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Two U.S. Vessels Sail Through Strait; Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) is Interviewed about the Strait of Hormuz; United Plane Hits Bakery Truck; Katy Nastro is Interviewed about Passengers with Spirit Tickets. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired May 04, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

OMAR NOK, EGYPTIAN TRAVELER: Basically so everyone can kind of see in real time. They also support my travel. So, I have a partner with them as well.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Is there one big lesson that you've kind of taken from this entire experience so far?

NOK: I would say, the world is not as scary of a place as most people might think. This I learned definitely. Maybe the negative sticks out or sticks in people's minds more, but definitely the world is not as scary. Having been through, you know, I don't let geopolitics actually let -- go in the way of me visiting a place. And that the world is so big actually. Our planet is so big. People say sometimes it's small world. I have a -- I have another opinion at the moment. Not -- from someone who doesn't fly, I don't feel that way at all.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's very big, and round, it turns out, as you are learning along the way.

Omar Nok, people can follow you online. It's quite a sensation. Thank you so much for being with us and good luck.

Brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

BOLDUAN: Breaking news this hour. The U.S. military says two U.S. merchant ships have successfully now made their way through the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, Iran says that it's blocked a U.S. warship. There's a lot going on here and big questions around it all. We have the latest.

And plane versus truck on the New Jersey turnpike. Investigators are now trying to figure out how and what happened that a United flight crashed into a bread delivery truck as it was going in for landing.

And inside the final hours of Spirit Airlines. Why it failed and what to do if you had a flight booked with this airline.

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

All right, let's get to the breaking news that we're following this hour, and it all has to do with the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. Central Command just announced that two U.S. flagged merchant vessels now have successfully crossed this critical waterway. CENTCOM calls it a first step after President Trump announced that the -- that the U.S. military would be helping to guide ships through beginning today. CENTCOM is also denying claims put out by Iran's state media this morning that a U.S. warship was struck by two missiles near the Strait. CENTCOM says that did not happen.

Still, Iran is now claiming that it has full control over the passage. The country's Revolutionary Guard Corps publishing this map that you see behind us. It's a very old map, but with new lines, those red lines showing the area that it says, and it claims, to now control.

Iran has warned that the way it's putting it is, any foreign military force will be attacked if they try to approach or enter the key oil shipping route, which really raises the stakes on what happens today now that we have this news from U.S. Central Command.

Overnight, gas prices went up by a penny, but the national average, though, continue to track. The trend has surged 35 cents in just a week to $4.46 now a gallon.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is live at the White House for us again this morning.

There's a lot coming out. Again, there still remains some confusion over who's in control and what can pass and who's guiding what. What's the very latest you're picking up?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. And what actually does guiding really mean? A U.S. official says that it is not considered an escort mission. And so, we won't see these destroyers sort of sailing alongside these merchant vessels as they pass through the Strait.

Instead, the suggestion is that this is more of a coordination effort. The U.S. military will help these vessels decide which channels to flow through, which are the safest, and essentially through their presence in the Arabian Sea and around the Strait of Hormuz, try and provide some reassurance to the shipping companies and to the pilots themselves that this passageway is safe.

Now, what Central Command says is that it will involve the guided missile destroyers, more than 100 aircraft, drones, 15,000 American service personnel to try and get this very critical waterway opened. And the Central Command statement from this morning, I think, is significant. You know, in addition to the two U.S. flagged merchant vessels that they say have now safely transited the Strait of Hormuz, they also say that U.S. Navy guided missile destroyers are now operating in the Arabian Gulf after they themselves transited the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting that these two -- or that these American warships were able to pass through without being targeted by Iran, which I think is significant.

And so all of this, I think, progressing clearly.

[09:05:02]

President Trump trying to up the pressure on Iran really to either reopen the Strait or return to war. You know, the president very explicitly in his Truth Social post last night said that if any of these efforts were interfered with, that the U.S., quote, "unfortunately would have to deal with them very forcefully."

And I think he's sort of upping the stakes here. Amid these dual blockades of the Strait that have caused energy prices to spike, the president is saying that the U.S. will try and get vessels flowing, but also suggesting that the ceasefire that's currently in place will be breached if Iran starts firing on these ships.

Of course, as the diplomacy continues apace, we're getting mixed signals on that front. The president saying that Iran's proposal that's on the table now is unacceptable, while at the same time saying that the conversations are very positive. Not exactly clear where that stands at the moment. But evidently some success we're seeing, at least according to Central Command, in this effort to reopen the Strait.

BOLDUAN: All right. Let us see. Kevin, thank you so much for that update.

John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now, Congressman Brendan Boyle, a Democrat from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Congressman, good to see you.

So, CENTCOM says two U.S. merchant vessels have transited the Strait. How much progress do you see there?

REP. BRENDAN BOYLE (D-PA): Well, that's a small, positive sign, but it's remarkable when you take a step back and think that just two months ago the average price for a gallon of gas in this country was $2.98 a gallon. And now, as you just reported, it is $4.46 a gallon. And that is specifically because of this war of choice that this president launched two months ago. And we have now had to suffer through the largest increase in gas prices in a two-month period since the 1960s.

This war makes absolutely no sense. I'm still not sure why exactly we're fighting it. The White House has given many different sort of rationales. And I think most people, at this point, are ready to move on and get back to normal before this president launched this disastrous war of choice.

BERMAN: But as I said, there were two vessels that did transit this morning. Where do you think it's headed in the coming weeks?

BOYLE: Well, one of the challenges I have with answering that question is, the president has really given no guidance, or I should say no consistent guidance. It's all over the map. I mean yesterday, literally, there was one tweet in which it was more of the bellicose rhetoric from the White House. And then, later in the afternoon, only a few minutes before the futures markets opened up, you saw more conciliatory language from the president.

So, like in so many other areas of policy, this is a president who makes it up day by day, even hour by hour. So, we just don't know at this point what later today will hold, let alone tomorrow or next week.

BERMAN: You think -- you say he makes it up as he goes along. You don't see a coherent strategy here?

BOYLE: Yes, I can say that quite clearly. On this, on -- and on a whole sort of other array of policy issues. He makes it up exactly as he goes along. His only north star, really, if you were to look at his entire presidency, if you look at the decade plus that he's been on the political scene, the only thing that guides him are getting back at the people he perceives have wronged him. He lives for the grudges. Other than that, there's no really guiding principle there.

BERMAN: Congressman, the Obamacare subsidies, the enhanced Obamacare subsidies for people to sign up and get help paying for their health care, they expired at the end of last year. It was a big deal when it happened, but we don't hear much about it anymore over the last few months. At least we don't hear much about it from the administration or members of Congress, because you've been doing a lot of other things. But people have begun to fall off the rolls. There's a new article in "The New York Times" just over the weekend on this. What can be done about this?

BOYLE: Yes. Well, I'm glad you raised this because I actually bring it up voluntarily in almost every interview I do. And, in fact, every single Budget Committee hearing we have where I serve as the lead Democrat or ranking member, I bring up the fact -- and it's not just Obamacare. This is the year that most of the devastating health care cuts that were included in the Republican tax bill last summer will take effect. You mentioned the loss of the Obamacare subsidies. We've already seen tens of thousands of people drop off here in Pennsylvania. Nationally it's believed to be around two million.

But come December, that's when the beginning of the 10 million people who are currently on Medicaid will begin to lose their coverage. All told, when you add up all of the cuts that were in that Republican tax bill, again signed into law last summer, the Congressional Budget Office projects more than 15 million Americans are about to lose their health care.

[09:10:11]

That will be the single biggest loss of health care in American history.

BERMAN: Congressman, I want to ask you a question about local interest, parochial a little bit, Pennsylvania politics here.

"Axios" has an article out this morning saying that Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, "secretly helped a Republican state treasurer's 2024 re-election bid after the official's Democratic opponent had criticized Shapiro as a potential VP pick," that is, a close ally to Shapiro said last week.

Now, the background here is a little bit complicated. It has to do with the treasurer's election. There was some internal squabbling back and forth. It had to do with an out loud statement by a person named Bob Brooks, who's running for Congress, also leads the firefighters union, who says the statement he made was inaccurate.

But what about the basic idea of what if Governor Shapiro helped a Republican candidate? Would that be something that concerns you?

BOYLE: Yes. Well, I'm not going to engage in hypotheticals. I would just say, for me, I'm entirely focused on Democrats winning back the House this November. I think we have an excellent opportunity to do so. There are three, even four seats in Pennsylvania that are highly competitive. It may well be, and in fact I'm happy to predict, that it will be the case that Pennsylvania will actually lead us to take back the U.S. House this November. I think we will have more pickups from my state than any other state that hasn't redrawn the map.

So, that's a -- exactly what I'm focused on, and appropriately so.

BERMAN: Governor Shapiro, running for re-election. A big victory from him could help those candidates. Do you see his candidacy for re- election as being essential?

BOYLE: You know, I have to say, I mean, I think that we're going to see victories up and down the ballot here in Pennsylvania. You already saw a sneak preview of this, by the way, last November in the special elections where we were winning just above me here in the Philadelphia area, Bucks County, to many ways is the swing county of the swing state. We won two open races countywide by double digits. Literally never seen that before. First time ever that we won one of those two offices. You saw that replicated from here all the way to Erie and many counties in between.

So, I think whether it's the congressional seats, the governor's race, state house, maybe even state senate, I think that this may just be the single best Democratic election in my lifetime in Pennsylvania.

BERMAN: All right, we will see.

Congressman Brendan Boyle, always great to see you. Thank you very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, a truck driver's normal day on the job turned like upside down after a United jet landed at -- was landing at Newark Airport and hits his truck upon approach. Watch this.

(VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Despite how horrible that looks, the man survived. He was actually able to pull over, even call his employer. He suffered minor injuries, cuts from glass, understandably so. Everyone on board the plane, also fine.

CNN's Pete Muntean has much more now, though, on an investigation that is most certainly underway.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Warren Boardley just singing along there in his truck on I-95 as he clearly saw something coming from the right side of the airplane, that Boeing 767 operated by United Airlines. It's going to be an interesting one for investigators here, Kate. And 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. United Flight 169 arriving from Venice, a pretty long flight, coming in to land on Newark's runway two-nine. That is the shortest runway available at Newark. It was the favorable runway yesterday due to the strong winds out of the west. The approach path, the final approach that goes right to the runway goes over about 12 lanes of I-95 on the turnpike there. And I want to show you the still frame of what appears to be the landing gear of that 767 out of the window of the bread truck that was damaged. You can see the spotlight there. It's not quite in frame there. You can see it in the -- in the video, though.

Now the question is really, why? Usually pilots following landing guidance from their instruments down to about 400 feet or so on this approach. Then they continue solely by looking out the window. At that point it's called a visual approach. But they're cautioned by way of published landing procedures, that there are obstacles in the way. That there's not much tolerance to be low.

And I want you to listen now to the air traffic control audio here, in which the tower has an exchange, describes that the airplane was also damaged.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SPEAKER ONE: Did you get the reports for what the issue was?

SPEAKER TWO: I got different conflictions on the turnpike.

[09:15:01]

SPEAKER ONE: Yes, they felt something over the threshold and they -- 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 threshold, meaning the very start of the runway, which essentially starts when the highway ends.

The data will be really telling here. Right now we only have the open source data, which shows the plane over the highway at about 125 feet, doing about 160 miles per hour. That's the rough data. What investigators will want to look at is the flight data recorder to get some better information. Also the voice recorder to get some better information. Did the pilots realize that they were too low? Was there a discussion in the cockpit about the risks posed by the obstacles in the highway?

The NTSB says it arrives on the scene today. They, of course, will want to interview the pilots here. They may also want to interview Warren Boardley about his experience as well. It sounds like he's facing mostly cuts and scrapes from all the broken glass you saw in that video there.

BOLDUAN: But he's certainly got a story to tell now for sure. My goodness.

Pete, thank you so much for that reporting. Appreciate it.

John.

BERMAN: All right, breaking overnight, at least a dozen people hurt in a shooting in Oklahoma City. Two suspects this morning still on the run.

Spirit Airlines out of business. Thousands of travelers out of luck. What you can do if you did have a flight booked.

And, if you're just waking up this morning, let me be the first to say May the 4th be with you. It is now and what will forever be known as Star Wars Day.

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[09:20:38]

BOLDUAN: So, this morning, passengers are scrambling to salvage travel plans and get their money back after Spirit Airlines shut down over the weekend. It's the first time in 25 years that a major U.S. airline has gone out of business because of financial trouble. The company is in its second bankruptcy and was in serious financial trouble well before the Iran War then sent jet fuel prices just surging.

Spirit said that it will automatically issue refunds to passengers who bought tickets with credit or debit cards, but that it would not be able to help passengers rebooking flights on another airline.

So, what is a traveler to do now? Joining me right now is Katy Nastro with Going.com, hopefully to offer some help and reassurance right now.

Katy, thanks for being here.

So, for travelers with Spirit tickets, like, with immediate travel booked, what should their first move be?

KATY NASTRO, SPOKESPERSON AND TRAVEL EXPERT, GOING.COM: Yes, good morning, Kate. Thanks for having me. First and foremost, anyone with immediate travel, their highest

priority right now is to rebook themselves on another airline, not with Spirit, because Spirit does not exist to be able to get them on their way.

So, typically, when we see travel disruptions, your airline will rebook you automatically on a new flight. However, in this scenario, that is just not the case. And so other airlines are stepping up to provide what we call rescue fares. And these are either capped at a certain amount or deeply discounted fares on select routes that Spirit operated, typically one ways, to be able to accommodate or re- accommodate travelers that have been impacted. You know, last minute tickets, those are pretty expensive. And so, with these rescue fares, that's -- those are seemingly going to help mitigate some of these additional costs that travelers are going to have to pay out of pocket.

But one thing I want travelers to be aware of is that there's not an endless supply of seats to rebook on, and we're even hearing of some stranded passengers in select markets, like Orlando for example, that are waiting, you know, a few days to get rebooked. And so, some hotels are even offering discounted nightly rates to be able to help these stranded passengers in this time frame.

BOLDUAN: It kind of also gets to a bigger issue that was kind of the question when it came to what the uncertain future was for Spirit, which was, Spirit was kind of a key option for cheaper airfare for folks. Now that Spirit's no longer, what does that mean? What's the impact going to be on airfare?

NASTRO: Yes, unfortunately, it is turbulent times ahead for that really cost conscious traveler. You know, love them or hate them, Spirit really was a disruptor, especially in these larger markets that it operated in, these large cities and airports that, you know, really are dominated by some of these legacy carriers, like American, United, Delta. And so they really helped to put pricing pressure and set the floor. You know, on average, in any market that Spirit existed, routes were roughly 14 percent cheaper on average, according to Cirium (ph) data.

And so, we are in for, not just a turbulent time because of the higher jet fuel prices, but with Spirit out of the market, that's one fewer competitor really setting the bar. And so, yes, it is -- it's going to be more challenging for that traveler that maybe -- that travels once or twice a year to see family and friends and is looking to do so affordably.

BOLDUAN: Yes, and I was -- kind of to this point. I was just seeing, according to "The Detroit News," like after Delta, Spirit Airlines is Detroit's number two carrier with about 1.7 million passengers in 2025. And that kind of had me thinking, what is this going to mean for -- what does that -- that's a lot. That's a lot of passengers that are now needing to look for other options when we know other airlines are cutting flight legs, you know, cutting back, seats are already too expensive to get ahold of. This seems this is coming at the worst time for an airline to be folding. NASTRO: I'm so glad you highlighted that. It really -- you know,

Spirit was in -- had a recipe of distress. And so now we are seeing U.S. aviation history unfold in real time. And for travelers, you know, we were typically going to pay either way. And this is one of those outcomes where our out-of-pocket expenses for travel are just going to get higher.

[09:25:05]

And it's a really unfortunate truth. You know, love them or hate them, you really owe a debt of gratitude for cheap flights because Spirit existed. So, you know, especially like you had mentioned in some of these larger markets like in Detroit, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, L.A., you know, the list goes on. Even if another low-cost carrier enters those markets to help fill in the gaps, you know, JetBlue, for example, they're likely not going to set the price at some of these rock bottom sub $100 fares. And in this current market, because of the operating costs, higher operating costs due to the higher price of jet fuel, it's likely that we are in for a more expensive time frame for the foreseeable future. And that's just an unfortunate truth.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

It's good to see you, Katy, though. Thank you so much for coming in. I appreciate it.

We also have new details coming in about the case the Justice Department is apparently building against the former FBI Director James Comey. The acting attorney general now speaking out and saying that it is not just about that seashell photo.

And former New York City mayor, longtime ally of President Trump's, Rudy Giuliani, now hospitalized and said to be in critical condition.

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