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Interview with Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX): Gas Prices Surge Again Overnight, Now $4.39 a Gallon; Trump Faces 60-Day War Powers Deadline on Iran Today; New Footage of White House Correspondents' Dinner Suspect Accused of Trying to Kill Trump. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 01, 2026 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The brother and sister-in-law, Tucci married Blunt's sister a few years after meeting her at the first Devil Wears Prada premiere. And in true Devil Wears Prada style, it is not just about the film, it is about the accessories. A bright red handbag- shaped popcorn bucket is turning heads at Nate.

That doesn't look like popcorn. That looks like, more importantly, what it should be, wine. There's your popcorn bucket.

It's becoming this season's most unexpected must-have. Thoughts, anyone? OK.

A new hour is seen in NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, a big whopping increase in gas prices overnight, nearly 10 cents a gallon, up more than 30 cents a gallon in just one week. So why these big jumps day after day this far into the war with Iran?

Then a home explodes as police arrive at the house after reports of a domestic dispute.

And eight surgeries later, Lindsey Vaughan reveals what is driving her to get back on her feet. Also, what she's putting off until later.

I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan. Sara is out today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BOLDUAN: All right, the breaking news this morning is at the gas pump. The national average has jumped in a very big way. Now, $4.39 a gallon. That's up nine cents from yesterday, up 33 cents from last week, and up 47 percent since the war with Iran began. Today, that war hits a major moment, 60 days since the first strikes were launched. That would appear to trigger a critical deadline, a law dating back to the Vietnam War era requiring Congress sign off on a conflict after 60 days.

If they do not, the president must wind down military operations. But the word from this administration is they do not see it that way. Maybe calling Congress is bluff, actually. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the ceasefire with Iran announced April 7th actually now puts a pause on said countdown. Democrats and some Republicans, they are not buying that.

Another thing today, Iran is expected to hand over a revised peace proposal to Pakistani mediators. President Trump claims that Tehran wants to quote unquote make a deal badly, but we have heard that before.

And also some more CNN reporting today, a new analysis that at least 16 American military sites have been damaged in Iranian strikes. That's a majority of U.S. positions in the Middle East, some virtually unusable right now -- John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now, Congressman Pete Sessions, a Republican from Texas. Congressman, good morning to you. We got the news overnight that gas prices rose an average of nearly 10 cents a gallon nationwide.

That's more than 30 cents a gallon in the last week. And since the war began, it's up more than basically $1.30. How much of an impact do you think that has on an average American's weekly budget?

REP. PETE SESSIONS (R-TX), OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Well, it does -- good morning, John. It does have significant impact on people's decision about how not just they live their life, but if a car is used for work, it increases the price of those. And this is part of the concern that goes on.

But the larger concern that Republicans in Congress are concerned about, and I think many American people is, the negotiation that is going on, the president for several weeks now, we've been in a pause. We have been, and I say we, the United States, the negotiator with the Iranians, is trying to find a way to get to some ceasefire and move together, move forward. I am concerned about where we're going to go with the peace.

What comes after all this? What are we aiming for? So I think Republicans do recognize the same comment that you made earlier, and that is it seems like we're going through decades worth of important decisions every week.

We go through things that we had not actually considered. Things are occurring in our country and around the world, notwithstanding AI and a lot of other matters. We need to get to a point where we can understand what it's going to take with this war to either continue the war, and then there would be a debate, obviously, in Congress, or whether we are going to find a way to compromise.

But I would just say to you, Republicans, including myself, are pushing the president and the administration not to give in on the ballistic missile or the nuclear issue. The Iranians have made it very clear they intend to strike not only the United States, our allies, and across Europe, and we will not allow that to happen.

[08:05:00] BERMAN: You said you're concerned because you don't know what's going to happen next. Has the White House told you what they think is going to happen next?

SESSIONS: Well, I think the White House has lots of clues that they believe that they're looking at. They're looking at the loss of the currency by the Iranians. They're looking at a good bit of conflict internally.

They're looking at a number of facts and factors. But the bottom line is that I believe that the Iranians are unlike anyone we've really ever dealt with. They don't have a linchpin.

It's death or not to them. And we're going to have to face this as not just Republicans but as Americans about the price it's going to take.

BERMAN: Congressman, it just sounded to me like you weren't sure what the administration's plan was.

SESSIONS: Well, no, I don't. I think it's how do we counter what we don't want or what we want. And I think that the president has been very careful.

We did not come in and bomb all these cities, the infrastructure, the civilian populations. And they're having to make a determination how are we going to do this. Is this going to be something where they fund the Iranian people, the opposition against them? Will it be an inside topple?

I just don't think that we have necessarily decided on that pathway. And yet here we continue. What we thought, normal bombing, cutting them off from money, putting them in a harder place, has hardened them. And that's my opinion. I think the administration is trying to figure a lot of these things out.

Meanwhile, in the United States, we've got our own problems.

BERMAN: Again, just to try to follow up on what you were saying there, you think that the U.S. action has hardened the Iranian regime. So you do not think it has worked to force their hand?

SESSIONS: I think that we don't have a real clue about what that linchpin would be. We have used conventional ideas. We've tried to work in conventional ways.

And I think that we need to rethink where we are, what that's going to take, and the American people, or at least members of Congress, need to understand, is this going to be six weeks more of a war or what is it going to take? Because, see, we have to rearm ourselves also. That takes money. That takes votes by members of Congress.

That brings the point very clearly, we've got to make sure we can live up to whatever that decision is.

BERMAN: So you just said six weeks of war, which is two months of war. I mean, how many days of war would you say there have been so far? SESSIONS: Well, John, what I would say to you, how many have there been? We know when this started, but we also know that there was intense bombing that was intended to work. I cannot say that it didn't work, but it certainly did not end the matter.

And I'm not saying that it's six weeks or any amount of time. What I'm saying is we need to get a better handle off where we are now --

BOLDUAN: I guess what I'm asking --

SESSIONS: -- what it's going to take.

BERMAN: I'm so sorry to step on what you were saying there. Has it been 60 days?

SESSIONS: You're right. They have been in peace talks where we have reframed from, quote, war now for at least the last two weeks, John.

BERMAN: I missed what you just said there. I'm so sorry. I asked you, had it been 60 days?

Do you think a blockade, which many people consider an act of war, which has been going on during the so-called ceasefire, constitute days of war, days of conflict?

SESSIONS: No, I do not, John. I consider the last several weeks that this was negotiation to end it, and that would not be the, quote, war that's going on. So I think negotiation is not war.

BERMAN: All right. So you agree with Pete Hegseth that there's sort of an extension on the term paper here when they have to ask for congressional approval. Congressman Pete Sessions, appreciate your time this morning.

Thank you -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Interesting. We'll talk more about that shortly.

New video from the attempted attack on the White House Correspondents' Dinner. The suspect's moves before the attack and how he cased the hotel. What prosecutors are using this video for now.

President Trump pulls his nomination for surgeon general again. Who's his next pick, and does she have any better shot of getting sign-off from Congress as the others?

And caught on camera. Take a look at this.

[08:10:00]

A shark chasing after two guys on e-foils off the California coast. No, thank you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Breaking overnight, there is new security footage of the attempted attack on the White House Correspondents' Dinner that's being released, showing a clearer picture of what happened in the moments that the suspect charged officers on the scene. There's more video also of the suspect casing the hotel in the day before the attack.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is tracking all of this and is joining us right now. And this also comes, as we were speaking yesterday, you were outside court, they were about to head in to try to -- prosecutors wanted to make sure that Cole Thomas Allen stayed behind bars.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: He is staying behind bars, but the prosecutors also stood up in court yesterday and said, we have more to show. And now we're getting those pictures. It's this new video that the U.S. Attorney's Office is releasing and also sending to the D.C. District Court.

[08:15:00]

It shows piecing together the bits that we hadn't seen yet, like just filling in those details. Some of the details are of Cole Allen in the days before Saturday night at the White House Correspondents' Dinner as a guest at the Capitol Hilton.

There he is walking into a gym. What U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro says is him casing the hotel. There's also a little bit of video of him walking down a hallway in the hotel from the days before the dinner.

But then that's when we're learning more. There's additional video now of him running through the magnetometers and having that gunfire exchange with U.S. Secret Service officials protecting the dinner right outside the ballroom where the president was. The details before we saw this video, what the Justice Department had said is that Allen had held a shotgun in both hands in a raised position parallel to the ground as he ran through those magnetometers.

A U.S. Secret Service officer observed the defendant fire the shotgun in the direction of the stairs leading down to the ballroom. So they hadn't specifically said in court that he was firing at a Secret Service agent in the video. And then also in subsequent public comments, the U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has said that Cole Allen, he was firing directly at a Secret Service agent. In this slowed down version of the video, there are white circles that the U.S. Attorney's office is using to represent when shots were fired and by whom. But there are still a lot of questions around this. There's not a clear image of his shotgun going off in that video.

And there has been a little bit more question about exactly what happened here because the Justice Department in court hasn't specified he was shooting at this U.S. Secret Service agent, though the director of the Secret Service yesterday said he fired at point blank range. We'll still be learning more in court, Kate. There's hearings to come and we're still waiting on an indictment.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. All right, Katelyn, thank you so much for putting it all together for us -- John. BERMAN: But how can you prepare yourself from all these jumps in gas prices up nearly 10 cents more overnight? One of the world's great experts weighs in on what happens next.

And then a judge issues a sharp warning to Elon Musk. What got him in trouble in the most watched A.I. trial in the country?

[08:20:00]

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BOLDUAN: Much of the United States is waking up to something of a gut punch when it comes to gas prices. Overnight, prices jumped again by nine cents to a new national average of four dollars, thirty nine cents a gallon. That's up 33 cents from one week ago.

And prices are up really from coast to coast. The average in my home state, Indiana, has risen a dollar and nine cents in the past week alone.

Joining me right now is Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, to talk about where things are and where things could go from here. Patrick, thanks for being here.

Yesterday, I was obviously tracking you and follow you on social media and you'd said that Americans are going to pay -- spend half a billion dollars more on gasoline over the next 24 hours, kind of all told, than March 1st. I mean, wow.

Do you think gas prices can continue to jump this much and so often? I mean, where is the ceiling?

PATRICK DE HAAN, HEAD OF PETROLEUM ANALYSIS, GASBUDDY: OK, not so much. I do think that the increases will continue. Thankfully, not at the pace in the last week.

You mentioned your home state of Indiana, some exceptional refining issues added to the extension of the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which sent oil prices up significantly earlier this week. That's why the majority of Americans are paying more. Great Lakes states got a bit of an enhancement from refinery snags that developed over the weekend.

That is why all of those states in the Great Lakes from Michigan to Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, experiencing a bit of sticker shock with prices that literally jumped a dollar a gallon in a six hour time period. So that is more focused on refining issues, which can happen this time of year. But for the majority of us, we're all feeling the gut punch from the extension.

The president talking about extending the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. We've already lost a billion barrels of oil due to the shutdown. And now U.S. exports of oil and products are also hitting new records as countries start buying our oil, gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. The EIA reporting in the last week that nearly 100 million barrels of oil products left the U.S. shores in the last week. That is going to put more upward pressure on our prices in the weeks ahead.

BOLDUAN: I was saying you also expect diesel in the Midwest to hit six dollars. What's the ripple effect impacts of that?

DE HAAN: Well, it can't be understated, especially as farmers are getting out to plant their crops ahead of the season in the next couple of weeks. And as you mentioned, diesel now on the cusp of hitting six dollars and many of those very significant agriculture states from Iowa to Kansas, Nebraska, Indiana, Illinois, all of the worst potential time. Not that there's any good time for such a surge in prices, but the wholesale cost of diesel on Wednesday alone soared 73 cents a gallon for those states, indicative of major refining issues in the Great Lakes region.

Now, I'm hopeful that those refinery issues will be worked out here over the next week. The national average may eventually see a little bit of relief, at least from that angle. But my worry is as long as the Strait of Hormuz continues to be closed, oil prices are likely to face continued upward pressure.

If we don't see a reopening soon, it's possible that by Memorial Day or maybe July 4, gasoline prices nationally could be getting close to the five dollar mark.

BOLDUAN: And then there's, you know, we hear from all over the political spectrum that the United States is more insulated than much of the rest of the world in terms of fuel shortages just because of how America is producing so much right now. But oil pricing, as we have all learned and know, is global. How insulated then can the United States be as this all continues?

[08:25:00]

DE HAAN: Well, as you mentioned, we're relatively insulated. The U.S. is the world's largest oil producer, but we're losing some of that insulation. It's being stripped a little bit away as other countries are finding it difficult to find supplies.

We've seen dozens of very large crude carriers or VLCCs that carry products to the market showing up on the shores of the Gulf Coast, waiting to buy and ship those barrels of oil that we do export. U.S. oil exports hit a record high last week. If you combine it all, more of the products are leaving U.S. shores than ever before, and that is likely to put some upward pressure on us as well. So some of that insulation is being stripped away, and that could continue. I do expect even higher exports in the weeks ahead.

BOLDUAN: Patrick De Haan, thank you very much. Busy time for you, for sure.

Coming up for us, street artist Banksy strikes again, unveiling a new statue that's causing quite a stir, I mean, in the heart of London. I cannot speak English, apparently, today.

And we sit down with Olympic legend Lindsey Vonn on her road to recovery after the eight surgeries she has already had to repair that devastating leg injury in Italy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LINDSEY VONN, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST IN ALPINE SKIING: I can't imagine this being my first injury. It would, like, it would decimate me, but because I know how to be resilient, I know how to come back, I know what the grind feels like, it's definitely helped me in this rehab.

(END VIDEO CLIP)