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U.S. Military Fires at and Seizes Iranian-Flagged Ship; Tsunami Warning after Earthquake Strikes off Japan's Coast; Father Kills 7 of His Children & Cousin in Domestic Attack. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 20, 2026 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:11]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Iran vows retaliation after U.S. Marines board and seize and vows retaliation after U.S. Marines board and seize an Iran-flagged cargo ship. So, does this put a second round of peace talks in jeopardy?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS WRIGHT, U.S. ENERGY SECRETARY: The president's looking for maximum leverage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: President Trump says the U.S. is sending a delegation to Pakistan. Will Iran even show up?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is one of the most tragic things I think has happened in our in our city in a very long, long time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Eight children killed in the worst mass shooting in the U.S. in two years. What were the warning signs that were missed?

And breaking news this hour: A tsunami warning after a huge earthquake off the coast of Japan. People there have been told to head for higher ground.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think picking a fight with the pope or trying to school the pope on theology is a good idea at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: President Trump will read the Bible from the Oval. Does this mean Pope Leo won their holy war of words?

CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Motor vessel Touska. Motor vessel Touska. Vacate your engine room. Vacate your engine room. We're prepared to subject you to disabling fire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Dramatic moments as the U.S. military seizes an Iranian flagged ship near the Strait of Hormuz.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish, and we're going to start with this breaking news out of the Middle East.

Second round of talks. Iran now says there are no plans for a second round of negotiations with the U.S. Could this be the reason why?

A U.S. Navy warship fired several rounds into the engine room of an Iranian cargo ship on Sunday. CNN now has this video of Marines boarding the vessel. They dropped by rope from a helicopter.

U.S. Central Command says they were forced to take the ship after it failed to comply with repeated warnings over a six-hour period.

So, Iran's military accused the U.S. of violating the ceasefire and engaging in maritime highway robbery. The big question this morning: can these negotiations be saved?

Well, today in the group chat, we're bringing in Sara Fischer, CNN's senior media analyst and senior media reporter at Axios; Becca Wasser, the defense lead at Bloomberg Economics; Susan Page, Washington bureau chief for "USA Today." All right. And Sarah Fitzpatrick. Yes, Sarah, I forgot. We have Susan's new book. It's called "The Queen and Her Presidents." And also, Sarah Fitzpatrick is here. She's a staff writer with "The Atlantic." And please check out her latest story. It's called "The FBI Director is M.I.A."

So, I want to briefly go to this seizure of the ship, because this is the kind of thing that, obviously, the insurance shipping folks are -- are scared of.

President Trump sent out this other warning about making a deal, but can you talk about the fact that this operation happened, what it shows about what the U.S. is willing to do?

BECCA WASSER, DEFENSE LEAD, BLOOMBERG ECONOMICS: Yes. So, the U.S. is enforcing the blockade that they've put in place. And part of that is being able to warn vessels that, if they try and transit in and out of the strait, specifically Iranian vessels, as well as any vessels carrying cargo from Iran or to Iran, other than some humanitarian supplies, that's who the blockade largely applies to.

And the U.S. has been enforcing this largely by interdicting vessels, warning them.

CORNISH: Yes.

WASSER: And they've largely been turning around.

CORNISH: Which is not so easy to do, because they're scrambling signals. They're flying different flags. Have you heard this as well?

SARAH FITZPATRICK, STAFF WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": Absolutely. It's a really chaotic situation.

CORNISH: So, I want to talk about whether or not the president has leverage, so to speak, going into whatever attempt there is to draw Iran back into talks.

I want to talk about what he wrote online. And this post said, "The Iranian crew refused to listen. So, our Navy ship stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engine room." And he went on to say that we have full custody of the ship, and we'll see what's on board.

SUSAN PAGE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "USA TODAY": Well, the president has the leverage of U.S. Military power, no question. The Iranians have the leverage of time. Time is not on President Trump's side. He wants -- he clearly has signaled he wants to get out of this.

CORNISH: Do you mean public support? What do you mean by time?

PAGE: Well, he does. He doesn't have public support. We know from a series of polls, including the latest one from NBC, that two-thirds of Americans disapprove of how he's handling this war. Two thirds of Americans disapprove of the way he's handling the economy. That's a related concern.

When you look at gas prices, he would like out of this war. The Iranians don't have the burden of public opinion to worry about. So, the longer this goes on, the more uncertain it is.

[06:05:06]

CORNISH: Yes. Although they do -- as you said, the military might is the threat. And you had the president threatening bridges and power plants, saying that they'll come down fast.

I want to play something for you from his energy secretary over the weekend, who was talking about the goal here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WRIGHT: The president is looking for maximum leverage, maximum negotiation, maximum leverage in these negotiations.

Negotiations are going very well. A lot of the chatter and noise you hear in public is really the signs of a regime that's falling apart. Different factions go in different directions. They're worried about trying to get some leverage at the end of these negotiations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Do you think that's true, given what we know about the regime?

WASSER: I mean, I think they're trying really hard, and they're trying a few different things. They're trying the threat of military force once again, against Iranian civilians and trying to see if that moves the needle.

But the other thing that they're trying to do is place economic pressure. But to Susan's point, you can have military action to cause economic pressure. But you're not going to see the result of that pressure until weeks, if not months.

And that means there's the potential for this to go on for quite some time.

CORNISH: Yes, I hear weeks and months. And then I look at the polling. I think you have some of it in front of you. Like what action should the U.S. take in Iran, how people are feeling about Trump's ability to handle this war? What do you see in these numbers as they shift?

SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST: The no further military action at 61 percent of Americans believing that is quite notable, especially because people are afraid of boots on the ground, what that means for them.

I also think we are coming off of a few-year stretch of inflation, and a lot of dogged economy impacting people. Now they look at this, oil prices are going up, and they're wondering, oh my gosh, are we going to be in this for the long haul?

CORNISH: Yes.

FISCHER: I'm looking at the stock market all the time and how it's reacting to this. And one thing that's fascinating is that analysts have mostly baked chaos into our forecasts at this point.

CORNISH: Yes.

FISCHER: But what they can't bake in is the impact of the supply chain on this. We have seen airline stocks plummet. Anything related to travel, tourism, hospitality plummet.

CORNISH: Fuel, yes.

FISCHER: And if you can't get certain goods need to -- or corresponding to oil, for example, cars, like if you can't get those things sold, there's going to be less ads and less marketing. It's a ripple down to so many different sectors.

For the past few weeks, the market hasn't crashed, but it's been going down and down and down. And so, I worry that some of these numbers, one of the reasons people don't like this is not just because there's a fear of, you know, potentially, U.S. boots on the ground, but what is this going to do to our domestic lives if the economy's not good?

CORNISH: Yes. And we're right back to where we started in terms of gas prices, right? A few years ago, that really affected the election for Biden.

You guys stay with us. Coming up on CNN, we're going to turn to this story in Shreveport, Louisiana. Devastating story where eight children were shot and killed. We're going to have the latest on the investigation into that.

Then we're going to turn to Elon Musk, who is being investigated in Paris. Is he going to turn up?

And last week, he was just feuding with the pope. This week, President Trump will read from the Bible in the Oval Office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's colossally stupid. And I say that as a Catholic and as a person who voted for Trump. But I think that it's just not the battle to pick.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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CORNISH: All right, this breaking news out of Japan, a story, a large earthquake hit a few hours ago. Parts of the country are still under a tsunami warning. The 7.4 magnitude quake actually hit near the Northeastern coast. So, we're bringing in CNN's Ivan Watson. He's in Hong Kong.

Ivan, what are you learning so far?

IVAN WATSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Well, Audie, the earthquake hit about a little more than two hours ago. It was about 4:53 p.m. In Japan at the time, off the Northeastern coast of Japan.

Right now, there's a tsunami warning in effect in different coastal areas of the Northeast, and evacuation orders have been issued to more than 170,000 people to seek higher ground.

Now, the earthquake was, according to the Japanese geological survey, about 7.5 magnitude U.S. Geological survey says 7.4 magnitude.

Our producer, Yuki [SIC] -- Yumi Asada, was working on the 18th floor of our bureau in Tokyo, and she described about seven minutes of the high-rise building shaking, hearing it creaking. The elevators being shut down. A lot of warnings going out. But as of now, the authorities say they have no reports of any injuries or any real damage after this powerful earthquake struck.

I need to point out that Japan is in a very earthquake-prone part of the world, the Ring of Fire. The -- the ground shakes there often, but the society is accustomed to earthquakes and prepares for this.

So, that's some of what we're seeing right now from the authorities where they're saying, hey, OK, we've gotten the first waves of tsunamis that have hit that are a little under a foot.

But despite that, they're taking all precautions, saying people have to get out of these areas because they in some areas have tsunami warnings of three meters, almost ten feet. And they're warning that second, third, fourth, fifth waves could be even bigger.

We'll keep well keep you posted on any further developments from this powerful earthquake.

CORNISH: OK, that's Ivan Watson from Hong Kong. Ivan, thank you so much.

I want to turn to some news here. The community of Shreveport, Louisiana, grieving this morning after eight children were killed in a mass shooting.

Now, the suspect was the father of seven of the children. The kids' cousin was also killed. They were all between the ages of three and 11.

Two other women, his wife and the mother of his children, were also shot and critically injured.

[06:15:04]

A 13-year-old boy is lucky to be alive. He escaped the attack from the roof.

The suspect fled the scene, hot-wired a car, and led police on a chase until they shot and killed him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TABATHA H. TAYLOR, SHREVEPORT CITY COUNCIL: I'm going to ask the community, along with prayer, with every mental health consultant, counselor that is out here, this family and this community needs you. I need you, because how do we get through this?

These are the tragedies when there are domestic violence or domestic disturbances in our community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: All right. This is the deadliest U.S. mass shooting in more than two years.

Joining me now to discuss, Jillian Snyder. She's a retired NYPD officer.

I want to talk about this case for just a second, because the crime scene's spread across three different homes. You had law enforcement; you had a chase.

And it came pretty quickly down to this being a result of domestic violence. Can you talk about how pervasive this issue is for law enforcement? JILLIAN SNYDER, RETIRED NYPD OFFICER: So, domestic violence is one of

the most dangerous types of calls for service that law enforcement gets. It is also one of the more common ones coming over as either domestic dispute, domestic disturbance. But law enforcement do routinely respond to these types of situations.

The sad reality is they are so unpredictable. We don't know if there's children on the property. We don't know if there's weapons on the property.

So, law enforcement is always on high alert when responding to these types of cases.

But as you just said, it's a very pervasive issue with just serious incidents of domestic violence and intimate partner violence these days.

CORNISH: We were doing some research on it and found that in Shreveport, which is like a couple hundred miles North of Baton Rouge, 30 percent of the murders in the city are domestic in nature.

I wanted to ask you about the person involved. The suspect was a veteran. But here's the thing. He had previous firearms charges. there are other charges in his history. Are we going to see warning signs that were missed?

SNIDER: Well, we already are. From reports that I saw late last night and early this morning, it seems like family members have mentioned that this individual made comments on Facebook or made comments on phone calls that made them believe that he was suffering from some type of mental health issue, or depression or anxiety.

I know that reports were saying he's going through a divorce, which we know also adds to levels of depression.

But I think if any family member had any awareness, even if he just made like a very mediocre comment about something, that he was depressed or sad, I think that there should have been some type of intervention.

CORNISH: Speaking of intervention, you know, looking at the numbers, violent offenses in a domestic relationship, the -- the trend is nudging up, right? It's not trending where we want it to be.

And maybe I'm a little sensitive, because I'm coming off of, you know, this reporting about the fatal shooting done by the former lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, who shot his wife and himself.

Do you get the sense that there is, especially in bad economic times, something we should be paying closer attention to here?

SNIDER: I think all we could really do is listen, pay attention to family members and friends. Most times in situations like this, we do know that there are early signs, and if you do know someone closely, you will pick them up. Whether it is a very, like I said earlier, if it's even a slight

statement that's showing this person's not acting the way they generally act, you should do some type of intervention. Call someone, call 911.

Even if police can't do anything immediately, they can try and get that person the social service support that they need.

CORNISH: OK, that's Jillian Snider. Thank you for your time.

Now, after the break on CNN THIS MORNING, President Trump says that the U.S. will be working with Iran to get their nuclear dust. What would that even look like?

Plus, it's not something you expect to see in your backyard. Why this hot-air balloon had to make an emergency landing.

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[06:23:31]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Somebody said, how are we going to get the nuclear dust? We're going to get it by going in with Iran with lots of excavators. The biggest excavators you can imagine. But were going to go in together with Iran. We're going to get it, and we're going to take it back home to the USA.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: President Trump saying the U.S. is going to work with Iran to recover its highly enriched uranium, or what he calls nuclear dust. So how big of a mission would that be?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW WEBER, NUCLEAR EXPERT: In Iran, we couldn't send a team in to do this unilaterally without great risk. You would need to set up, in the middle of the country, a secure perimeter. It would probably take thousands of U.S. troops to secure the facility while our experts excavated the HEU. It's located inside deep tunnels at a place called Isfahan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: All right, Becca Wasser, we wanted to talk to you in the group chat today, because out of all of us, you're the one who knows about nukes. And first, is nuke dust a thing?

WASSER: So, that is not a term of art that I am personally familiar with. I do think it's a Trumpism. And I believe it's a reference to the fact that Israel and the U.S. struck several of these sites before. And, you know, in the president's word, it's obliterated Iran's nuclear material. And so, he's referring to it as dust rather than material that is

actually in its whole form, in order to at least acknowledge his military feats of the past.

CORNISH: So, that's relevant to all of this, because this is core to the conversation around the nuclear talks themselves, is what happens to Iran's enriched material.

[06:25:08]

We're reading "Wall Street Journal" saying the country has enough of 60 percent enriched material to fuel around 11 nuclear weapons.

So, everybody is saying it's there, that it's under rubble. And Trump is saying this. I want to play this clip for you of how he is describing how he would extract this nuclear material.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you say that Iran has agreed to turn over their nuclear dust --

TRUMP: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- what does that mean? Are they destroying their nuclear material?

TRUMP: No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're turning it over. Can you walk us through what that process would be, sir?

TRUMP: No, no. We're taking it. We're taking it. Very simple. We're taking it. Yes. With Iran. We're going in with Iran.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does that mean U.S. boots on the ground?

TRUMP: We will have it. I don't call it boots on the ground. We'll take it after the agreement is signed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: A lot to unpack there, but we have taken enriched material from Iran in the past. Right? That's something the world has done. How did it work, and can it work here?

WASSER: So, the U.S. has -- the U.S. and other countries have been able to obtain nuclear material in the past, largely from post-Soviet countries.

But here, I think the most important thing is that this has to happen in relative peacetime, or at least in a more secure environment. That's what has been done in the past, where it's been a permissive operating environment for U.S. forces.

It's -- it requires, you know, real scientists and experts. You're going to need a lot of engineers to be able to dig out from that rubble.

And you are going to have really sizable amount of U.S. boots on the ground in Iran in order to secure those areas, potentially across multiple sites. That's a major endeavor.

CORNISH: Meaning you don't want anyone attacking you while you're digging.

WASSER: Absolutely.

CORNISH: And moving nuclear material.

WASSER: And your scientists, you don't want them to be at risk.

And part of this is also going to require does the U.S. know where the material is? Is it aware of exactly what form it's in? Because all of that has knock-on effects for how they extract it and where it goes to, as well as the idea of, you know, how are they going to actually transport outside of the country?

Most other countries aren't going to allow U.S., you know, aircraft to refuel on their territory while holding nuclear material.

CORNISH: In the meantime, can Iran realistically unearth this themselves?

WASSER: They might. I think it depends on how much -- how deeply buried it is.

But I think the bigger question here is how quickly could they actually enrich this into further weapons grade material? And that's probably going to take some time.

So, even if they were to say, be able to dig it out tomorrow, that doesn't mean that there would immediately be a nuclear weapon.

And I think that's something that's really important to have in mind, particularly as this material seems to be the biggest sticking point for possible negotiations right now.

CORNISH: Right. And I think we're hoping -- the U.S. is hoping for more talks to happen. We don't know the word on that yet.

Becca, thanks for digging in on -- on just this topic for a second. Stay with us in the group.

Straight ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, the energy secretary for the U.S. Now saying gas may not dip below $3 a gallon until next year. The treasury secretary said, like, by summer. And that was just a few days ago.

So, we want to talk about what's changed there.

And in the meantime, in Virginia, they're getting ready to head to the polls for a crucial vote that could have a major impact on the midterms. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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