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Ted Deutch is Interviewed about Attacks on Jews; Four Service Members Killed in Plane Crash in Iraq; Suspect Found Dead after Synagogue Attack; Two Homeland Attacks Rattle Americans; Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) is Interviewed about Military Deaths. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired March 13, 2026 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

TED DEUTCH, CEO, AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE: It comes from the far left, people whose hatred of Israel is hatred of Jews, that puts Jews at risk. And just like anti-Semitism comes from both sides of the political spectrum, all of us across the political spectrum also have to play a role in fighting it.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: I want to talk more about the idea of fighting it. I saw some bickering online between Laura Loomer and Tucker Carlson, her accusing him, and Candace Owens, saying that their -- she knew their "hatred would lead to people shooting up Jews in synagogues." And earlier this week Ted Cruz said this at a conference. And I want to play this for you. And you can tell me if this is an example of what it would mean to speak up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): I believe Tucker Carlson is the single most dangerous demagogue in this country. And I'll tell you, I've made the decision that I'm going to take him on head -- directly.

Nick Fuentes is easy to denounce. And I actually think it's a tell among a Republican politician if they'll denounce Fuentes but are scared to say Tucker's name. That tells you a great deal. Nick Fuentes is a goose-stepping Nazi.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Now, I want to be clear, we're talking about other lone actors, people with, you know, a pro-ISIS past with the events of the last 24 hours. The reason why I'm bringing in all of this dialog and rhetoric is because I actually don't hear that many people speaking like Ted Cruz. Do you? And who would you like to hear from, even from the administration?

DEUTCH: Well, I'm glad that you played that clip, because that is exactly what we should all expect. We all have a stake in fighting this. I mean, Audie, we've seen this now -- you're -- again, the timeline of attacks on synagogues is one way to understand what's happening. The number of people who have been injured and killed is another way to understand what's happening. And the fact that -- that this isn't -- this isn't just something that's playing out on social media, although social media companies, we have to say, have a responsibility in enforcing their own rules to stop the spread of this. But leaders have to speak up.

When Senator Cruz calls out those in his own party, he's powerfully addressing the challenge that all of us have to take up. Anybody can attack people who have different political views. That's not hard. And I was a member of Congress. That's what elected officials do all the time. I would argue with a dramatically rise -- a dramatic increase in partisanship too often.

CORNISH: Yes.

DEUTCH: But that aside, this is what they do. But we need to be able to call them out on the same side. When you otherwise agree with them, but you hear them saying things when their -- when their criticism of Israel puts Jews at risk because it demonizes Israel in ways that target Jews. Yes, I would like to hear that from leaders in the Democratic Party. When the conspiracy theorists --

CORNISH: I want to ask you about that.

DEUTCH: Yes, please.

CORNISH: We are going to have a Democrat speaking on later, but this is important. Right now it is almost considered a litmus test to say, on the Democratic side, I, as a candidate, am not going to take money from AIPAC, the pro-Israel and, at one point was described as bipartisan lobby group.

Can you talk about this on the Democratic side? Because now it is reaching that breaking point where you have people like Bernie Sanders or whoever saying they back the oligarchy, et cetera. How do you hear that language?

DEUTCH: Well, I hear -- I hear language from Democratic elected officials who are telling the country, and from some Democratic elected officials, I want to be clear, who are telling the country and who are telling a lot of people who identify as Democrats that -- and Jews especially, that, because they feel a connection to Israel, to their homeland, the one Jewish state in the country, that because they think that Israel has a right to defend itself and has a right to exist in peace in the region, that somehow -- that somehow that belief disqualifies them or even disqualifies them from being a part of the political process. There are people who get involved in politics for lots of reasons. And to demonize them because the thing that motivates them is their support for the state of Israel, absolutely is a problem.

And I would just tell -- I would tell my Democratic friends, as I do, as I tell my Republican friends, that when you decide that somehow there is political gain in going after a community just because it supports Israel, or going after a community in ways where that that antagonism toward Israel puts Jews at risk, then you're putting politics at risk and you're putting your own political futures at risk. CORNISH: Yes.

[06:35:18]

DEUTCH: And being against Israel is not a litmus test. And if it is, then there's a much, much bigger problem than this. This is a moment, think about yesterday, 140 kids were in a preschool. The idea that something that's happening 6,000 miles away somehow would lead to somebody driving a car with explosives into a preschool is outrageous. That's what everyone has to speak out about.

CORNISH: This is Ted Deutch. Thank you so much for speaking with us.

DEUTCH: Thanks so much.

CORNISH: We're going to continue this breaking news coverage on CNN THIS MORNING. We want to say that the U.S. military confirming that four crew members from an Air Force jet have been killed in Iraq. We're going to have those details, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CORNISH: We have this breaking news this morning. U.S. Central Command just confirmed the death of four service members in the war with Iran. The four fallen Americans are crew members of a refueling aircraft that went down in western Iraq yesterday. Central Command is saying that rescue efforts continue for two others on board.

[06:40:00]

They say the incident was not due to hostile or friendly fire.

Joining me now to discuss, CNN military analyst and retired U.S. Air Force colonel, Cedric Leighton.

Good morning, Colonel Leighton. I want to get your help making sense of this.

So, what we know is it's a KC-135. Two -- four dead, two missing. What do you make of this claim of it not being hostile, not being friendly. What can you read from that?

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes. So, basically what was happening here, Audie, is that this was a refueling operation where one of the tankers was refueling another tanker. So, there's a variant of the KC-135, as we see here in this picture, that can actually take fuel from another KC-135. That aircraft, the one that was taking fuel, is apparently the one that landed safely back in Israel at Ben Gurion Airport. The one that crashed was apparently the one that was dispensing fuel to that other KC-135. The one that landed in Israel apparently, according to reporting from plane spotters, had damage to what's called its vertical stabilizer. That's basically the tail fin that you see that's vertical in the back of the aircraft, in the rear of the aircraft. So, there was damage -- CORNISH: Yes. These aren't the images -- I want people to know that these aren't images from that plane, but this is what it would look like, correct?

LEIGHTON: That's correct. Yes, the refueling operation is a very intricate affair. And what these refuelers do, as you can see, that boom coming down to the other aircraft, to the fighter that's being refueled there, that boom is where the fuel comes through. Think of it as the gas tank -- as the hose from the gas pump into your gas tank.

So, this is basically doing what you do for your car in the air. And those aircraft have to maintain a constant speed and it has to be the same speed while they're conducting that refueling operation.

So, this is a very complex task. And it is one of those tasks that -- where a lot can go wrong very quickly and that's why the training for this is usually quite rigorous.

CORNISH: What are you going to be listening for in terms of this rescue effort, right, that there is two more people out there?

LEIGHTON: Yes. So, this is -- you know, don't -- you know, it is one of those things where we have to be very careful with what can happen next. But these accidents are often quite tragic. And it is, you know, unlikely, unfortunately, that the other two crew members will be found alive.

These crash scenes are terrible crash scenes. What you will see in most of them is a wide field of debris that, you know, is very hard, if not impossible, to survive. So, this is a -- you know, it's a tough effort. The crews that are conducting these recovery operations are well trained in these areas. And they are basically conducting the same kind of investigation that you would find with the NTSB when there's a civilian aircraft that crashes here in the United States.

CORNISH: Yes. OK. Right now, just four are confirmed dead now. And we should be clear, today, the defense secretary will be speaking. That's happening in just a few hours.

Colonel Leighton, thank you for being with us

LEIGHTON: You bet, Audie

CORNISH: I want to turn back now to Michigan, because the FBI investigating a car ramming at a synagogue is being targeted -- a targeted attack on the Jewish community. So, a man armed with a rifle and explosives drove his vehicle into Temple Israel near Detroit. He was later found dead in the car.

We have a live report now from CNN's Brian Abel. He is in West Bloomfield, Michigan, with the latest.

And, Brian, I know the leaders of Temple Israel have been speaking out. What are you hearing?

BRIAN ABEL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we are hearing that really there is a sense of safety that this community has that's now been shattered as a result of this attack, Audie. We're also learning the identity of this suspect now. He's been identified as 41-year-old Ayman Mohamad Ghazali. He was born in Lebanon and became a U.S. citizen, Audie, back in 2016.

Now, the FBI has confirmed that this attack that only killed the suspect in this case was a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community. But it's also important to note, Audie, that this is the second attack on a house of worship in this state in the last six months, and in a similar style as the one back in September.

Now, the temple here, Audie, was already on high alert over the last two weeks after the police chief had warned synagogues in this area about the potential for violence.

[06:45:02]

I do want you to listen really quick to the CEO of Jewish Detroit talk about the training that these synagogues have received.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVEN INGBER, CEO, JEWISH DETROIT: I can't thank law enforcement for the trainings that we have all done at Temple Israel, at Federation, throughout the community, the teachers security team, wonderful job. Why? Because they've trained us. We've done this, unfortunately, more often than we're willing to admit and we will continue to train. So, we were ready. And thank God for their training. And this is the outcome.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABEL: Also, the sheriff's department that responded to this, Audie, has a lot of training as well. Sheriff Michael Bouchard, he was the responding entity for the Oxford High School shooting back in 2021, as well as the shooting on Michigan State University campus. The A.G. here, Dana Nessel, was suggesting that there is a nexus to the conflict with Iran. And police, according to sources, are actually looking at a potential connection here because, according to sources, that this suspect was telling other people that he did have family members in Lebanon that were killed in recent days by Israeli airstrikes.

Audie.

CORNISH: OK, that's Brian Abel. Thank you so much, Brian.

Yesterday, you know, it was Virginia and Michigan, last week, New York and Texas. So, we're talking about four separate attacks on U.S. soil since the war with Iran began.

I'm going to bring in CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen, joining the group chat, because he's also the vice president for global studies and fellows at New America.

Peter, I wanted to talk to you because I think that it's been some time, probably not since the sort of ISIS concerns from many years ago, that Americans have reckoned with the nexus of Middle East politics coming to domestic soil. And what do you see in this moment?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, you know, this can have pretty large political ramifications. I mean I think, if you look at polling -- exit polling data from the first Trump election, politics was the number two issue for Americans because there had been a lot of terrorist attacks. There was the attack in California that killed 14 people. There was the attack in Florida that killed 49 people. And it seemed that terrorists could attack anywhere at any time. And that was the highest level of concern Americans had about terrorism since 9/11.

So, right now, we've had attacks around the country, and I think -- I haven't seen any polling data yet, but I imagine Americans are concerned because, again, the attacks can seem to take place at any time.

CORNISH: Yes.

BERGEN: And of course, the war, there is no end in sight. The war is certainly a factor in a number of these attacks.

CORNISH: I think I'm also, and this is for the group, reckoning with the idea that the administration tends to look at these moments, look at the discrete suspects, and maybe say, this is an immigration problem, this is a border problem. And does that work as the news is also showing people with service members coming home or, you know, people burning Israeli flags in Tehran at massive rallies?

MICHAEL WARREN, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE DISPATCH": Well, look, I -- everybody, every political actor here is sort of defining, you know, they're going to be using these things at this point in our politics to sort of advance their own political agenda.

CORNISH: Yes.

WARREN: I think the Trump administration is a leader in that front.

But, I mean, just -- if we just look at this particular attack and we look at all the attacks earlier in the program you went over the last several years, you just cannot deny the -- this particular anti- Semitic, you know, what is sort of driving these attacks is, I think, very specific, and it really, I think, Ted Deutch made a very good point, what's happening 6,000 miles away, what's happening in Israel, you know, the sort of arguments that, well, this this man who made this attack may have had relatives who were -- who were killed by --

CORNISH: Lebanon. Yes.

WARREN: In Lebanon has nothing to do with 140 preschoolers in Michigan. The fact that they are Jewish seems to be. I think we cannot lose sight of the fact that whatever these political, you know, you know, politicians, whether the Trump administration or whoever are trying to make this about immigration or make this about, you know, what's happening in the war, underlying all of it is this view that if, you know, if it's Jews, then, you know, it's somehow justified. And I think that's something that we can't lose sight of as we're sort of, you know, analyzing what's happening in these attacks.

CORNISH: Yes.

You were taking some notes. Yes.

BERGEN: Yes. Well, I mean, as a factual matter, I just looked at the four cases we've been talking about in the last two weeks. None of them involved immigrants. And they all involved U.S. citizens. And, in fact, one of the perpetrators was a U.S. Army military veteran. So, it's going to be hard to say if this is a sort of immigration problem. And, in fact, almost all of these attacks in the United States are conducted by American citizens or American legal residents. The last time there was a foreigner who came in and attacked in the United States was in 2019 in Pensacola, Florida, and he was a Saudi military officer.

So, you know, there's been a lot of rhetoric about this.

[06:50:01]

Most of it poorly informed.

You know, also, by the way, you can't stop the internet with --

CORNISH: Yes.

BERGEN: And the internet is what's radicalizing people. So, you know, calls for kind of additional immigration constraints, I don't think, you know, we may hear them, but as a practical matter, when it comes to terrorism, it's not going to have any real effect.

CORNISH: OK, I wanted to just bring it up because, as I said, people end up talking about it. And certainly the White House will be talking about it this week.

Peter, thank you. Always a pleasure to have you here.

Next on CNN THIS MORNING, in a little more than an hour, the secretary for defense, Pete Hhegseth, briefing reporters on this U.S. war in Iraq. We're going to learn about the deaths of four U.S. service members.

Later on CNN, did the president underestimate Iran and specifically their power over the Strait of Hormuz?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CORNISH: We continue to follow the breaking news this morning.

[06:55:01]

Four more deaths in the war with Iran. Four fallen Americans were on a U.S. refueling aircraft that went down in western Iraq yesterday. Rescue efforts continue for two others. They say the incident was not due to hostile or friendly fire.

Now, at that point, this means 11 U.S. service members have now died since the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.

Joining me now to talk about this is Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell of Michigan.

Congresswoman, first, I just want to start with this information that we've learned. These four U.S. crew members, they were killed when a KC-135 refueling aircraft went down. And there are two others still missing.

Your reaction and your questions for the Pentagon, who will be speaking later today.

REP. DEBBIE DINGELL (D-MI): My reaction is for their families. And I -- our prayers are with them, though I'm not sure prayers mean anything anymore these days. But we need to, as a government, be there to support them. I hope we find the other two. And we are beginning to see the count increase of men and women who fight to keep us safe dying every day. And we have to ask many questions about what is happening in the Mideast. Why are they there? What are our goals? What is our plan to end this? Are we going to put troops on the ground? Are we in another endless war in the Mideast, which I am totally against and I am totally against troops on the ground.

CORNISH: Yes. Here's one answer from Senator Joni Ernst, who calls this war necessary to protect the homeland.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JONI ERNST (R-IA): People are split on this, but they understand the threat to the homeland. And if we want to protect Americans here, we have to send our servicemen abroad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: This was, obviously, said before we learned of this attack. But can you respond to that thinking?

DINGELL: So, look, a nuclear Iran is something that we all need to worry about. But what is our strategy? Can it be approached diplomatically? And I'm going to argue that right now many places in my district, I have a very complicated district, are raw, frightened and worried. And you saw the attack yesterday. And people are waiting for the next attack. And I think many places around the country are feeling the same way. And is our homeland safe?

CORNISH: I want to ask you about one other thing. We've been talking today about political rhetoric, anti-Semitism, as people talk about this war on Deron (ph). And we heard from the Michigan A.G., who was saying that this is a problem on the left and on the right. If you have a Democratic Party where people are feuding about even taking money from AIPAC, are they in a position to have a real conversation about what to do in Iran? DINGELL: Look, I don't -- I have lived here longer than most in the

middle of a Muslim community and a Jewish community. I am close to people on both sides. I think that many people who take AIPAC money or who are, are strong supporters of Israel. I believe that Israel has a right to exist. And I called all my Jewish communities last night, my leaders, to make sure they were OK.

But the anti-Muslim rhetoric, the hate, the bombing of all kinds of places of faith have no place here either. And we need to be pulling people together. And people like us. People who are strong supporters of Israel, people who work, we've got Muslims members of our caucus, we all need to be coming together. Because what's happening in our country right now is dangerous. We are being divided and pitted against each other. And that is threatening our democracy as much as anything overseas right now.

CORNISH: Congresswoman Dingell, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

DINGELL: Thank you.

CORNISH: It's an interesting moment hearing her response there, thread that needle, as someone who is in a mixed district. What questions do you have kind of politically going forward as we have the fallout from yet another round of deaths?

NOEL KING, CO-HOST AND EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, "TODAY, EXPLAINED" PODCAST: I mean, the question of, are we safer now? Are we safer for having done this? And I think the more existential question of, how on earth did we possibly do this again?

CORNISH: Yes. And also my question is, how long can you ask people to sacrifice for something they didn't ask for, in terms of the American people.

WARREN: I mean Joni Ernst, the senator from Iowa, said, the American people understand this. But I just don't think that -- that's assuming facts, not in evidence. There was no argument made beforehand about why now. We've been saying this now for two weeks.

CORNISH: Right. And no opportunity for public debate.

[07:00:00]

WARREN: That's right. And that's a huge difference from past engagements. You know, everyone talks about the comparison with the Iraq War. There's a lot of debate and discussion about that before Congress voted to authorize it. None of that has happened in the run up here. And I think even if you support the idea of decapitating the regime, you have to wonder, why now?

CORNISH: Well, in the meantime, we've got more headlines, including this breaking news on the deaths of four U.S. service members in a refueling incident.

I'm Audie Cornish. Stay with us. The headlines are next.