot. And I really wouldn't be surprised if the Senate falls as well.
That's right now at a 50-50 odds. You look, historically speaking, when a president has an approval rating, you know, about 40 percent or less, depending on how you average the polls. There's just no way on God's green earth that Republicans can hold onto the House majority.
But hey, you know what? I'll be back next time in D.C. We can be together. And then we can update the odds once again.
SANCHEZ: But our bond is so much stronger than the walls that divide us.
ENTEN: I know, I know.
SANCHEZ: Not just as a show, but as Americans, right?
ENTEN: That's true. We're all coming together. Kumbaya, my lord.
Kumbaya. Brianna?
KEILAR: You'll be here for the dinner, am I right?
ENTEN: Oh, I'll be here. Oh, don't worry. We're going to be chatting after the show.
[16:00:00]
Don't you worry about it. We'll find each other an actual person instead of the separate flashes. We're this wonderful D.C.
KEILAR: I'm in a tiny closet.
ENTEN: Yes, that works for me. A nice shiny, you know, whatever it takes to see.
KEILAR: All right, Harry. We'll hang out. See you in just a moment.
And we'll see "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starting right now.
SANCHEZ: Thanks for joining us.
END
