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Renewed Strikes to the Gulf's Oil Facilities Sent Oil Prices Go Up; Palestinian Man Sexually Assaulted by Israeli Settlers. Aired 3- 3:45a ET

Aired March 19, 2026 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

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UNKNOWN (voice-over): This is CNN Breaking News.

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers from all around the world, I'm Rosemary Church.

And we begin with a significant escalation in the war with Iran and a rare rebuke of Israel from U.S. President Donald Trump. The President says the U.S. knew nothing about Israel's plans to attack Iran's South Pars gas field, the largest in the world.

Iranian media also reports powerful explosions at multiple refineries and oil storage facilities. President Trump says there will be no more attacks on the gas field unless Iran launches retaliatory strikes on Qatar.

Earlier, energy structure came under attack in several states in the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and a ship near the Strait of Hormuz. Qatar also reports extensive damage at its main energy hub.

The strikes have sent oil prices surging about the $113 mark again. President Trump temporarily lifting key limits on oil and gas shipping in an effort to bring down prices.

CNN's Kristie Lu Stout is live this hour in Hong Kong with more on the oil prices and market. But we begin with Eleni Giokos, who joins us from Dubai. So, Eleni, what is the latest on a meeting of Gulf state foreign ministers in Riyadh and the attack on gas refineries?

ELENI GIOKOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Saudis have the view that the attacks on critical energy infrastructure during this meeting is not coincidental. They were looking for a diplomatic off-ramp, 12 foreign ministers from Arab states had met to discuss and also calling on Iran to respect international law and also mentioned the targets of Iran within the Gulf region extend far beyond U.S. assets that they've been targeting desalination plants, airports, critical energy infrastructure as well as residential buildings.

But the Saudi foreign minister said that it's very clear that the Iranians are and the message isn't one of diplomacy. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCE FAISAL BIN FARHAN AL-SAUD: The targeting of Riyadh, while a number of diplomats are meeting, I cannot see as coincidental. And I think that's the clearest signal of how Iran feels about diplomacy. It doesn't believe in talking to its neighbors, it tries to pressure its neighbors.

And what I can say categorically, that's not going to work. The kingdom is not going to succumb to pressure. And on the contrary, this pressure will backfire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIOKOS: Well he said it will backfire militarily as well as morally and importantly also saying that Saudi Arabia reserves the right to respond if necessary. We haven't heard any news in terms of responsibility but the UAE has also discussed this saying they reserve the right to respond to Iran's consistent attacks.

I also have to mention that there has been a consistent barrage of attempted strikes and also strikes on critical energy infrastructure throughout the Gulf region since the start of the war. So clearly Iran is using this lever to inflict economic pain not only here in the Gulf but also something that extends far beyond here in terms of the impact we've seen on oil prices and this creating an oil price shock.

Also important here, Rosemary, is that Iran says that these new strikes on energy infrastructure is in retaliation to a strike on its South Pars gas field. This is the largest gas field in the world.

And importantly, what we've also heard is from President Trump. And he says that the United States did not know about Israel's intentions to strike this gas field but has also warned, and I want you to take a look at what he said.

He says unfortunately Iran did not know this, that the U.S. wasn't involved or any of the pertinent facts pertaining to the South Pars attack and unjustifiably and unfairly attacked a portion of Qatar's LNG facility.

I'm talking about here the Ras Laffan LNG facility. Again, the largest facility in the world. Really important piece of infrastructure.

[03:05:00]

President Trump says no more attacks will be made by Israel pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars field. And also calling on Iran to stop retaliating on critical infrastructure across the region.

If Iran continues to do so, then the United States and Israel together will blow up South Pars field. So strong words coming through from President Trump. But he is still calling for de-escalation, so too are Gulf states as we head into now what is the 20th day of this war. CHURCH: Right. And Kristie, how are markets reacting to escalating strikes on oil facilities across the Gulf region?

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rosemary, shares across the Asia-Pacific region this day are trading lower. The price of oil is getting higher and higher. This after these tit-for-tat strikes on critical gas production facilities across the Middle East.

Let's take a look at the Asian trading day. And you will see on your screen, red arrows across the board, the Nikkei 225 in Japan under a lot of pressure trading down 3.4 percent.

Earlier in the day, the Central Bank of Japan, the Bank of Japan announced to keep rates unchanged. Investors are also bracing for what's due to be and expected to be a tense meeting between the Japanese Prime Minister and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Here in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng losing almost 2 percent, the Shanghai Composite down almost 1.7 percent, the Seoul KOSPI losing 2.75 percent. We're also tracking Brent Crude. And this global benchmark index for oil keeps gaining, keeps getting higher and higher this day.

We also listened earlier to the U.S. President J.D. Vance, who dismissed the rise in oil prices. In fact, he called it a, quote, "temporary blip." Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: The President said this, and I certainly agree with it. This is a temporary blip, okay. What happened under the Biden administration is the gas prices were high for four years.

Gas prices are higher right now. And frankly, they're not even as high as they were during certain parts of the Biden administration. Because of what's going on in the Middle East, it's not going to last forever.

We've got a rough road ahead of us for the next few weeks, but it's temporary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LU STOUT: Now, the U.S. President and Vice President may call the rise in oil prices a, quote, "temporary blip." Here in Asia, people don't feel that way because Asia is vulnerable. In fact, Asia consumes more than 80 percent of the oil and gas that crosses through the Strait of Hormuz.

Much of the gas, the liquefied petroleum gas from places like Qatar, UAE, heads here to the Asia-Pacific region. And there is no alternative, there is no other way to bring this vast amount of energy here to Asia.

So governments across the region have been scrambling to find a way to manage the shortfall. For example, Cambodia is now leaning on its neighbors for its energy, sourcing energy from Malaysia and Singapore. We also learned that Japan earlier this week has released its national oil reserves. South Korea had earlier introduced an oil price cap. It is now leaning more on coal, even nuclear power, to diversify its energy range.

And governments across the region are also introducing rationing of energy, including mandates to work from home. Rosemary, back to you.

CHURCH: All right. Eleni Giokos and Kristie Lu Stout, many thanks to you both for those live reports. I appreciate it.

The death toll in Lebanon is rising as Israel ramps up attacks on Hezbollah. Lebanon's health ministry says nearly 1000 people have been killed in less than two and a half weeks.

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HASSAN ABU ALI, BEIRUT RESIDENT (through translator): It's just pain, they don't have targets anymore. Pain, they want to cause pain. They're in pain, so they want to cause pain.

That's the Israeli enemy. You saw them in Gaza.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: The Israeli military says it struck several gas stations in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. It claims they supported Hezbollah's military capabilities.

Lebanese state media is reporting that Israel is also bombing crossings on the Litani River. Israel says it's trying to stop Hezbollah from moving weapons.

Joining me now is Mark MacCarley, retired major general with the U.S. Army. Appreciate you being with us, sir.

So, what do you make of this apparent split between the U.S. and Israel, with President Trump in a rare rebuke of Israel, saying the U.S. knew nothing about the strike on a key Iranian gas field, after Iranian state media blamed both the U.S. and Israel, and President Trump calling on Israel to end all strikes on energy targets.

MAJ. GEN. MARK MACCARLEY (RET.), U.S. ARMY: My thinking about that is that President Trump has made a political analysis, and that is that the greatest vulnerability that we in the United States, and especially the world, as your previous commentators have made mention, is vulnerability in the energy sector.

[03:09:59]

So that particular political pressure, both domestic and foreign, is felt by President Trump. And what he saw was an attack, perhaps, we don't know this for certain, but certainly initiated by Israel. Whether or not Israel had any previous approval, or at least giving alerts to the United States, doubtful, nobody knows. But that hit energy, and if there is anything that President Trump

does not want to happen, that is a political downslide as a result of an uproar, both in the United States and around the world, about the desperate circumstances that are resulting from the, quite frankly, the embargo of fossil fuels, natural gas, petroleum, bottled up down there at the Straits of Hormuz.

CHURCH: Could this signal the U.S. stepping back a little bit here?

MACCARLEY: I am an optimistic person, so perhaps, again, we have, I'm not one of these who have, optimism hasn't pushed me to the point in which I would embrace the expectation that this war will end in another week to two weeks. And that's because we use an expression in the military, the enemy has a vote. And what that means, quite simply, is we can have all the best plans in the world.

We can establish our objectives, limited or broader, but we are in a conflict with a regime that has a long history grounded in religious fanaticism. It is not so simple to encourage the Iranian leadership to abandon what, from its perspective, is an existential conflict, meaning Iran, from the date of its formation in 1979, has dedicated itself to self-preservation and directly, and has expressed very clearly, destruction of Israel and the implementation or imposition of huge pain on the United States. I don't see the Iranians necessarily backing down, regardless of what President Trump has done vis-a-vis Israel and the bombing of the South Pars oil fields.

So what about boots on the ground?

A U.S. military ship with almost 2500 military personnel on board is heading to the region, and according to Reuters, the Trump administration is considering sending thousands more. Now, we don't know exactly what they'll be doing, but there is talk of them getting troops to extract Iran's enriched uranium or possibly sending them to Karg Island. How risky would these ground operations be?

MACCARLEY: First way to answer that question is to incorporate what you have described as two objectives of U.S. land forces. One is securing the uranium that is buried across Iran, locations not necessarily well known. That is a very difficult task because you're putting American soldiers in harm's way deep inside the country, and that becomes a real fight on the ground.

The second use of American soldiers, at least from my perspective, is to establish some sort of enclave around the Straits of Hormuz. That is the area of vulnerability. That particular geographic location and the utilization of that location by the Iranians has caused what we see of the great pain now suffered around the world.

So you get ground troops and you establish a beachhead around the Straits of Hormuz for the purpose of, one, locating additional ground to ship weapons, as well as Iranian forces, naval assets that constitute the threat to shipping. So there are two, as you've recited, two potential locations for the imposition of U.S. forces. Both extremely dangerous, we don't know what will happen.

CHURCH: Right. Retired Major General Mark MacCarley, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it.

Still to come, a Palestinian man says he was sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and it's raising fears that sexual violence could be another weapon meant to intimidate Palestinians in the region.

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CHURCH: Desperately needed aid is slowly arriving in Cuba as the country grapples with an energy crisis. A shipment of supplies from Europe arrived in Havana on Wednesday, almost three months after the U.S. effectively imposed an oil blockade on Cuba. Nearly every aspect of Cuban society has been feeling the strain.

Human Rights Watch says the humanitarian situation is extremely fragile. Without fuel, hospital treatments and surgeries are limited. People are using wood fires to heat water. Power blackouts have become commonplace and essential services are stretched to their limits.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Spain on Wednesday. He met with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and signed co-production agreements for drones, radar and missiles.

The Prime Minister vowed to stand by Ukraine's side as multiple global conflicts fight for attention and announced more than $700 million in military aid to the country. Zelenskyy also saw the Spanish King Felipe, and he met with an engineering and technology group about production of missiles, air defense systems and other possible projects.

A Palestinian man is speaking out after he says Israeli settlers beat and sexually assaulted him in the occupied West Bank before stealing hundreds of his sheep. The Shepherd says he hopes for justice, but the attack is raising fears that settlers could be turning to a troubling new level of violence in the region. CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: We can now add sexual assault to the types of violence Palestinians say they face from Israeli settlers here in the occupied West Bank. This is the tent where a Palestinian man named Qusai says Israeli settlers stormed in, seized him, before using these zip ties to bind him by his hands and legs. He then says they cut off his underwear before tying his genitals with one of these zip ties and then parading him around his village in front of his family.

QUSAI ABU AL-KEBASH, WEST BANK RESIDENT (translated): They pulled me inside my tent and started beating me. They beat me, they tied up my legs, grabbed my belt, cut it, as you can see.

They cut it, and the boxers I was wearing. They zipped my genitals while I was bound and continued to beat me. They dragged me from there and then poured water over me and dirt.

DIAMOND: What was going through your mind when that was happening?

AL-KEBASH (translated): I thought they were going to kill me. Beat me to death.

DIAMOND: Qusai says the settlers also stole hundreds of his sheep that used to be in this pen right here. Israeli authorities are investigating this incident, but we've seen that these investigations too often don't lead to any arrests, and settler-imprisoned people are often arrested for their crimes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: And we'll be back with more here on CNN, including controversy in Washington over Senate testimony from National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard. Back in just a moment.

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CHURCH: Welcome back to "CNN Newsroom," I'm Rosemary Church. I want to check today's top stories for you.

President Trump is set to meet with Japan's Prime Minister at the White House on Thursday. The President has been urging Japan and other allies to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz amid the war with Iran. But Japan is limited by its pacifist constitution, and the Prime Minister has said she has no plans to send warships to the Middle East.

Human Rights Watch says the humanitarian situation in Cuba is extremely fragile with the ongoing energy crisis and the U.S. cutting off oil supplies. Without fuel, hospital treatments and surgeries are limited, power blackouts have become commonplace, and essential services are stretched to their limits.

Republican senators have rejected a new effort to rein in President Trump over the Iran war. The Senate voted to block a resolution that would require the President to get congressional approval for future U.S. military action against Iran. This is the second time since the war started that Democrats have forced an unsuccessful vote on President Trump's war powers.

The former U.S. counterterrorism chief says there was no intelligence that Iran was preparing to attack the U.S. Joe Kent spoke Wednesday with conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson one day after Kent resigned from his position, citing disagreements over the war with Iran. He said Iran's late Supreme Leader was actually moderating the country's nuclear program before his death.

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JOE KENT, FORMER DIRECTOR, U.S. NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER: Going aggressively after the Ayatollah was the last thing that we ever should have done. Again, like, I'm no fan of the former Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. However he was moderating their nuclear program, he was preventing them from getting a nuclear weapon.

If you take him out if you kill him aggressively, people are going to rally around that regime and the next Ayatollah that you get, and I think this is the case by all data that we have with his son, the next Ayatollah that you get is going to be more radical.

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CHURCH: Kent also told Carlson that he believes Israel pulled the United States into the conflict and is influencing U.S. policy in the Middle East.

National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard was just one of several top Trump administration officials who testified before the Senate on Wednesday. But some of her comments on the Iran war are getting a lot of attention, including the claim that it isn't her job to determine what constitutes an imminent threat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): Was it the intelligence community's assessment that nevertheless, despite this obliteration, there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no?

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TULSI GABBARD, U.S. NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR: It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat. That is up to the President based on a volume of information that he receives.

OSSOFF: It is precisely your responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju has more on the hearing and reaction to Gabbard's remarks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There have been a lot of questions on Capitol Hill about what Tulsi Gabbard was going to say about the threat that Iran posed to the United States, because she had been a skeptic of the war in Iran before she joined the Trump administration. In the aftermath of the United States attacking Iran, she has said very little publicly about the war that is ongoing in the Middle East.

But this, for the first time, speaking before the Senate Intelligence Committee, gave a first glimpse into her thinking about this. And what was notable is her decision to sidestep questions about the imminent nature of the threat that Iran posed to the United States. Because time and time again, when she was asked about this issue, she said that it was not her judgment to make about whether Iran posed an imminent threat, that it was the President's judgment to make.

And the Intelligence Committee, the Director of National Intelligence, should not be playing that kind of role. That caused alarm from Democrats in the room, who said that is precisely the role they say that the Intelligence Committee should play, given the role that they have in providing intelligence to the President, intelligence in which to base his decision about whether to use military force.

In the aftermath of that hearing, Senator Mark Warner, who's a top Democrat on the committee, came out and contended that it shows, in his view, that the President engaged in a war of choice.

What is your takeaway from her not saying this was an imminent threat? I mean, she was asked this repeatedly. What do you draw from that?

SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): I draw the same conclusion I've made since day one of this war. This was a war of choice. There was no imminent threat.

Now, the Iranian regime was awful. The important thing, it is still awful. And if anything, we've ended up with a worse and more repressive leader right now.

And again, I don't see any of the four goals the President laid out, of regime change, getting hold of the enriched uranium, eliminating all of the ballistic missile capability and drone capability.

RAJU: Another big point of contention was the role that Tulsa Gabbard played in the recent raid by the FBI in Fulton County election offices to try to seize 2020 ballots. Remember, Donald Trump has been making that false claim for years that the 2020 election was stolen, that was rigged.

And he's pointed at Georgia in particular. And Tulsa Gabbard showed up at the FBI's during the FBI raid. That raised a lot of questions about what she precisely was doing there.

The Democrats on the Intelligence Committee said that if there was any threat of foreign interference in the election, that would suggest that if she was there that there was that kind of threat, that they needed to be briefed on that.

Now, Warner asked Gabbard about her role in this, and she downplayed it. She said that she was simply there observing this. She said the President asked her to observe what was going on there. She said she didn't even know what was in the search warrant that the FBI issued to seize those ballots, and she was not part of any law enforcement operation.

But she would not convey exactly how she was told this by the President or much about their interactions, both on this issue or her interactions with the President when it came to briefing him about the consequences of an attack on Iran.

Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi says she will follow the law if compelled to testify before the House Oversight Committee about the Justice Department's role in releasing the Epstein files. Committee Chair James Comer says he plans to issue a subpoena for Bondi's testimony.

Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche took part in a closed- door briefing with committee members late Wednesday, but the meeting didn't last long as Democrats walked out, reportedly wanting Bondi's answers to be on the record. Bondi has faced public criticism over the Epstein files' release, including a botched redaction process and omission of critical information in some cases.

A Swedish research group has downgraded the United States in its Democracy Index. The Varieties of Democracies Institute says the U.S. has lost its status as a liberal democracy and is now an electoral democracy, the group cites several reasons, including suppression and intimidation of media and dissenting voices. The researchers say that freedom of expression in the U.S. is now at its lowest level since the end of World War II.

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They also say that Trump's first term laid the foundation for these changes, but his second term has seen a rapid and aggressive concentration of powers in the presidency. The Varieties of Democracies Institute also cited rollbacks of civil right protections, attempts to suppress left-leaning groups and a drop in legislative constraints on Trump.

The Trump administration has been downplaying the problem of soaring gas prices, calling them a temporary blip. But some experts disagree. We'll take a look.

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[03:40:00]

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CHURCH: Welcome back everyone, time for the Business Breakout. Here are your headlines.

Tens of thousands of workers are caught in the middle of a partial U.S. government shutdown. TSA officers are now working without pay, more than 360 have quit since the start of the shutdown. The staffing shortages are causing long lines at airports as workers are also calling out.

Global oil prices topped $110 per barrel on Wednesday as new airstrikes targeted energy infrastructure across the Middle East. In a bid to help offset costs, the U.S. announced it is temporarily waiving the Jones Act, which will allow foreign flagships to transport oil and gas between U.S. ports for the next 60 days. And the Federal Reserve Chief says the central bank is focused on

bringing inflation back down to 2 percent. Jerome Powell said that after five years of rising prices due to the pandemic and President Trump's tariffs, the U.S. is now facing an energy shock and, quote, "we worry a lot."

Well anxiety is mounting worldwide over rising fuel prices. The U.S. President and Vice President claim this is a short-term problem. I asked Professor Justin Wolfers if he agrees.

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JUSTIN WOLFERS, PROF. OF ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: The President's been on about this. He's saying it's just a temporary blip. That's not true.

The markets are already trading what oil will be in 2026, 2027 and 2028, and it's expected to be higher throughout all of that. Everyone's making plans for oil prices to be elevated for a fairly substantial period.

There's no good reason to believe it's going to go away straight away. It could, of course, but it also could be much worse than the markets think as well.

CHURCH: And, of course, the Federal Reserve did not cut interest rates on Wednesday. No surprise there, perhaps. But what might this war mean for any future cuts this year?

WOLFERS; Yes, so, Rosemary, happy Fed Day. We love these days, what a beautiful day to celebrate.

Look, the Fed sounded very worried about the future prospects for inflation, Jay Powell actually laid it out nicely. The economics textbook says that when you get hit by a supply shock, that is to say something like an oil shock, where it just becomes more expensive to make stuff, the economics textbook says actually you should, quote, "look through it," which is the price of oil will adjust up. While that's happening, there'll be inflation.

But once the price of oil is high, it's not going to cause ongoing inflation, so you shouldn't worry about it. That's one side of the argument. The other side is that the Fed hasn't achieved 2 percent inflation, which is its target, now for five years, and at some point it starts to worry if it never gets back to its target. Will we ever get there?

And so it's a very difficult, delicate balancing act there right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: I want to thank you so much for your company, I'm Rosemary Church. "World Sport" is coming up next.

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