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FDA Changes on Autism Treatment; Marc Short is Interviewed about the Iran War; Teen Charged in NYC Bomb Plot. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired March 10, 2026 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: New country. Do you -- do we know which is it?

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes. Right.

SIDNER: I mean, what is the objective here?

SANNER: Well, I think General Kimmitt laid it out pretty clearly for us in understanding that the theory of victory can be defined in many different ways. And I think that what we're seeing right now is actually deliberate ambiguity about what this theory of victory is and this success, because it allows them then, as Hegseth said, to declare whatever -- you know, when they see the end, it's the end.

So, in terms of the military options, you know, we are getting close to checking off this more narrow checklist. But this beginning of the -- a new regime is like, well, that is the definition of nation building. But I think we also have to take the context in which he said that, which was, in response to a question about Hegseth putting out a tweet saying this is the beginning.

So, I think he was just kind of reacting to that because, in fact, we've unleashed forces that we do not control. And so, when General Kimmitt said, it's up to the Iranians to decide, like, really the end of this, that may not be where we decide to end. You know, if that's regime change, that's regime collapse first. But maybe we'll just check off the box and say, not a threat.

SIDNER: It's interesting to point it out.

Brigadier General, I do want to ask you about what you see going forward here and if this is possible to just be military action to, quote/unquote, win this war, or does there absolutely have to be some sort of political action, some sort of negotiation here in the end?

BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Well, I certainly hope at the end there will be political negotiations that are compelled by the military operations. We went into this war to end their nuclear program, to end their ballistic missile program, and to end their proxy program. We can conduct military operations till the cows come home. But until the Iranians give up those programs, they're going to continue, albeit at much lower scale. Unconditional surrender will not solve that.

SIDNER: Beth, when it comes to what we're seeing with this new supreme leader, he is the son of Ali Khamenei. He is known to be even more hard line. And we heard Hegseth mention him. He was actually asked about him. And he kind of mentioned him and says, well, look, what he cannot do is say that he's going to continue the nuclear program. And that's kind of where he left it. Did that surprise you? That seems like something that --

SANNER: Yes and no. I think that --

SIDNER: Not a big (INAUDIBLE).

SANNER: I think no for me, in a way, because I think that this administration, they've already threatened to, you know, people need to be careful not --

SIDNER: Right.

SANNER: Right. But the Israelis have been very explicit, that they are going to take out whatever is the remnants because they're much more clearly supporting regime collapse. And so, you know, there's this whole thing about international law and there's the U.S. executive order that was issued under Ronald Reagan, which says that we are not supposed to be assassinating or killing or bombing foreign leaders to death.

So, you know, I think that they're maybe playing it a little bit more carefully just because they can. And maybe they're holding out this hope for a negotiation. But I think, as you said, the idea that Mujtaba, who is a hardliner, who is associated with this younger and more ideological and hard line wing of the IRGC, the idea that these people are going to capitulate. Mujtaba lost his entire family.

SIDNER: Right.

SANNER: That is not going to happen.

SIDNER: Yes. They also have a lot to lose. There's like 250,000 of them. And they're involved with all sorts of things. It's not just militarily.

SANNER: Yes.

SIDNER: They're involved with the economy. They're running businesses. So, it's complicated.

SANNER: It's their lives and their livelihoods.

SIDNER: Yes. Yes.

It's great to have you, Beth. Thank you for being here. And also to you, Mark, really do appreciate your insight here.

John. JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, new this morning, the FDA is no

longer touting a high dose b vitamin as a potential treatment for autism. Last fall, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. claimed the drug could be a therapy for thousands of children with the condition.

Let's get right to CNN medical correspondent Meg Tirrell.

Walk us through what's going on here.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So remember that big press conference back in September? This is the one where President Trump and his health officials linked Tylenol use during pregnancy to autism, which is a link that many scientists dispute. But at that same press conference, they talked about this drug called leucovorin, which is already approved to sort of counteract some of the side effects of chemotherapy. They talked about broadening its approval into a condition known as cerebral folate deficiency, which can be overlapping with some symptoms of autism. And take a listen to how Trump's health officials talked about this drug at the time.

[09:35:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Our research has revealed that folate deficiency in a child's brain can lead to autism. We have also identified an exciting therapy that may benefit large numbers of children who suffer from autism.

MARTY MAKARY, FDA COMMISSIONER: We are going to change the label to make it available. Hundreds of thousands of kids, in my opinion, will benefit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TIRRELL: So, now we are getting that approval from the FDA. And it is indeed for this condition known as cerebral folate deficiency. But it's in people who have this confirmed gene variant, which turns out to be incredibly rare. Estimates suggest fewer than one in a million people are affected by this, or at least have been identified to be affected by this. There have been fewer than 50 documented cases of this genetic form of this condition. And so, when you're talking about this as potentially hundreds of thousands of kids with autism, now when we're seeing this approval, its potentially significantly fewer than that.

BERMAN: Like dozens? It's literally dozens?

TIRRELL: That have been identified. They think it might be underrecognized and underreported. But hundreds of thousands, questionable.

An FDA official, a senior FDA official, saying yesterday, quote, "right now we don't have sufficient data to say that we can establish efficacy for autism more broadly. So, a lot of families who are hoping for this may be disappointed this morning seeing this news.

BERMAN: So -- but since that press conference, and this is one of the effects of saying things publicly like this by officials like that, have a lot more people been trying to use this?

TIRRELL: Yes. So already there was interest in this drug, but we saw prescriptions for leucovorin skyrocket after that. September 22nd press conference.

BERMAN: That's right there.

TIRRELL: That's the blue line at the top, leucovorin. So, you can see, according to the study that just came out a few days ago, published in "The Lancet," they went up 71 percent over the next few months following that press conference. This drug has been hard for families to get. The FDA has even greenlighted importing it from Canada. Of course, it is used for other things as well. And so, you know, folks say there weren't enough data to support it in autism and it's good they're not approving it for that, but families will probably be very disappointed.

BERMAN: That's something of a shift from way back then in September.

OK, thank you very much. Meg Tirrell, appreciate it.

TIRRELL: Thanks.

BERMAN: Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thanks, guys.

Coming up for us, two teenagers are charged in an ISIS-inspired terror plot in New York. Why police say they say they wanted to attack -- their attack to be bigger than the Boston Marathon bombing.

And there are new details also this morning about the Georgia teacher who was killed after a prank that went horribly wrong.

We'll be right back.

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[09:42:02]

BOLDUAN: The CEO of the world's top oil exporter is warning of a, quote, catastrophic consequences for global markets if the fighting in Iran continues. The critical Strait of Hormuz, where roughly 20 percent of the world's oil would normally pass through daily, has been effectively shut down and oil prices have been reacting, spiking to -- spiking over the last week. But even just in the last 24 hours, really, to over $100 a barrel. But they have fallen sharply, as you see where they are right now, after President Trump said yesterday in a couple of interviews that he said the war with Iran would be over very soon.

I spoke with Amos Hochstein, he's a former senior advisor to President Obama on national security and economic security issues, kind of about all of this last hour. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMOS HOCHSTEIN, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: And so the president yesterday got so nervous about, and I know a thing or two about presidents yelling at people getting nervous about gas prices, but he got nervous. So, he called a couple of reporters and told them, the war is almost over, and immediately that was a market manipulation call.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me right now is Marc Short, former chief of staff to then Vice President Mike Pence. Someone who's never been yelled at by a principal.

MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: That's not true.

BOLDUAN: Fact check. Not true.

The president, his take on -- the president started, at the beginning of this war, said that short term price increases, we can sustain this. It's for a longer term goal of taking out the threat of Iran. And then oil prices went bananas over the last 24 hours and as -- what Amos was getting to.

Are you -- it seems -- there is no clear approach or strategy on how to deal with could have -- what should have been predicted, which is energy prices were going to be impacted by a war. Are you surprised the White House maybe doesn't seem like they were more prepared for that?

SHORT: Well, Kate, look, I think the White House moved because they had intelligence about all the Iranian officials being together in one spot. But I think that the president's actions really could be transformational in the Middle East. I think Iran has been obviously the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism for 47 years. So, I support his actions here.

BOLDUAN: Totally.

SHORT: But I think that there is going to be a huge economic consequence. And it's not just the reality that if oil stays where it is this morning at $90 a barrel, that's still roughly a 50 percent increase of where it was at $60 a barrel before this. And as you head into the midterms, affordability is the number one issue. And so this is going -- the energy spike is going to push across all other products, inflation.

And I think one area that we really aren't talking about as much as we should be is the reality of what the impact is on fertilizer costs for our farmers. Farmers are already the ones that are hurting the most from this trade agenda. And now all of a sudden fertilizer costs are going to go exponentially higher too, because one of the largest exporters of fertilizer comes from the Middle East. So, there's going to be significant additional price pains for voters heading into the midterm elections.

BOLDUAN: Yes, you -- gas prices. But diesel prices and fertilizer, fuel -- jet fuel prices.

SHORT: Yes.

BOLDUAN: I mean, all of this impact.

[09:45:00]

But do -- if -- the president says it's not going to be a long war. But do you see just the lingering effects of this war really feeding into what is, I think you would agree, the focus in the midterms of the affordability crisis?

SHORT: For sure. I think -- I think if this war concludes, which we pray it does quickly, that there will again return to the affordability issue.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

SHORT: It's the number one issue for voters. And I, again, I think this -- you continue to look at Qatar saying we're going to get to $150 a barrel. Qatar staying basically all their production's offline. Bahrain, offline. The notion that I think the president did a great job of lowering prices overnight with his rhetoric. But the simple supply and demand is going to come back in (INAUDIBLE).

BOLDUAN: I was going to -- but I was actually going to say, like how short is the memory, right?

SHORT: Yes, the --

BOLDUAN: You've worked in a White House. So, like, how short is the memory of gas prices were really low and you were still dealing with an affordability crisis when gas prices were low.

SHORT: Right.

BOLDUAN: And now what people could be looking at.

SHORT: It's going to -- it's going to make it exponentially more difficult for a lot of voters heading into midterms.

BOLDUAN: At the same time, d's and r's agree Iran is bad, that Iran's funding of proxies has been -- has been across the globe an issue. They do not -- d's and r's agree that a nuclear armed Iran is not an acceptable thing.

But then you also -- that -- but the agreement on where this ends and how this ends in an acceptable way, I'm -- again, I'm saying this in more of a political sense. Do you see politically an off ramp that could get applause from both sides of the aisle here?

SHORT: I think there should be. I think, frankly, we live in too partizan a moment. I can understand the criticism the Democrats are giving to say, there needs to be -- there's been mixed messages. And I think that the White House would probably benefit from having fewer spokesmen on this, frankly. The president's going to be his own spokesman and --

BOLDUAN: No matter what he is, you're right. Yes.

SHORT: And so there's different news stories every day of how Hegseth and Trump contradicted each other.

But, at the end of the day, I don't think that I would appreciate Democrats, look, I'd say, you know what, if we actually are successful here, this could be transformational for the Middle East. But I think we're caught in such, such a partisan moment that there's unwillingness to allow that to play out.

BOLDUAN: Yes. We're definitely in a moment. Let's see where it goes together.

It's good to see you.

SHORT: Thanks, Kate. Thanks for having me.

BOLDUAN: Thanks for coming in.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, straight ahead, Live Nation and Ticketmaster. What happened between the two of them? And is there a deal with the Justice Department? How that might affect ticket prices.

That story and more ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:51:52]

SIDNER: A Georgia high school teacher is dead after a prank gone terribly wrong. It happened Saturday night when a group of students were toilet papering the teacher, Jason Hughes' home. As the teens drove away, Hughes came outside. He tripped and fell and ended up being run over. Investigators say the teens tried to help, but Hughes later died. The driver, 18-year-old Jayden Wallace, is facing a vehicular homicide charge now. Hughes' widow tells our CNN affiliate, WSB, she -- her husband knew and loved those five students involved and urged authorities to please drop all the charges against them.

All right, the Department of Justice has reached a tentative settlement with Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, over allegations the company had an unfair monopoly over concerts and other events. Terms of the agreement must be approved by a federal judge. But under the deal, Live Nation will sell 13 amphitheaters and allow venues to use competitors, like StubHub and SeatGeek to sell tickets. And while the DOJ says this will lower prices, the company itself is not going to be broken up. Twenty-six states that signed on to the litigation are still suing, calling the deal that was made too weak. All right, we now know the route the Indy car drivers will take as

they race through the streets of D.C. to celebrate the nation's 250th birthday. On Monday, officials unveiled the track for Freedom 250 Grand Prix, which will happen in August. The nearly two-mile route will travel all around the National Mall, right past Washington's most iconic landmarks. The Freedom 250 Grand Prix is one of several events planned to celebrate America's big birthday this summer.

John.

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, court documents reveal one of the Pennsylvania teenagers charged with attempting to detonate homemade explosives at a protest near the residence of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, one of these teenagers says he wanted to exceed the death toll of the Boston Marathon bombing.

CNN's Gloria Pazmino is here with the latest reporting on this.

What are you learning?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, two suspects arrested shortly after that protest on Saturday, John. And they are facing five federal counts, including one of providing material support to a terrorist organization and another of using a weapon of mass destruction.

We should make it very clear that police have said that had these devices actually gone off when they were launched into the crowd, they could have caused serious, potentially deadly damage. And police officials said that really the fact that they did not go off means that, you know, people's lives were spared. No one was injured as a result of this incident.

And police officials confirming yesterday that this is being investigated as an act of terrorism. They also told me yesterday that they believe the two men specifically traveled to Pennsylvania to target this demonstration that was happening outside the mayor's home. We're also learning overnight, John, that law enforcement in Pennsylvania carried out a search warrant at a storage facility not far from the suspect's home. We are still waiting to hear what was found inside that storage facility.

[09:55:01]

You're seeing law enforcement vehicles there outside that location late last night.

I spoke to one of the suspect's attorneys last night. He told me that he does not believe the two men were known to each other prior to this incident. They are both in custody, have been remanded without bail. And we've also heard from the mayor, Zohran Mamdani, condemning this incident, saying that they should be held fully accountable for their actions.

BERMAN: I got to say, this could have been so much worse given those devices that were found there.

PAZMINO: Yes.

BERMAN: And maybe the alleged intentions of these two teenagers.

Gloria Pazmino, thank you very much for that reporting.

BOLDUAN: Yes, so scary.

Thank you all so much for joining us. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "THE SITUATION ROOM," up next.

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[10:00:09]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now