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U.S. Preparing Insurance Plan for Ships Passing Strait of Hormuz; Iran Warns Vessels Against Passing Through Strait of Hormuz Amid War; Interview with Representative Madeleine Dean (D-PA); IDF Says Michigan Synagogue Attacker's Brother was Hezbollah Commander; How Shahed Drones Help Iran Fight Back; Oil Prices Hit Highest Level Since 2022; Family, Friends Mourn the Loss of Six Airmen Killed in Iraq; Pollution Remains High After Strikes on Iranian Oil Sites. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired March 15, 2026 - 20:00   ET

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

[20:01:20]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean here in New York.

And new tonight, the price of oil rising to its highest level since July of 2022. Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, rose above $105 a barrel earlier tonight. U.S. oil rose 2 percent to just over $100. And we can take a look at oil futures right now, seeing there kind of hovering around $100 a barrel.

All of this comes as the Israeli military tells CNN it plans to continue its operations against Iran for at least three more weeks. White House officials say they expect the conflict to end within weeks or sooner.

AAA's reports gas prices have risen 24 percent since the war began just over two weeks ago. And here's Energy Secretary Chris Wright talking about that earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: Are you really sure it's going to be short term? Can you guarantee it will just be weeks before prices go down?

CHRIS WRIGHT, ENERGY SECRETARY: Hey, there's no guarantees in wars at all. I can guarantee the situation would be dramatically worse without this military operation to defang the Iranian regime. This is short term pain to get through to a much better place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Meanwhile, President Trump urging countries to help the U.S. regain access to the Strait of Hormuz. It's a vital passageway, of course, where one-fifth of the world's oil consumption typically passes through each day. It has been restricted by Iran during this war. CNN's Julia Benbrook is joining us now.

Julia, what more are we hearing from the administration side of all of this?

JULIA BENBROOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are hearing from President Donald Trump just moments ago in an interview with "The Financial Times," where he had a warning for NATO allies if they do not help with the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Now this is a defensive alliance, one that he has long been critical of. But now he is saying that it will have a very bad future if they don't step in and help with his efforts in Iran.

Now this comes after we saw multiple posts about this yesterday where Trump said that many countries were going to be sending warships specifically those countries that have been impacted by Iran's attempted closure of the strait. They were going to be sending warships in conjunction with the United States to keep the strait open. And in that post, very important to pay attention to his wording here.

He said, hopefully, that China, Japan, South Korea, France and the U.K. would be among those sending ships. He also said that the United States would be bombing the shoreline in the meantime. But while his call to action is clear, it is not clear how countries are going to respond to this. One example is the U.K. We heard from Downing Street today in a statement where they said that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Trump did speak on the phone.

And then in that statement, they went on to say, "The leaders discussed the ongoing situation in the Middle East and the importance of reopening the Strait of Hormuz to end the disruption to global shipping, which is driving up costs worldwide." But they ended that statement saying that the two leaders have agreed to keep in touch. No firm commitment there.

We have also heard from a senior official in the Japanese government that any move for Japanese naval vessels to go to the Middle East, that that would be a difficult task, that there would be some steps that needed to take action there. And then, according to some reporting from Reuters citing the presidential office in South Korea, they were saying they were in close communication with the United States on this and that they would take several things into consideration before moving forward.

[20:05:09]

DEAN: All right. Julia Benbrook, there in Florida. Thank you so much for that reporting.

CNN's Nada Bashir is following updates in Iran. She has the latest from that part of the world -- Nada.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Tehran, morning traffic moves under banners of Iranian missiles. Two weeks of bombardment, and life keeps going.

On Saturday, thousands turned out for a rally in support of the country's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, a leader rallying his people from the shadows. He has not been seen publicly since taking power. President Donald Trump questions whether he is even alive.

But the strikes keep coming, too. Isfahan hit on Sunday, smoke rising over one of Iran's oldest cities. The bombardment is relentless and for now there is no indication Washington wants to slow down.

Trump posted on Truth Social this week. His words, "The United States of America has beaten and completely decimated Iran but the countries of the world that receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage." Israel's foreign minister said the war would end when the U.S. and Israel decide it's appropriate to do so.

Interceptors lighting up the sky above Tel Aviv. Most brought down. But the message is clear. Whatever Washington and Jerusalem say about timetables, Iran is still in this fight.

Tehran has a countermove. Iran vows to keep fighting and is squeezing the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off one of the world's most important supply routes for crude oil and natural gas.

MOHSEN REZAEL, FORMER IRGC COMMANDER (through translator): The Strait of Hormuz will not be open to shipping. Not a single American Navy vessel will be allowed to enter the Persian Gulf. How this war ends is in our control.

BASHIR (voice-over): Prices are jumping, insurers pulling back, shipping companies finding longer routes. And so the new target for us strikes, Kharg Island, Iran's main crude export hub, handling about 90 percent of its oil exports. Up close, a vast industrial complex built to pump Iran's lifeblood to the global economy, now in the crosshairs.

Another country in the crosshairs is Lebanon. For a moment, the sky above Beirut's southern suburbs holds something other than smoke. But on the ground, there is no such reprieve. Nearly a million people in Lebanon are on the move, fleeing strikes across the country. Inside on, the aftermath. Shattered buildings, emptied streets. In Beirut's suburbs, entire blocks reduced to rubble.

Families camped out on Beirut's beloved corniche, escaping Israeli military moves through southern Lebanon, each advance pulls this country deeper into a war it has no capacity to absorb. Two weeks of bombardment, and Iran's government is still standing.

That is the point. Tehran is not trying to win militarily. It is trying to make this war too expensive to continue. With Hormuz under pressure, Gulf terminals threatened and Lebanon now bearing the human cost. That pressure is coming from every direction.

Nada Bashir, CNN, in London.

(END VIDEOTAPE) DEAN: All right. Nada, thank you for that update. And joining us now Pennsylvania Democratic Congresswoman Madeleine Dean. She's on both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Appropriations Committee, among others.

Congresswoman, thank you so much for being with us on this Sunday evening. We really appreciate it. I want to ask you something.

REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): Thank you.

DEAN: It's good to see you. I want to ask you about something we heard from your leader, Hakeem Jeffries, earlier today. He said he wants to bring forward another war powers resolution for the -- for a vote that previously failed. Obviously Republicans control the House. But I want to get your thoughts on bringing this up another time. And if you think this could be different, if it actually did get to go up for another vote.

M. DEAN: I think it's critically urgent that we do it again and that we actually get it to pass. After all Article One Section Eight of the Constitution informs the president that it is Congress who has the power to declare war. Not a single monarch, not a single authority. The framers had this right. They wanted to make sure it was the people closest to the constituents, to the citizens of this country who actually made the decision.

After deliberation, after arguments, we might not all agree but to bring it forward with argument and then a vote it's critically important. I was very disappointed that the one that we brought forward before did not pass. So I am happy that our leader is going to bring forward another.

DEAN: Are you -- just in conversations you're having with your colleagues, do you see any movement on this from the last time in terms of where people are?

[20:10:03]

M. DEAN: I don't know. We've been away this weekend. I was just down in Charleston at a phenomenal civil rights history coordination called "Faith and Politics" with Leader Clyburn, former leader Clyburn are amazing colleague. So I know that in the group that I was with and it is a bipartisan group that we are all gravely worried about the war. After all, we are at war. The president gave no notice to the American people.

He was four nights before in the State of the Union, before the attack he didn't make the argument to the American people. He did not make the argument to Congress, and took us to war. We have already lost 13 service members. I think it's so grievous that that has happened. Hundreds of others are injured and more of course in service of our country, exquisite service of our country in harm's way.

The president must come to Congress. And if he won't, the Congress must go to the president and tell him that he does not have this authority. DEAN: I want to talk about another issue related to this that you all

have in -- on Capitol Hill right now, which is the Department of Homeland Security and funding for that agency. Just in the last week, we saw three terror attacks on American soil. Americans are understandably nervous about what this could mean going forward.

I'm curious, just first, do you think what's going on with DHS and the funding has any impact on the safety of Americans? Should they be concerned about that?

M. DEAN: Well, I think this connects to the very first topic that we just talked about. The entire role of this administration, of a president who swears his oath, is to keep America safe. And my constituents want things to be affordable, and for us to be safe. So the president has failed on both of those fronts. In terms of DHS funding, I'm an appropriator, as you know, and so we put forward a bill, and I have supported that bill.

Rosa DeLauro put it forward, which would say take out the ICE funding, get the rest of DHS funded. How is it that we have TSA members keeping us safe every single day and they're not getting paid? That ought to be illegal. In any other setting it is. And so why the Republicans won't allow us to push forward all of the funding but for ICE, because ICE has shown itself to be grotesquely inept and poorly headed, thank God Kristi Noem is out.

The Republicans ought to say absolutely to keep America safe, to partner with this president in keeping America safe. Let's move all the other funding forward.

DEAN: Yes. I mean, I think you -- I think Americans would listen to that and say, yes, why can't we do that? These TSA officials are working to make sure that our planes are secure and safe, and they haven't been paid and that, you know, anyone that didn't get doesn't get a paycheck can imagine what that would be like.

What's the -- I think they say to Congress, what's the holdup? What's the problem? Obviously you all are very focused on ICE.

M. DEAN: Politics.

DEAN: Yes.

M. DEAN: It's a game. The Republicans are holding up this funding, wrongly holding up this funding. I just traveled through Philadelphia Airport two days ago on the way to Charleston, and the lines were snaking all around Philadelphia airport. But you know what? They moved us along very quickly. I was so proud of the TSA agents who moved us along. They didn't show any signs of grumbling or shirking their responsibilities.

They're doing their responsibility in keeping us safe. We need to do our responsibility and move along their funding. They should never have been without a paycheck. Never.

DEAN: One last question on a different piece of this before I let you go. You are on the Ukraine caucus. We have heard from President Zelenskyy telling our Fareed Zakaria about the extent to which Russia he believes has been helping Iran in all of this.

How do you see this war with Iran impacting the U.S. and Europe's ability to support Ukraine in its war with Russia and the U.S.-Russia relations, as we have our reporting that Russia has been helping Iran with intelligence on how to strike our own service members?

M. DEAN: And also the reporting that I will layer in that this administration turned Ukraine down on drone technology, anti-drone technology. How wrongheaded? What I'm so sad about is that we did not, whether it was in the last administration or now in this administration, do everything in our power to get Ukraine everything it needs to win. Four years of this war, thousands of children absconded into Russia, and this president too cozy with Mr. Putin.

[20:15:05]

Again, this is about keeping us safe. And we have alienated so many of our allies. And I pray for Ukraine. I pray for peace in Ukraine. I wish the president would have focused on that as well as the 20-point peace plan for Israel-Gaza. I was recently in Israel and as a result of this war in Iran, now there's a great interruption, of course, to securing and getting humanitarian aid into Ukraine. If only this president who wanted to be the peace president had focused on peace there in the Middle East, had focused on peace in Ukraine, we'd have many more people across this globe alive and feeling more secure.

I'm gravely disappointed with the president who doesn't seem to really understand reality. Did you hear him on Thursday? I'll quote him. "Inflation is plummeting, incomes are rising. The economy is roaring back, and America is respected again."

What in God's name is this president looking at?

DEAN: All right, Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, we have to leave it there. Thank you for your time tonight. We appreciate it.

M. DEAN: Can I --

DEAN: Yes.

M. DEAN: Do you mind if I do one more thing?

DEAN: Sure.

M. DEAN: I want to get in on the name game. Just saying. Harry is a great name. I have a son Harry.

DEAN: You do?

M. DEAN: And since you and I share the name Dean, I just thought you might want to hear that.

DEAN: OK.

M. DEAN: I have a vote for Harry.

DEAN: This is good. A vote for Harry. I will tally it. We have no relation that I'm aware of, but we do share a last name, so that is something to keep in mind. All right.

M. DEAN: Harry is a great name. It makes you smile.

DEAN: It does. Thank you, Congresswoman. Good to see you.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:21:25]

DEAN: We are following major new developments about the man who rammed his vehicle into a Michigan synagogue full of children. The Israeli military now saying the 41-year-old was the brother of a Hezbollah commander who was recently killed by an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon. Law enforcement sources previously told CNN the man was flagged in federal databases for being linked to Hezbollah terrorists but was not a Hezbollah member himself.

Let's bring in CNN's Gloria Pazmino.

Gloria, what more can you tell us about all of this?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jessica. And the man that you are seeing in those images is Ayman Ghazali, and he is the man who law enforcement say drove a vehicle packed with explosives into a synagogue in Michigan last week. You're seeing him there entering into a fireworks store where he purchased much of the explosive equipment that he packed into that vehicle and drove into the synagogue.

Now we're learning from the Israel Defense Forces that he had a brother in Lebanon, and that man was Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali and he has been identified by the Israeli Defense Forces as a Hezbollah commander who was killed on March 5th during an IDF strike to a building where Hamas was suspected of -- suspected of storing weapons.

Now, as you said, we knew that the suspect who drove the vehicle in that synagogue attack last week had been previously flagged in U.S. databases by law enforcement here because of his suspected connections to members of Hezbollah. But we are now learning more about exactly what that connection is. The family of that man who was killed in the Israeli strike also believed to have been killed during that attack -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right, Gloria, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has intel proving Russia armed Iran with drones used against U.S. bases in its retaliation strikes. Here's what he's told -- here's what he told our Fareed Zakaria.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: Russia gave drones already, this Shahed. They are using Iranian licenses, you know, that they built and produced a lot of drones. They gave them. I have 100 percent facts that they -- that Iranian regime used against American bases and against Middle East -- in Middle East. I mean, Middle East neighbors of Iran, they used these drones. We saw intelligence shared with us some details, and it was Russian details in these Iranian drones.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: CNN's senior producer, Bijan Hosseini, shows us why these drones are proving difficult to defend against.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BIJAN HOSSEINI, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: This is a Shahed Kamikaze drone. It's a type of UAS, an unmanned aircraft system. It's become one of the most disruptive weapons in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. These one-way attack drones can be launched from relatively anywhere. They use GPS and an inertial navigation system to find their target.

Unlike missiles, they travel much slower and can fly for hundreds of miles before making impact. Their small size and low flightpath make them harder for radars to detect and they're often launched in swarms to overwhelm air defenses.

This has proved to be really difficult for the United States, and is an apparent flaw in their planning and preparation for Iran's retaliation. To try and stop the military's use, what's known as counter unmanned aircraft systems, or C-UAS, analysts estimate that Shahed drones cost just tens of thousands of dollars to build.

[20:25:01]

The missiles being used to shoot them down were designed for ballistic missiles and for aircraft, and more importantly, they cost millions of dollars. In other words, by launching large numbers of these drones, attackers can overwhelm air defenses and force their adversaries to spend a lot more money.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Let's bring in drone and military technology expert Michael Horowitz. He's also a former deputy assistant secretary of defense and a professor of political science at UPenn.

Thank you so much for being here with us. This drone technology, this Shahed drone technology, has been such a key part of all of this. Can you kind of help explain more to our viewers and why it's been so effective in Iran's retaliation?

MICHAEL HOROWITZ, DRONE AND MILITARY TECHNOLOGY EXPERT: Absolutely. We live in an era of precise mass right now, where commercial manufacturing, advances in artificial intelligence and autonomy, and the fact that precision guidance is now a 50-year-old technology, means that essentially everybody around the world now has the ability to do precision strike, in some cases across pretty great distances.

And because these are so inexpensive to manufacture, Iran has manufactured thousands of them, tens of thousands of them. They gave them to Russia. Russia then built their own version of them called the Geran-2 that they've terrorized Ukraine with for years. And these are really difficult to stop and especially difficult to stop at scale. Because they're so inexpensive and because they're so easy to manufacture, if Iran is firing a $35,000 essentially substitute for a cruise missile, and we are firing a $4 million Patriot missile to try to shoot them down.

Yes, we can do that, but we just don't have enough Patriot missiles. And so we really need to be investing in other kinds of defenses. And those systems have been a little bit slow to come online.

DEAN: So I want to -- there's a few things there that I think are worth drilling down. And first of all, why is it so hard to stop those? Is it because of their size?

HOROWITZ: They fly low in a way that can make them slightly more difficult for regular radar to detect. You really need to be watching. If you're watching, frankly, and you have people all around the way that Ukraine does, you can figure out ways to defeat these kinds of systems. It's just that our existing air defense systems weren't built for them. In some ways, older school technology like anti-aircraft guns from World War II or an option against something like a Shahed.

Ukraine is putting up their own drones that are even less expensive than a Shahed to try to stop them. So you definitely have options. It's just the American air defense network, which was built to hit much more sophisticated weapons.

DEAN: Yes, it's so interesting. And so to that point, the U.S. has spent decades and a lot of money preparing to defend against Iranian ballistic missiles fighter jets, things like you're talking about. So is it that we anticipated the wrong things or it is just kind of, to use that term old school and the world is evolving? How would you explain it?

HOROWITZ: Think about this in the context of the war between Ukraine and Russia, where now one-way attack drones are generating 60 percent to 70 percent of the casualties on the front line and Russia is using systems like the Shahed that can go 1,000 to 2,000 kilometers. Ukraine has its own version of this. It in some ways a totally different. It's a shift in the character of warfare in the way that countries are -- in the way that countries are fighting, and they're leveraging lots of -- even though these systems are simple, they're leveraging cutting edge technologies or manufacturing perspective with potential integrations of autonomy technology.

And this is just not what everyone had prepared for over the years, and while the evidence has become ever more clear due to these sort of lessons learned from Ukraine and frankly from what the Houthis did in the Red Sea over the last few years and what happened in the context of the operations against Iran last June, it can take a while in some ways for the machinery of American defense to ramp up to produce some of those lower cost kinds of systems. And this has been a priority area for a couple of years. It's just taking a while to get everything online.

DEAN: Yes. OK, so that was the other follow-up that I wanted to ask you about is how the U.S. now moves forward. Obviously, to your point, this is -- this is not some sort of surprise. They have known, we've been working on ramping this up, I guess, you know, in the last couple of years. But that takes time. And so how much longer will it take for us to adapt to this kind of new world that we're in?

HOROWITZ: So we were already -- we already were experimenting with some of Ukraine's technologies that they were using to take down Shahed. You know, these Shaheds cost about $35,000 each. You know, we can't fire $4 million missiles to take them down. And so we -- Ukraine has things that cost a couple of thousands of dollars. Like we had some of them. Those have now been shipped to the Middle East.

[20:30:02]

And the U.S. and its allies are now in conversations to get even more of these anti-Shahed weapons from the Ukrainians, and trainers to help ensure that people know how to use them. And so there's real irony here in some ways, especially because the more air defense interceptors are -- that are used in the Middle East, the fewer that are available in some ways for Ukraine to defend itself from the varied attacks that they face from Russia.

But in many ways, we are now in real time learning some of the lessons that Ukraine has learned and using Ukraine's technology now to try to rapidly scale up defenses.

DEAN: All right. Very fascinating. Michael Horowitz, thanks for your expertise on this. We appreciate it.

HOROWITZ: Thanks for having me.

DEAN: Americans paying nearly 24 percent to fill up their tanks. But the Trump administration officials say higher gas prices will only be a short-term pain. We'll discuss the White House thinking on that. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:35:22]

DEAN: Tonight Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil, made its way above $105 a barrel. That is the highest level since July of 2022 and it is a direct impact from the war with Iran that is being felt here in the United States with rising gas prices.

We're joined now by senior Axios contributor Margaret Talev. She's also the director of the Institute of Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship at Syracuse University.

Margaret, good to see you. Listen, the administration has and the president, frankly, have downplayed the impact of this spike on consumers. They've called it short term, and that it's a short term pain that people will have to feel. I'm curious what your sense is of how big of a concern this is for the average American. I know you are oftentimes in focus groups and talking with voters. What is your sense of that?

MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, AXIOS: Yes. We have been hearing even before the U.S. and Israel's strikes on Iran, that affordability, cost of living, housing, that these are the top concerns for people when gas prices have been higher. People talk about that in the context of affordability concerns, and certainly in the weeks since the start of this, people are now citing gas prices as a top concern.

Really interesting polling, I think it was a "Morning Consult" poll, showed that basically all Americans are seeing higher gas and that the biggest source who they blame is President Trump. So these are numbers for the administration to watch. And they clearly are watching them. We're seeing the president say things like, I can end it any time I want to, but I don't want to yet, or it's going to be over in a few weeks.

The energy secretary sending I would say a little bit more mixed signals. On the one hand, suggesting that the prices could come back below that $3 mark. It's just a psychological mark, but that's a number people are watching. But at the same time saying, you know, with war, it could take much longer and forecasting agencies inside the Energy Department saying it will probably be 2027 before things are back to normal, even if the conflict were to end soon.

DEAN: Wow. 2027. Yes. And that kind of, you know, we obviously have midterms coming up later this year. And those are months away. And as we have learned, who knows what could happen in those months? But I'm also curious about this idea from voters and what they think about the president focusing so much on foreign affairs and what's going on globally. Again, when he was elected there was so much about, as you noted affordability, cost of living for so many Americans who are still talking about that right now. What's your sense of that?

TALEV: That's right. I think that one element of his argument that really helped him win in 2024 was to say, I'm going to bring prices down. I'm going to focus on the economy and how Americans are experiencing the economy, not how the stock market is experiencing the economy. Just definitionally if you are engaged in a war that's your number one priority, not the economy.

But of course there's also this connection. I mean, for Americans saying economy, number one, it's the number one issue, you want your prices to come down and by engaging in the war, prices on some goods, like gas prices or anything that involves a global supply chain and energy costs are going to be going up for the foreseeable future.

Some of the challenge he's going to face here is within his own party because in addition to the idea of the economy or affordability being the, you know, top priority is the idea that many people who voted for President Trump across the aisle, in the center and to the right, wanted the idea of an end to foreign wars and of a focus, a priority on domestic issues, starting with affordability. So I think the administration is well aware of all of these tensions

that the policies have brought on. It's just not clear how it's going to be resolved yet. And of course, we've got the shutdown over DHS. You've got the midterms coming up. So the president is banking on being able to have a successful outcome in Iran within the next few months, or else big problems, big headwinds for the midterms.

DEAN: Yes. So just generally, midterms, we're now sitting in March. That's going to happen in November. How impactful do you think and can we know? I mean it may be hard to know at this point. What's happening right now, when does that start to become either a liability or something really good for parties and candidates?

[20:40:07]

Like what's the time frame generally that you're looking at?

TALEV: Yes. You know, it's -- voter psychology is so complex. You don't want to predict too much and get out of your skis. But I would say there are a few kind of phases to this and the reality is in general elections and election that's happening in November, many voters really aren't paying attention until after Labor Day, until, you know, September or October.

DEAN: Right.

TALEV: But having said that, I think gas prices are something you do every week. You fill up your car, especially if you're a commuter, you drive to work over the summer. You're taking road trips, family vacations. So sort of the sustained damage of high gas prices, if they didn't go down, I think there could be a cumulative effect that would begin well before Labor Day weekend. But it's march now. Memorial Day weekend is sort of when that summer transition occurs.

And the president himself had suggested, you know, a six-week conflict, something like that. I think it's impossible to predict how long this will last and what the repercussions will be. But having said that, he probably has another few weeks, another month, another six weeks when his own party runs out of patience, those Republicans standing for reelection in House and Senate races. That's really when he will begin to feel the heat.

DEAN: Yes. Very interesting. Margaret, great to see you. Thank you.

TALEV: You too. Thanks.

DEAN: Still to come, experts warning the environmental fallout from the war in Iran could be disastrous. The long-term pollution and health hazards that the conflict poses. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:46:23]

DEAN: The Pentagon has identified the six airmen who were killed Thursday when their refueling plane crashed in western Iraq. Jenn Sullivan has more on how they are being remembered.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JENN SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This family in Ohio says they will never forget the moment when uniformed officers arrived at their home with devastating news.

CHERYL SIMMONS, MOTHER OF TYLER SIMMONS: They were lined up out on the porch, and I was like.

SULLIVAN (voice-over): Cheryl Simmons was told her 28-year-old only child, Tyler, was killed. He was among the six service members who died last Thursday. The crew members were aboard a refueling aircraft when it crashed in western Iraq.

GEN. DAN CAINE, CHAIRMAN, U.S. JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: The incident occurred over friendly territory in western Iraq while the crew was on a combat mission and again was not the result, as CENTCOM has said, was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.

SULLIVAN (voice-over): Technical Sergeant Simmons, Captain Seth Koval and Captain Curtis Angst all served in the Ohio National Guard.

MAJ. GEN. DAVID B. JOHNSON, OHIO ASSISTANT ADJUTANT FOR AIR, OHIO NATIONAL GUARD: They are valued members of our team and their loss is deeply felt across the 121st Air Refueling Wing and the entire Ohio National Guard.

SULLIVAN (voice-over): Major John Alex John Klinner leaves behind a wife, a 2-year-old and seven-month-old twins, according to a GoFundMe set up by his family. "Captain Ariana Savino remembered as an Air Force superstar who brought energy, grit and ruthless commitment to making everyone around her better," one friend wrote in a Facebook post. Technical Sergeant Ashley Pruitt entered the Air Force in 2017 and deployed multiple times, according to the Air Force.

Since the war with Iran began February 28th, at least 13 U.S. service members have been killed, leaving the families of these fallen soldiers to live with the tremendous loss.

SIMMONS: Once he got in the back of that airplane that was it. He said, I will retire from this, mom.

SULLIVAN (voice-over): I'm Jenn Sullivan reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:53:03]

DEAN: As strikes hit several major oil depots around Tehran, massive fires have sent thick plumes of smoke into the air, raising fears about the spread of toxic chemicals.

CNN's Katie Polglase has more on this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATIE POLGLASE, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Israel struck multiple oil depots across Tehran last weekend. They say these sites are fueling Iran's military, but the strikes are also spreading polluted air across the city, and it's made worse by these mountains that trap toxic fumes in the region.

Environmental and legal experts told us that Israeli military planners would or should have known that targeting oil facilities right next to a city of millions would have a catastrophic impact on human health and daily life. So we began analyzing these strikes and their consequences using public data and imagery.

(Voice-over): Getting air quality data is difficult due to the communications blackout, but various monitoring platforms show a huge surge in pollution in Tehran on March 7th, around the same time as the strikes on oil depots. The pollution level later drops as the pollutants settle, but experts say the health risks remain high.

This is the southern Tehran oil depot. Millions of people across the city rely on it for power. Two days after the strikes, the depot looked like this. Fires are still burning. The Conflict and Environment Observatory told us this black smoke indicates high levels of black carbon, which can cause respiratory disorders. This blackened ground is likely spilled oil, which could seep into the soil and contaminate crops and water supplies, they said.

You can even see it from NASA's satellites, smoke from this same oil depot stretching for miles and reaching other nearby towns. We saw similar black smoke at Shahran oil depot in the north and Aqdasiyeh in the northeast of Tehran. Environmental experts say this pollution mixes with chemicals released by other bombed buildings in the city, forming what they describe as a cocktail of pollutants.

The Israeli military have publicly stated their objective in targeting these oil depots, to incapacitate Iran's military, but the question under international humanitarian law is whether it is proportionate to the harm inflicted on civilians and the environment.

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CNN reached out to U.S. CENTCOM and the Israel Defense Forces for comment on these strikes and their proportionality. U.S. CENTCOM referred us to the IDF. The IDF told us that these strikes were deepening damage to Iranian military infrastructure, and they would continue to operate with determination to remove threats to the state of Israel.

Katie Polglase, CNN, London.

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DEAN: Katie, thank you for that report. Still to come here on CNN NEWSROOM, President Trump sending a new

warning to NATO allies as the U.S. looks to other countries for help in securing the Strait of Hormuz. We'll have some brand new information. That's next.

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