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CNN This Morning

Trump Urges Countries to Help Secure Strait of Hormuz; Gas Prices Rise as War Continues; 'One Battle After Another' and 'Sinners' Big Winners at the Academy Awards. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired March 16, 2026 - 06:00   ET

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

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RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): -- many more success stories like this one.

Ryan Young, CNN, Atlanta.

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RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: They look very happy. Thanks for joining us. I'm Rahel Solomon, live this morning in New York. Our thanks to Becky Anderson and her team in Abu Dhabi. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump has said the war with Iran is already won. So, why does he need foreign ships to come finish the job?

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ABBAS ARAGHCHI, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: We are ready to defend ourselves as long as it takes.

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CORNISH: So far, no country has committed warships to the Strait of Hormuz. Will the U.K. or maybe China step up?

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ARAGHCHI: We are ready to defend ourselves as long as it takes.

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CORNISH: So how long will it take? Trump officials are talking weeks not days, until the war is over.

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PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: No quarter, no mercy for our enemies.

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CORNISH: Pete Hegseth's new war pledge. Does that threat violate international law?

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CHRIS WRIGHT, U.S. ENERGY SECRETARY: This is short term pain to get through to a much better place.

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CORNISH: No pain, no gain. Does that work for the American people, with gas prices up 24 percent?

CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

OK. You're looking at fire and smoke, seen on Tehran's skyline overnight as Israeli warplanes Carry out a vicious new assault on the Iranian capital.

Welcome, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish, and we are following developments in the war on several fronts. But we begin with this breaking news.

President Trump's renewed call for help in the Strait of Hormuz. Twenty percent of the world's oil passes through here. Iran has blocked it, which is why you are paying more for gas.

Here's the president just a short time ago.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We are talking to countries about working with us on the policing of the Strait and I think we're getting a good response. It'd be interesting to see what country wouldn't help us with a very small endeavor, which is just keeping the Strait open.

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CORNISH: OK. So, he's calling it a very small endeavor. Since the start of the war, at least 20 ships have been attacked. It's important to note, no incidents have been reported in the past three days.

But I'm bringing in CNN's Oren Liebermann. He's in Jerusalem to talk about the latest of what's going on.

And Oren, in an interview with "The Financial Times," the president had warned that NATO would face, quote, "a very bad future" if U.S. allies kind of failed to assist in securing the strait.

Have you heard from what other countries are saying, including Gulf allies?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: Audie, we are starting to see some responses, but not what President Donald Trump said was a, quote, "good response" to his request or ask for countries to help out in opening up the Strait of Hormuz or escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz. In terms of countries that have responded, Australia and Japan said

they would not be sending ships. Meanwhile, south Korea said they were -- they will -- they will review the request. I wanted to make sure I got my wording right there.

And meanwhile, the United Kingdom has said they are looking at different options and possibilities for how they could contribute to the Strait of Hormuz and the effort to keep open ships there.

Meanwhile, China has not responded, and that is interesting, because Trump is set to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in just a few weeks here.

So, we are looking for responses. What we have not seen yet is a positive response to this idea of trying to escort ships or keep open the Strait of Hormuz.

The European Union said it's important to keep the strait open, but no concrete commitment there yet.

Meanwhile, in what is becoming an all too familiar part of the Trump administration's foreign policy, we saw him threatening NATO if they didn't take part in this in some way.

Now, it's important to note here, Audie, that this is not yet a concrete planned idea. And we saw that just a couple of days ago from the Pentagon's press conference on the latest in this war with Iran.

CORNISH: And, of course this is a joint war, the U.S. and Israel launching it. And I know the IDF claims to have hit more than 200 targets over the past day.

Can you talk about their plans as we hear the potential, even for Israel mobilizing for a ground invasion into parts of Lebanon.

LIEBERMANN: On Iran, we had a conversation with Israel's military spokesperson, and he said there are, quote, "thousands of targets ahead and at least three more weeks here of operations." So, that would take it through the end of the month and into the beginning of next month here.

So, you can see the planning here and, of course, the close coordination with the U.S. So -- so the U.S. also saying effectively weeks here ahead of military operations against Iran, as Trump himself, meanwhile, has -- is getting closer and closer, it seems, to declaring -- declaring victory here.

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Meanwhile, when it comes to Lebanon, we had seen a couple of weeks ago, closer to the start of the war, the military call up 110,000 reservists. We know now that that has expanded to more, even

though we don't have a specific number on how many more reservists Israel has called up. They have announced that within the last several days, they have started what they called targeted ground operations in Lebanon. This is a creeping expansion of -- of the war and the operation in

Lebanon as this -- as this gets closer and closer to a ground incursion and a potential ground invasion.

There is, Audie, an effort to get some diplomacy going here between the Lebanese government and Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's closest confidant, Ron Dermer, will head the Israeli delegation if there are talks between Israel and Lebanon.

What we're waiting for here is an announcement on when those would begin, where they would be and, of course, how serious they are.

CORNISH: OK, from Tel Aviv. That's Oren Liebermann thank you for that reporting. Now, I want to bring in the group chat: Zach Wolf, CNN's senior politics writer and author of the "What Matters" newsletter; Francesca Chambers, White House correspondent for "USA Today"; and Tara Copp, Pentagon correspondent with "The Washington Post."

Tara, I want to start with you. Welcome to the table. And you have been watching the Defense Department closely. Can you just set the table for this week? The Strait of Hormuz has become the quite literal kind of linchpin.

TARA COPP, PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT, "THE WASHINGTON POST": It's the checkpoint.

CORNISH: It is the checkpoint. So, what is the administration's approach here? When you see them reaching out to other countries and saying, Hey, you need this, too. Maybe you should help.

COPP: It's an extreme point of vulnerability for the global economy, not just for the U.S. economy. And so, you've seen the president and the administration reach out to allies saying this needs to be a global effort.

And you've already seen some very early responses of, no, this is a problem you created. We need you to -- to figure it out.

So far, the military response has to -- been to go after the mine laying ships and then go after the mines themselves. We actually decommissioned our minesweeper fleet completely last year.

CORNISH: The U.S. did?

COPP: The U.S. did.

CORNISH: Yes.

COPP: We had 40-year-old minesweepers. They're wooden-hulled boats. So, you can safely take them in without having the mine itself attracted to the ship and get the mines. And it just shows that.

But it's not just mines that are a problem. It's the drones. The drones are one of the biggest problems for the strait, because they can be launched from close range.

You heard the IDF say that they're going after thousands of targets in the next three weeks or so.

CORNISH: Yes.

COPP: A lot of those are going to be individual sites because you only need to get a strike once on a ship to disable it.

CORNISH: And to talk about what's at stake. Kevin Hassett, he's the director of the National Economic Council, and Chris Wright, energy secretary, they were asked all weekend, what does this mean? What does this mean for the global economy?

Because of course, we're quickly all being reminded that it is not just about oil. This is a global supply chain route. Here's some of what they had to say.

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KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: We expect that the global economy is going to have a big positive shock as soon as this is over. And we're still being briefed that it would be 4 to 6 weeks from the beginning and that we're ahead of schedule.

WRIGHT: This is short-term pain to get through to a much better place. I think that this conflict will certainly come to the end in the next few weeks. Could -- could be sooner than that, but the conflict will come to the end in the next few weeks, and we'll see a rebound in supplies and a pushing down of prices after that.

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CORNISH: OK, so that's the word from the news sets. I'm going to play the street pundits for you. Here's a word of what people are saying online.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Call on me to get the cheapest gas in Houston right now. And I'm willing to make the drive, because these gas prices are out of line right now. Do you hear me?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not liking where it's going right now, because 40 -- I haven't seen 40, bro, since like, when Biden was in office years ago. Forty dollars?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No way. I've already spent $40, and I'm not full. Seventy-three dollars. Like, what?

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CORNISH: People aren't treating it like short-term pain.

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "USA TODAY": And actually, in a different interview over the weekend, Chris Wright was asked if he thought that it would get down below $3 a gallon before the busy summer travel season.

And he stressed that there are no guarantees in war.

So, even as they're saying, listen, we're expecting 4 to 6 weeks here. We're ahead of schedule, they don't want to make those promises to the American people, as well.

I mean this is still an open-ended conflict that the president is saying will end when he feels it deep in his bones, which is something that has come under great criticism over the weekend, as well.

Because there's still this question, I think, particularly from Democrats on Capitol Hill about what are the objectives and when exactly will they be met?

CORNISH: It was interesting to see that kind of timeline, someone putting out there, even in the line of questioning, what about Memorial Day? Like, we're in a war. This is not a situation where it's going to abide by the holiday season.

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You had domestic politicians like former Republican Governor Chris Sununu speaking in these terms.

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CHRIS SUNUNU (R), FORMER GOVERNOR OF NEW HAMPSHIRE: This really is a 45- to 60-day endeavor. Memorial Day is always kind of a -- a marker, if you will, for where gas prices are going to be set for the rest of the summer.

If he can, you know, have this large military onslaught, they can somehow secure the Strait of Hormuz, either with regime change or militarily, sometime in the next 45 days, then absolutely. It doesn't really become a political piece of the puzzle come November.

ZACH WOLF, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER: I mean, he makes it sound like there was some kind of plan that nobody knew about that, you know, oh, it's going to be done in this number of days.

That seems to be pretty clearly wishful thinking at this point.

And I just want to go back. It's interesting to me that now the U.S. is having to ask for the help of other countries. I mean, usually, in this kind of action, American presidents before this would go build an international coalition before going in.

And now the Trump administration, which has made such a big point of doing anything it wants to, you know, at all, is now having to go ask for help. And I think the interesting element of that, having to ask for help, is something that everybody should be paying attention to.

CORNISH: And whether there are levers with our U.S. allies, or there used to be, given the tenseness of the last year.

COPP: And I can sympathize with all of those videos. It was $4.34 a gallon for me to fill up this weekend. And I haven't seen that price in weeks, months.

You know, you started to get used to the under $4 a gallon gas. And that's not only going to affect Memorial Day. We've got spring break travel coming up. Then the start of the summer. And if people really feel it in their pocketbook, it'll go. Not only that, it'll go just trickling effects, like the house prices that we're seeing.

CORNISH: Yes, it will cease feeling like something that is far away.

Listen, hold on one second. I'm going to come back to you. No, because there are some other people who will help us with our conversations. I'll come to you first.

Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, we want to talk about this phrase that we heard: "No quarter, no mercy." So, did Secretary Pete Hegseth just give what would be called an illegal order?

Plus, blizzards and tornadoes. The major winter storm rocking the Midwest to the East Coast.

And one more thing: lines at the airports might get a little bit longer as hundreds of TSA agents quit their jobs after missing their paychecks.

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CORNISH: Its now almost 16 minutes past the hour. Here are five things to know to get your day going.

So, new this morning, operations at Dubai International Airport gradually resuming after a drone strike. So, a drone hit a fuel tank at the airport earlier today. That sparked a fire. Emirates Airlines says a limited number of flights have restarted after a four-hour shutdown and some cancellations.

And the head of the FCC, Brendan Carr facing backlash after he threatened to revoke the licenses of news outlets over coverage of the war with Iran.

In a post on X, Carr accused outlets of running, quote, "hoaxes and distortions," and he made that post while at Mar-a-Lago with President Trump.

And there's this sprawling storm with the risk of everything from blizzard-like conditions, potential tornadoes. And it's bringing feet of snow to parts of the Midwest and Great Lakes.

Then there are the winds and fire weather concerns in the Plains and Rockies.

The states with the greatest risk of tornadoes include Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

And 300 TSA airport security workers quit their jobs as the ongoing partial government shutdown enters a new week. And that's according to the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy. He's warning that the callouts are doubling and that they could get worse.

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SEAN DUFFY, U.S. SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION: These are men and women who don't make a lot of money. And so, some of them are making choices to go, you know, whether they're driving Uber or, you know, waiting tables. They have to put food on their family's table. And in these places where this is happening, you're seeing really long lines.

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CORNISH: Over the weekend more than 60,000 TSA workers went without their first full paycheck.

And March Madness tipping off this week. Duke will be the team to beat. The Blue Devils are the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament.

Other top seeds include Arizona, Michigan, and Florida. The tournament officially begins on Wednesday.

And after the break on CNN THIS MORNING, President Trump says other countries need to help protect the Strait of Hormuz. So how exactly would that work?

Plus, it's Hollywood's biggest night. Who won big and who was snubbed?

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NICOLE KIDMAN, ACTRESS: To "One Battle After Another."

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CORNISH: OK, you heard it. "One Battle After Another" the big winner at the 98th annual Academy Awards, taking home Best Picture.

And it was one award after another. The film taking home six Oscars, the most of the night. That includes Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay. And the loudest applause went to the newest Best Actor.

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ADRIEN BRODY, ACTOR: And the Oscar goes to Michael B. Jordan.

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CORNISH: Michael B. Jordan taking home one of the night's most coveted awards, and a standing ovation from his peers. His film, "Sinners," the runner up in total wins with four Oscars. That includes Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, and director Ryan Coogler winning his first Oscar with Best Original Screenplay.

Both films made by Warner Brothers, which is CNN's parent company.

I'm going to talk now about the winners and snubs with Ralphie Aversa, entertainment reporter for "USA Today," who looks somehow awake. Ralphie, thank you so much for being here.

RALPHIE AVERSA, ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER, "USA TODAY": My pleasure, Audie. My pleasure.

CORNISH: So, this was a great year for films, because it's not a year where it's a bunch of films none of us have seen that critics love and audiences don't.

So, I know "USA Today" tries to kind of do a little magic here to figure out the connection. How did the fans do predicting Best Picture?

[06:25:03]

AVERSA: Yes, the second annual USA Today Movie Meter took place online and, you know interesting. Last year, the movie meter winner was "Wicked." Of course, "Anora," the indie darling, ended up winning Best Picture.

This year, the stars aligned. There was a consensus vote: "One Battle After Another," of course, winning Best Picture and "One Battle After Another" also winning Movie Meter.

So, you know, clearly the star power, perhaps the messaging, as well. It earned praise from critics. It earned a number of big awards and big indicators running into last night's Academy Awards. And then obviously, it took home Movie Meter and the -- the big award at the -- at the Oscars.

CORNISH: So, "Sinners" went in with 16 nominations, came out with four wins. But one of them very key: Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan, who has done amazing work in all kinds of films by Coogler, right? "Fruitvale Station," et cetera.

Can you talk about whether or not this was Chalamet's failed campaign or Jordan really being rewarded?

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BRODY: Michael B. Jordan.

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AVERSA: Well, I think it's more Michael B. Jordan being rewarded. He played two characters in this movie, you know what I mean? And this movie meant so much to so many people, as well.

And you know, you think about the back-end deal that Ryan Coogler obviously kind of carved out, the way the theatrical releases of this, as well, especially with an IMAX. And then obviously, you know, because it was a Warner Brothers movie, it was streaming on HBO also.

So, I think Michael B. Jordan was being rewarded here.

Now, you mentioned, of course, Timothee Chalamet. Yes, I think his campaign was certainly a little unconventional at times. Maybe a misstep or two towards the end. Although I believe the big misstep there, he was talking about opera and ballet, came as ballots were closing for the Academy Awards. So, I don't think that affected him as much.

CORNISH: Although, Ralphie, I have to say, I noticed Misty Copeland coming out of retirement to do a little ballet on stage.

AVERSA: Oh, look --

CORNISH: So, there was a little wink there to the audience.

AVERSA: No, absolutely. Absolutely. No, the fact of the matter is that the public sentiment on -- on Timothee Chalamet, that -- that I believe is something a little different from what happened at the Academy Awards.

But no, Audie, you're 100 percent correct. Those comments did not land well with a number of people. And yes, the fact that we saw Misty on stage for that incredible "Sinners" performance last night was perhaps an indication of that.

CORNISH: One more thing. I always love to shout out a first. And this was the first year we saw a casting award given out.

And I have to admit, I thought it was going to go to "Marty Supreme," because they cast so many real people, right? Non-actors.

Can you talk about who did when and what it says about what this category means going forward?

AVERSA: Yes, well, "One Battle After Another" was the winner there. And, you know, I do think that a lot of people here in Hollywood were talking about the creation of this category and -- and casting directors really being, you know, in some ways at least certainly up to this point, unsung heroes.

And so, it was such a great moment, a heartfelt moment on the broadcast to kind of, you know, see a casting director really celebrated, you know, amongst their peers in that way, no question.

Although again, you know, you make a great point with "Marty Supreme." The number of non-actors and first-time actors in that film that were acting along Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow was really something else.

CORNISH: Well, Ralphie, I hope you get some sleep. I hope people catch up on the show. There were some lovely moments like the "In Memoriam" for Rob Reiner.

But Ralphie Aversa of "USA Today," thank you. Appreciate it.

AVERSA: Thanks.

CORNISH: Now straight ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, we're going to turn to this. Secretary Pete Hegseth, who's long advocated for a kind of American crusade. So, is he about to get what he wants?

Plus, the new details about the Michigan car ramming suspect and his connections to Hezbollah.

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