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Trump: Navy Will Begin Blockading Ships From Strait Of Hormuz: Netanyahu Makes Rare Visit To Southern Lebanon; Several Dems Call For Swalwell To Resign Amid Sexual Misconduct Claims; Trump: Navy Will Begin "Blockading" Ships From Strait Of Hormuz; Trump Ally Facing Tough Election Test As Polls Close In Hungary; Iowa Farmers Hit Hard By Iran War And Tariffs. Aired 2-3p ET

Aired April 12, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

[13:59:40]

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: The U.S. Benefits most not from charging per ship for access, but from building a world in which commerce flows freely, and Washington's central position is reinforced. To abandon that model for short-term extraction is to trade a durable advantage for a fleeting gain.

If the U.S. becomes just another predatory hegemon, it will discover what history has long shown. Such power is feared, resented and ultimately resisted. And in time it is not sustained but overturned.

Go to FareedZakaria.com for a link to my "Washington Post" column this week.

Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: President Trump making a new announcement on Iran just hours after Vice President JD Vance left Pakistan with no peace deal with Iran. Hear what actions the president is ordering for the critical Strait of Hormuz.

And back in this country, there are growing calls today from fellow Democratic members of Congress for Representative Eric Swalwell to drop out of the California gubernatorial race following allegations of sexual misconduct. Staffers within Swalwell's office releasing their own statement now.

Hello, and thank you so much for joining me this Sunday. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

And we begin with President Trump lashing out at Iran after U.S.- Iranian peace talks in Pakistan end with no deal in hand. Trump, in a new interview today, says he's now imposing a naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX BUSINESS ANCHOR: Mr. President, can you explain to us what is going on right now with the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, we're going to be blockading. It will take a little while, but it will be effective pretty soon.

And we had meetings yesterday. They, as you said, lasted 21 hours. That was a long meeting. We had some very, very good representatives, as you know, JD and Steve and Jared.

So we were well-represented, but we didn't get there on the important issue. They want to have nuclear weapons. They're not going to have nuclear weapons.

BARTIROMO: So, Mr. President, was that the red line there? Can you explain to us what went on in these talks? What did the United States ask of Iran and how did they react?

TRUMP: Well, they reacted, you know, it was very interesting. It started off weak. They were -- they came in like they had the cards, but they don't have the cards. Their army, their whole military is obliterated. The whole place is obliterated.

And, you know, as you know, levels of leaders are gone. They're literally gone. Khamenei is gone. The whole thing is gone. The whole place is gone.

They have one thing that they can do. They can say, well, gee, we're going to put a mine someplace in the -- just a mine. We'll drop one mine, two mines, 10 mines.

And that will -- if you have a ship that costs $1 billion, you say, well, you know, I'd prefer not getting whacked by a mine, losing my ship or damaging it badly, at least.

And so that's a little bit of a thing that they can do. And that its -- military might and military power don't do it. But you know, its extortion and they're extorting the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right. CNN has reporters spread out across the world covering every development here.

Julia Benbrook is in Florida with the president. Nic Robertson is in Islamabad, Pakistan and Oren Liebermann in Jerusalem.

So let's get started in Doral, Florida. Julia, are you traveling with the president? What else is he saying today

JULIA BENBROOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, just hours after his negotiating team left these talks with the Iranians without an agreement in the conflict, President Donald Trump is saying that he believes that these talks, quote, "went well" and that he also believes that they will come back to the table and eventually give him everything that he wants. He said that there was really only one point that mattered to him

throughout these discussions, and I want to pull up his post from this morning, where he went into a bit more detail.

He said, quote, "I could go into great detail." Excuse me. He didn't go into a ton of detail here, but he did say and talk about how much that has been gotten.

"But there is only one thing that matters. Iran is unwilling to give up its nuclear ambitions. In many ways, the points that were agreed to are better than us continuing our military operations to conclusion.

But all of those points don't matter compared to allowing nuclear power in the hands of such volatile, difficult, unpredictable people."

Now, Vice President JD Vance, when he spoke last night, he said this was the best and final offer from the United States. He also said that the nuclear issue that was the core goal of the president here, after some 21 hours of negotiating.

We do know that those negotiators have left the area at this time, so we don't expect anything in person at this moment.

[14:04:47]

BENBROOK: But Trump, again, is saying that he believes the Iranians are going to want to come back to the table. In the meantime, though, he continues to present these threats once again, saying that he could go after their energy infrastructure, adding that he could take out Iran in a day.

Now, he was pressed in an interview with Fox News about some of his recent rhetoric and comments, specifically when he said that he could take out an entire civilization. That was just a little bit before he announced this two-week ceasefire agreement.

Now, I want you to take a listen to what he said. He essentially said that he believes that comment, that rhetoric is what got them to the table in the first place.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: That statement got them to the bargaining table and they haven't left. They haven't left the bargaining table. I predict they come back and they give us everything we want.

And I told my people, I want everything. I don't want 90 percent. I don't want 95 percent. I told them I want everything.

BARTIROM: Well, and what they want --

TRUMP: They have no cards. Maria, Maria.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

TRUMP: They have no cards. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BENBROOK: Now, there are still a lot of questions about what's next here. But a little check on timeline. There are roughly ten days left in this fragile cease fire.

WHITFIELD: Julia Benbrook in Miami, keep us posted. Thanks so much.

So after 21 hours of negotiations, Vice President Vance is on his way back to the U.S. Before leaving Pakistan, Vance said Iran and the U.S. had what he called substantive discussions but couldn't find agreement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JD VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement. And I think that's bad news for Iran, much more than its bad news for the United States of America.

So we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement. We leave here with a very simple proposal. A method of understanding that is our final and best offer. We'll see if the Iranians accept it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right. Let's go now to CNN's Nic Robertson in Islamabad.

Nic, what is the view from the Iranians on whether there was progress here? Will there be a continuation of talks? What are they saying?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes. I think the dust is still really settling here. From Pakistan's side, they say from their conversations with the Iranians that they believe that the Iranians and the U.S. side don't want to go back to the 28th of February, which was when the war started.

So the -- from a Pakistani perspective, they think that there's still some positivity to be had here. But I think when you try and look holistically, what happened in these talks, normally you expect talks to build peace, which is what these were expected to be, will build trust as well.

And I think listening to what the Iranians have to say about this and hear the speaker of Iran's parliament, Mohammad Baqir Ghalibaf, who led the negotiating team, what he has had to say about these talks is illuminating because it really throws into the question, what was actually achieved and did -- was trust built here or not?

What the Iranians are saying is, and what he said was, that they put forward more than 160 different proposals at the table here. And he said this was the moment where America has to decide whether or not it can trust Iran.

I think there's something of a perception in Pakistan that the Iranians and the U.S., frankly, they expected to come to the table in good faith that they thought that there already was a level of agreement in some detail, not complete detail.

So I think it came as something as a shock to everyone in this city, at least, and perhaps the Iranian delegation as well when the talks did not succeed last night.

But as the president has said, this is not the end of the road. This is not the end of this period of negotiation. The ceasefire was a 14- day ceasefire. There's another nine days of it left to run.

So will all the sides be back at the table here in about a week's time, trying to sort of nail this down and close those final gaps, as President Trump thinks he is or will be able to do?

And I think that's a very, very big and open question, because if you don't build trust and you don't build it, not just with -- not just with the other side, the Iranians, but with the negotiating team. If the negotiators feel that there's a trust deficit as well, then that's going to make moving forward much harder.

And I think there's still sort of this open question about a ceasefire is it really got another nine days to run, or is that sort of out of the frame at the moment?

But there's definitely the hope here that the talks can continue. But of course, that question and this is something, you know, sources point out to us here in Pakistan.

[14:09:45]

ROBERTSON: Look, when you don't have this momentum towards a deal, you have spoilers like the hardliners in Iran or the tensions that will mount if Israel continues striking Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Iranian proxy there. All these sorts of things can derail this process that the president thinks can still happen.

But clearly, the Iranians in all of this feel that the Strait of Hormuz and their control of it is their maximum leverage. And it appears the president, by talking about a blockade, is trying to usurp, if you will, or thwart Iran's control by imposing his own control.

WHITFIELD: All right. Nic Robertson in Pakistan, thanks so much.

All right. Let's bring in CNN's Oren Liebermann. Now Oren, after these peace talks, you know, failed to reach an agreement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a rare trip to Lebanon today. Tell us about that.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF AND CORRESPONDENT: Well, he visited southern Lebanon, where Israel has seized territory from southern Lebanon as it continues expanding its occupation of territory there.

This rare visit is the first time we've seen Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with a number of other officials, including the defense minister and the Israeli military chief of staff, enter into southern Lebanon, crossed the border there Since the beginning of the war with Iran.

Netanyahu's message was simple. It's more of what we heard from him in a televised statement on Saturday night, in which he pointed to the strikes and the blows, what he calls the significant accomplishments against not only Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, but also Iran itself.

Meanwhile, it was the Defense Minister, Israel Katz, who went even further, saying that every resident of Lebanon, south of the Litani River, which in some places is ten kilometers or more of southern Lebanon, will be evacuated and will stay evacuated until there is security for the residents of northern Israel.

In other words, there is no letting off of the war right now. Israel has continued to strike Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah there. And we've also seen Hezbollah launching rockets into northern Israel. We've seen a number of sirens warning of incoming in the north throughout the day over the course of the past several hours.

So the war very much continues and the context here is critical because in two days on Tuesday, there are set to be direct talks between Israel and Lebanon in Washington, D.C.

That in and of itself is a significant diplomatic accomplishment to get direct talks like this. But these talks, of course, are already under strain and they could fail just as quickly and just as easily as the ceasefire talks between the U.S. And Iran in Pakistan.

Netanyahu, who said he had directly approved Israel's participation in these talks, has demanded the complete disarmament of Hezbollah and a real peace agreement that he says will last, in his words, for generations.

So that's incredibly difficult to achieve, especially because the war continues. Lebanon's government has said it will not negotiate under fire, while Israel is indicating it's not letting up and that it will conduct negotiations or intends to under fire.

So just as difficult a situation in terms of Israel and Lebanon with Hezbollah in the mix here, and that, of course, Fredricka affects what's happening with Iran.

WHITFIELD: All right. Oren Liebermann in Jerusalem, thanks so much.

All right. Still to come --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. EUGENE VINDMAN (D-VA): Eric Swalwell needs to resign. He needs to drop out of the race.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Growing calls today for California Congressman Eric Swalwell to drop out of California's gubernatorial race amid sexual misconduct allegations. Also, President Trump's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, it could cut

off Iran's oil money. We'll take a look at how that would impact countries on both sides of the conflict.

[14:13:21]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. New today, growing calls for Congressman Eric Swalwell to withdraw from the California governor's race after multiple women have come forward with sexual misconduct allegations.

Here's what some prominent democrats are saying today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VINDMAN: We need to be crystal clear on this. The accusations are absolutely heinous and his admissions betraying his family are deplorable. So Eric Swalwell needs to resign. He needs to drop out of the race.

And we have grown far too accustomed to having our senior leaders -- our elected officials fall far below what we expect their behavior to be morally, ethically.

And so whether you're the president of the United States, whether you're a representative we should not tolerate this behavior and Representative Swalwell needs to go.

SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): I have seen the reports. I think I've met Mr. Swalwell once or twice. I want to hear his side of the story, but obviously, if any of these allegations are true he should no longer be a candidate -- a candidate for governor.

But again, I don't know any of the facts. And I'm a little old- fashioned. I feel like I ought to hear the facts before I start weighing in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think that Swalwell should drop out of the gubernatorial race?

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): I absolutely do. This is, as you know, I've been very vocal on behalf of survivors of the Epstein scandal.

And I think that what we are seeing now is an emergence of women across the country who have been dismissed, told to shut up, told to move on, who have been abused by men in powerful positions.

[14:19:49]

JAYAPAL: This is not a partisan issue. This cuts across party line. And it is depravity of the way that women have been treated. And I'm just inspired by the courage and the bravery of the women who came forward. This is clearly a pattern.

I've already called for Congressman Swalwell to drop out of the gubernatorial race, and I think we have to hold everybody accountable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Right now, Swalwell's California gubernatorial campaign is unraveling as former allies are revoking their endorsements. His staffers have issued an unsigned joint statement saying, in part, "As leaders of teams working for Eric Swalwell, we're horrified by the recent reporting. We stand with our former colleague and the other women who have come forward."

And then the statement goes on to say, "Any decision of staff members to remain in their roles in the interim should not be viewed as support for Eric Swalwell. We recognize that not everyone, in particular our junior staff, can immediately forfeit their income and benefits without significant personal risk or consequence. Our responsibility now is to them," end quote.

Representative Swalwell is denying the allegations, calling them false. His attorney, in a statement to CNN, denied that Swalwell had ever had non-consensual sex with any woman or ever had sexual relations with any member of his staff.

All right. Now, other breaking news we're following. President Trump announcing today a U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz after more than 20 hours of peace talks with Iran ended without a deal.

The president wrote on social media that minesweepers will soon start removing mines from the waterway. He also said the U.S. Navy, with the help of other countries, will soon control which ships pass in and out of the strait.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It's called all-in and all-out. There'll be a time when we'll have them all come in and all come out, but it won't be a percentage. It won't be a friend of yours like a country that's your ally or a country that's your friend. It's all or nothing.

And that will be -- that won't be in too long a distance. No, we're just bringing the ships up. We've got a lot of ships. We're bringing them up.

We think that numerous countries are going to be helping us with this also. But we're putting on a complete blockade. We're not going to let Iran make money on selling oil to people that they like, and not people that they don't like or whatever it is. It's going to be all or none. And that's the way it is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right.

I'm joined now by Retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Schwartz. He is a CNN military analyst and a former U.S. security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

General, so great to see you.

LT. GEN. MARK SCHWARTZ, U.S. ARMY (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good to see you, Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. So let's try to analyze a bit of what the president said.

Number one, how would the U.S. Navy be involved in conducting any kind of mine sweeps? Can that be happening right now?

SCHWARTZ: I'm certain it is. You know, we had two guided missile destroyers that transited the Strait of Hormuz yesterday and are now sitting up in the upper Arabian Gulf.

So the capability that we had from the air to deny Kharg Island and the ability for Iranian oil to transit out of the Persian Gulf, down, across or through the strait, and then out into the Gulf of Oman. We just increased that capability.

For those ships to be able to go through the strait, they certainly cleared a lane as they advanced through, and they have on board with them both surface and undersurface, unmanned vehicles that can do that sonar search for mines.

And that capability is only going to increase in the coming days and weeks. Both the Marine Expeditionary Units, the RVUs (ph), the 11th and 31st also have that capability -- both unmanned, manned, as well as the helicopter capability to do sonar surveillance of the strait.

WHITFIELD: And then simultaneously, you know, can the president have executed or put in place a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz right now?

SCHWARTZ: Well, there's certainly plenty of ships available to do, you know, what the president outlined in, you know, Truth Social in his interviews today. So there's a number of U.S. Navy vessels.

Then, of course, inside of the Persian Gulf, all of our, allies and partners with the Gulf states all also have maritime capability, countermine capability to that degree. I'm not sure in terms of what that capacity is, but they do have the ability to control anything that comes out of the Persian Gulf into the strait.

And certainly anything that's transiting any ships, both oil and other maritime commerce, that's coming into the Gulf of Oman, getting ready to navigate the strait. So I do believe there's significant capability.

[14:24:51]

SCHWARTZ: And lastly, I'm confident that the United States' Secretary of State are talking with nations that are very reliant on the oil coming out of Iran, and also probably working some dialog in terms of opportunities to work with the Gulf states where they had otherwise gotten oil from Iran to rely on the Gulf states.

So, I'm sure there's a lot of details still to be worked out. But conceptually, I believe it's possible, Fred.

WHITFIELD: So, so how might this happen, or can it happen without the cooperation of other countries? The president said, you know, we think that there will be numerous countries that may help. Can this be done without that assistance?

SCHWARTZ: It can be, obviously doing things unilaterally, even, you know, the fact that we have a significant naval capability or capability deployed in Central Command right now, it would be much better if we're working with our European allies and certainly our Gulf partners with this.

As you recall, there was a significant meeting led by the U.K. to bring in other nations to provide maritime capability to facilitate the transit of the strait.

I would suspect over the coming days, we're going to start seeing the deployment of those maritime assets from Europe, potentially the U.K. as well. Some may already be moving that, you know, that way now.

WHITFIELD: Except there were a lot of conditions right from the U.K. to France and beyond some other European allies, you said. Not while there's a conflict, would we want to engage in that. But it sounds like it's still potentially long term, I mean, much further down the line.

SCHWARTZ: Certainly. So beyond -- yes, sorry to speak over you, but certainly beyond the next several days that we have of the current ceasefire. This is a long-term endeavor in order to ensure that Iran can no longer hold, you know, maritime commerce at risk, whether that's for U.S. and its allies or all of Europe and certainly, you know, all those nations in the Indo-Pacific that are far more reliant on the capability or, excuse me, the capacity that both Iran and the Gulf states provide than what is currently flowing and hasn't been since the outset of the conflict.

WHITFIELD: All right. We'll leave it there for now. General Mark Schwartz, great to see you. Thanks so much.

SCHWARTZ: Good to see you.

WHITFIELD: All right. Straight ahead, one of President Trump's closest allies in Europe is facing his biggest election challenge in years. We'll go live to Hungary as the polls there close.

[14:27:31]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:31:49]

WHITFIELD: All right. We continue to follow breaking news.

President Trump announcing today a U.S. military blockade of all ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S. and Iran failed to come to terms in a peace deal. Trump also defended his statement from earlier this week, where he warned, I'm quoting now, "a whole civilization will die," end quote, "in Iran, if they don't open up the critical waterway."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (via telephone): That statement got them to the bargaining table and they haven't left. They haven't left the bargaining table. I predict they come back and they give us everything we want. And I told my people, I want everything. I don't want 90 percent. I don\t want 95 percent. I told them, I want everything.

MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS HOST: Well -- and what they want --

TRUMP: They have no cards -- Maria. Maria.

BARTIROMO: Yep.

TRUMP: They have no cards.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: The president is hoping this move will put more economic pressure on Iran and force the regime back to the bargaining table.

CNN's Jennifer Hansler has the latest on today's developments.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JENNIFER HANSLER, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: President Donald Trump on Sunday predicted that Iran would return to the negotiating table and give the United States everything it is looking for, despite the fact that talks between the two sides failed to yield a breakthrough. In an interview with Fox News, the U.S. President claimed that those talks, which were held in Pakistan on Saturday, had turned friendly toward the end and Iran had agreed to a number of points that the U.S. put forward, but not the major one that he sees as the most important, and that is regarding dismantling its nuclear program.

Now, the U.S. president again threatened to strike Iran's energy infrastructure, as well as its bridges. And in a post earlier on Sunday, the U.S. president also said that the U.S. navy would be pursuing a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Now, that move threatens to further drive up global energy prices, which have already been driven extremely high due to Iran's ability to close that key waterway. Now, after those marathon talks in Pakistan on Saturday, the two sides still seem incredibly far apart on the key issues.

Coming out of those negotiations, Vice President J.D. Vance said that the nuclear issue was the top of the agenda, where they could not get agreement. But we've heard from sources that in addition to that issue, the issue of the Strait of Hormuz as well as the unfreezing of Iran's frozen assets, were also key points of contention. Now, there are a number of questions about what happens from this

point, including whether the two week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran continues to remain in place. There are also no indications of any talks that would resume in the near future. Iran, for its part, has said there is a lack of trust between the two sides, and the U.S. was not able to breach that deficit in these negotiations -- Fredricka.

(END VIDEOTAPE0

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much, Jennifer.

All right. A Kentucky airman who died while serving on last month's Operation Epic Fury, was laid to rest this weekend.

[14:35:00]

The funeral service for 34-year-old technical sergeant Ashley Pruitt was held Saturday in Nelson County, Kentucky. Hundreds of mourners lined the streets to pay their final respects during the procession. Pruitt was one of six service members killed when the refueling aircraft they were on crashed in Iraq. She served as an instructor boom operator and assistant flight chief of operations with the 99th Air Refueling Squadron.

All right. Happening right now, polls are now closed in Hungary's national election. Viktor Orban, the country's right wing prime minister for the last 16 years, is facing his toughest challenge in years.

Orban is close -- a close ally of President Trump and also backed by Russia. Vice President J.D. Vance was in Hungary last week to support Orban's campaign and even took a call from President Trump during a rally.

CNN's senior international correspondent Melissa Bell is in Budapest.

Melissa, what's at stake here?

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I just want to give you an idea, Fredricka, of where I'm standing. That is Budapest, extraordinary parliamentary building right there. And this is turning into something of a victory party, even though we don't have the official figures yet. What's happening on that screen over there is about 15 percent of the vote counted.

The party led by Peter Magyar, the challenger to Viktor Orban keeps edging ahead, and every time they do, these people out here are cheering because they are Peter Magyar supporters. We have heard tonight from the candidate himself. He was very cautious about what he had to say.

The one figure we are getting a good idea of already Fredricka is turnout. It is a record turnout, 75 percent. That is a record for Hungary in its post-communist time, so since 1990. This is a vote that really excited people. No one felt indifference

about Viktor Orban in his rule, nor about the way he changed Hungary towards this form of liberal democracy that has proven such a model to MAGA.

Now, he spoke for a little while, saying he would speak later tonight. Warning everyone to stay calm, suggesting that there would be no violence from his side, which would make no sense, he said, because there had been fears and scaremongering from the others that maybe there would be people on the streets tonight who didn't accept the results. He suspected. He said that he would be back to celebrate a victory later tonight, and certainly the early results are suggesting a substantial win for Tisza.

Again, just 15 percent of the votes counted. We do expect them to have. We do expect to have them relatively soon. It seems that at 6 million Hungarians have cast their votes. That is a huge turnout. And it appears certainly by the look and the smile on Peter Magyar's face, that he believes he might just have done it.

The question will be now, Fredricka, whether he can get that supermajority, that Peter, that Viktor Orban had benefited from for all those years, and that had allowed him to change the constitution and transform this country into a liberal democracy. Peter Magyar had been vowing, hoping to get that two thirds majority himself so that he could return Hungary to the rule of law. It is not going to be clear likely even tonight whether he's done that, but certainly it suggests like from his point of view and those of his supporters, things are going very well this evening so far, Fredricka.

And it will be a big change for Hungary with regard to its position to Washington, Moscow, the allies of Viktor Orban and perhaps most importantly, its position within the European Union -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Right. Okay. The relationship between Hungary, U.S. or those relations that have already been established with this White House could certainly change as a result of the outcome of this race. Melissa Bell in Budapest, thanks so much. We'll check back with you.

All right. The U.S. war with Iran is adding to an uncertain future for American farmers who are already severely hit by the Trump tariffs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: As you start this season, are there more uncertainties than most? Oh, yeah. So many farms are reporting that they're on the brink of something bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:43:52]

WHITFIELD: All right. The surging oil, fuel and fertilizer prices caused by the war with Iran are having a very real impact on farmers here in the United States. In Iowa, a state that President Trump won three times, some farmers say they are at a breaking point.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON LEHMAN, IOWA FARMER: A lot of farmer discouragement out there. Prices of our soybeans, prices of all our commodities started going down, prices of fertilizer and other things we import to plant a crop started going up. So, for a year, we've seen some real chaos on all sorts of trade tensions.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: There's always uncertainty, obviously with farming. But as you start this season, are there more uncertainties than most?

LEHMAN: Oh, yeah. I saw so many farms are reporting that they're on the brink of something bad, that their communities are on the brink of something bad.

ZELENY (voice-over): Aaron Lehman is a fifth generation Iowa farmer and worried like never before, with fallout from the Iraq war.

LEHMAN: No one anticipated that we would have a shock to the system, like a massive increase in fertilizer prices because all the experts did not see this coming when we will see this -- this rise in fertilizer prices because of this war.

[14:45:13]

And really, no one's really seeing a way out.

ZELENY (voice-over): Spring planting is just around the corner here in Iowa where the cost of fertilizer and diesel have soared since the war began.

LEHMAN: We're filling over 100 gallons in our fuel tank multiple times a week.

ZELENY: So that cost will be thousands of dollars.

LEHMAN: Thousands of dollars, thousands of dollars. And it's not just for what we put into our combine. It's not just what we put in our tractor. In addition to that, what it takes to get my grain to my market, the trucks that are using diesel fuel there, they're feeling it as well.

ZELENY (voice-over): President Trump's promises on trade and tariffs face even more scrutiny here now, in a state he won three times.

ZELENY: Have you felt the whiplash of that tariff policy this past year?

WES RIETH, ROW CROW PRODUCTION MANAGER, LONGVIEW FARMS: Yeah. I mean, I think it's hard to say for any farmer that we haven't, right?

ZELENY (voice-over): Wes Rieth is farm manager at Longview Farms, navigating an ever growing set of obstacles.

RIETH: You can look at futures prices for soybeans, you know, again, and kind of watch the pendulum swing, a little bit. And I think, yeah, that kind of lends itself to, you know, these parallels that we see in geopolitics or, you know, conflicts, Middle East, et cetera., that, yeah, create, some of this uncertainty.

ZELENY (voice-over): This year, the optimism of a new season comes with even more risk.

RIETH: So, we get one chance to plant and we get one chance to harvest and that's it for the year. So, we get one try every single year. And so even like in my lifetime, I might get 30 tries at this.

That really puts things into perspective. Like I only, you know, the prices of fertilizer, seed, whatever, like could go crazy, but like, we can't not plant. We still have to go out and plant the crop.

ZELENY (voice-over): For the next seven months, as the crops begin to grow --

LEHMAN: Just starting to poke through.

ZELENY (voice-over): -- a political season will also unfold. Testing whether any of these challenges influence the midterm elections.

LEHMAN: But in addition to that, I think farmers are becoming more and more aware is that you need to say to our elected leaders, what are you saying about the fertilizer situation? What are you saying about the trade situation? Are we going to stand up to these things that are hurting us or are we not?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right. Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much for that report.

All right. Still to come, breaking down the big questions about the future of A.I., what it could mean for millions of workers who are concerned about being replaced by the technology.

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[14:52:27]

WHITFIELD: All right. More than 6,000 tech industry insiders gathered in San Francisco last week to discuss the future of artificial intelligence. The Human X Conference pulled together industry insiders to focus on real world applications.

CNN business tech reporter Clare Duffy was there -- Clare.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS TECH REPORTER: Hi, Fred.

Yeah, that's right. There were thousands of people working in and around the A.I. industry in attendance at this event. Everyone from Dr. Fei-Fei Li, who's known as the godmother of A.I., to the renowned computer scientist and author Ray Kurzweil. There were executives from OpenAI and Anthropic, many smaller startups, and the CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, also made a video appearance.

And to me, the question that was really at the heart of this conference was not what's coming, but rather now that A.I. is here, how do we put it to work in a way that actually serves people? And there were a few key issues that came up repeatedly. One of them is how do companies make A.I. work internally in a way that benefits their bottom line, but also their human employees?

I interviewed Airbnb CTO Ahmad Al-Dahle, and he said that 97 percent of his engineers are using A.I. for coding. They're saving on average six hours per week. But he also acknowledged that even for him, this work of now managing six to eight A.I. agents that are running simultaneously doing different tasks that that can be exhausting and overwhelming. And he thinks that's something that business leaders are increasingly going to have to address as this technology is adopted more widely.

There's also the question of how we all adjust for the labor force changes that have already started to happen, especially how we bring entry level workers into the workforce and build a sustainable workforce over time. At a time when A.I. tools are increasingly taking on that entry level work.

And then there's this core question of trust. How do we make sure that these models are serving us accurately and that they actually are working in our favor. I interviewed visas CTO, Rajat Taneja, alongside the hip hop mogul Questlove. Obviously, two very different perspectives, but they both came back to this core question of trust.

And Taneja talked about the technical solutions that they're building out to be able to validate the outcomes and the actions of these A.I. models and agents. And Questlove said that we need to have more transparency around how these models work and how they're trained, so that any human work that was a part of that training data set, that those humans can be fairly compensated.

Of course, it is good news that there are lots of people in this industry thinking seriously and talking seriously about these questions. I also think there's a sense that we need to quickly move from talking to really taking action on some of these issues, whether through legislation or through public pressure.

[14:55:07]

As former Vice President Al Gore said in his opening remarks at the start of the conference, he said there is a difference between slow down and aim higher. I think we have to aim higher and I think that is an instruction that many in the industry are leaving this conference this week with, Fred.

WHITFIELD: Fascinating.

All right. Clare Duffy, thanks so much. All right. Still to come, President Trump now calling for a U.S. naval

blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Will his new threats force Iran's negotiators back to the table to discuss a peace plan?

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