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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Allies Balk At Trump's Appeal For Help With Strait Of Hormuz; Trump Touts FCC Chairman's Threats Against T.V. Networks; Judge Blocks RFK Jr.'s Efforts To Overhaul U.S Vaccine Policy; Trump Repeats False Claim That He Predicated Bin Laden Would Attack World Trade Center; Report Details Drugmaker Profiting With Asthma Inhaler Switch. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired March 16, 2026 - 18:00   ET

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

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[18:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.

This hour, despite President Trump's demands, it appears no other countries have yet to commit to him to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz to help secure it and to accompany commercial tankers, as oil prices and gas prices are spiking once again. And that key water waterway remains closed because of the war with Iran. Is there any end in sight to any of this?

Plus, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made sweeping changes to the childhood vaccine schedule tonight. Those decisions are being blocked by a federal judge. So, what happens now? That's ahead.

Also, a tragic story out of Texas where family members say an Afghan man who served alongside U.S. Special Forces died over the weekend shortly after being detained by ICE agents. He was in the U.S. seeking asylum from the Taliban. What we're learning about this case this hour.

And taking on big pharma, one senator sits down with CNN for an exclusive interview to explain how after years of fighting, a lifesaving medication will now be cheaper for families.

The Lead tonight, President Trump complaining that the U.S. is not getting enough help or enough enthusiasm from some of his allies to ensure safe passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Numerous countries have told me they're on the way. Some are very enthusiastic about it and some aren't. Some are countries that we've helped for many, many years. We've protected them from horrible outside sources and they weren't that enthusiastic. And the level of enthusiasm, it matters to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP) TAPPER: CNN's Nic Robertson is in Kuwait, Jeremy Diamond is in Israel. And, Nic, how much help is on the way right now in terms of the Strait of Hormuz, enthusiastically or otherwise?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Look, it's a for discussion in the U.K. That's what the British prime Minister said, discussing it, not made a decision. He wants a clear legal basis for putting British troops in harm's way. He said he needs to see a plan implicit and that he is doesn't see that coming from the United States, from President Trump yet.

The German chancellor has given so far an unequivocal no, no German assistance for keeping the Strait of Hormuz open until the fighting is over. European Union indicating, yes, they've got a couple of frigates in the area off the coast of Yemen. They've been there patrolling sort of potential Houthi attacks, but not the right vessels for the job. That's the message from the European Union.

Yes, everyone is saying we need oil to get through the Strait of Hormuz, but it doesn't appear as if the big players in Europe are putting assets forward for it just yet.

And the Gulf countries, frankly, you know, I've been out with the with the Kuwait Navy before a good few years ago along the coastline here, yes, they have limited naval vessels, but nothing that would manage the task that's required here. And, frankly, they want to stay out of the way because they know Iran could escalate against them, escalate -- hit desalination plants here, hit electricity-generating plants, like the kind of key facilities that keep countries like Kuwait going. They need that desalinated water, so they know they're vulnerable. So, they're going to try to stay out of this. Jake?

TAPPER: All right, interesting, Nic, thank you.

Let's turn to Israel, which is sending troops into Southern Lebanon to fight Hezbollah, the Iran proxy. Jeremy, is there concern about Israeli ground forces getting bogged down?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, there's no question that the Israeli military is sending troops deeper into Lebanon than last week, for example. But the objectives still seem to be relatively limited, as does the extent to which those troops will go into Lebanon. The Israeli military announced today that they're expanding these ground operations seizing additional villages near to the Israel-Lebanon border, to remove the threat posed by Hezbollah to those Israeli residents in Northern Israel, in those border communities. That's according to the Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, who said that they're going to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure in some of those contact villages along the Lebanese border.

But, ultimately, there is still the broader notion on the table of a deeper ground operation. We know that there are tens of thousands of Israeli troops currently massing at that Israel-Lebanon border, many reservists who have been called up for service, as the Israeli prime minister is still mulling something that would take Israeli troops far deeper than what we're seeing right now, perhaps all the way up to the Litani River, some 15 miles north of the Israeli border.

That decision hasn't been taken yet. But even right now, we are already seeing not only the fighting Escalade between Israel and Hezbollah, which has fired some 100 rockets into Israel every single day over the course of the last week or so, but also in terms of the impact on Lebanese civilians, with more than a million Lebanese now internally displaced in that country, many from South Lebanon but also some in the Lebanese capital of Beirut itself.

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And, of course, the Israeli defense minister is warning that those hundreds of thousands of people who've had to flee southern Lebanon, they will not be allowed to return, he said, until the threat of Hezbollah is eliminated. Jake?

TAPPER: All right. Nic Robertson in Kuwait, Jeremy Diamond in Israel, thanks to both of you.

With us now, Leon Panetta. He has served as White House chief of staff, CIA director and defense secretary. Mr. Panetta, thank you so much for joining us.

So, European Union officials today, let it be known that they have no appetite to expand the E.U.'s mandate to the Strait of Hormuz. Let me play something else that President Trump told reporters earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Well, we want to know, do you have any mind sweepers? Well, we would rather not get involved, sir. I said, so you mean for 40 years we're protecting you and you don't want to get involved in something that is very minor, very few shots going to be taken because they don't have many shots left, but they said we'd rather not get involved. I just want the fake news media and everybody else to remember that that was said.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So, you as CIA director and White House chief of staff and secretary of defense certainly have coordinated and negotiated and talked to your equivalents to get military assistance and military partnerships and the like. What's your response to what you just heard from President Trump?

LEON PANETTA, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: I think the president needs to understand allies to work with us, that he's got to spend time in developing trust with those allies. Right now, what he's experiencing is, what goes around comes around. And the fact that he has largely walked away from a lot of our allies, been very critical of them and in this instance did not even consult with them, did not even give them a heads-up, and really did not even make an effort to try to build allies that could actually work with us and support our efforts in Iran.

And to suddenly now say, we want your ships to go to the Straits of Hormuz, probably without even discussing a plan for how that would work, just mainly saying, we need your ships to go to the Straits of Hormuz.

So, you know, what belie here, Jake, is that if the president recognized that war, and this is a war, is going to produce consequences that he, you know, has to deal with, and certainly one of the consequences was the Straits of Hormuz being closed, if he's going to deal with that, he has to take the time to sit down, plan and develop a strategy for how he's going to do it. Otherwise, no matter how much he declares victory, he is not going to have victory as long as the Straits of Hormuz are closed.

TAPPER: And you heard that Nic Robertson report saying that the Brits want to see a plan, and they have not seen a plan on the other hand. So, that -- you know, you're talking about carrot versus stick. There's been a lot of stick or at least threatening of stick. President Trump told the Financial Times that NATO faces a, quote, very bad future if U.S. allies fail to help the United States with this Iran war.

PANETTA: The president, as we all know, basically tries to bully people into doing what he wants, and he's been doing that most of his life. And he thinks if he bullies them hard enough and threatens them enough that somehow that's the way to bring him in line. But the reality is that it doesn't work if your credibility is on the line.

And right now, the president's credibility is on the line because anything he says, people simply do not trust. And when you have that kind of credibility problem, right, you're going to have a hell of a challenge trying to get others to come in and be helpful in a war that can cost lives and has cost lives.

That's what really bothers me about this issue is that it's been described by the president as an excursion. It's been described by others as not being a war, but the bottom line is it is a war.

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It's a war in which we're losing lives. It's a war in which we're dropping bombs, killing people. This is a war, and the president has to approach that war with a degree of seriousness that involves the security of the United States. The security of the United States is on the line right now. And because these gas prices are going up because the straits are closed, then we are also suffering economic damage as a result of that.

This president has to now be a leader, a war leader for the United States of America. That's what we need, and unfortunately that's not what we're getting.

TAPPER: Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leon Panetta, thank you for your time, as always, sir.

PANETTA: Good to be with you, Jake.

TAPPER: The Trump administration threatening to revoke the licenses of major news broadcasters, ABC, CBS, NBC. Can he actually do that? That's next.

Plus, the Department of Homeland Security facing questions after an Afghan man who served alongside U.S. Special Forces died in federal immigration custody. A closer look at what went wrong with this father of six, just ahead.

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[18:15:00]

TAPPER: Turning to our Politics Lead on the latest salvo and the Trump administration's ongoing attacks against the news media. On Saturday after President Trump hosted a long complaint about war coverage he didn't like, coverage by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr put up a post on X declaring, quote, broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions, also known as the fake news, have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up, unquote. Commissioner Carr then went on saying, the law is clear, broadcasters must operate in the public interest and they will lose their licenses if they do not, unquote.

Then President Trump responded to that. It was like turducken of conversation here, I am so thrilled to see Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, looking at the licenses of some of these corrupt and highly unpatriotic news organizations, unquote. It's a threat he then amplified yesterday aboard Air Force One. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I actually think it's pretty criminal because our media companies who have no credibility whatsoever are putting out information that they know is false.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So, if you couldn't hear that because of all the plane sound, he said, I actually think it's pretty criminal because our media companies who have no credibility whatsoever putting out information that they know is false.

So let's get a reality check with Robert Corn-Revere of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE. He is an expert in communications law and he advised in FCC Commissioner James Quello in the early 1990s.

So, let's look at this. I think it can be fairly called a threat from Chairman Carr. How -- and --

ROBERT CORN-REVERE, EXPERT ON FCC REGULATORY POLICY: Dictionary definition of a threat.

TAPPER: Yes, and President Trump. Who is specifically being threatened here, and how do you interpret their comments when it comes to how they assess war coverage? CORN-REVERE: Well, this is a generalized threat against any broadcasters. Anyone who happens to displease the president or the current chairman of the FCC can be subject to this generalized threat, but it really is, in terms of a law, an empty threat because the -- neither the president nor the chairman of the FCC has the authority, statutory or under the Constitution, to take away someone's broadcast license because he doesn't like their news coverage.

TAPPER: So, how much power does the FCC actually have when it comes to shaping news coverage? Because we did see last year he said something about a Jimmy Kimmel joke he didn't like and how so local affiliates should rebel. And those local affiliates, many of whom wanted his approval on something else that was a lucrative and separate matter acted accordingly. Disney buckled and it was only because the American people stood up and started canceling their Disney and Hulu subscriptions, that that was -- that course was reversed,

CORN-REVERE: Right. With these classic examples of what's called government jawboning, where you have a government official making a threat, whether or not it's beyond his actual authority to try and bully a regulated medium into submission. As you mentioned, the Jimmy Kimmel example blew up in Brendan Carr's face because the market responded, people responded and canceled their Disney Plus subscriptions, and Kimmel was back on the air with higher ratings than he had ever had. So, yes, government officials can make threats, but what they can actually achieve in the marketplace is limited.

TAPPER: Well, you say that, but President Trump on Saturday posted something on Truth Social. It was a graphic that we sent to you earlier so you could take a look at it about how he is reshaping the media and it listed things, such as ousted or fired correspondents or anchors, defunding PBS and NPR, CNN getting new ownership, et cetera. So, he is taking credit for the media changing.

CORN-REVERE: He is taking credit for a lot and he has been waiving a multi-front war against the media, whether it's through private lawsuits or through using the FCC as an extension of the office of president to issue threats, and it has had an effect. But as a matter of law, if any attempts were made to actually enforce these threats, they would be quickly overturned in court.

TAPPER: So, it's more a question of oligarchs buckling because they want his approval for something else?

CORN-REVERE: Yes, a spine is a terrible thing to waste.

TAPPER: Robert Corn-Revere, thank you so much.

A federal judge has just blocked RFK Jr.'s attempts to reshape childhood vaccine policy. So, what does this mean for families across the United States? I'm going to ask a top vaccine expert next.

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[18:20:00] TAPPER: We have some breaking news for you in our Health Lead. A federal judge has just blocked Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr.'s efforts to cut the number of recommended vaccines for children. That judge ruled that the CDC did not follow proper legal channels when it made significant changes to the vaccine schedule in January. HHS says in a statement that it looks forward to the judge's decision being overturned.

Let's bring in Dr. Paul Offit. He's director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and a former member of the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee. Dr. Offit, sir, are you surprised by the ruling and what are you hearing from your peers in the medical community?

DR. PAUL OFFIT, DIRECTOR, VACCINE EDUCATION CENTER, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: I'm not surprised. It certainly was the right thing to do. I mean, finally, someone in power, in this case, the courts, stood up for children, stood up for children in what has been RFK Jr.'s war against vaccines, which has caused us to have a measles outbreak last year that was bigger than anything we've had in more than 30 years.

[18:25:01]

We had children dying of whooping cough in states that hadn't seen deaths from whooping cough in years. We had 290 children die of flu last year, and another 90 this year. RFK Jr. has been very successful at convincing people not to be vaccinated, and now, finally, the court stood up against that.

TAPPER: The judge wrote that the members of the medical associations that sued the government were harmed by the changes because they would have to spend extra time counseling patients about changes to vaccine recommendations. So, what's your reaction to this ruling beyond supporting it? How will it impact the medical associations and the physicians who are members of them?

OFFIT: Well, the good news is that most people in the medical world, the scientific and medical community, have been ignoring the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices and ignoring the CDC D'S recommendations because they're not science-based.

They're basically based on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s anti-vaccine stance, and he took the advisory committee for immunization practice, which was full of experts back in June of 2025, fired them all and then replaced them with people like him who have an anti-vaccine, anti-science bias, so we've been getting a lot of bad advice that fortunately most people have been ignoring, and just looking at the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommended childhood schedule, which is science-based, unlike the one that Health and Human Services put out in January.

TAPPER: The judge also ruled that it was a violation of federal law when Secretary Kennedy fired all 17 members of the CDC'S Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with his handpicked members. The judge wrote, ACIP, as currently constituted the advisory committee, cannot meet for how can a committee meet without nearly the entirety of its membership. But what did you make of that statement?

OFFIT: Right. So, now what -- essentially what that means is the ACIP doesn't exist. Now, it may be that they were supposed to meet tomorrow on Thursday, and the CDC may provide them with space to meet and they can talk about whatever they want to talk about, but they are not an official committee anymore.

The question is what happens now. I'm sure Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to appeal this. I'm sure he is going to fight this. But for the moment anyway, this is very good news for children in this country who finally have the courts standing up for them.

TAPPER: You talked earlier about the harm that you think RFK Jr. is causing. What specifically is the harm in terms of people getting flu and not getting flu shots, people getting measles, people getting whooping cough, et cetera, et cetera? It's not as if he is individually telling people not to get shots but obviously you have an understanding of this more than I do. What specifically is the harm?

OFFIT: So, what he did, for example, with his current schedule is he had several vaccines, the rotavirus vaccine, the SARS-Cov2 or COVID vaccine and the flu vaccine, so, basically, they're options, so-called shared clinical decision-making, but they shouldn't be optional. They should be recommended. So, that scared people.

I think the casual observer, the casual parent would look at this and think, well, there's been a change made by the Health and Human Services, there must be something new regarding the vaccine or new regarding the disease, and that wasn't true at all. The only thing that was new was we now had a Secretary of Health and Human Services who had an anti-vaccine bias and basically was going to do everything he could to try and scare people away from vaccines. That (INAUDIBLE) is what was new.

TAPPER: Dr. Paul Offit, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Family members say in Afghan man who served alongside U.S. Special Forces die hours after being taken into ice custody in Texas. What we're learning about this incident, next.

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TAPPER: In our National Lead, an Afghan man who served alongside U.S. Special Forces died after spending less than a day in federal immigration custody. ICE arrested Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal from his Dallas area apartment last Friday in what the Department of Homeland Security called a targeted enforcement action. DHS says ICE took Mr. Paktyawal to the hospital that evening after he complained of shortness of breath and chest pains. He died the next morning.

His family says that the 41-year-old father of six had no known health conditions. He'd been seeking asylum since he arrived in the U.S. in August, 2021.

Rahmanullah Zazy knew Mr. Paktyawal and his family. He's also a leader in the Dallas area Afghan community. Rahmanullah, first, I am so sorry for your loss. How are you in this tight-knit community of Afghans in Dallas, how are you processing this horrible tragedy?

RAHMANULLAH ZAZY, FIREND OF MOHOMMAD NAZEER PAKTYAWAL: Thank you so much for having me here. It was breaking heart incident that the Afghan community heard that in Richardson, Texas. Thank you to having me here.

TAPPER: So, ICE says that the morning your friend Mohommad died, medical staff saw that his tongue was swollen and that prompted a medical response. They also said he did not report any prior medical history. There's now an investigation into his death. What do you and his family want to know?

ZAZY: We want all investigation, the Afghan community, they want the investigation. When we went to the hospital, they did not give it to us and they said they will send the body for the investigation from Parkland Hospital to Dallas, Texas, to different investigation center. And after that, we will be able to get the investigations report from them.

TAPPER: The Department of Homeland Security says the Mohommad did not provide them with a record of his military service. They say he'd been arrested twice in the U.S., once for fraud, having to do with food stamps, another time for theft, and that his parole to be in the U.S. expired in August 2025. We should note even though he was arrested, he was never charged with any crimes.

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Did Mohommad ever talk with you about the fact that his parole expired? Because I guess the question is, did the Trump administration really expect him and his family to fly back to Afghanistan after he had served with the U.S. fighting the Taliban and had spent years in the U.S., did they really think he was going to willingly fly back to Afghanistan with the Taliban in control?

ZAZY: Not really. He did not say anything that he was arrested by any police departments in the United States of America. And I asked from his family, wife and brother, they said he never got arrested for food stamp or anything else. But the family and himself never thought that they'll send him back to Afghanistan.

TAPPER: What do you want people to know about your friend? I know he had six kids. What else would you like people to know about him?

ZAZY: He was a great guy. He served for this country. He came to United States. The United States Army brought him from Afghanistan when the evacuation happened in Afghanistan to United States. And himself, his wife and his young kids, they would think they will have a bright life in United States of America and they will be safe in United States of America.

TAPPER: Rahmanullah Zazy, thank you so much. May Mohommad's memory be a blessing. It's just such a horrible and sad story.

Vice President J.D. Vance is walking a fine line with his comments about the war in Iran, but could his decision today to be a loyal soldier affect his hopes to be president in 2028? That's next.

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TAPPER: In our Politics Lead, Vice President J.D. Vance making his most forceful public comments in support of the war with Iran a short while ago after largely remaining silent about the conflict.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Iran should not have a nuclear weapon. We have taken this military action under the president's leadership. I think all of us, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, should pray for success and pray for the safety of our troops. That's the approach that I've taken, make it as successful as possible.

Well, I think one big difference, Phil, is that we have a smart president, whereas in the past we've had dumb presidents, and I trust President Trump to get the job done, to do a good job for the American people, and to make sure that the mistakes of the past aren't repeated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Those comments coming as CNN has learned Vance initially counseled the president against the U.S. getting involved in yet another Middle East war.

Let's discuss with the panel. Marc, what do you make of these comments from Vice President Vance?

MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO V.P. MIKE PENCE: Well, look, I think we all know that it's important for the vice president not to have distance from the president creates a whole another series of stories. But we know that J.D. was elevated through the kind of the ascendant isolationist wing in the party and that being championed by Tucker and it's kind of not a comfortable position or else he would've been out supporting this before now as opposed to others within the administration. But, you know, I'm glad he made his comments today.

TAPPER: But I guess one of the questions I have is how much will that wing, whatever you want to call them, isolationist, Tucker Carlson, whatever, how much will they resent him for this or not at all?

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think so far Vance can survive breaking with -- I mean, first of all, we've now seen with a lot of polling that the Steve Bannon, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson crowd who were really anti -- Marjorie Taylor Greene crowd were very much against this war. They don't actually have a lot of support among Republicans right now. So, they're kind of basically the infotainment wing.

What I just really detest is this, and Vance has done this a bunch of times, that what Trump is doing is fine, because Trump is smart, unlike all the previous dumb presidents stuff. First of all, it's disrespectful to previous presidents, but, second of all, it's a cowardly position, because basically what it is, what he does this when he can't articulate a coherent explanation for his changing position or for what the policies of the presidents are, he just basically says, put your faith in this prince and lay back and don't complain.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Well, he is also -- he is just -- he is stroking Trump's ego. I mean, he is essentially doing what he has to do to get by in the moment. He's the vice president. It's your job to be dutifully behind the president, making arguments for the president's policy decisions. So, he looks at this moment, he looks at 2028, he looks at his own history and his own -- presumably his own objection to it to the action, and he says, okay, the way to get through this moment is to stand next to Donald Trump in the Oval Office and call him smart.

TAPPER: But you know what this --

BEDINGFIELD: And then you move on to the next day.

TAPPER: This is not a perfect comparison, but it reminds me of your former boss, right, who went along with the surge of troops in Afghanistan as vice president and he became obsessed with telling the world that he had later, after he was vice president, that he had disagreed with Obama on that.

BEDINGFIELD: And he played the role of vice president in that moment. He made the private policy argument against. He ultimately stood behind the president when he made a decision. And then when he was offered --

TAPPER: But it becomes a thing.

BEDINGFIELD: But when you're off running for president yourself, then you have the freedom to articulate your choices, and I suspect that's what we're going to see Vance do.

TAPPER: Yes. Marc, a Trump PAC put out this fundraising email using a photo of Trump taken at a dignified transfer of U.S. service members killed during the war with Iran. The email also promises donors a national security briefing membership. The president was asked whether the email was appropriate, and he responded by saying he didn't see it, and then he lashed out at the reporter. What do you -- I have never seen in ever, ever a fundraising email with a president featured at a dignified transfer of fallen troops.

[18:45:06]

SHORT: Me neither, Jake. And my -- my assumption is he didn't see it. I think there's so much that goes out right now under the Trump banner that I'm sure he doesn't see it. But there's also an enormous amount of grift, that's going on in that world. And they should -- they should call for her to be taken down.

TAPPER: Yeah. Your former communications director at the White House. What did you think?

BEDINGFIELD: Yeah, of course, it's appalling. It's appalling. And Trump I -- Trump actually should have -- if he -- if he truly didn't see it, he should have been clear. He should have said in that moment, I didn't see it. And of course, that's inappropriate and it should come down.

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It was just worth remembering. He sets the tone for a lot of this stuff. There was a thing with depicting the Obamas as monkeys, right? I'm sure he didn't, like, consciously think about it, but you said a tone where people think they have license to go to the edge and go to the fringe, and a lot of media. And so, it's not shocking that people are following the lead.

TAPPER: And, Jonah, the president repeated this bizarre false claim that's been debunked a billion times about him having --

GOLDBERG: More specific.

TAPPER: About --

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: About the fact that he predicted that Osama bin Laden would attack the World Trade Center a year before it happened. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I knew about the straight that it would be a weapon, which I predicted a long time ago predicted all of this stuff. You guys were very generous in that. I predicted all of it.

I predicted Osama bin Laden would knock out the World Trade Center. I said that's a bad guy. You better get him. One year before exactly. I wrote it in a book. You can even check about a year before the World Trade Center came down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So, we did check. I mean the book exists. Like it can be read. There is a mention of Osama bin Laden. I mean who, you know by 2000, when the book came out, was, you know public enemy number one for the United States because of 1998 and 2000 strike against the USS Cole. He never says anything about bin Laden's going to strike the World Trade Center.

At this point, does he believe it? Like, what do you --

GOLDBERG: It's not to go all Strauss in here, but it's implied. It's in the significant silences of the text. No, look, he does this -- TAPPER: Just read between the lines.

GOLDBERG: That's right. He does this kind of thing all the time. There's a great philosopher who wrote a book called "On B.S." but spelled out. And the difference? A lot of politicians lie, but the difference between lying and BS-ing is that liars actually care what the actual truth is, and they're trying to distract you from it. B.S.ers will say anything true, false, a mixture of the two to get you through the moment.

What do I have to say to put you in this condo today? And you combine that with Trump's ego, and he makes up stuff all the time, and it sticks in his memory. Just today, there's another clip. Maybe we can talk about it later this week where he explained that he can take Cuba, whether he wants, no matter what.

And it -- and the nice thing about taking Cuba is it has -- it's not in the hurricane zone and has no hurricanes. So that we --

TAPPER: What?

GOLDBERG: Yeah. And it's just this amazing thing. You're like, I had to look it up. They've had 37 hurricanes since the year 2000.

TAPPER: Now they get destroyed all the time by hurricanes.

GOLDBERG: Yeah. So --

BEDINGFIELD: Can I just -- it's also perfectly illustrated by the way in that clip, you have Speaker Johnson sitting there just having to watch Trump spew this lie, sort of looking down, not making eye contact to me, just watching that clip. That was the perfect image for the co-option of the Republican Party under Donald Trump.

TAPPER: So here's the thing, Marc, okay, he could say in a book that came out a year before 9/11, I pointed out that bin Laden was a danger. Now that's not -- you know, he didn't, like introduce that subject to the world. Like, again he was public enemy number one because of the, you know, Tanzania and Nairobi bombings and the USS Cole.

But he could say that and that would be accurate. But no he has to say I predicted he would attack the World Trade Center. You worked in his White --

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: Like why? Why?

SHORT: Look, the president has an innate ability to sort of recreate events of the past and sell them to the American people. I mean, obviously before nine elevenths, he was pretty influential person. If he really knew that Osama bin Laden was going to attack the World Trade Center, he could have -- he could have presumably helped elevate that to a bigger security threat level. TAPPER: One of the reasons he said this is because he was defending

the fact that the Strait of Hormuz was going to be used as a weapon. Obviously, he knew it. He predicted it just like he predicted bin Laden attacking the World Trade Center.

It -- if that's true, then he didn't predict the Strait of Hormuz being used as a weapon but beyond that, there's the question if you did know about this and if you planned accordingly, how come we can't get any allies to help us with the Strait of Hormuz?

GOLDBERG: Yeah, I mean, so part of the problem is I think Pete Hegseth has sort of said similar, sort of similar slips. They, of course, were briefed that the Strait of Hormuz might be closed. They were, of course, briefed that Iran said outright that they were going to attack their Arab neighbors if they did this. It was all out there. They just didn't think it would happen and so they didn't adjust the plans for it.

And now, they're asking, you know, like a week ago, Trump said to the Brits, we don't need your help. We don't need allies who only come to help after we've won the war. And now, he's going to them saying, can you help out? It's sort of like the domestic equivalent of going not going to Congress and getting buy in.

[18:50:00]

It's really difficult to get people to buy into something that looks like it's going to be a bad idea after you've already taken action. If you get into it beforehand, then you have investment in it.

TAPPER: All right. Thanks to all of you appreciate it. Today, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles announced that she's been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer.

We're going to talk about what she's saying about her treatment and her prognosis. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our health lead, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer, according to a Truth Social post from President Trump. The president says Wiles will begin treatment immediately, but she will continue working at the White House.

In a statement, Wiles says she has a, quote, "strong prognosis" and that, quote, "nearly one in eight women in the United States will face this diagnosis.

[18:55:03]

Every day, these women continue to raise their families go to work and serve their communities with strength and determination. I now join their ranks", unquote.

Our thoughts go to Susie and her family. We are rooting for her. We are praying for her and we wish you a speedy recovery.

Also in our health lead, popular children's asthma medication Flovent was discontinued after Congress passed a law to penalize drug price increases. Many families then struggle to find an affordable substitute, causing kids to have worsening symptoms and increased hospital visits.

One senator sat down with CNN's Meg Tirrell for an exclusive interview to talk about the results of an investigation into why a lifesaving asthma drug was drug, was pulled from the market, and the consequences for patients, many of them children.

(EBGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A company made a decision to pull a well-known medication that helps children, little children like James Breeze (ph) to avoid paying a financial penalty. I wish I could hear it was a mistake.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So, we've come to Pennsylvania to meet with Jackie Vakil (ph). She is a mom of James who has asthma and drug he relied on to control. It was suddenly pulled from the market.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was like, okay, well, what's the substitute? Do we have something else? It was close to $200. And they said, your insurance does not cover it.

TIRRELL (voice-over): Over the next two months, Jackie and her doctor went back and forth with insurance, trying to find a drug that was covered and that would work for James.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was after the urgent care visit.

TIRRELL: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At this point, I was I was getting frustrated and upset because now that cough was coming back at night and he ended up getting another respiratory infection.

TIRRELL: Jackie and James are one of thousands of families who went through this in early 2024, when the drug company GSK discontinued one of the most commonly used asthma medications for kids called Flovent.

It was an unintended consequence of a law meant to penalize outsized price increases on medicines.

SEN. MAGGIE HASSAN (D-NH): What we said is if you increase your drug price more than the rate of inflation, you've got to pay the difference back to the American taxpayer.

TIRRELL (voice-over): That difference would be paid in the form of rebates to Medicaid, which were set to go higher in 2024 and meant that some companies could have to sell drugs to Medicaid at a loss.

TIRRELL: So, we came to meet with Senator Maggie Hassan, whose office led an investigation into what GSK did, and she's sharing the results exclusively with CNN.

HASSAN: Other drug companies responded as we anticipated they would. They would lower the cost of their drugs, for instance, drugs like insulin. GSK was the only company to decide to take a lifesaving medication off the shelves with almost no notice. Make a special deal with another manufacturer so that they could continue to charge what they wanted to for a copycat drug, and disrupt the care and really harm the health of children all around the country.

TIRRELL (voice-over): The investigative report says GSK could have had to pay an estimated $367 million in rebates to Medicaid in 2024, as a result of its price increases on Flovent. Instead, Medicaid paid more than $550 million that year for the replacement version which wasn't subject to the same financial penalties.

While GSK notified the FDA and others of the coming change by mid- 2023, it still caused disruptions. The investigation revealed that use of inhaled corticosteroids, the kind of drug Flovent, is, went down by nearly 20 percent after the GSK discontinuation. Hospitalizations related to asthma went up.

TIRRELL: In your report, you warned that other companies, unless Congress acts, could do the same thing. What's your plan?

HASSAN: Well, we are working in a bipartisan way to close this loophole. If we don't make sure that pharmaceutical companies can't do this kind of maneuver, even though the maneuver is wrong, even though it really hurts people, that alone won't necessarily stop big pharma from gaming the system in this way.

TIRRELL (voice-over): GSK told CNN that it has always been and will continue to be strongly committed to ensuring patients, especially children, have access to the medicines they need, including to our wide portfolio of treatments for respiratory disease. It said it would continue to engage with Senator Hassan and her staff.

Prasco, GSK's partner on the replacement drug, didn't respond to a request for comment. Jackie finally did find an affordable inhaler that works well for James, but she wishes they and others hadn't had to look for one at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where was the consideration for the children in this decision making? Is money worth more than these kids that rely on the medication? And that's a hard thing to think about for me as a parent.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: And our thanks to Meg Tirrell for that report. You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, X and on the TikTok @jaketapper. You can follow the show on X and Instagram @TheLeadCNN.

If you ever miss an episode of THE LEAD, you can watch the whole show on the CNN app. Have you downloaded the CNN app? You really should.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts now. Take it away, Erin.