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Oil Prices Ease After Reaching Nearly $120 a Barrel; Intense New Airstrikes in Tehran; Teens Charged in ISIS-Inspired Terror Plot; Warren: "Very worried" About How Long War with Iran Could Last. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired March 10, 2026 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: -- here in the Situation Room called Make It Makes Sense, where we break down the headlines and cut through the noise of economic news. To help you make sense of it all, joining us now, CNN Senior Reporter David Goldman. David, make it make sense for us, why would releasing millions of barrels of oil into the markets not make gas prices go down?

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, it would, it just wouldn't make that much of a dent. And we know that because in 2022, President Biden released 180 million barrels of oil from a strategic petroleum reserve. And by the Biden administration's own calculations, gas prices only fell by around 17 cents. So, that's not a huge dent.

And that, by the way, took four months to accomplish. And so, that would get us back down to, you know, the mid threes, but not nearly where we were before, which was below $3. The other thing is that once you release all of that oil from the strategic petroleum reserve, it's like pulling a trigger that you can only pull once. You don't get to do it again until new supply comes on. So, it's maybe helpful, but not a catch-all.

BLITZER: Can you explain, David, why gas prices seem to be very quick to go up, but very slow to come back down?

GOLDMAN: Yes, it's such a common occurrence that the industry actually has its own term for it. They call it rockets and feathers. When oil goes up, gas prices shoot up like a rocket and they come down like a feather. And, you know, gas stations make very little profit, surprisingly little profit, on gasoline sales.

Also, if you bought a tanker of gas and filled your station at $3.54 today and oil starts to come down, that doesn't necessarily mean that you can sell it for cheaper. You got to sell all of that gas before you start to make a little bit more profit on that. You also don't want to be the first neighborhood gas station to sell cheaper. You're looking for other folks to do that. So, you know, we saw this also in 2022 when oil fell about $20 in just a matter of weeks. It took several months for oil to come back below $4 a gallon.

BLITZER: If the war were to end today, David, when would we realistically, realistically see oil and gas prices start to come down?

GOLDMAN: Well, I mean, the Trump administration could declare victory today and it would still potentially be months before we started to see oil come down. And that's because the administration doesn't get to control the Strait of Hormuz. Right now, Iran is controlling the Strait of Hormuz and they've said that they would attack any ship that's going to travel through that Strait.

And in fact, one oil analyst that I spoke to said it could take one to three months after the conflict is over to start getting oil back to normal through that Strait. And that's because production needs to come back online. That's because they need to ensure the safety of all of those oil tankers coming through. This isn't something that you just turn a switch on and oil starts coming through the strait.

BLITZER: All right. David Goldman, as usual, thank you very, very much for that expertise. I want to continue the conversation now with Clayton Seigle. He's a senior fellow of the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and holds the James R. Schlesinger Chair in Energy and Geopolitics. Thanks so much for joining us. And good morning.

The world's biggest economies, as you know, are now considering emergency releases of millions of barrels of oil into the market. But that wouldn't necessarily fix the oil crisis. Who would benefit from an emergency release?

CLAYTON SEIGLE, SENIOR FELLOW, ENERGY SECURITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE PROGRAM, CSIS AND JAMES R. SCHLESINGER CHAIR IN ENERGY AND GEOPOLITICS, CSIS: Good morning, Wolf. Well, it depends by region and by fuel type. The major economies of the world have about 1.2 billion barrels of oil and products on hand in their reserves. It sounds like a big number, but we're missing. We're digging a hole of 20 million barrels per day. So, do the math. I mean, that's a total of 60 days of cover at this rate of deficit.

But I think that what would happen is if we consider the possibility of drawing down these reserves, it's going to be very judicious. It's not going to be all at once. We're going to look at which countries and regions are missing which types of oil products. Certain types of liquid petroleum gases are used for cooking in certain parts of the world, like India and southern Asia. In other parts of the world, like Europe, it's about middle distillates like jet fuel and diesel fuel. And so, I think that we would consider a smart, strategic drawdown of those reserves to get the right types of fuels to the right countries on time.

BLITZER: As you know, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is at a standstill. Talk to us a little bit about the geopolitical implications of no oil tankers going through the Strait.

SEIGLE: Yes, it's very it's very simple to have a prosperous economy. We have to restore that 20 million barrels per day of oil supply that comes out of the Mideast Gulf region. There really are no substitutes.

[10:35:00] I think that markets do know this, and they are purely trading on what President Trump says he will or will not do with regard to the war in Iran. So, when he last week when he was talking about things like unconditional surrender being a war objective, prices surged. When he makes a different declaration yesterday, like the war may be winding up soon, obviously prices recede. We saw that yesterday.

But here's the problem, and David alluded to this in the last segment. You know, as we say, the enemy gets a vote. And just to read from a headline that was crossing my wire, markets bet that Trump will end war soon. Traders are assuming that when he does that, normal export flows will resume because the Iranians also need the export revenue.

But what if they don't? What if Iran continues to disrupt shipping or the offshore infrastructure that's used to load those ships and enable those exports, even after President Trump calls it quits, announces the end of major combat operations? That is an underappreciated risk in the market, in my opinion.

BLITZER: President Trump said Monday that his administration would be, quote, waiving certain oil-related sanctions to reduce prices. Iran and Russia are two of the most heavily sanctioned countries, as all of us know. Do you think this is the right move?

SEIGLE: No, I don't. I think that, first of all, a lot of the measures that are being considered in Washington this week are simply bridges to buy us more time to get the frozen exports moving again. They're not -- we need those in addition to, not instead of, the resumption of exports.

When it comes to lifting the sanctions, look, I mean, there's no way around it. Putin is the big winner on two fronts from this action. When it comes to lifting the sanctions, this was a time when the sanctions that President Trump smartly initiated last November on two big Russian oil companies, Luke Oil and Rosneft, they're just starting to bite in the Russian economy and maybe constrict Putin's ability to carry on this war on Ukraine.

And now, to lift those sanctions and allow Russian oil prices to rise again is just going to improve the Kremlin's war chest to confront Ukraine and NATO. And also, we're running through a lot of stocks of our best weapons systems, munitions, and there's going to be less to go around to defend Ukraine and support NATO. So, it's a double win in Moscow, I'm afraid.

BLITZER: Very quick question before I let you go, Clayton. About a week or so ago, I filled up my car with gas and it was around close to $3 a gallon here in the Washington, D.C. area. And just yesterday, I filled it up. It was close to $4 a gallon. That's here in the D.C. area. How unusual is that?

SEIGLE: It's not unusual. As David said, the adage in our market is up like a rocket and down like a feather. So, the entire market, including the refining and distribution system, is preparing for higher prices for longer.

BLITZER: All right. Clayton Seigle, thanks so much for your expertise.

SEIGLE: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: And just ahead, what would military protection look like for oil tankers? I'll speak to retired Rear Admiral and former White House National Security Adviser John Kirby about that. He's standing by live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:00]

BLITZER: We're back with breaking news from Iran where CNN heard intense airstrikes in the capital, Tehran, overnight. As the U.S. military attacked Iran's missile launchers, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said today will be the most intense day of airstrikes of the war. President Trump gave conflicting signals about when the war might end.

I want to bring in retired U.S. Rear Admiral John Kirby. He was the White House National Security Communications Adviser in the Biden administration. John, thanks very much for joining us. We're now on, what, day 11 of this war. As you see it, where does this conflict stand?

REAR ADM. JOHN KIRBY (RET.), FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY COMMUNICATIONS ADVISER: I think what you're seeing is now that they have established air supremacy over Iran, Wolf, you're seeing that they are able now to conduct more discreet and more powerful, more numerous bombing runs inside and over Iran, and that's what we're seeing today.

I think everything -- and I watched the press conference this morning, what it tells me is the military very much wants to end this as quickly as possible. They don't want this to escalate further. They don't want a larger regional conflict, even though that has happened to some degree. And everything I hear coming out of General Caine and Pete Hegseth tells me that they want to end this as quickly as possible, which is why I think you're seeing this intensification of the bombing campaign today.

BLITZER: Has the Trump administration, John, been clear, clear enough in communicating the aims and the timeline of this war to the American public?

KIRBY: I think it's been a little all over the map, Wolf. And you can -- you know, you all played some clips earlier this morning of different officials in the administration talking about different timelines. That's why I think -- I paid close attention to the press conference today. Secretary Hegseth and General Caine, I think, made a very -- made it very clear that they don't want to get into timelines anymore, number one. Number two, they want to convey that this is intensifying with the goal of ending it quickly.

And number three, and this is really important, they didn't change those four goals, right, going after the Navy, going after ballistic missiles, going after their ability to export terrorism and going after their nuclear facilities. Those four goals have stayed the same.

[10:45:00]

And I think even though the rhetoric is unconditional surrender and totally defeated and regime change, from a military perspective only, if you just look at the press conferences out of the Pentagon, they have been very consistent that this is a limited set of objectives in a limited amount of time.

BLITZER: Secretary Pete Hegseth today reiterated a warning that President Trump posted online last night threatening to hit Iran 20 times harder and to make it, quote, "virtually impossible" for Iran to rebuild if they move to stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. How does the global energy market, John, factor into where things go from here?

KIRBY: I think it factors hugely. I mean, I personally believe what the president said yesterday before the markets closed was little more than an effort to get the price of crude oil down because he saw it skyrocketing up to around 120 and he wanted to get it back down again and it worked. And then he, quote, "changed his narrative" after the markets closed. I think the energy markets are very much factoring into this.

And I'm sure that planners thought about the effect on the oil industry when they decided to launch this war. I'm positive they did that. But I'm not clear that they really thought it through carefully enough and predicted the kind of skittishness and the jumps that we've seen in the oil market.

And as your experts rightly noted earlier this morning, I mean, when they declare the war's end, whatever that is, whatever that looks like, the oil market is not going to just bounce back immediately. It's going to take months before consumers really see any major changes.

BLITZER: General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted today that the military is considering a range of options to escort commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz if the Navy is tasked to do so. President Trump put that possibility on the table actually last week. What would military protection look like for oil tankers in that critical waterway?

KIRBY: I did this mission myself back in the late '80s. Now, I know capabilities are much further advanced now than they were when I did it as a young ensign. But essentially the mission is the same. And this is something that the U.S. Navy absolutely knows how to do. And I guarantee they already have plans on the shelf to escort in and out of the Strait. This is not a mission that the Navy hasn't been prepared for, for decades.

You basically have to line up your convoys. And the number of ships in that convoy is going to alter by both the market and what needs to come in and come out, but also about the threat and what the threat in that strait, which is very narrow, is going to represent. So, you'll set the number of ships in the convoy. That will determine how many escort ships you have in that convoy at the beginning and the middle of the end of it and what the capabilities you need on those escort ships.

When I did this, Wolf, the biggest worry were Iranian mines and fast boats. There was some cruise missile capability, but mostly it was mines and fast boats. Now, I'm not worried so much about the mines. The Iranians don't have the ability to mine the strait the way that they used to be able to do. They can't airdrop mines. I'm worried more about the cruise missile threat, which I think still exists, and then drones. Drones are the difference between now and back when I did it. And drones can be a very difficult weapon to eliminate from sea, not that it can't be done, but it's hard to do it. It's cheap, they're fast, and they can cause enough damage to slow or stop a convoy right in its tracks.

BLITZER: They can cause a lot of damage. Retired Rear Admiral John Kirby, thanks, as usual, for joining us. Good to have you back here in the Situation Room.

KIRBY: Thanks, Wolf. Good to be with you.

BLITZER: Coming up, two teams charged in an ISIS terror plot in New York City. The latest in the investigation, as we're expecting to hear directly from the mayor this morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:50:00]

BLITZER: Breaking news. Just moments ago, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren spoke after leaving a briefing on the war with Iran. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Look, here we are, well into the second week, and it is still the case that the Trump administration cannot explain the reasons that we entered this war, the goals we're trying to accomplish, and the methods for doing that. The one part that seems clear is that while there is no money for 15 million Americans who lost their health care, there's a billion dollars a day to spend on bombing Iran.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did they give you a cost estimate of the --

WARREN: No, not in this setting.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They did not give you --

WARREN: Yes. What I'm saying comes from publicly reported information.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Senator, are you worried about how long this will drag on?

WARREN: I'm very worried about how long this will drag on. We are hearing no logical estimates about when it will be over.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you ask about the girls' school, the Tomahawk missiles and --

WARREN: I can't talk about that here, I'm sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where would you be if they sent up a supplemental and did they give you any indication this morning that a supplemental is on its way, happening now?

WARREN: At this point, I am a hard no on a supplemental. This is not a war the American people want us to engage in. This is not a war supported by this country, and this is not a war that makes us safer. For the Trump administration to say over and over, there's no money for health care, there's no money for child care, there's no time to pay attention to how families are paying more, but there's a billion dollars a day to go to the Middle East and drop bombs on Iran for military purposes that no one can describe, and that no one can explain how merely from dropping bombs from the air we will accomplish those ends.

[10:55:00]

No, no more money. The one thing Congress has the power to do is to stop actions like this through the power of the purse. The military already has a trillion dollars. The military already cannot pass a simple audit on where that money is. And for the Trump administration to come back and say, shovel billions more into a war in Iran that is not supported by the American people and does not make us safer, makes no sense at all. So, I will be a no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Elizabeth Warren, the senator emerging from a briefing at the Senate Armed Services Committee, speaking to reporters just then. More senators are going to be emerging from that meeting soon. We'll check in with them as well.

Also coming up, I'll speak to Republican Congressman Mike McCaul on the war with Iran. He's the chair emeritus of both the House Foreign Affairs and House Homeland Security committees.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:00:00]