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The Brief with Jim Sciutto
CNN International: Trump Suggests U.S. Goals in Iran are "Pretty Well Complete"; Iran War Triggers Largest Oil Disruption in History; Iran Vows to Keep Economic Pressure on U.S. and its Allies. Aired 6-7p ET
Aired March 09, 2026 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[18:35:00]
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR, "THE BRIEF": I'm Jim Schuder in Washington. You've been watching CNN's coverage of President Trump's news conference on
the subject of the ongoing war with Iran.
President Trump telling reporters that the U.S. military operation is, in his terms, ahead of schedule. He said the U.S. has now struck more than
5,000 targets. He suggested earlier that the war is, quote, pretty well complete, although in this press conference just a few moments ago, he said
that we could call it a tremendous success or we could continue and we're going to go further. So, the president leaving something open there as to
whether the war is over or not, but certainly leaving the option open to continue.
He claimed Iran was going to take over the Middle East, his terms, if the U.S. and Israel did not strike first. President Trump's comments earlier in
the day triggered a major reversal on Wall Street. Stocks were well down, but they finished the session up with solid gains.
In the oil markets, Brent and U.S. crude fell sharply after they had risen to well over $100 a barrel earlier, as high as around $120. U.S. gas
prices, however, continue their march up. The average price for a gallon of gas is now nearing $3.50. It was below $3.00 just a week ago. That's a rise
of, well, more than 16 percent. The head of the IMF said Monday that policymakers must, quote, "think of the unthinkable and prepare for it" due
to the war's impact, not just on energy markets, but the global economy.
Joining me now, Kevin Book, managing director at Clearview Energy Partners. Kevin, you know, the president's comments come at you fast and furious,
right? I mean, the markets were panicking. Oil was well above $120. Then the president gives an interview with CBS and he says, well, the war might
be complete. Market drops. Then the president just says there, well, we're going to go further. I mean, do the markets understand how much longer this
war is going to go? I mean, they're swinging back and forth so dramatically.
KEVIN BOOK, MANAGING DIRECTOR, CLEARVIEW ENERGY PARTNERS: Jim, good to be here. I think it's abundantly clear from the price motion we've seen today
that the markets do not understand how long the U.S. and Israel are going to be engaged in military operations. The critical question is when the
Strait of Hormuz reopens to cargoes. Critical question doesn't seem any clearer based on the comments you just recounted.
SCIUTTO: So, the president said two things about the Strait of Hormuz. Again, he said he's basically going to back up the insurance for those
ships going through. And then he held open once again the possibility of U.S. escorts. And then I suppose I should add a third thing to the list,
where he said that if Iran were to strike him, that they would pay heavily, basically saying, you know, threatening Iran if they strike oil shipping,
that the U.S. will strike back. I mean, from the market's perspective, does that combination of threats and promises open up the Strait?
BOOK: Well, I think we'll have to wait and see until ships start moving. There are several things at work there. One, the president also mentioned,
I think, that mines in the Strait were an ongoing concern and that they had the best mine-sweeping capabilities on location. That's important because
that could provide a more enduring impediment to traffic in the Strait if it happens.
As you say, Jim, the president said that he would go after Iran's energy infrastructure, electricity infrastructure, create damage that would take a
very long time to repair. To the extent that's seen as a credible threat, it doesn't eliminate the third problem, which is that the ships themselves,
the owners of the ships, the captains, the cargo owners, have to decide that it's safe to pass.
Insurance is, yes, part of the problem. But another part of the problem, Jim, is assurance, physical safety and security through the waterway.
SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this, because my understanding, of course, you know this far better than me, is that it's not just about the ships going
through the Strait, but that a lot of these oil producers, they've stopped producing because they have no place to put the oil that they've already
pulled out of the ground. I imagine, I mean, even though the market has swung way up and now it's come down seemingly comforted in some way, that
essential problem has not disappeared. And I imagine that would take some time to dissipate.
[18:40:00]
BOOK: Yes, there's a little bit of latency, because when even the most graceful shutdowns of producing assets can take days to weeks to restart
properly, you want to care for your fields and your refineries. And when inventories disappear, there's no place to put the production. Production
has to stop. Oil is a system. It has to move. And so, in the case of the most sort of the most graceful shutdowns, you still have some delay. Yes.
But then there's also damage to facilities and damaged facilities could be offline for weeks to months.
SCIUTTO: Help me understand. And again, you know, the market's better than me. How oil can be above $120 a barrel a few hours ago and now down - - I
mean, did it get in? I mean, below $100, I think. I mean, is the market pricing the risk of this correctly, in your view?
BOOK: I think what you're seeing is an incredible textbook for economics at work. What you're looking at is price discovery in action. There's a lot
of information out there, and nobody knows what's credible, what's good and what to go on. And so, you're seeing prices move as actors in the market
observe what they can and operate with what they know.
Now, in terms of how this affects those of us who buy gasoline and petroleum products inside our country, there's a little bit more latency to
the prices we see at the pump. The upward motion is probably still going to carry through with further increases at the pump for us. But you don't get
that kind of motion intraday for us at the pump.
SCIUTTO: Understood. Yes. Yes. It always seems the folks driving the cars, right, they get hit the hardest. Before we go, do you see any further
lasting economic repercussions from this in terms of reduced global growth, at least for this, well, as long as this goes on?
BOOK: Well, I think that's the operative question, Jim. How long will this go on? If we're looking at more weeks, maybe more than a month, then yes, I
think there are real risks of elevated prices, because not only do we see the impediment to the straight as an ongoing risk, but at some point,
demand will get crushed by that rising price. And that's where you'll have your inflationary signature, your economic slowdown impacts, all
consequences of a duration longer than what we've seen so far. If it snaps back to whatever you think of as normal tomorrow, the next day, then I
think that we'll look at this as a blip.
And some drivers will remember, I think some investors will remember, there'll be more interest in diversifying sources and routes. But I think
we'll be on the other side of it.
SCIUTTO: Kevin Book, thanks so much. I'm sure it's not the last time we talk about this.
BOOK: Look forward to it. Thanks.
SCIUTTO: Well, now on the military side of this conflict, joining me now, retired Major General James Spider Marks, served in the U.S. Army, now head
of geopolitical intelligence at Academy Securities. Good to have you, sir. Thanks so much for joining.
MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RET.), U.S. ARMY AND HEAD OF GEOPOLITICAL STRATEGY, ACADEMY SECURITIES: Thank you very, very much.
SCIUTTO: So, you were listening to the president there. And again, ultimately, it's up to him to decide what he's done, right? Because he has
changed what the -- or at least he's presented multiple potential measures of success here, from regime change to accomplishing the military goals of
weakening Iran militarily. And he said in the press conference that, you know, his terms, they have no aircraft, missiles, that their Navy's been
destroyed, their leadership has been destroyed.
From a military perspective -- actually, the first question I'm going to ask you is, do you have a strong sense of what the goal is here, or is that
still to be defined?
MARKS: I think it's fair to say it was about regime decapitation, which happened, right? And I would also say it is probably three things. It's all
about nukes, it's all about missiles, and it's all about proxies. Anything else, anything else I think is unnecessarily punitive.
SCIUTTO: OK. So, let's say you were advising the president now in the situation room if those are the three goals. And by the way, the president
has mentioned all three of those in addition to others. Would you say to him, sir, we've accomplished those goals?
MARKS: I would. The thing that we're seeing is that it's those goals. But, Jim, also, look, the regime has said here comes the successor. Of course,
that successor is going to remain a hardliner. He's a creature of the IRGC. So, we can't anticipate anything that's different. And almost irrespective
of who is going to come in, I think we anticipated that. I know the president was hopeful for something else, but frankly, that was very, very
unlikely.
So, Mojtaba Khamenei is not unlike his father and probably tighter with the IRGC. So, you're going to see increasing control, the establishment of
increasing control by the IRGC, which, you know, their sole job is to protect the revolution. Martech, the conventional military, is all about
protecting the nation. So, what we have right now is much like what we saw before, but an incredibly weakened state. And there's legitimate
reputational challenge as well, as you can well imagine.
[18:45:00]
SCIUTTO: But does that then qualify as decapitation if you just have to have a younger, perhaps even more radical Khamenei now in leadership?
MARKS: I think you have to look at the 40 plus folks that are now no longer with us. They got decapitated. Then you got a new regime. So, my
point is, Khamenei was an older man. He might have been dying in the next few years. Who knows? So, we accelerated that. But we also accelerated -- I
mean, when they came together, this immense amount of hubris that none of us can understand made themselves a massive target. All of that's gone. So,
now there's incredible chaos.
Will this turn into something that's entirely more difficult to deal with if you have splintering across the country? I mean, a country that's three,
four times larger than Iraq. And as you know, you know, I personally and everybody else got sucked up in Iraq. I can't imagine what it's like in
Iran. And I think what's going to happen with the IRGC, they exist for that very purpose. So, I don't think there's going to be splintering. And I
think we're going to have to deal with an oppressive regime. But that's the decision on the Iranian people, if they're going to be OK with it.
We should be OK with -- look, if you're not developing nukes -- or put it this way, Jim, if you start to develop nukes again, we'll be back. If you
start to build missiles, we'll be back. And, oh, by the way, we're going to keep going after the proxies.
SCIUTTO: Yes. And we should note the Iranian people, it's not clear that they have a choice, right, given the crackdown we saw in January. Before we
go, I just want to ask you about this possibility, at least of U.S. ground forces there that's been bandied about. And even the president himself has
left open that option. Given your experience in Iraq, even if that was a limited force as opposed to an occupying army, is it possible for that to
be low risk?
MARKS: Oh, no, it's extreme risk. I can't imagine. And of course, the president and his team are going to keep options open. It's fair not to
answer the question and say, no, we've taken boots on the ground off the table. So, I look at this and I just can't imagine putting forces into
Iran.
However, bear in mind, Kharg Island has been off limits. Ninety percent of the exports come through Kharg Island. Would the United States take that
and meter and kind of work the flow? I don't know. I'm totally spit balling here.
SCIUTTO: I've heard that speculation as well. General James Spider Marks, good to have you on.
MARKS: Thank you, Jim, very much.
SCIUTTO: Still to come on "The Brief," President Trump says the U.S. could declare its campaign against Iran a success. But as I noted, he says he's
going to go further. We're going to have much more on exactly what the president said and perhaps what he means right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:50:00]
SCIUTTO: A short time ago, President Trump held a press conference largely focused on Iran. He said the U.S. military operation there is ahead of
schedule. He said the U.S. has now struck some 5,000 targets in Iran since the war began.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: It's the beginning of building a new country, but they certainly they have no Navy. They have no Air Force. They
have no anti-aircraft equipment. It's all been blown up. They have no radar. They have no telecommunications and they have no leadership. It's
all gone. So, you know, you could look at that statement. We could we could call it a tremendous success right now as we leave here. I could call it or
we could go further and we're going to go further.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Well, what is it? We don't know. We could call it a tremendous success or we could go further. He did say we will go further, though, just
a short time before that press conference. He told another reporter that the war there is largely complete.
Joining me now, Kristen Holmes from the White House, of course, covers President Trump. Kristen, is the war over or not? Is it clear to you?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I mean, Jim, it sounds like it's not over. But one thing is clear, the comments that
President Trump made when he was talking to that reporter that it was completely done were something that for whatever reason don't seem to
actually stand when he said that this is pretty much completely done or completely over.
Now, there's a lot of speculation that that might have been because the markets were completely spiraling and his comments actually sent them back
up into the green. But whether or not it was that or just him spit balling, the messaging has been all over the place. And one of the ways that he's
been communicating the messaging of this war that the United States is currently in is with this kind of three-minute long, three-to-five-minute-
long phone interviews with various reporters where he goes out there and then contradicts himself a day or even an hour later.
So, what we did learn in all of this was this idea that President Trump said that they had struck 5,000 targets, that at one point he said that
they were going to go until they completely eradicated their nuclear ambitions. There's a lot of questions about that in particular because that
seems pretty subjective in terms of when you could determine that that had been done. And then he also said that they were way ahead of schedule. It
seems as though he's leaving the timeline very open-ended here and probably on purpose.
Now, I do want to note, Jim, probably the most interesting part of this press conference is when he was asked about that school, the girls' school
that was struck in Iran. He seemed to walk back his comments that he made on Air Force One. He had been asked then and said that it was Iran who had
done that bombing. And then Pete Hegseth, who was standing right behind him, secretary of defense, kind of said, it's still an investigation and
we're looking at everything, not backing up the president.
Now, President Trump during this press conference was asked about it again, and he said it was an ongoing investigation. He kind of walked away from
that. It was definitely Iran. He did say, however, it was done by a Tomahawk missile and then claimed that Iran had Tomahawk missiles, which I
don't believe that we have any intelligence that shows that they have Tomahawk missiles. But at the end, he said that whatever the report shows
or the investigation shows, that's something that he's going to live with.
So, that was an interesting moment because that was one of the only times we've seen him actually acknowledge and walk back something that he said.
What we've seen instead when it comes to this war, this attack in Iran, is just compounding statements over and over again, some of some of which
don't actually agree with each other. But that was one notable walk back.
SCIUTTO: Notable. The fact is, he may have already been told, right, that the information points in that direction, right, and preparing the
groundwork for that. Let me ask you if I can, because the president said that had the U.S. not attacked Iran last year and the operation called
Midnight Hammer, that Iran would have a nuclear weapon and would have used it before this press conference. That is before today. Are you aware of any
intelligence assessment that the White House has shared to back up that statement?
HOLMES: No. And he also said that first, it would have really taken Iran would have really taken over the Middle East if it wasn't for Operation
Midnight Hammer, which happened back in June. Then he said they were going to take over the Middle East anyway this time around if he hadn't struck
first, if he and Israel hadn't struck first. That is not any indication that the intel that we have seen or been briefed on by sources who have
seen the intelligence, who said that there was nothing imminent that in terms of a nuclear weapon, it was likely closer to 10 years before they
would have a nuclear weapon.
[18:55:00]
And any sort of strikes that Iran was going to make were going to be in retaliation to a strike from America, from Israel, from any country. And
that those retaliation strikes would not be preemptive, because obviously retaliation and preemptive are two very different things. But that is a
different understanding from what President Trump has said out loud.
Although behind the scenes -- I mean, they have been very clear, White House administration officials, that there is no intelligence that showed
that there was going to be an imminent strike or preemptive strikes by Iran. So, this just seems to be kind of a boisterous, not true claim from
President Trump.
SCIUTTO: Not true claim. Well fact-checked. Kristen Holmes at the White House, thank you.
And finally, tonight, President Trump says that Australia will ensure the safety of the Iranian women's football or soccer team. The president said
he spoke to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about the team's safety in a post on social media. Trump said that five of the players have been taken
care of and the rest are on their way. This post came shortly after Trump said he would grant the players asylum if Australia did not. There are
concerns for their safety if they were forced to return to Iran. Why? Well, last week the team did not sing the Iranian national anthem before their
first match.
Thanks so much for joining us today. I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington. You've been watching "The Brief." Please do stay with CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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