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TSA Callouts Double Nationwide as Officers Miss Full Paychecks; Trump: NATO Faces Very Bad Future if It Doesn't Help Secure Strait of Hormuz; Michigan Terror Suspect's Brother was Hezbollah Commander; Sprawling Storm Sparks Thunderstorms, Tornado Warnings and Blizzards. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired March 16, 2026 - 08:00   ET

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

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MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: After the first full paycheck is missed, that's when people start quitting. You can't blame them.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, you can't. Truly, you can't. And now major U.S. airlines are calling out Congress as well, essentially saying, do your job. Part of the letter that was an open letter that's just put out today from the likes of the CEOs, American, Delta, United, Southwest, JetBlue and more, put it this way.

"Yet once again, air travel is the political football amid another government shutdown. Also adding TSA workers just received zero dollar paychecks. That is simply unacceptable. It's difficult, if not impossible, to put food on the table, put gas in the car and pay rent when you're not getting paid."

What's your message to Democrats and Republicans in Congress other than just that, which is do your job, because I fear how bad it has to get in order for Congress to feel the real pressure to figure out a way through this.

SCHIAVO: Well, my message to Congress is you don't remember why we have the TSA and why they have to be paid and why it's completely irresponsible to use them as the political football. Call 911 and check yourself into the hospital because you have total amnesia. This is absolutely absurd.

And we do this time and time again. And unlike, you know, when air traffic control was under the shutdown or they went to work, they didn't get paid. And the secretary was right.

I mean, they make their higher paid federal employees. They have more of a safety net. The TSA agents are not.

Of course, they're better paid, better trained and have background checks, unlike before September 11th. But that's precisely why we have them. And for Congress to just use them as a political football, especially now when it's all over the news that the sleeper cells have been activated.

This is why we have the TSA paid. BOLDUAN: Mary, thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming in

for that gut check this morning.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, the president threatening NATO of a very bad future if it doesn't help secure the Strait of Hormuz. Is any country answering his call as gas prices surge and strikes continue in the Middle East.

Overnight more extreme weather slamming much of the U.S. Spawning tornadoes and whiteout conditions. We're tracking where the multi-day storm is heading next.

Ladies and gents, you want to win your March Madness brackets, impress your friends, make some extra dough. We're taking Andy Scholes' advice and giving you the inside scoop to the best picks.

I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Bolduan and John Berman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The breaking news this morning, key U.S. allies responding after President Trump said NATO would face a very bad future if allies do not help the U.S. secure the critical Strait of Hormuz and guide ships perhaps out of that region where almost nothing has been passing for weeks.

Now, a government spokesperson for Germany saying today, the German foreign minister, in fact, that this war is not about NATO, cannot assume that NATO will do anything here. The U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his country would work with allies to reopen the Strait, though would not say when. This was the president's threat overnight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We said we'd like to send our aircraft carriers. I said I don't want them after we win the war, I want them before. So whether it's -- we get support or not, but I can say this and I said it to them, we will remember.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: President also said he may postpone his much-anticipated summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping over all of this. China's foreign ministry sidestepped questions overnight about the call to send ships.

With us now, CNN analyst Barak Ravid from Axios, and David Sanger from The New York Times. Gentlemen, it's an honor to get to speak with both of you. You're both doing such great reporting on this on the forefront of the reporting. Barak, let me just start with you.

The latest that you are hearing, because you were reporting yesterday on this call from President Trump to try to get allies on board with opening the Straits. As we can see this morning, pretty much nothing passing through that 20-mile stretch there. What are you hearing this morning, Barak?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, I think that over the weekend, the Trump administration tried to get as many countries as possible to agree to sign some sort of a political statement calling on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. So that's sort of a preliminary stage to actually sending ships or planes or any other assets to the region to make it happen.

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And I think Trump is mostly talking to the Brits, to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the same person that he said just a few days ago that, you know, he was too late to help us, so I don't need his help. But over the weekend, Trump spoke to Starmer and asked for his help. And I think the Brits are trying to get other Western countries.

It's definitely not going to be under NATO. But I think that inside the EU, there are those who say, can we maybe shift or adjust the current maritime mission that we have in the Red Sea so that it could also be used for the Strait of Hormuz?

BERMAN: Of course. One thing I want to point out is that, and we can come over and look at the wall again here, is that the Iranians this morning are actually threatening the Red Sea anew. You can see here, there's no oil really getting through the Strait of Hormuz.

There has been some shipments in the Red Sea, but now the Iranians threatening that region as well.

David Sanger, you're part of the team of The New York Times who's written just a terrific piece overnight about the difficulty in options that President Trump has right now. I mean, how much pressure is there on him to this week say, you know what, we've done what we can and we're going to walk away?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, John, I think you've heard the President try to lay this out in public a bit, and he's gone back and forth last week between telling some of his audiences, well, should, you know, the job is just about done, we've won already, to we wouldn't want to get out too early. The fact of the matter is the President said going into this that it was probably four to six weeks, and White House officials tell me they still think it's four to six weeks, and we're only two weeks in. This might help explain why the President is thinking about delaying his trip to China, because it would come right in the midst of the next stages.

But his choices are not good. If he leaves now, he's got a clerical government still in place, run by the injured hardline son of the now dead Ayatollah. He's still got the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in charge.

He's diminished greatly the number of missiles and launchers that Iran has, but they still have some, they're still firing. And the nuclear fuel is still sitting largely at Isfahan, untouched. And so one of the big decisions he's got to make is how he and Israel would get that fuel out of the deep underground site, because they're leaving Iran now with an angry government that probably is more interested in getting at that fuel than ever before.

BERMAN: Yes, we've heard nothing right now about the exact plans to take care of that fuel, David, that you and your colleagues at the New York Times are writing about. What we did hear, Barak, is that CENTCOM has authorized a Marine Expeditionary Force of some 2,500 Marines that could soon, very soon, be in this region here. Talk to me about what the options are there, and how likely you think the president is to use those ground forces.

RAVID: So I think, first, the U.S. already has ground forces in the region. I'm not sure that those 2,500 Marines are, you know, the last five cents to the dollar that you need in order to go on a ground operation. They're definitely bringing them in order to have more options.

But I think that President Trump cannot leave this war as long as the situation in the Strait of Hormuz is as it is right now. And also, he's looking for some sort of an achievement or a victory picture that he could use to say, well, you see, we won. One of those options that CENTCOM has been working on for, I think, 15 years, and that the president was presented with for several weeks now, is the takeover or the seizing of the Kharg Island, this island that is a center for Iranian oil exports.

The U.S. bombed this island. The military facilities on this island several days ago did not bomb the oil facilities. And I think that this is one of the options that could be used as a victory picture for Trump to say, OK, we seized Iran's oil exports or the ability to export oil.

But this is a very risky thing to do, because once you throw in ground forces into this war, there'll be many more casualties. And it's an escalation trap. You put some forces in, then you take over the island, then you get bombed from mainland.

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So you say, OK, let's just take the mainland. Then you go to the mainland, and those things can escalate, and you can get bogged down. And very quickly, you can find yourself in a new Iraq war.

BERMAN: Yes, Barak Ravid, David Sanger, the confluence of both your reporting. Very difficult for the administration to end this war until the Strait of Hormuz is open. These next few days, crucial in finding a solution to that.

Barak, David, thank you very much -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: It's great having their perspective this morning.

CNN is learning more about the suspect who attacked a Michigan synagogue last week. Now the IDF says his brother was a Hezbollah commander. Also, more than 250 million Americans are said to experience some type of dangerous weather today, and there is a lot of it. A series of severe storms. We're talking everything from tornadoes to even blizzard conditions in some places. We've got an update on the forecast for you coming up.

And how a simple Starbucks DoorDash order sparked a half-million- dollar campaign to help an elderly driver retire.

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SIDNER: New details this morning about the man who attacked a synagogue in Michigan last week. The FBI says 41-year-old Ayman Ghazali drove a car packed with explosives into Temple Israel outside Detroit in what the agency called a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community. Now, the Israeli military says Ghazali's brother was a Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli airstrike earlier this month.

CNN law enforcement correspondent Whitney Wild joining me now. Ghazali is a naturalized U.S. citizen from Lebanon. Did the U.S. know of his potential connection to Hezbollah?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: That's a question we're continuing to ask. What we know, according to sources who spoke with CNN's John Miller, is that law enforcement did know he had some connections to Hezbollah, although who he was connected to, how deep those connections were, that is a question, as I mentioned, that we're still trying to gather. His brother who was killed and who the IDF says was a Hezbollah commander responsible for managing weapons operations is Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali.

His two children were also killed in that attack. Ayman Ghazali also has another brother, Kassim. The IDF made no mention of him in their statement that came out Sunday.

Those two brothers who were killed are among several family members who were affected by that Israeli airstrike. He had two parents who were injured. He also had two sisters-in-law who were also injured in that Israeli airstrike.

That happened March 5th when the IDF targeted a Hezbollah military building, again, that was used to store weapons. And again, we know that that Hezbollah commander, Ibrahim, was responsible for weapons operations.

We are still learning more about the attacker here. As you mentioned, he was born in Lebanon. He became a U.S. citizen in 2016. He was married to a U.S. citizen, but they divorced in March of 2025. Again, this information is building a clearer picture of who he was and perhaps where his mind might have been the day of this attack. But law enforcement has still been reluctant to detail a specific motive. So that is a question we're continuing to ask, Sara. Meanwhile, we know that this is a community that is looking for any way it can to try to recover. They had services Friday night at an alternate location. They say that their congregation is still thriving.

They're having services at other locations -- Sara.

SIDNER: It's good to hear that they are resilient, but what a hell to be put through. Whitney Wild, thank you so much. I do appreciate your reporting on this -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: So hundreds of TSA workers have now quit their jobs as the government shutdown has pushed them to a breaking point, getting a zero dollar paycheck this weekend. And speaking of breaking points, airport security lines are very much reaching that as well right now.

It's also that time of year again, guys. March Madness tips off this week. Brackets have officially been unveiled. Who's in, who's out of this year's tournament and what are you supposed to do with it?

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BOLDUAN: All right, so a massive multi-day storm is bringing severe thunderstorms, tornado warnings, even blizzard conditions to the Midwest and the East Coast this morning. There is a whole lot going on.

So far, at least one tornado was spotted in Arkansas. In the Midwest and the Great Lakes region, eight million people are under blizzard warnings right now. Parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin already received over a foot of snow and there's more even on the way.

CNN's Derek Van Dam is tracking this. And there is a lot to track with this storm system, Derek.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Oh, without a doubt. We are facing the potential of a historic wind threat, the highest threat for damaging winds since 2018 across portions of the Mid-Atlantic. Like Kate said, this is a sprawling storm with blizzard conditions on the North and severe weather on the South.

We've had over 500,000 customers already knocked out of power with the passage of this storm system over the past 24 hours. Right now, those numbers continue to climb. We've had numerous reports of tornado warnings, severe thunderstorm warnings, the most active stretch of severe stormed, warned storms in the past year.

So this is a very powerful cold front that is marching east. Look at all the tornado warnings that are ongoing right now. We have one just east of Greenville, South Carolina.

That's a radar indicated storm. Heads up Charlotte here within the next 20 -- within the next 60 minutes or so. The severe thunderstorms extend as far south as Macon, Georgia, and the Panhandle of Florida. Some of these have had quick rotations to them as well. So on and off again, tornado warned storms.

But really, we're going to focus our most significant risk here across the Mid-Atlantic. Damaging winds, tornadoes, some of which could be strong, long-track tornadoes, according to the Storm Prediction Center, and frequent lightning.

Notice that that includes the nation's capital. So this is the severe wind threat that I talked about. The greatest chance of hurricane- force gusts right here.

Do you see that hatched area? And then of course, we've got our greatest probability highlighted with that shading of purple. Can't forget about central Pennsylvania and southern New York, all the way down to the Carolinas as this cold front sweeps east.

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Now, when we talk about timeframe, you're looking between D.C. and Baltimore between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. this evening for our greatest risk of that severe damaging winds and isolated tornadoes. On the backside of the system, we're going to usher in temperature differences of up to 40 degrees. reminded us quickly that winter wants to hold on for at least another couple of days.

And by the way, when we're talking about this cold arctic blast, Kate, behind it, we've got freeze warnings as far south as just off the coast here of the Gulf. So, if you had any early-season plantings, those are at jeopardy to die, high under these conditions as temperatures will be well below freezing for tens of millions across the Deep South.

BOLDUAN: I mean, I guess my question is, what type of weather are we not going to see in the next couple of days? This seems to be the question.

VAN DAM: I haven't heard wildfire yet, and I haven't heard earthquakes. So we'll leave those out of the equation, OK? So that's for another day.

BOLDUAN: My goodness. Derek, thank you so much for tracking all that for us. And there is a lot -- John.

BERMAN: On that cheery note, a new high this year for gas prices, you see the rise every day for two straight weeks. But it won't stop at the pump. The new list of costs likely to go up from the war on Iran, airfare, food, aluminum, more.

And you saw what happened on stage, but all the skinny you did not see at the Oscars overnight.

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