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Iran's Larijani Killed in Strike; Jon R. Lindsay is Interviewed about A.I. in War; Allies View of the Iran War; New Heart Guidelines; U.S. Gas Prices Surge; Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) is Interviewed about Iran, Cuba and Unpaid TSA Workers. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired March 17, 2026 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:30:51]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking this morning, Israel says it has killed two key figures in Iran. Israel's defense minister says they, quote, "eliminated" the head of Iran's national security council, Ali Larijani. And Iran has yet to confirm his death, though. But the Israeli military says it also killed the head of Iran's Basij paramilitary force, which operates like a police force for the regime's military. Iran has not confirmed that either.

Also overnight, drones targeted the U.S. embassy in Iraq and a Baghdad hotel. Video showing air defense shooting down a projectile that was headed for the embassy.

CNN's Oren Liebermann is in Tel Aviv for us. There is a lot going on, but the big news here is the killing of Larijani, although we have not yet heard from the Iranian regime on this. What are you learning this morning?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: Sara, Ali Larijani is one of the top, if not the top decision makers who had been left in the Iranian regime and in the Iranian leadership structure. He was the top security official under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And after his assassination in the opening wave of this war 18 days ago, he was, in Israel's assessment, the top decision maker here who led and conducted the attacks, not only against Israel, but also around the gulf. We'll come to that bit in one second.

But it was Larijani who was killed overnight in a strike in Tehran, according to Israel's defense minister, Israel Katz. And he made clear in a statement announcing the targeted killing of Larijani that this would continue. Even if Larijani was at the top of the list of targets for Israel, whoever replaces him and whoever came under him remains a target. That from Katz in a statement that was put out again shortly after Israel announced the assassination of Larijani. It was him who led Iran after the assassination of Iran's top leadership, and that will continue here.

Moving around the region here to Baghdad, where the U.S. embassy there came under attack. Once again, we've seen this over the weekend and we see it once again. Take a look at this incredible video from the U.S. embassy compound. That is a C-RAM system, a Gatling gun mounted to intercept incoming threats. C-RAM stands for counter rocket, artillery and mortar. And there you can see the Gatling gun engaging two drones according to Reuters.

But that's not it. There is another video that shows another drone that got through and struck either on or near the U.S. embassy compound. So, Iran continues to lash out across the region, including not only at energy and oil infrastructure, at the gulf states, but also at U.S. diplomatic compounds there. The embassy had come under attack over the weekend and attacks continuing once again.

The U.S. and Israel have worked very hard in their military strike, targeting thousands of targets of the Iranian regime to try to take away Iran's ability to retaliate for these strikes. But we see that not only in the gulf, but also here where we have multiple rounds of incoming sirens and reports of shrapnel here in Tel Aviv behind me, but also in other areas in central Israel.

Sara.

SIDNER: Still very much in the midst of this war.

Oren Liebermann, thank you so much. Do appreciate it.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, as the U.S. war with Iran continues, artificial intelligence is front and center and changing the way that the military is operating in real time we're learning. "The Washington Post" reports that advanced A.I. technology helped the U.S. identify and strike key targets. One person familiar with the use of A.I. tools in the military says that it's speeding up the pace of the U.S. campaign and reducing Iran's counterstrike capabilities. Just days ago, CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper said this.

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ADM. BRAD COOPER, COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: Our warfighters are leveraging a variety of advanced A.I. tools. These systems help us sift through vast amounts of data in seconds. Humans will always make final decisions on what to shoot and what not to shoot, and when to shoot, but advanced A.I. tools can turn processes that used to take hours and sometimes even days into seconds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: This all comes, of course, at the same time as President Trump is also fighting a key player in the A.I. space, banning government agencies from using Anthropic's A.I. tools.

[08:35:01]

That order coming after Anthropic's Claude A.I. model was used in the raid to capture Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro according to reporting in "The Wall Street Journal." Joining me now is Jon Lindsay, a professor of cybersecurity and

international affairs at Georgia Tech University.

Thanks for coming in.

I mean, first, can you help people understand how much the military is using A.I. now and in what applications really?

JON R. LINDSAY, ASSOC. PROF. OF CYBERSECURITY AND INTL. AFFAIRS, GEORGIA TECH: Well, thanks very much, Kate.

I think it's important to understand that when we talk about military automation, we're talking about a really wide variety of applications. And that certainly includes autonomous weapon systems, the drones and guided munitions. But the vast use of A.I. are for what we call decision support systems. And these are things that provide planning, analysis, intelligence and administrative support. And the United States military has been using various kinds of systems like this for many, many years, going on decades.

BOLDUAN: It really -- the reporting I'm seeing, though, is -- obviously the advancement of A.I. --

LINDSAY: So, it's important to understand that we talk about --

BOLDUAN: Go ahead. Go ahead.

LINDSAY: So, when we think about targeting, there are many different tasks that range from gathering information together, analyzing different facilities, trying to understand weapons effects, looking at different units that might carry those out, analyzing the targeting plan. So, A.I. can help with different parts of this. But it is a very, very complex bureaucratic process that has hundreds of people involved at every step.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And to further your point, "The Wall Street Journal" described it this way. "A.I. tools are helping gather intelligence, pick targets, plan bombing missions and assess battle damage at speeds not previously possible. A.I. helps commanders manage supplies of everything from ammunition, to spare parts, and lets them choose the best weapon for each objective."

And some might hear that and think that A.I. is doing what they fear, which is taking over for humans in warfare. But you argue that as A.I. is kind of turbocharging military efforts more and more, it's actually making humans more essential and important, not less. Explain.

LINDSAY: Yes, absolutely. So, when we think about A.I., we think about Skynet and the "Terminator" and Data from "Star Trek." But it's better to think about just the kinds of things that A.I. is used in businesses and factories all over the place. It's not that we're turning everything over to Claude, it's that you're helping to write a document here, you're having some suggestions for an intelligence lead in another place. And then a human being has to follow that up.

At the end of the day, a machine can provide predictions or recommendations or maybe a route or a text suggestion, but it's up to human beings to decide what to predict and what to do with that information. We call this judgment. And there's so much information, even with A.I., that actually human judgment becomes more important. So, we're seeing more sophisticated processes developing.

And the United States has been pursuing this kind of targeting really for the last two decades, since 9/11, trying to bring together all of these sources of information to find individuals or facilities and bring the right effects to bear.

BOLDUAN: You mentioned Claude, which is Anthropic's very successful A.I. model. There's -- it gets to this wild fight that is happening between the Pentagon and Anthropic that we've been following really closely. The Pentagon is now labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk, which essentially blacklists it from government contracts and a lot more. Anthropic has filed suit saying you can't do this. But you're also hearing, at the very same time, it seems that Claude is already embedded in the military's system and is still being used. Where is this headed, this fight?

LINDSAY: Yes, it's remarkable. I mean that happened the day before the war, the Pentagon branded Anthropic's Claude a supply chain risk. And then the next day, as you mentioned, "The Washington Post" says that Claude was involved in the campaign planning for the opening day.

You know, and Claude is -- it's just one A.I. that is embedded in this larger system called the Maven Smart System, designed by Palantir Technologies. So again, it's not doing everything. It's a component, along with image recognition and force planning and all of these other things.

But in that article by "The Washington Post," the U.S. military said it is so essential they can't imagine using it. And then there's going to have to be a six-month phase out period. So, there are real mixed messages coming out of the Pentagon.

And, you know, right now there are discussions ongoing with Anthropic to try and figure this out. I mean Claude was the very first modern LLM to be integrated into classified networks.

[08:40:05]

And it works well there as it works in other places. And so, you know, the military really finds it useful, challenging, frustrating, but, you know, it's getting to the point where it can't imagine working without it. So, it's going to be really interesting to see how this just contradiction works itself out.

BOLDUAN: Yes, I mean trying to unwind it once it's embedded seems challenging when you're in the midst of carrying out a war. It's -- Professor, thanks for coming in. I appreciate it.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, this morning, President Trump still says he wants other countries to help open the Strait of Hormuz. Most other countries, at least publicly, not jumping up and down to help. The question is, why.

With us now, CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten.

So, what's a possible reason why these other countries aren't lining up just yet publicly to help with President Trump in Iran?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: It's really simple, Mr. Berman, it's really simple, the people in those countries hate, hate, hate the U.S. military action in Iran.

What are we talking about here? OK, net approval rating, U.S. military action in Iran. In Canada, way under water, minus 27 points. You think that's low. Thank you, Mr. Berman. You think that's low. Take a look here in Japan, negative 73 points. My goodness gracious. Way, way, way, way down there. How about in the U.K.? We're talking about 34 points under water. Key U.S. allies, the people in those countries absolutely despise the U.S. military action in Iran. No wonder the leaders in those countries are, let's just say, a little apprehensive about helping out the U.S.

BERMAN: So, compare this to the environment in 2003. And I'm picking that point because that was the beginning of the U.S. intervention, war, in Iraq. How did people in these countries feel at the beginning of that war compared to now?

ENTEN: OK, so you see these numbers are quite low. They weren't always this low when it came to U.S. military action in the Middle East, because take a look at this situation. OK, shift in net approval rating, U.S. military action in Iran now versus in Iraq in 2003. In Canada, way down. We're talking down, get this, 27 points. How about in Japan? Down. Way down there. Down 45 points. How about in the U.K.? And, of course, there was U.K. involvement in that particular war. Look at that, down 48 points. So, what we're seeing is a massive, massive shift when it comes to how the people, our allies, people in those countries are viewing the U.S. military action in the Middle East, far less popular this time around. No wonder the leaders in those countries want pretty much absolutely nothing to do with this conflict, because they know there are big electoral consequences if they do. And not good electoral consequence.

BERMAN: What's happening overall with views of America abroad?

ENTEN: Yes. OK. So, you see these numbers. You see these shifts down in terms of how our allies, or folks in those countries view U.S. military action in the Middle East. You see how unpopular it is this time around. Canada, Japan, the U.K. And this is just part of a larger picture, Mr. Berman. A larger picture. Favorable view of the U.S. in 2025 versus 2024. Of course, Donald Trump being the president in 2025, Joe Biden being the president of the United States in 2024. Look at this, favorable view of the U.S., down 79 percent of 24 countries residents asked.

The bottom line is this, the folks overseas are far less likely to view the U.S. favorably. And those chickens, they're coming home to roost in this situation, as there's very little support abroad for the U.S. military action in Iran. BERMAN: And they have to worry about politics at home, these leaders

do.

Harry Enten, thank you very much.

ENTEN: Thank you, Mr. Berman.

BERMAN: Kate.

BOLDUAN: Gas prices continue to climb now every day since the war in Iran began, hitting nearly $3.80 a gallon. How people are dealing with it and what they're feeling from it coming up.

And protesters in Cuba, they're taking to the streets now after the island plunges into a nationwide blackout that has left 10 million people in the dark.

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[08:48:01]

SIDNER: This is -- this is wild. It's a wake-up call for millions of people. New medical guidance says you need to start cholesterol lowering medication a lot sooner than you think. The American Heart Association and several other groups now say starting treatment as early as your 30s could drastically cut your lifetime risk of heart attack or stroke.

CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joining us now.

This is really significant, in our 30s?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Yes, this is pretty significant. And a lot of people weighing in on this. A lot of medical organizations.

One thing I think just to sort of think about this broadly is that I -- the general philosophy has been around 40 years old you start to think about this and you're calculating your ten year risk for having some sort of heart problem. Now they're basically saying, as you point out, to think about this when you're 30 instead and think about the next 30 years or even your lifetime risk. So, that's the big philosophical change. They're sort of starting younger and calculating the risk longer. That's what these guidelines are really sort of suggesting.

I think what we know for sure is that the longer your blood is exposed to high levels of blood lipids or bad cholesterol, the worse that it is. So, the idea that maybe you start this earlier, that's what they're sort of focused on here.

And to give you some context. First of all, if you look at adults overall, like how -- what percentage of adults have lipids or cholesterol that are problematic, it's around 25 percent of the country. It might even be a little higher than that. But adolescents, Sara, so people 10 to 19 years old, around 20 percent. So, increasingly you're seeing problems with lipid abnormalities, cholesterol abnormalities at younger ages. And I think these screening guidelines are sort of trying to get ahead of that.

There's about 60 million to 70 million people who fall into 30 to 44 year range in this country. So, this could, to your point, mean millions of more potentially starting these medications earlier.

[08:50:01]

SIDNER: How would you know when to start treatment? I mean, obviously, your doctor will do the test, but what would it entail?

GUPTA: Yes. Well, I think this idea of getting screened at the right age is probably the area that has the most widespread agreement. A lot of people aren't thinking about cholesterol at younger ages. In these guidelines, which are 123 pages, by the way, so there's a lot in there, Sara, they say between nine and 11 years old is the first time you should get your full sort of cholesterol, lipids all tested. Nine to 11 years old. And then at 19 years old getting it done and then every five years after that.

So, this is really frame shifting things a lot -- a lot younger. And it's not just cholesterol, but it's also something known as lipoprotein a and b. We're going to talk more about those tomorrow hopefully.

But then at 30, I don't know if we have this, but there's a calculator. It's called the Prevent Calculator. And it's basically looking at all sorts of different things. Your age, your weight, your BMI, but also your blood pressure, your kidney function, your cholesterol levels, things like that, and then looking at enhanced risk factors, like your family history, for example. It's trying to put it all together into a calculator. And you can download that. That's online.

But here's sort of the top line, some of the top lines. If your LDL, that's the bad cholesterol. There's HDL, there's LDL. LDL, the bad cholesterol, 160 or higher. If you have a strong family history. If the calculator shows that you have a high 30-year risk of having some sort of heart problem, that's when they may recommend statins. And I -- and I use this word "recommend" very, very gingerly because this is a shared decision between physicians and patients. And again, 123 pages. There's a lot in there. But those are some of the top lines of who might be likely to get statins recommended.

SIDNER: I love it when there's things like calculators where you can go do it yourself and kind of just see what your risk is. And that's on the American Heart Association's website.

GUPTA: Yes.

SIDNER: It did come up for -- briefly with you. Thank you for that. It is really interesting. But it's a little surprising that it starts as early as 30 that you really need to start paying attention to this. GUPTA: Yes. And look, and just real quick, there are potential side

effects to these medications. These are, you know, you got to be careful when prescribing these. People get muscle aches. They may have problems with elevated blood sugars, things like that. But also, you may have millions of more people taking these medications for years longer with the benefits only seen quite, quite a bit into the future. So, that's something to sort of consider as well.

SIDNER: Yes, really good advice. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much.

If you have questions about cholesterol treatment, you can scan the QR code on your screen and Dr. Gupta will be back later this week to answer any of your questions.

John.

BERMAN: All right, happening now, gas prices surged overnight. This is all due to the war on Iran. California is now seeing a gallon of regular hitting $5.54 at the pump. California's always much more expensive, but they jumped $0.07 nationally, prices did, overnight.

Look, gas prices in general, and oil has been a boon for the United States over the last several years, as the United States has pumped more and more and more oil. So, the question is, why isn't that spelling more relief for consumers? Or is it?

CNN business executive editor David Goldman is here now.

So, you know, how is all this drill baby drill stuff impacting the price we're seeing at the pump?

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Well, we've already seen that, you know, America is the number one oil producer in the world. We produce 22 million barrels a day. That's a lot of oil. And that has translated into lower gas prices until now. So, it trades on a global market. And we have seen oil go up to $100 a barrel. And that means, you know, gas has taken off like a Roman Anthony home run. So, we now need to deal with higher gas prices for quite some time because we know that they go up like a rocket, they come down like a feather. We've talked about that. So, we could be dealing with, you know, $4 gas pretty soon.

BERMAN: Yes, bottom line here is that the prices from the U.S. pumping so much, already baked into the cake, right?

GOLDMAN: Right.

BERMAN: And so when Iran takes all this other oil offline, it's not getting through the Straits of Hormuz, the U.S. oil, the extra oil not making that much of a difference.

GOLDMAN: Yes, and, you know, if we think that oil is going to come down in the next few months, then it's just not going to be profitable for those companies to start producing more oil.

BERMAN: It's a great point. David Goldman, great to see you and thank you for the Roman Anthony reference there.

GOLDMAN: Any time.

BERMAN: Sara.

SIDNER: Thank you so much, John.

Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire is joining me now. She is the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Thank you for being here this morning. I know there is plenty of work to do on your end.

Look, first to this. Iran denies it but the Trump administration says Iran has reached out to restart negotiations. With Israel continuing to kill the top Iranian leaders, like Security Chief Ali Larijani, do you see a potential conflict of interest here if the United States wants to start negotiating, if those in power keep getting assassinated, which, by the way, Israel, as you well know, promised to do that.

[08:55:07]

SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN (D-NH): Well, unfortunately, we haven't seen from this administration what the strategy is to end this war in Iran. I would hope that diplomacy and trying to engage in negotiations would be on the table, but so far, given Israel's actions, given our continued missile strikes in Iran, it doesn't look like that's an option. So, regardless of what the president says, what we're hearing from Iran and from the Iranian leaders who have spoken out is that they don't have any plans to negotiate with the United States.

SIDNER: I want to ask you about that. While the war with Iran is continuing, the president is also very clearly eyeing Cuba. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I do believe I'll be the honor of -- having the honor of taking Cuba. That'd be good. That's a big honor.

REPORTER: Taking Cuba?

TRUMP: Taking Cuba in some form. Yes, taking Cuba. I mean whether I free it, take it. I think I could do anything I want with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: He didn't come to Congress for the war that is currently going on, and it doesn't sound like he's coming to you guys with this plan, whatever it is. I mean has Congress completely lost its power in all of this?

SHAHEEN: Well, Congress needs to take back the power. The fact is, there is no transparency from this administration. They didn't come to Congress before going into Venezuela either. And I don't have any constituents in New Hampshire who are saying, the United States needs to do another incursion into another country.

What I hear my constituents saying is, they're worried about the high prices of gasoline now, they're worried about the cost of groceries, of housing, of child care. And they want to see action on that front. They don't want to see another forever war.

SIDNER: And speaking of which, one of the things that is going on is the funding of DHS and TSA workers are suffering through working without pay again. Passengers standing in insanely long lines. And airline CEOs are pretty miffed. They've written an open letter demanding that y'all in Congress pass a DHS budget, saying in part, "once again air travel is the political football amid another government shutdown. The problem is solvable, and there are solutions on the table. Now it's up to you, Congress, to move forward."

Are you anywhere near a deal to fund DHS yet?

SHAHEEN: Well, I'm not part of the negotiating team, but the fact is we could fund everything but ICE. And in the president's reconciliation bill that passed last year, they had plenty of funding for ICE operations. So, they don't need that funding. And there are bills on the table right now that would fund all of the rest of Homeland Security.

I think the American people would like to see reforms to how ICE operates. We want secure borders. The American people want that. And the president has done a good job of that. But he's gone overboard. We've seen excesses in the way ICE operates. When they're killing Americans on the streets of some of our big cities, that is not what ICE is supposed to be doing.

So, we need to see those reforms. We don't need to see mass bands (ph) roving streets in the United States. We need to see them at the border working for what they're supposed to be doing, securing our borders. And that's what this fight is about. The administration and the majority in Congress, the Republicans, could fund everything else within Homeland Security, including TSA, but they're not willing to do that.

SIDNER: Senator Jeanne Shaheen, it is a pleasure to have you on this morning. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. just hit a snag in his effort to reshape the way vaccines are delivered in this country. A federal judge is now blocking key parts of his policy, including the plan to reduce the recommended -- the number of recommended vaccines for children and also when they should be administered. The ruling says that the overhaul didn't follow the legally required steps and that the CDC bypassed its own long standing review process in the process. Medical groups, like the American Academy of Pediatrics, who brought this lawsuit, argued the changes created an unnecessary confusion for doctors and patients. The court agreed. The vaccine advisory committee was set to meet this week, but now they've pushed that off. The administration says it plans to appeal.

So, the cults classic space cowboy TV show "Firefly" is getting a reboot 24 years later.

[09:00:00]

The show lasted only one season, was then made into a sequel film, but fans never gave up, kept demanding more. And so, the show's star, Nathan Fillion, has now.