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Airlines Raising Ticket Prices; Trump Administration Promises Mass Deportations; U.S.-Iran Peace Talks. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired May 06, 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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BEN MANKIEWICZ, HOST, "TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES": How come?

TED TURNER, CNN FOUNDER: Because people liked old stuff.

(LAUGHTER)

MANKIEWICZ: People do like old stuff.

TURNER: I'm old now and people like me.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Classic.

Ben Mankiewicz, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. And I love the "Citizen Kane" poster behind you. I think you can see it. You're the best.

MANKIEWICZ: Thanks very much, Dana.

BASH: Thank you for joining INSIDE POLITICS today.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Pressing pause on the latest operation to open the Strait of Hormuz, as the U.S. and Iran inch closer to a possible deal to end the war. But President Trump has a stark warning if there's no deal.

Sky-high. The war in Iran pushing up jet fuel prices that could mean higher ticket prices for anyone who is planning to fly this summer.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And the passing of an American icon, CNN's founder, Ted Turner, dying at 87, a pioneer who lived an extraordinary life. We're going to look at his legacy, as we follow these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: The breaking news: a renewed push toward peace. CNN has learned that the U.S. and Iran are moving closer to an

agreement to end the war, sources telling us they're working on a one- page memo which would declare the war over and open a 30-day window to resolve sticking points, including the future of Iran's nuclear program.

Today, President Trump is warning Tehran that if an agreement is not reached -- quote -- "The bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before." He just spoke moments ago at the White House.

Yesterday...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's a skirmish. And we're doing unbelievably well, as we did in Venezuela, where it was rapid, over in one day. And we're doing pretty much equally as well, I would say, larger.

But we're doing very well in Iran. It's going very smoothly. And we will see what happens. They want to make a deal. They want to negotiate. And I think that military mothers would want to hear that. Do you agree? I think it's appropriate. Somebody would say, ooh, that's not appropriate. I think military mothers...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Yesterday, the president paused the new U.S. effort to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz, citing great progress in talks.

CNN's Nic Robertson is live in Islamabad, Pakistan, where negotiations have been taking place.

Nic, tell us what you're learning about this memo to end the war.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, I think the way that we're getting a picture of it here is that this is something that's quite small. One page is how it's described, not so many lines on it.

And the reason for that is to try to keep it really simple, so that there's a way to get both sides to say, hey, we can both agree about this paper and what we're going to do, and then get into some face-to- face talks.

And part of the reason is, the longer and more complicated the documents that get exchanged between both sides, the sense is here that that just allows the sort of hard-liners, the naysayers, the spoilers, call them what you will, the IRGC in Iran, for example, to kind of weigh in and say, oh, look, they're putting that clause in there. We need this. We need that. We're not going to do that.

So keep it simple. Try to get the negotiators in the room. And then the idea is, if you get them in the room and they're minded to, because they're more moderates, therefore, that makes the possibility of a deal more likely.

Look, there are so many ways this could slip up. We have heard President Trump today saying, look, Epic Fury, that was on hold. Well, that was over yesterday. The Project Freedom, that's been put on pause. And then today the president says, well, actually Epic Fury or its follow-on, that could be back. If they don't do what we're asking them or saying to do, we could be bombing again.

That kind of language, as we have seen over the past month of talks here, just doesn't sit well with the Iranian hard-liners. So this is an effort to kind of get around the hard-liners. So there are many ways that this could come off track, but, right now, the hard-liners in Iran are saying that President Trump has backed down over the Strait of Hormuz, and that has allowed us to reengage with examining what the U.S. is saying.

We have heard from the Foreign Ministry spokesman. We have heard from other seniors in Iran saying, we are looking at this right now. Iran will give its response to the mediators here in Pakistan. Time frame for that isn't clear, but the impression they're creating is, there's momentum and this is -- has -- going in a positive direction.

But caveat, of course, we have been here before. It's easy to think of the gaps as being too small and to minimize them to make -- to try to get people in a room and make it happen. We don't know that that's going to be the final outcome.

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KEILAR: Yes, we don't. They will try. We will see, though. It's been quite an effort.

Nic Robertson, thank you so much live for us from Pakistan -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Renewed hopes of a peace deal have caused oil prices to plunge. Let's take a look at where they are right now, Brent crude down just over 7 percent to $101 a barrel. The WTI, the West Texas Index, is down almost 7 percent at $95 a barrel.

Even if the Strait of Hormuz opens today, though, experts warn it could take months for gas prices to drop. American drivers are now just 6 cents shy of paying $5 a gallon, as you can see on your screen, prices now up more than 50 percent since the start of the war.

And, as for flying, Germany's largest airline, Lufthansa, just announced it would be raising fares and cutting flights to offset $2 billion in extra costs of fuel.

CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean is here with more on what travelers can expect.

Pete, despite having to cut flights, Lufthansa noted that demand for air travel remains high. I mean, is that going to change any time soon?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It seems that people are really going to swallow these prices.

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MUNTEAN: And I just got this new data from travel site Going, domestic airfare up 20 percent year over year, international airfare up 10 percent compared to this time last year.

But, really, this is becoming bigger than simply expensive airline tickets. The new numbers out this morning from the Department of Transportation show that U.S. airlines spent more than $5 billion on fuel in March alone. That's up more than 56 percent from the previous month. The average cost per gallon jumped nearly 31 percent.

It is a huge problem for airlines, because fuel is their biggest expense behind labor costs. And here's how some of the carriers are reacting. Lufthansa now says it'll anticipate $2 billion on a jet fuel bill this year because of the war in Iran and the concerns about the Strait of Hormuz.

The airline says it plans to raise prices, cut flights from its schedule, probably the nonprofitable ones first, to offset those costs. Airlines are also looking at every part of their operation through the lens of cost control, which brings us to Delta, which just announced that it's making changes to drink service.

Later this month, coach passengers flying under 350 miles, pretty short flights, will not be served beverages of any kind. Delta notes that many short flights already have limited to no service. But the announcement really underscores the broader pressure that airlines are facing as these fuel prices surge.

One last note here, and it's not a good one. Even if oil prices ease soon, experts warn it could still take weeks or months before travelers really feel relief. That's because airlines price tickets and buy fuel well in advance, so a lot playing out here in the travel space.

SANCHEZ: Could this potentially change depending on how customers respond?

MUNTEAN: I think and it seems that, as we're going -- we're just on the precipice of the start of the holiday -- the summer travel season.

It seems that, if travelers are going to travel, they're not really going to change, just like we see with gas prices. Usually, when gas prices go up a little bit here and there, it doesn't impact things. People really just sort of swallow the extra costs and do what they were going to do anyway, although I hear from friends far and wide saying, the tickets are expensive, but they're buying them anyway.

They still want to get out and go.

SANCHEZ: Have we seen any indication of how the loss of Spirit Airlines is affecting domestic air travel?

MUNTEAN: You know, Spirit sort of acted as a bit of a pressure relief valve on airlines. Essentially, they were running flights at a very low cost, especially on leisure routes.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

MUNTEAN: So that would make it so that the airlines, other ones, would have to compete more with Spirit on those routes.

Spirit being gone essentially gives airlines a permission slip to charge more money on those routes where they no longer have competition. We're already also seeing some airlines sort of step in and pick up those routes, starting service in places they weren't going to before.

So it's interesting to see how this all plays out, although Spirit Airlines not being in the mix and its ultra-low-cost carrier, really the end of that model, really is going to have a big impact here on airlines sort of in general.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it might be a bit more painful than usual to book that summer vacation.

MUNTEAN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Pete Muntean, thank you so much.

(LAUGHTER)

MUNTEAN: Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

SANCHEZ: We appreciate you anyway.

MUNTEAN: Any time.

SANCHEZ: Thanks so much.

Up next: The cruise ship hit with a deadly hantavirus outbreak is now just days away from docking. We will tell you exactly where, as health officials rush to trace anyone who may have come in contact with the virus.

Plus, the border czar, Tom Homan, has some choice words for immigration hard-liners who think deportation numbers have gotten low -- quote -- "You ain't seen S yet."

And later: the scary moment a suspected drunk driver chases a child down a sidewalk. We will explain what happened when we come back.

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KEILAR: We have new details on the deadly hantavirus outbreak today. Three patients on the cruise ship were able to be evacuated, as top health officials now confirm the Andes strain of the virus has been detected, which is known for its rare human-to-human transmission.

Contact tracing is now under way, and officials say another passenger has tested positive, bringing the total number of cases to eight. Three people have died at this point, and there is now mounting pushback in Spain after the country's health minister said the ship would be docking in the coming days.

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MONICA GARCIA, SPANISH HEALTH MINISTER (through translator): Now that the evacuation of all symptomatic individuals in Cape Verde has been completed, the ship will continue its course towards the Canary Islands, where it is expected to arrive within three days.

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And, once there, a joint health assessment and evacuation protocol will be activated to repatriate all passengers, provided that their medical condition does not preclude it.

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KEILAR: We're joined now by Caitlin Rivers, who is an infectious disease epidemiologist and epidemiology professor at Johns Hopkins. She's also the author of "Crisis Averted."

Caitlin, WHO is saying this is that Andes strain, that person-to- person transmission that marks that kind of strain. How can health officials prevent it from spreading now that you have some more people being evacuated and they're talking about getting more people off the ship and docking?

DR. CAITLIN RIVERS, EPIDEMIOLOGIST, JOHNS HOPKINS CENTER FOR HEALTH SECURITY: Contact tracing is going to be the major way to break chains of transmission.

Now, for people already on board the ship, that means careful management while they disembark and are repatriated to their home countries. A lot of countries have spent a lot of time and energy planning for just these scenarios.

And so, although it's not an easy task, it's fairly straightforward. What will be a little more tricky is contact tracing patients who disembarked early and took commercial plane travel home. And so that will be a logistical challenge for health officials, but critical in the days and weeks ahead.

KEILAR: So what is the incubation period for the Andes strain of the hand to virus?

RIVERS: Around two weeks. It can stretch up to, say, six, but two weeks is where we typically start to see new cases emerge.

Based on the dates provided by the World Health Organization, it would be towards the weekend when we would start to see a new round of cases, should one appear, which is not for sure.

KEILAR: Two to six weeks. You can see how challenging that is when you're talking about an outward bound of six weeks here. How hard is it to transmit now that we are seeing more cases kind of

slowly, but surely pop up?

RIVERS: Hantavirus is not known for easy person-to-person transmission. It's thought of as a virus that does not transmit well between people.

And so it could be -- very well be that this is the end of the line for this outbreak. But we're already in a new situation. Hantavirus has never been found on a cruise ship before. And so careful, precautionary management of this outbreak will be important as we move forward to make sure that there are no unexpected developments.

KEILAR: You're hearing this worry as this plan is expected -- or this ship is expected to dock.

Local politicians are wrangling over that plan in the Canary Islands, the Spanish archipelago. The government is demanding clear information, which no doubt they're entitled to, and this is a problem they have to deal with. But should they have any fear about what they have to manage here and worry about whether they can manage it?

RIVERS: This is not an easy situation, and so I don't want to give the impression that it is, but it is straightforward, and it's something that I feel confident health officials will be able to manage safely and carefully.

Definitely understand the concern by local officials, but, on the other hand, there is a serious public health event going on, on board, and that needs management as well. So I hope that the different parties can come together and find a solution.

KEILAR: Yes, you can't just abandon these people on this cruise ship, right?

So, when you're looking at this two-to-six-week incubation period, you have contact tracing. What do they need to do in terms of isolation and isolating people from other people, especially as they're being repatriated to a number of countries from which the folks on this ship are coming from?

RIVERS: There are two options on the table, and each country will make its own decision about which it chooses.

People can be quarantined or isolated in specialized, centralized facilities where they have easy access to expert medical management, expert monitoring, or they can quarantine at home and be in regular contact with public health authorities. Again, both options are reasonable, given what we know right now, and different decisions will be made by different countries as things unfold.

KEILAR: So, I know you're looking at this, I imagine people in your field are looking at this as a case study for the future and what we can learn from it when eventually we do figure out the exact origin of this.

I mean, do you think we're going to, one? And, two, what can we learn from this that can help for future scenarios?

RIVERS: I do think we will get a full accounting of what happened and how this happened.

At the start of the scenario, which, to the public's knowledge, was really just a few days ago, there were two options on the table, that the outbreak started because there was some sort of rodent population on board because hantavirus is known to come from rodents or limited human-to-human transmission.

And we're moving more into that second option. And so investigators will be looking quickly -- looking carefully to see how things develop.

In terms of lessons learned, to me, it's a reminder of how important it is to maintain public health capacity. These kinds of serious events, although the details vary, happen all the time. We really can't let our guard down and we can't let our capacity diminish.

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KEILAR: A lot of people working on this problem.

Caitlin, thank you so much. We really appreciate your expertise, Caitlin Rivers.

And still ahead: The White House's border czar takes a defiant tone as he vows that mass deportations are coming. See more of his message to critics of the administration's immigration policies.

And then, later, a look at the life and legacy of TV pioneer Ted Turner, who created the first 24-hour news channel here at CNN.

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SANCHEZ: White House border czar Tom Homan has a message for hard- liners who don't think the administration has deported enough people: "You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

Homan telling a room full of Department of Homeland Security officials -- quote -- "We're going to flood the zone. You ain't seen shit yet. This year will be a good year. Mass deportations are coming."

CNN immigration correspondent Priscilla Alvarez joins us now.

Priscilla, Homan said a lot about the administration's plans. Walk us through what he described.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And, in many ways, this is what Tom Homan has been saying. He's the White House border czar. He's always quite forceful in the way that he talks about immigration operations and the president's immigration agenda.

The reason this is also getting more attention, however, is because the White House is in this politically precarious place, where, after January, they -- there was public polling that showed that Americans had soured on the way that the administration was carrying out its agenda.

But, at the same time, they are trying to placate the base. And the base wants to see these deportations and the rounding up of undocumented immigrants in the United States. So that's where we found ourselves when Tom Homan said this yesterday at a border security conference.

Now, he also said that you're -- "We're going to flood the zone," as you said, "and you're going to see more ICE agents than you have ever seen before." That's a quote from him. And then, in addition to that, he said: "You will see collateral arrests increase in these area, as you see more agents in your neighborhoods, because you forced us in this position."

Let me explain this. What he's trying to say here is, those sanctuary cities, those jurisdictions that limit the cooperation between federal authorities and local authorities, he has consistently said, if you don't cooperate with us, we will do these operations on the streets.

And anyone that is in that vicinity, those undocumented immigrants could be those collateral arrests, meaning that they would also be swept up, even as they have said that they are focused on public safety and national security threats.

Now, this is what Homan has said. We also have the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Markwayne Mullin. What's interesting here is that he has frequently said that he is taking a quiet approach to immigration enforcement.

SANCHEZ: Right.

ALVAREZ: He does not want DHS to be in the headlines. And he has spoken about this repeatedly to even let ICE and CBP do what they need to do and do it quietly, so that they can arrest these undocumented immigrants.

So that is where there's also some difference -- a difference here in the way that Tom Homan is talking about flooding the zone and the way Markwayne Mullin says that he wants to take a quiet approach. Ultimately, it's all nuance. It really depends on where they are.

And I think, so far, what we have seen is a quiet approach. We are seeing less of those sweeping raids that we saw last year, and more of that targeted, quiet approach to immigration enforcement. But, of course, that doesn't mean that it's only public safety and national security threats that are being detained.

It is also a lot of others who don't have criminal history. And that is acknowledged by both Tom Homan and Markwayne Mullin.

SANCHEZ: The collaterals, as the administration has referred to them before.

ALVAREZ: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Priscilla Alvarez, thank you so much for that reporting.

Still ahead: Ted Turner, the philanthropist and media visionary who founded CNN, has passed away at the age of 87. We will take a closer look at his remarkable life and legacy when we come back.

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