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CNN This Morning

Trump Threatens NATO; Hegseth Urges No Quarter, No Mercy; Oil and Gas Prices Surge; Trump Advisor Predicts Positive Shock to Economy. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired March 16, 2026 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:33:48]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on CNN THIS MORNING.

It's half past the hour and we're following breaking developments in the war with Iran.

President Trump now looking for help to secure the Strait of Hormuz or else. He told "The Financial Times," if NATO allies refused his calls, it will be, quote, "very bad for the future of NATO." More than 20 cargo ships have been attacked near Iran since the start of the war.

And the Pentagon has identified the latest casualties in the war. These six crew members were killed when their refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq. The incident is still under investigation.

And the Israeli military saying the suspect in last week's attack on a Michigan synagogue had a relative that was a Hezbollah commander. The IDF claims that he was in charge of managing weapons operations and was killed in an attack on a military building used to store weapons. Now investigators in Michigan say that the attacker drove a vehicle into Temple Israel before exchanging fire with security officers, and he later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

And Iran is keeping a stranglehold on oil shipping as concerns rise of an energy crisis.

[06:35:04]

The fighting has been disrupting oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and is pushing global energy prices higher. President Trump says he's asked several countries to send warships to protect the strait. So far none have committed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I think we're getting a good response. If we do that's great, and if we don't, that's great too. But remember, like, as an example in many cases in NATO countries, we're always there for NATO. We're helping them with Ukraine. It's got an ocean in between us. Doesn't affect us. But we've helped them. I'd be interesting to see what country wouldn't help us with a very small endeavor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, joining me now, CNN military analyst and retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Good morning, Cedric.

I want to start with that small endeavor. When you listen to Iranian officials, like the foreign minister who was speaking this weekend, they are describing it as though they are in charge of what passes through the strait.

Let me play that for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBAS ARAGHCHI, Iranian FOREIGN MINISTER: We have been approached by a number of countries who wants to have a safe passage for their vessels, and this is up to our military to decide. And they have already decided to let, you know, a group of, you know, vessels belongs to different countries to pass in a -- safe and secure. So, we provide them security to pass because we have not closed this strait.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, he's referring to the fact that they are allowing some to pass through, right? Can you help us understand how they are becoming the sort of gatekeepers here?

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes. Good morning, Audie.

Well, gatekeepers because of geography. And as we can see here on the map, basically Iran controls the northern shore of the Strait of Hormuz. And because it's such a narrow passageway, 21 miles across and two miles just for those shipping lanes, that becomes the way they can control things. And historically Iran has been able to take matters into their own hands when it comes to closing the gulf through the Strait of Hormuz. But it's also in their interest, at least financially or economically, to keep the strait open.

So, they're kind of, you know, looking at things for a certain degree of leverage. But they are using their selective ability to take, you know, for example, Indian flagged ships, they take those into account as they go through. That's one of the groups that Foreign Minister Araghchi was talking about, that they're allowing safe passage for, at least according to his statement.

CORNISH: And a lot of the ways they do this, they're doing some electronic jamming of signals, right? There's also the sea mines. There's drones. So, what is it exactly the president would be asking NATO to do? Is it escorts? Is it helping to kind of literally make it more possible? Does NATO owe the U.S. something here? LEIGHTON: Yes. Well, in President Trump -- President Trump's mind they

-- I think he does think that NATO owes the U.S. something. NATO will -- most NATO countries will see that differently. But, in the end, what they're going to do is they're going to look at this from a matter of self-interest, and they're going to do what they can, either diplomatically or militarily or perhaps a combination to keep the strait open. It's definitely in their interest to do so. It's certainly interest in the -- of the gulf nations to do that. And, of course, Asian nations, like China, Japan, South Korea, it's also in their interest that the strait remain open.

But, yes, you mentioned jamming mines. Those are the kinds of things that they can do to control it. Plus, we also can't forget small boats. The Iranians have basically untold numbers of small boats that they can use of various types, some of them speedboats, some of them dhows that can come in and, you know, mine things very discreetly. So, they could lay mines. They can also attach mines to holes surreptitiously. So, that's the kind of thing that NATO would be called upon to prevent. I, at least, I think in the way that the White House is thinking about this, they're looking at trying to get these countries to provide an escort service, which is very similar to an operation that happened in the 1980s called Operation Earnest Will. It was in operation from 1987 to 1988 where we escorted reflagged Kuwaiti tankers, primarily the U.S. Navy did that, but they had help from Britain and France in that particular endeavor.

CORNISH: Can I ask you about a tweet I saw that seemed kind of unhinged, and I want to make sure that I'm not misreading it because I don't have a military background. It's Newt Gingrich saying, "instead of fighting over 21 mile wide bottleneck forever, we cut a new channel through a friendly territory. A dozen thermonuclear detonations and you've got a waterway wider than the Panama Canal, deeper than the Suez, and safe from Iranian attack."

[06:40:09]

LEIGHTON: Yes, that's not going to work. That's one of those things where using nuclear devices to create a kind of Panama Canal like situation is -- that -- that's just not feasible from a radiation standpoint, from an environmental standpoint, and from a practical standpoint, in other ways. That is definitely not going to happen. And the Arab nations in that area would strenuously object to something like that.

CORNISH: OK, Cedric, one more thing. The words of our defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, on Friday using the term, "no quarter, no mercy for our enemies." Now Senator Mark Kelly says "no quarter" means take no prisoners and that that would be illegal. But can you just talk about both this phrasing and sort of like how it would be received as rhetorical or something more.

LEIGHTON: Yes. So, it's, you know, certainly harkens back to -- that phrasing harkens back to terms that were used in historical conflicts when no quarter was given. You know, and we're talking 18th century, 19th century warfare. In modern warfare, it does imply that we're basically taking no prisoners. That does violate the tenets of the Geneva Convention and international law and the laws of armed conflict. So, this is one of those areas where you have to be very careful with the language because, on the receiving end, that's going to stiffen the resolve of anybody who hears that language directed at them. And in this case, the Iranians are looking at this and they're saying, no, we're not -- we're not going to accept that. We will do the same to you. And it could have implications if any U.S. or other troops were taken prisoner or, God forbid.

CORNISH: All right, that's CNN military analyst and retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. Thank you for waking up for us.

LEIGHTON: You bet, Audie.

CORNISH: I want to turn now, bringing in Kim Dozier, CNN global affairs analyst, joined the group chat.

I wanted to talk about this because we care about the intelligence. We also care about how a war is prosecuted in our name as voters and of family members of people who are at war, right, the soldiers in our service members. Why is this -- is this no quarter, no mercy comment a big deal? And is it also not unexpected given how Hegseth has constantly talked about the lethality of the U.S. Army?

KIM DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, and fired a large portion of the JAG corps. He's railed against any sort of limits on military power as if he doesn't understand that we're not fighting in a vacuum. Yes, as Cedric mentioned, one of the issues is, we want to make sure that our soldiers get the kind of treatment that we would want them to get. And we, therefore --

CORNISH: Yes.

DOZIER: Treat people humanely. But also our international partners cannot join us in fights where they think we are conducting the war illegally.

CORNISH: Well, doesn't understand or doesn't believe in that? Zach, you were talk -- looking at his past writings. He's always talked about how he felt like the rules of engagement were problematic and that he was going to -- he would do it differently.

ZACHARY WOLF, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER: Well, he brought that up, I think, in the -- in one of his first press conferences about these attacks, how there would be, you know, no -- I think he said silly rules of engagement.

You know, it's -- it is a general disdain for the concept of international law, I think, taking out -- kidnaping essentially one world leader, assassinating essentially another one. You know, taking out boats in the Caribbean.

CORNISH: When you looked at his past writing, what was your sense of how he thought of the Middle East and how wars should be handled there?

WOLF: He doesn't think that the U.S. military should be inhibited by anything, you know, any sort of international law. That they should be able to do what they need to do to obtain their objectives. And I think that there are, you know, unintended consequences of, you know, frustrating the local population is not something that seems to come into his --

CORNISH: Is there --

DOZIER: Well, this actually --

CORNISH: Yes, go ahead.

TARA COP, PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT, "WASHINGTON POST": This also shouldn't be a surprise. No quarter started with that first boat strike in the Caribbean, where they went back for the double tap to kill survivors clinging to the wreckage. So, I think this administration has seen that it has been effective not to have prisoners. And the use of no quarter, I mean, that was on purpose. And any troop will understand that no quarter is an illegal order under the UCMJ. And whether they are protected just because Hegseth ordered them to or the president protected them through a pardon later on, that doesn't protect them in the international court of law.

CORNISH: Yes, is this part of his crusade, so to speak? Sort of how he approaches -- how he thinks about U.S. civilization, western civilization, which you hear a lot of conversation about in conservative circles.

[06:45:01]

DOZIER: Yes. And he's used sort of Christian messianic language in some of his speeches, which makes you think that he's somehow dehumanized the enemy. But I have to say, the UCMJ, the uniform code of military justice, is there also to protect the troops themselves prosecuting this fight because I have been in groups with people, you know, I got injured in Iraq a long time ago, and so I've met other people in those situations who still live with the nightmares of things that they were ordered to do when they were following legal orders.

CORNISH: Yes.

DOZIER: I shudder to think how many people, especially if they get into some sort of close quarters combat, the people who launched the strike against the girls school, thinking it was good information.

CORNISH: Right. Well --

DOZIER: How they're going to live with that.

CORNISH: Let me bring in Francesca.

I always see a very marked difference between how Hegseth speaks in these morning press conferences, and then how General Caine speaks when he gets up and I'm wondering how you're hearing the reporting from the White House. Like, are they like, great, this is exactly the way we want to talk about this. FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "USA TODAY": Well, I

think you've heard similar language from the president about people facing certain death as well. And he did add, as you were saying, he added, no quarter, no mercy, immediately afterwards when he was saying this.

I also wanted to go back, if we could for just a minute --

CORNISH: Yes, go ahead.

CHAMBERS: To this conversation about the Strait of Hormuz because this also comes, by the way, as we now know, that the Pentagon is sending an additional thousands of troops to the Middle East. We don't know exactly what their mission is going to be. We're in a situation now where the president is saying that they're working with this coalition of countries. Not entirely --

CORNISH: Yes. We want to know what the coalitions are saying so far.

CHAMBERS: Not --

CORNISH: A little -- yes.

CHAMBERS: Not entirely certain who's going to be in this. He says there's about seven countries that we're talking to. We know that Britain is one of them. And he talked to Keir Starmer on the phone yesterday. The idea of China was raised. We were talking about this earlier. That's an interesting one because China is a close economic partner of Iran. They're both in --

CORNISH: Plus (ph) that oil going through the strait, it's going to China, is it not?

CHAMBERS: They're in the -- they're all a part of the brics (ph) economic coalition together.

CORNISH: Yes. Well, there's supposed to be a meeting between the president and Beijing later, in a couple of weeks. It's been delayed.

CHAMBERS: Exactly.

CORNISH: Is that true or --

CHAMBERS: Well -- oh, no. No, exactly was -- there's a meeting between President Trump and President Xi in the next couple weeks. That's at least what has been on the calendar. And this also comes, over the weekend, as India had two ships that were able to get through to India and Chris Wright said that he thinks there may have been some sort of an agreement that allowed that to happen.

CORNISH: I was about to say, you either got to talk to Iran or you got to talk to the U.S. And one of them right now has control of the strait and one does not.

COPP: And just to get back to Kim's point, the religious undertones in what we've been hearing from both the Pentagon and the White House, you know, Secretary Hegseth has said, this won't be an endless war. He came from a generation of soldiers that fought those endless wars.

CORNISH: Yes.

COPP: But if you don't want an endless war, don't make it a holy war, because holy wars are endless wars.

CORNISH: OK, I want to thank Kim for joining the group chat.

And I want to turn to this next. Oil prices, at this point, they're $105 a barrel. So, as the war with Iran enters its third week, we're going to talk about where the markets are now.

Plus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, will that positive shock be enough to soothe fears of a recession?

And later on CNN, President Trump's former national security advisor and longtime Trump critic, John Bolton, will be on in the hour to discuss the war in Iran.

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[06:53:17]

CORNISH: So, oil and gas prices spiraling even higher amid the war with Iran. Sunday night, the price of oil hit its highest levels in four years to about $105 per barrel. Gas in the U.S. is now up to about $3.70 per gallon. According to AAA, that's up 24 percent since the start of the war.

I'm bringing in CNN anchor and correspondent Eleni Giokos.

Elena, you and I have been talking for the last week about all the things oil included that passed through the strait and how difficult this has been. Can I play for you, this is Chris Wright, energy secretary, who was talking about the role of China in -- when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS WRIGHT, ENERGY SECRETARY: Opening the Straits of Hormuz is even more important for China than it is for the United States. But we care about the global economy. We care first about Americans. But Americans live in the -- live in a globalized world. So, we care about all the nations. So, but they -- there, of course, are tensions with China as well. But we will continue a productive dialog. And I do expect China will be a constructive partner in reopening the Straits of Hormuz (END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, that's the optimistic view. What are you hearing?

ELENI GIOKOS, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, I mean, they're saying that they want China to be a strategic partner. And we know that President Trump had posted on social media over the weekend bringing in other countries to try and help escort vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. And China was one of those countries mentioned.

But importantly, China is a key ally to Iran. So, who knows how that's going to play out. But importantly, we also have been seeing that all countries, no one has categorically said, yes, we're going to assist.

I want to remind you that when this war started a few days in, President Trump had promised not only naval escorts but also insurance guarantees.

[06:55:05]

Those have not materialized. But we've got to focus on the numbers, Audie. And there is absolute panic within the oil markets right now. And I want to just focus on the numbers. And yes, we've seen oil prices, especially brent crude, sitting above that $100 a barrel. The day-to-day movements are significant. But frankly, it's the overall picture. When you remove 20 million barrels of oil per day out of the market that goes through the Strait of Hormuz, that causes havoc. When you remove 20 percent of gas supply that normally moves through the Strait of Hormuz, that also has caused a huge domino effect across all assets. We've seen jet fuel prices increasing. We've seen some airline companies coming under pressure on their stock markets as well. So, the numbers are really going to play a role here.

And also I'm looking at the oil futures. And that's also telling a very different story. So, regardless of what the Trump administration is coming through and saying in terms of trying to temper things and say, we've got a plan, that hasn't really materialized in terms of implementation. We're still seeing critical energy infrastructure that has been targeted across the gulf region. That's going to take capacity out of the market longer term.

And then, importantly, what we've also been seeing from, you know, a lot of the messaging from the United States is that this is short term pain for longer term gain. Really interesting because you've got the price of gas per gallon sitting at almost $4.

When Chris Wright was asked the question about whether gas is going to go down below $3 by the summer period, he said that's very likely. Again, we've got no real timeline. We are sitting right now with a huge supply constraint, despite the fact that you've got the International Energy Agency saying they're going to release 400 million barrels of oil. The flow rate of that is going to be important. How quickly can they get into the market? History tells us it can't be more than two million barrels of oil daily. So, the numbers are what really matter in all of this. CORNISH: OK, Eleni Giokos, thanks so much.

I want to step back from the numbers, right, because despite that sticker shock, for millions of Americans the Trump administration still trying to put a positive spin on the future impacts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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 four to six weeks from the beginning and that we're ahead of schedule.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I wanted to play that again because we are hearing them say, calm down everyone, we're just x amount of weeks into this war. There have been a tremendous amount of military gains and strikes on targets. This too shall pass kind of approach.

But I think you were saying, Tara, that there's a lot of questions about why they weren't better prepared to deal with what would be inevitably a problem with the strait.

COPP: I mean this has immediately turned into an asymmetric war. The U.S. military has done an incredible job of taking out hard targets, going after the navy, going after the military facilities, going after the big storage sites that we know about. But there are thousands of smaller sites that can do just as much damage, that can sink a U.S. warship, can sink a commercial vessel. Those are things that we're going to have to continue to worry about.

CORNISH: Yes. And that just was always known, right? Like so sort of past administrations might have looked at a similar operation and said, well, what do you do for the day after at the Strait of Hormuz and backed off?

I want to show you guys something, because we've been talking about China. This is a political cartoon from Chinese state-backed media. I think it's "The Global Times." And just to give you a sense of how it's being received, the idea of the U.S. getting help from anyone. That person says, "hopefully many countries will send warships to the area." And you can see the U.S. Uncle Sam kind of putting more fuel on the fire.

CHAMBERS: And to pick up where we left off on this, I mean, there is a question of whether or not they're making deals directly with the Iranians. We heard the --

CORNISH: They, who, meaning China (ph)?

CHAMBERS: Other countries.

CORNISH: Oh, yes.

CHAMBERS: Just other countries that we're talking about because we heard the Iranian foreign minister say over the weekend too that they had been approached. That Iran had been approached by other countries. So, it's not just the United States that's in talks with these other nations.

CORNISH: Yes. We've -- obviously, the U.S. is in a different posture with this administration of peace through strength, but it has not always embraced the idea of allies. Are we seeing a pivot point here of that strategy?

WOLF: I mean, if you're another country, are you going to -- are you going to work with the country that repeatedly threatens to tear if you sometimes just, you know, throw some tariffs on, that is attacking other countries, you know, with -- without, you know, obviously justifying exactly what they're doing, or are you going to be a little bit more open to a country like China?

CORNISH: Right. Or even just a few weeks ago that said, we don't need your help. That was something that --

WOLF: Yes. Yes. Exactly. But, I mean, for me, I keep looking at those -- what Kevin Hassett is saying positive shock, short term pain for long term gain. What is the gain that people are going to feel? Is -- are gas prices going to go back where they were?

CORNISH: Right.

[07:00:01]

WOLF: Is that going to feel good to people?

CORNISH: Well, I think they're going to say that it's an Iran that can't project terror throughout the world.

WOLF: But that's not something, if I'm filling up my gas tank, or -- it's just not something that makes me feel, you know, happy as a voter, I guess.

CORNISH: Yes.

WOLF: It's not like a day to day --

CORNISH: Then I'll leave you with this Fox News poll. Do you approve of current U.S. military action against Iran? I always look at independents, 59 percent disapprove. We're going to see how those numbers shift in the coming days.

Thank you, guys, for waking up with us. I'm Audie Cornish. Headlines are next.