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Trump Vows to Bomb Iran 'Into Stone Ages' as Majority of Americans Disapprove of War; NASA Launches Astronauts on Historic 10- Day Trip. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 02, 2026 - 06:00   ET

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

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT/ANCHOR: "Bob's Burgers." He plays Gene Belcher.

[06:00:04]

Now, New Hampshire State Police say his car crashed into a toll plaza and then caught fire. The governor had her security detail arrive soon after.

That's when Mirman was pulled from his car, and officials say he suffered serious injuries. The crash at this point is still under investigation.

All right. Thank you so much for joining us here on EARLY START. I'm Danny Freeman in New York. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Today in the group chat, more Americans losing patience with President Trump on Iran. Still no exit plan and no real timeline for the war's end.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly.

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HILL: A new CNN poll shows deep skepticism among Americans even before last night's address.

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KEIR STARMER, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: This is not our war. We will not be drawn into the conflict.

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HILL: Britain's prime minister gathering allies today to talk about the Strait of Hormuz. Has Donald Trump successfully shamed Keir Starmer into action?

Plus this, Pam Bondi's job on the line. The new reporting this morning that Trump may be ready for a change at the Department of Justice. And--

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CHARLIE BLACKWELL-THOMPSON, LAUNCH DIRECTOR: Godspeed, Artemis II. Let's go.

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HILL: Artemis II heading toward the Moon right now as NASA eyes an even bigger frontier. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

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TRUMP: We're going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We're going to bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: President Trump threatening to ramp up the fighting before the war with Iran ends, a war that so far has not won the support of the American people.

Good morning. I'm Erica Hill, in for Audie Cornish. It's good to have you with us this morning.

The president's address to the nation was intended to lay out why the U.S. launched the war more than a month ago, and Trump's plan to end it.

Now, White House officials tell CNN they believe the speech did just that, justifying the war while selling the success of the U.S. military.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We've done all of it. Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Their missiles are just about used up or beaten. Taken together, these actions will cripple Iran military [SIC], crush their ability to support terrorist proxies, and deny them the ability to build a nuclear bomb.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: While Iran may be weaker militarily than the country was a month ago, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz remains important leverage for Iran, one with a global impact. Oil prices surging by about 7 percent overnight as fears over an escalating conflict grow. Yet Trump still downplaying it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They're going to want to be able to sell oil, because that's all they have to try and rebuild. It will resume the flowing, and the gas prices will rapidly come back down. Stock prices will rapidly go back up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: The president may still have some work to do, though. A new CNN poll taken just before last night's address shows two-thirds of Americans disapprove of how President Trump is handling the situation in Iran.

Joining me this morning in the group chat: Aaron Blake, CNN senior reporter; Mike Dubke, former Trump White House communications director; and Meghan Hays, former director of message planning in the Biden White House. Nice to see all of you this morning.

I mean, when we look at the immediate impact of the speech, oil prices surging by another 4 percent in the hours after that speech ended. Stock market viewers [SIC] -- futures, rather, sinking lower. This speech clearly did not calm global fears.

We had the polling just before that speech. Is there any sense this morning that it was enough to address domestic concerns, Aaron.

AARON BLAKE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: I think it probably did just the opposite. I think we had a number of days there where the president was talking in terms of the end game; about how this was going to be over relatively quickly, how the objectives were being met, didn't need to be there much longer.

And then last night, he didn't really dwell on the end game nearly as much. At least, he didn't talk in detail about it. It was much more about the case for war and then some pretty tough rhetoric about potential escalations over the next couple of weeks.

You know, he didn't talk much about ground troops and things like that, but -- but about hitting them back into the stone age, things like that. That does not suggest that the ramp down is being taken. It suggests that this could go on for a little while longer, and that the Strait of Hormuz may be not opened up very quickly.

HILL: Though the White House, as I noted, touting this as a success, that the president achieved his goals last night. Would you agree?

MIKE DUBKE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: No. And I would say this, I mean, of course, the White House is going to say that. That's what every White House says, regardless of what was said.

What I saw last night was not what I expected. I expected exactly what Aaron was talking about: that this is --I'm going to calm some fears. This is where -- the direction that we're headed, and this is where the end game is -- is coming. If not a date, at least this is how we wind down and declare success. A bunch of dead enders will -- you know, we'll stop. We've achieved all of our military goals.

What I heard last night was a politician who basically believes his communications department hasn't done a good enough job selling this war. And I -- you know, I -- I've experienced it in the White House. And

I've -- I've seen other presidents do this. He felt like he had to go out and do a speech that, frankly, he should have done five weeks ago.

HILL: There's a question, though, just -- just to follow up on that point. He feels his communications team is not doing the job that he wants to see them do.

The reality, too, is this is a president, and frankly, an administration whose messaging has consistently shifted.

DUBKE: Well, it's -- it -- it has and it hasn't. I mean, the one thing that he did talk about was the military success. I think if we talk about the polls that you've got coming up, I don't think Americans think we have not been successful militarily.

HILL: No. Agreed.

DUBKE: What -- what they don't understand and what this White House and others have difficulty explaining is why we started --

HILL: Yes.

DUBKE: -- and how we end. And that's what we didn't get from the speech last night.

HILL: There's also, I think, that -- something that's been tough for people to wrap their head around, right, is what we have seen with the Strait of Hormuz.

And the fact that this was sort of known, right? Multiple administrations, when they had plans laid out for them, knew that this could potentially be an issue, that Iran would take control.

The president now saying, It's not my problem. You guys have to go fix it. Is it really that easy for the U.S. to extract itself at this point from what the Strait of Hormuz might need to reopen?

MEGHAN HAYS, FORMER DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING FOR BIDEN WHITE HOUSE: No. Absolutely not. We started this conflict, and we have to then, now, finish it and figure out how to get this strait open with the rest of the world.

It is wildly unfair for us to go in, not build a coalition of allies around us, and explain to them why we need them to help us do this and then be like, this isn't our problem. This is now your problem.

I mean, that is -- that is just so gross and just very not America as being a superpower. That's not what you do to lead.

But I agree with you. This is a speech he should have given five weeks ago. Lay out the objectives, which he clearly didn't do even now.

And -- but this is becoming a massive domestic problem for him. And he'll -- he won't have to pay the consequences for this. But in '26, they will. They're going to have to pay. The Congress is going to have to pay. The '28 cycle is going to have

to pay; whosever running for president. They are going to have to -- they are going to shoulder this burden that Trump is putting on them, because he wanted to be a wartime president that thought he could get his polling numbers higher. And it's doing the exact opposite, because he has no goals or objectives.

HILL: It was interesting, I thought, what we heard from Marjorie Taylor Greene, as we know, no longer a real fan of the president's. She, you know, posting afterwards, saying that all she heard was war, war, war; ticking through the domestic issues that were not addressed.

Now, I will say, this was billed as a speech that was an important update about the war. So, there probably were not going to be those issues addressed, but they were actually addressed by the president separately earlier in the day. I want to play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We're fighting wars. We can't take care of daycare.

You've got to let a state take care of daycare, and they should pay for it, too. They should pay. They'll have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. And we could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up for it.

But it's not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: No money for issues that Americans are really concerned about right now: the cost of their health care, health care, how do they pay for daycare? And yet, we're going to need more money for wars. Is that going to come back to haunt the president?

BLAKE: I was going to say, it's going to be in some campaign ads this fall, undoubtedly. I don't think that was necessarily meant for publication right there. That was kind of more candid comments that got leaked in a video that was in a closed-door session.

But I think what's really interesting, you mentioned Marjorie Taylor Greene. She's obviously been a very prominent critic of the war, increasingly critical of Trump in a lot of different arenas. But I think she signifies something in the Republican base.

And if you look a little bit more closely at the numbers, there is this -- there's this narrative that MAGA is behind this war. And if you look at the polls, that's what it strictly says. You know, people describe themselves as MAGA, they support the war.

The rest of Trump's base is not united behind this war. Our CNN poll is a case in point of that. We asked an interesting question, which was, do you think this war has been worth it so far? Not just do you approve of it or disapprove --

HILL: Yes.

BLAKE: -- but is it worth it? Seventy percent of Americans said it's not worth it; 35 percent of Republicans said the war so far is not worth it. That points to real reservations that we've seen in other polls but are starting to poke their head out a little bit more in some of these surveys.

HILL: And it will be fascinating to see how long it really lasts. We've heard a two-week timeline from this president before: two to three weeks. Not clear whether we can stick to that.

Much more to come here. Ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, a break in a string of murders in Texas. How investigators managed to track down a suspect decades after the killing fields case went cold.

Plus, could another Trump cabinet shakeup be in the works? Why Pam Bondi's future appears uncertain.

And a moment of unity and promise with this return to space, NASA sending astronauts farther than they've gone in decades.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, after a brief 54-year intermission, NASA is back in the business of sending astronauts to the Moon.

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[06:14:36]

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Four, three, two, one. Booster ignition. And liftoff! The crew of Artemis II, now bound for the Moon. Humanity's next great voyage begins.

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HILL: I can't stop smiling every time I see this replayed. America's space race kicking into overdrive with the launch of Artemis II and its history-making crew. They're now en route to the first U.S. flyby of the Moon in 50 years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL-THOMPSON: On this historic mission, you take with you the heart of this Artemis team; the daring spirit of the American people and our partners across the globe; and the hopes and dreams of a new generation. Good luck. Godspeed, Artemis II. Let's go.

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HILL: The rocket will take four astronauts several thousand miles beyond the Moon. They're going to hit a U-turn, head back.

The launch went off mostly without a hitch, despite an issue with the only toilet on board at one point. Happy to report that was resolved shortly after.

We know that the four-person crew did get a few hours of well-deserved sleep overnight. They're gearing up for a busy day two of this historic mission.

Keith Cowing joins me now. He is the editor of NASAwatch.com, a former NASA space biologist. You're a real rocket science -- rocket scientist. You know, we joke about that, but you're the real deal.

KEITH COWING, EDITOR, NASAWATCH.COM: Yes.

HILL: When we -- you know, I was saying I do still get chills watching that. I was watching this yesterday while texting my 16-year-old son who was home in New York, who had never witnessed something like this before. And it reminded me that, for an entire generation, this is basically brand-new.

COWING: Yes. You know, it's funny, I've been writing about this for a few years. If you do the math. I'm 70, so I remember the first time. OK?

If you do the math of who's old, who's young, 75 percent of the people on this planet have never seen anybody leave this planet for another world.

HILL: Wow.

COWING: And so, for them, this is the first Moon launch. So, it's like doing the same thing again for the first time.

HILL: Yes.

COWING: And I got -- I was on German television using my limited -- yelling (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE). So, I know. Yes.

And, I was asked, well, what do you think the most important thing about this is? I said, well, I could list a bunch of talking points, but billions of people seeing this for the first time. And somewhere, it's going to parse somebody's career --

HILL: Yes.

COWING: -- in the countries that have never thought of doing this before or here in the states. So, for me, that's the most important thing other than, again, all the rah-rah stuff.

HILL: Right. That this could inspire the next generation.

COWING: Well, it inspired me.

HILL: And that it inspired you. And then it continues, too, to build up support for the program. Talk to us about this mission. As you said, you could go down a list

of sort of what the most important points are. For those of us who are not rocket scientists, when we look at this, what does this mean?

COWING: Well, it's the first time we have sent astronauts back to the Moon in half a century. So, you know, you have to get your mojo back, so to speak. You have to get the -- the ability to get these big rockets ready to go.

The problem had been that we were only going to launch these every couple of years. And the new administrator says, you know, are you going to tell the kids this? Yes, boring. We want to see this all the time.

So, he's been dialing it up, simplifying the system, canceling a miniature space station around the Moon. And he's also said, were going to be launching these robotic precursors that go ahead to scout around once a month starting next year.

So, one of the things about the space program is that it does this amazing stuff, and then the sugar high's over, and you just stop. How do you keep that interest going? And how do you keep it going in a way that people can say that is actually a career, or I see what it's doing for me? That's the hardest part.

HILL: Yes.

COWING: The rocket science takes care of itself. It's explaining the value of this and why people say it costs so much. Well, no it doesn't.

HILL: So, when we look -- well, it does still cost a lot. Let's not -- well, I mean, there is -- you know, there's a lot of zeros involved.

COWING: Yes, yes, yes.

HILL: But that's a segment for another day.

When we look at what's going to be happening on this mission, in particular, they're not -- you know, they're not landing on the Moon. Right? But doing this flyby, being to an area of space that no one has ever gone to before, what does that set us up for next?

Well, first of all, you want to make sure that this is the same spacecraft that, when we do send crews to the Moon, they'll go in, on this rocket. So, you need to test it out.

And it's just like Apollo. You do one thing, then another, then you get ready for the big thing and you go do it. And you want to have confidence in the vehicle that it's going to do what you want it to do when you need it to do it.

Because this is a free return. So that pretty much will come back on their own. But you want to be certain that, if they have to do some contingencies, there's a scenario where they have to do something else. The buttons will make the things happen. But what we're going to see is, well, we've been on the far side of

the Moon, not the dark side. That's the Pink Floyd album. OK.

HILL: It is indeed. Every time I heard someone say "the dark side of the Moon" yesterday, I immediately thought of Pink Floyd.

COWING: Pink Floyd.

HILL: So, I'm glad we're on the same page.

COWING: All right. We're going to go on the far side of the Moon, but we're going to actually, because of the launch date, we'll actually see an eclipse, which - trey (ph) cool.

And as you go around, there will actually be further -- these four people will be further from Earth than any humans have ever been. Right? That, in and of itself.

HILL: Yes.

COWING: But then they're going to come swooping back, looking at the Earth and the fiery reentry, which has a few people worried -- not me.

HILL: OK.

COWING: And then come back and have their parade.

And then the trick is, where do you go from up? And that's what I'm hoping NASA has a plan in place, that they'll say, and we're just going to keep running with this.

HILL: All right. Well, fingers crossed for that.

We cannot ignore the historic nature of this mission. We've talked a lot about it in terms of who is making up this astronaut crew. Right? The fact that they're going to this far side of the Moon where no one has ever been before.

But also, there was a moment yesterday -- and our mutual friend Miles O'Brien pointed this out. The launch director, first female launch director.

COWING: Yes.

HILL: And to hear her when she made the -- yay, listen, it matters to us.

[06:20:04]

COWING: No, no. It matters to me. I've been ranting about this --

HILL: Right.

COWING: -- for 20 years. HILL: So -- and also to hear -- Miles had a good point. I'm

paraphrasing here. But he was just talking about what was even different in that moment, seeing her there and the way that she gave those final words. What does that do in terms of a mission and a moment as this space program continues to move forward?

COWING: Well, it takes -- I always say it takes a planet to explore the universe. And that means everybody.

And up until now, and when I was growing up, it was the white shirt, pencil pocket protector.

HILL: Pocket protector.

COWING: Well, that was then. This is now. And you know, we -- there is this rest of our population here and the rest of the world.

So, this is maybe an American mission, but there's a Canadian on board. There's an African American on board. There's a woman on board, which there's a couple firsts right there.

Between the capsule and the bottom of the rocket is a European stage. And it's not just America that's going. It's -- well, we're in a race with China, I guess, but we have all these other countries that are sending probes there.

So, I'm happy to see that, as we're returning to the Moon, we're not returning in a very partisan, you know, Cold War way; that we're taking a whole bunch of people with us.

And personally, I'd like to see them have them do one of the next launch to the Moon with a child doing the ten, nine, eight. That's my fantasy.

HILL: Wow. All right. We'll see if anybody's listening to you.

COWING: Yes, yes. Hint, hint, Gerard (ph).

HILL: It's great to have you here. Thank you so much.

COWING: No problem.

HILL: And I look forward. You know, we've got ten days to talk about things.

COWING: Yes, we do.

HILL: So, a lot more to come from this mission. Thank you.

COWING: My pleasure.

HILL: After the break here on CNN THIS MORNING, a new twist in the Mangione murder -- murder trials. Dueling courts, dueling timelines. What this could mean now for the accused killer's defense.

Plus, the sky in Greece glowing orange. We'll tell you what's behind this haze. Do not adjust your TV.

And good morning to our viewers in St. Louis. Sun just starting to come up there, although, I have to tell you, it's going to be a little overcast. More wet weather on the way today. So, enjoy your time inside. Have another cup of coffee.

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[06:26:02]

HILL: Twenty-five minutes past the hour now. Here are five things to know to get your day going.

An arrest in a cold case dating back decades. The Texas Killing Fields murders have inspired books, movies, even a Netflix documentary. So, this may be familiar to you.

This morning, 61-year-old James Elmore Jr. is in custody, accused of evidence tampering and manslaughter in connection to two women whose bodies were found in a field near Houston.

Between the early '70s and early '90s, more than 30 bodies were found in that same area. Most of the deaths remain unsolved.

New DNA testing links Ted Bundy to the death of a Utah teen. Laura Ann Aime went missing on Halloween in 1974. Her body was found about a month later.

Bundy confessed to her murder before his execution. The case, however, had remained open until police could verify his claims.

The start of Luigi Mangione's trial, now delayed by a New York state judge. The 27-year-old is charged with killing UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione is facing both state and federal charges.

Lawyers for Mangione argue the overlap would make it difficult to prepare for the federal case.

The state trial is now scheduled to start in September. The federal trial will start in October.

Take a look at these images out of Greece. These are the skies over Crete, draped in an orange hue this morning. Why? A strong dust storm blew -- a strong storm, rather, blew dust from Africa over to the popular Greek tourist island.

Perhaps not surprisingly, air quality, visibility, both extremely low due to the haze.

And how about a sweet victory? For all you fans of Reese's peanut butter cups, Hershey says it is bringing back classic milk and dark chocolate, bringing them back in 2027; a change that has come after Brad Reese, the grandson of Reese's founder H.B. Reese, criticized Hershey for shifting to cheaper ingredients. The people want real chocolate.

Straight ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, the president suggesting he is done with NATO. But has NATO had enough of Donald Trump?

Plus, the GOP Senate plan to fix what caused all of those long airport lines. Turns out the Senate plan is back.

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