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Interview with Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA): Iran Claims It's Prevented U.S. Ships from Entering Hormuz; United Plane Hits Bakery Trump, Light Pole While Landing in New Jersey; Trumps Approval Among Independents at this Point in His Term. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 04, 2026 - 08:00   ET

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

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BERMAN: ... actor was going to be up for a nomination anytime soon. It seems like they just wanted to make a statement.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: That's absolutely right. I think they do want to make a statement about where the Academy stands and where Hollywood at whole stands on this issue and the importance of embracing and celebrating human creativity in this moment.

BERMAN: All right. Well bad news for all those AI actors out there who thought they'd be delivering an acceptance speech. Clare Duffy, thank you very much for that report. Appreciate it.

Brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the breaking news this hour. Iran says that it is stopping us Navy ships trying to move through the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. says Iran's claims that it hit a U.S. ship with missiles is bogus.

The terrifying moment on the New Jersey turnpike, a United flight coming in for a landing and lands at least hits a delivery truck.

And three people are dead after a suspected outbreak on a cruise ship of a rare virus found in rodents. The World Health Organization now investigating.

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

BERMAN: All right breaking this morning. We have conflicting reports frankly, and we're trying to figure out what's going on U.S. Central Command is denying claims by Iranian state media that a U.S. warship was struck by Iranian missiles near the Strait of Hormuz. This is happening just as President Trump said that American forces will begin guiding ships through the Strait beginning today.

Now we should note that a U.S. official tells CNN that guiding is not the same thing as escorting. So it's really not clear how all of this is supposed to work.

Iran does claim that it has prevented U.S. military ships from entering the Strait today. It also published a new map with red line showing the expanded zone that Tehran now says it controls in the Strait. So you can see an area both inside and outside the Strait of Hormuz. Iran warns that quote, "Any foreign military force will be attacked if it tries to approach or enter the Strait." So far shipping data shows almost no traffic is moving there. The Strait as far as we can tell is effectively still closed right now.

Overnight gas prices ticked up a little bit. The national average has now jumped 35 cents in just one week to 4.46 a gallon -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Let's talk about all of these conflicting details coming in and just the state of things especially in the Strait of Hormuz. Joining us right now is Democratic Congressman Suha Subramanian of Virginia. Thanks for coming back in.

On this move announced by the president, do you want the U.S. Navy starting to guide ships from foreign countries through the Strait of Hormuz. Because the president's talking about it as a humanitarian gesture though.

It's apparently does not include U.S. Navy ships actually escorting other vessels.

REP. SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM (D-VA), HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Yes, it's still unclear to me how that's helpful whether that will get more ships through the Strait. Certainly if we can pull off a scenario where we can get ships safely through that is a good thing for our country. It's good thing for the war. Good thing for the entire world. The reality is this was not an issue before this war started and Iran has gained leverage throughout this war by claiming the Strait of Hormuz and by controlling it. And so anything we can do to undermine that control is a good thing, but let's remember that this was not an issue before this war and more reason why this war has been a disaster so far.

BOLDUAN: Congressman if this is essentially to challenge Iran's effort to control the Strait, a senior Iranian official is saying that any U.S. interference in the Strait of Hormuz would be a violation of the ceasefire that the U.S. had agreed to. Do you think that's the case?

SUBRAMANYAM: No, no, I think any ship should be able to go through the Strait of Hormuz. We do not recognize Iran as being in control of the Strait of Hormuz and so ships should be able to go through and any act of war by Iran is a break of the ceasefire, If they fire upon a ship that's trying to get through the Strait of Hormuz. So I reject what Iran's trying to say.

They're trying to use this as leverage. The issue here is that they didn't have the Strait of Hormuz as leverage before this war. They were trying to get nuclear weapons as a way to gain leverage over the world, but this war has given them new ways of gaining leverage over the region and the world and so anything we can do to undermine that is a good thing.

BOLDUAN: European leaders are meeting today kind of talking about the path forward now and reacting to the sudden announcement from the Trump administration that they are pulling 5,000 U.S. troops from their station in Germany. The German Chancellor downplaying it, though other European leaders say the timing did come as a shock. What's your reaction?

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Is this a smart move? Does this help further U.S. interests abroad?

SUBRAMANYAM: It does not help further U.S. interests. The reality is we are treating our allies very poorly. This has been a trend in this administration.

And if this administration wants to build consensus and gain support for this war across the world, undermining its allies is the opposite of what they should be doing. They should be working hand-in-hand with our European allies, but instead we have undermined that relationship. This is once again a failure of diplomacy.

This entire administration has been a failure of diplomacy. And so this absolutely undermines our own interests in the region and in the world.

BOLDUAN: You sit on the House Oversight Committee, and there's been some new reporting coming from House Oversight that there's become a split among members on whether or not they would support President Trump offering a pardon to Ghislaine Maxwell in order to allow her to cooperate fully with the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. The chairman had told Politico that there were a lot of people think it would be a good agreement, though he thought it looks bad is how he had said it. Is there a split among the committee on this?

Where are you on this?

SUBRAMANYAM: I would love to hear anyone on the committee who believes Ghislaine Maxwell should be pardoned to speak up about that and let us know, because I have not heard of any member of Congress, much less anyone on the Oversight Committee, supporting a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell. I would say the survivors, and really anyone involved with these investigations, would say that pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell would be the absolute worst thing we could possibly do.

I'm not interested in what Ghislaine Maxwell has to say because she is a liar. She's been a proven liar over and over again. And pardoning her is pardoning a monster. So she should never be pardoned.

And I would absolutely oppose that. So should every single member of Congress and everyone in the American public.

BOLDUAN: Let's see if that becomes a thing. There is a new Washington Post poll out that not only took a look at Donald Trump's falling approval rating in various areas but also found that the public is pretty evenly split on which party they trust with the economy. Republicans have a one percentage point -- have one percentage point on Democrats at this point.

And you look at that and you wonder, if President Trump is blowing it on the economy like you all believe he is, why aren't Democrats winning on this issue?

SUBRAMANYAM: Yes, a lot of the disapproval of the Democratic Party is coming from Democrats who feel like, we're not being bold enough. We're losing elections. We're not standing up to the president enough.

And that's understandable. And so I think it's gotten better. Last year, we were in a pretty bad place and we're disorganized.

I think now our caucus and the party is becoming more united. I'm starting to see more of a united message develop around affordability. And we're going to have to continue that momentum because just because voters are upset with President Trump doesn't mean they're going to vote for Democrats automatically.

We have to prove to them that we will govern, that we will address their concerns on affordability and on health care, and that we will stand up to the Trump administration and stand up to its corruption. So we have to do all those things and make it very clear to the American people what we stand for.

BOLDUAN: Congressman Supermaniam, thanks for coming in -- John.

BERMAN: So imagine driving your truck on the New Jersey Turnpike and then getting hit by a landing 767. That just happened. But how? This morning, the latest on that driver's condition, but also the latest on the investigation.

We've learned that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been hospitalized in critical condition. We are getting updates on his situation.

And then traveling completely around the world, it's not easy. It's even harder when you don't want to get in an airplane. How one guy has figured out how to do it.

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BOLDUAN: Plane versus truck on the New Jersey Turnpike. It was a terrifying incident when a United flight was coming in for landing and then this happened. It hit a bread delivery truck as it was landing, also a light pole on final approach.

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(DASH CAM VIDEO OF ACCIDENT)

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BOLDUAN: That's the dash cam video that captures the moment. It looks catastrophic, of course, but surprisingly that driver was OK, and OK enough to pull over and call his employer. He suffered minor injuries.

He's expected to be OK now and no one on board the plane was hurt. It landed at Newark safely. Let's get to CNN's Pete Muntean. He's got more on this. And it's just

every step of this entire thing, I just keep asking how.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: That driver, Warren Bordley, sounds like he only has cuts from glass from that collision that you see there in that incredible video. It's going to be a pretty interesting one for investigators here, Kate. So far, I cannot find a case in recent memory where a U.S. commercial flight has hit something on a highway below it. Here are the circumstances.

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United flight 169 arriving from Venice, Italy, coming into land on Newark's runway 29. That's Newark's shortest runway. It was favorable yesterday due to the strong winds out of the west. The approach path, that final approach path of the runway goes right over 12 lanes of I- 95 there and the New Jersey Turnpike. You can see the relation of the runway beginning and the highway there.

I want to show you a little bit more in detail. We have a spot shadow, a still frame of what appears to be the left wheel, that landing gear assembly outside of the left window of that bread truck that was damaged. You can see it going frame by frame there.

Clearly, a case of too low on the approach path. But now the question is why. Usually pilots landing on this runway at Newark follow guidance from their instruments down to about 400 feet, which is pretty low, and then continue solely by looking out the windshield. They call that a visual approach.

But then they're cautioned by way of published landing procedures that they follow that there are obstacles nearby, that there's not much tolerance to be low on the approach. I want you to listen now to the air traffic control audio here, in which the tower describes in an exchange that the airplane was also damaged.

Listen here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SPEAKER 1: Did you get a report for what the issue was?

SPEAKER 2: I got different conflictions on the turnpike.

SPEAKER1. Yes, they felt something over the threshold and there's a hole in the side of the airplane. So, I'm going to get you on the runway here in a moment. They said it was right at the threshold, so it'll just be a minute.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: The controller there describing the beginning of the runway known as the runway threshold. Clearly, the pilots felt something on board. According to that air traffic control audio, we'll see exactly what they felt as the investigation begins. The data will be also so telling here. Right now, we have only the open source data, which shows the plane over the highway at about 125 feet doing about 160 miles per hour. That is rough data.

What investigators will also want to look at is the flight data recorder to get some better information. Also, the voice recorder. Did the pilots realize they were too low?

Was there a discussion about the risk posed by obstacles in the highway? The NTSB says it arrives on the scene today. Of course, they will want to interview the pilots here, and they'll want to know, was there an application of power?

Did the pilots throttle up to try and get themselves back on the approach path when they realized that they were too low, if at all? Some pretty big questions here, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Man, oh, man, Pete. So wild. It's good to see you, buddy. Thank you very much.

So, there are two U.S. service members have gone missing in Morocco during a military training exercise. We have the very latest for you on the urgent search underway for them.

And it was supposed to be a Spirit pilot's retirement flight, but it was then axed after the airline shuttered its own doors. How a rival airline crew then stepped up to make sure he received his special send-off.

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BERMAN: All right, we're talking about the new polls, which show President Donald Trump having record high disapproval. You can't get to record high disapproval with just members of the other party not liking you. So, how do you get there?

With us now, CNN chief data analyst, Harry Enten. So, we're not talking about Democrats here.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: No.

BERMAN: Who are the people dragging down the president's approval ratings?

ENTEN: Who are the people who are dragging down President Trump's approval rating? We are talking about a very important block for the president of the United States. That is Republican-leaning independence.

That is what's going on. Take a look here. This is the difference.

Trump's approval rating at this point of term. Independents who lean Republican versus those who are just Republicans only. Look at this among independents who lean Republican. Back in term number one, he was at 73 percent at this point of term. Down he goes, an absolute collapse now. Just 53 percent of independents who lean Republican now approve of the president of the United States.

That's very different from Republicans only. It was 83 at this point in term number one. It's 83 percent now.

But that's a 20-point decline in his approval rating, nearly at the 50 percent mark, with a group that traditionally has very much been in the president's camp.

BERMAN: This isn't just indies, this is independents who lean Republican. People who, in theory, should be predisposed to like the president there. Talk more about the shift we've seen, actually, now this time from just a couple years ago.

ENTEN: Just a couple years ago. Take a look at this shift. Oh my. Oh my.

GOP-leaning independence on Trump. In the 2024 election versus Kamala Harris, he got 91 percent of that vote. Nearly 100. You know, near uniformity on that one.

But down he goes, down into the deep blue sea, now at 53 percent on the job approval rating. John, I'm not that good at math, but I believe that is a 38-point drop, a 38-point drop from where he was in the 2024 election.

As I said, this is a core group for Donald Trump, and they are waving adios amigos, goodbye, we no longer support you, President of the United States. We are going in the other direction. We're deciding to disapprove, then approve.

He's just above 50 percent in a group that overwhelmingly supported him back in the 2024 election.

BERMAN: That's 18 months ago. I mean, this is a very brief period to drop that much among a group that is part of, frankly, your essential coalition there. So what does this tell us?

What does this group think of maybe the congressional elections coming up in six months?

ENTEN: Yes, OK. So you see this 38-point drop here, and you're a Republican member of Congress.

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You say, oh my God, I hope this doesn't affect me, because if it does, a lot of those swing district congressional members right on the Republican side will be waving adios amigos, goodbye. But you know what's going on here? What's going on here, by the way? This is a six and an eight.

What we're seeing here, choice for Congress, Republican-leaning independents in the 2024 election. Look at this. They supported Republican candidates by 83 points, but now it's 68 points. That's a 15-point drop, again, in only 18 months' time. These are not numbers that Republicans win with.

These are numbers Republicans lose with. And so what we're seeing right now is that collapsing support for President Trump among Republican-leaning independents absolutely finding its way down ballot, making its way down ballot. And if these numbers hold for the 2026 election, which is occurring in only a little bit about six months' time, depending on how you exactly count six months, that would be absolutely devastating for Republicans.

BERMAN: Harry, say I was a viewer of this show and I had a lot more questions about the midterms taking place in six months. Where could I go to get some of those questions answered?

ENTEN: You know, I'm glad you asked that, Johnny Berman, because it turns out that I have a slide for that. Where can you go? You can ask Johnny and I right now.

Look at this. We look so fantastic over here, right? I think I look pretty chill. John looks really chill over here. You can go to CNN.com/subscriber series and we'll answer the questions that you ask right now. We'll answer them on Wednesday night.

That is May the 6th. We'll answer them at 7 p.m. Eastern time right at this website, CNN.com/subscriber series. And you can see a chill and I would even argue better-looking version of John and me.

BERMAN: I mean, it's impossibly better-looking than you are right now. But I will say, join us. Send your questions in. You can join us live Wednesday night. It will be a fun event. We will answer just about anything.

ENTEN: And we mean about anything.

BERMAN: All right, a dangerous outbreak of a rare virus on a cruise ship kills three passengers and leaves another one sick. What we know about all of this.

And a man drives a car filled with explosives straight into a health club. The latest on the investigation.

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