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Iran War Escalates; Pam Bondi Defends Handling of Epstein Files; Gas Prices Surging. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 19, 2026 - 13:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: A full tank could empty your wallet. Oil prices are soaring, and the White House is looking for a way to calm the markets, but the price of the pump is ticking up higher and higher.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, a global threat assessment amid an ongoing war. Top intelligence officials facing more questions on Capitol Hill today, as concerns mount about the conflict with Iran escalating into a regional war.

And no pay, no way they're working, nearly 40 percent of TSA agents in Atlanta staying home from work, leading to long lines and headaches for travelers.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: We begin with breaking news on the war with Iran. President Trump just spoke from the Oval Office alongside the Japanese prime minister, and he addressed some new reporting by Reuters that he is considering deploying thousands of American troops to the Middle East.

When he was asked about it, he said -- quote -- "I'm not putting troops anywhere." His response comes amid a major escalation in the war. CNN has learned an Iranian missile struck an oil refinery complex in Northern Israel earlier today.

This follows Israel launching airstrikes yesterday against Iran's South Pars gas field. That is the world's largest natural gas reserve. Iran retaliated by striking a critical energy hub in Qatar. President Trump says he spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the attacks on Iran's energy facilities.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I told him, don't do that. And he won't do that. We didn't discuss. We do -- we're independent. We get along great. It's coordinated, but on occasion he will do something and if I don't like it -- then so we're not doing that anymore.

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KEILAR: Now, this is all happening as the Trump administration faces pushback on Capitol Hill for a reported request for hundreds of billions of dollars in supplemental funding for the war.

Here's Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Two billion dollars, I think that number could move, obviously. It takes money to kill bad guys.

So we're going back to Congress and our folks there to ensure that we're properly funded for what's been done, for what we may have to do in the future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN national security correspondent Kylie Atwood is with us now.

All right, Kylie, tell us what you're learning about this fight for potential funding here.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so this was asked about during the briefing this morning with Secretary Hegseth, and he effectively said that this number could change, but he didn't deny that the figure could be as big as $200 billion, this new budget request going to the Hill for this war in Iran.

He also painted somewhat of a rosy picture militarily on behalf of this U.S. military effort, saying that the U.S. military is on plan for its military objectives. Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Dan Caine saying that Iran came in with a lot of weaponry, said that they maintain some of that, but not saying specifically how much of Iran's military capacity has been dismantled by the United States.

So this question of timeline is still an open one, Secretary Hegseth not giving any clear answer as to when these goals are going to be accomplished, punting and saying that will be determined by President Trump. We've heard that from him a few times now.

But it's important to this question of how much more money the administration is going to be asking Congress for, because it gives an indication that they're ready to continue this war for the foreseeable future. President Trump was asked about why that figure would be so high if he's going to be ending this war soon, as he has said multiple times.

And he didn't really give a direct answer to that, but effectively said that the United States is going to have to replenish its stockpiles, and so that's what part of that funding would go towards. But this is an area that we'll continue to watch. KEILAR: And there's also a new joint statement out from some American

allies. What is this about?

ATWOOD: Yes, so we have heard from President Trump real anger towards allies who haven't stepped up and given actual, substantial support to clearing out the Strait of Hormuz, where there have been traffic and inability of those tankers, those oil tankers, to get through.

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He has asked for other countries to send naval support, to send escorts for those oil tankers. They have refused to do so. But this new statement today from multiple countries, from the U.K., France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Japan, the Japanese prime minister in at the White House today, says that those countries are ready to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the strait.

Not saying what they're going to contribute or exactly when they're going to make those contributions, but making it clear in this statement that they want to appear onside with President Trump, that they want to get those waterways cleared in order to, of course, make sure that that oil can get through the Strait of Hormuz and that the global economy can get into a better spot.

But when they will provide that support is still an open question, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Kylie, thank you so much.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I expect Japan to step up because we have that kind of relationship, and we step up with Japan. We have 45,000 soldiers in Japan. We have -- we spend a lot of money on Japan, so -- and we have had that kind of relationship.

So I expect -- I'm not surprised that they would step up. We don't need much. We don't need anything. I mean, honestly, we don't need anything from Japan or from anyone else, but I think it's appropriate that people step up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ATWOOD: So as you could hear there, he was saying that he's not surprised that Japan is stepping up, but still casting some doubt on NATO allies, even though a number of NATO allies were part of this statement today saying that they are going to support trying to open those waterways.

But, again, we don't know exactly when that's going to happen, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Kylie, thank you so much -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Today on Capitol Hill, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is saying the U.S. and Israel have different objectives in the war with Iran.

CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez is following that hearing for us.

So, Evan, what did Gabbard actually say?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: So Gabbard is still -- there's still a lot of daylight between what the intelligence is showing and what we hear from the administration, from the president, but she's also being very, very careful about this.

We saw yesterday during the Senate hearing where she omitted some of her original testimony when she delivered it verbally, and she did the same thing again, because part of the issue here is whether there was any imminent threat from Iran as far as its nuclear program.

So, today, what we saw from her is her repeating again that it's up to the president to determine whether there was an imminent threat and why this war was launched and why we're still at war three weeks later with Iran.

But, however, she's not willing to obviously say what exactly the intelligence actually shows, because she's putting it all on the president of the United States. One of the things we also heard from her today, she was being asked about her work in Atlanta, in the Fulton County.

She was doing -- she's there for the FBI search seizing voting records from the 2020 election. Again, she said that that is an investigation that is ongoing as to whether there was any foreign interference in that election. Again, that's the first time we have actually heard her explicitly say that.

Again, the FBI is investigating that, according to her. She still doesn't really explain what her role was there in Fulton County that day during that FBI search. It's very unusual still.

SANCHEZ: To be clear, because the DNI doesn't typically handle domestic cases like this.

PEREZ: Right, exactly. There is really no role for her unless there is some kind of foreign interference in the election. Again, we have not seen any evidence of that. This has been reviewed. This has been investigated a number of times, audited a number of times. And, to date, we have yet to see any evidence of that.

SANCHEZ: Evan Perez, thank you so much for that reporting.

We still have much more on the fallout from those strikes on energy facilities in the Middle East, as gas prices soar to their highest point in 3.5 years, what that means for your wallet.

Plus, high drama behind closed doors. Democratic lawmakers walk out of a tense briefing with Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on the Epstein files. We have new details there.

And, later, rapper Afroman picking up a huge legal victory, the police raid turned viral rap video that sparked a lawsuit.

Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We will be right back.

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KEILAR: U.S. gas prices have risen nearly a dollar, 90 cents, since the beginning of the war with Iran. Today, AAA is reporting a gallon of regular unleaded averages $3.88. That is the highest it's been in nearly four years.

Global oil closed yesterday at $107 a barrel. That's also a four-year high. And moments ago, President Trump said this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Iran is a serious threat to the world, to the Middle East and to the world. And everybody agrees with me. I think virtually every country agrees with me on that.

So I wanted to put out that fire. And I said, if I do that, oil prices will go up. The economy will go down a little bit. I thought it would be worse, much worse, actually. I thought there was a chance it could be much worse. It's not bad. And it's going to be over with pretty soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now markets are under even more pressure because of the escalating war with Iran. It's not only oil that is being blocked from moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Infrastructure is now being damaged at some of the world's top sources of oil and gas, including Iran striking Ras Laffan Industrial City in Qatar, one of the largest and most important global suppliers of liquefied natural gas.

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Let's talk about what all of this means for you and for the world with oil industry analyst Kevin Book. He's the managing director of ClearView Energy Partners.

And I wonder, Kevin, just how you're seeing this, because we're starting to see all of these different places being struck, this collective effect, right, Qatar, that key energy hub I mentioned, missile debris prompting temporary suspension to operations of key oil sites in Abu Dhabi. You have got the drone attack on an oil refinery in Kuwait, Israel hitting the South Pars natural gas field.

It's starting to become a really long list here. What is the collective effect of that?

KEVIN BOOK, MANAGING DIRECTOR, CLEARVIEW ENERGY PARTNERS: Well, Brianna, the rollout of the -- sort of the new escalation we have seen over the last few days probably has a signature that carries for months, maybe longer. Backup in the Strait of Hormuz could clear out in weeks. Facilities

that were shut down gracefully could restart in weeks. But this means that the sort of -- even if we had a short war, we're going to have potentially a longer energy impact.

KEILAR: So what is that? So you're saying, basically, if you have kind of the backup, but not the damage to infrastructure, that's something that can slowly be brought back to life, right?

But if you're talking about taking out infrastructure on a broad scale here, that is something that takes so much longer. How does that impact the prices that people are paying for gas and for products?

BOOK: Well, there's sort of two impacts. First and foremost, there's the impacts to the energy lost directly.

So if you're Asian importers of oil or refined products from the Middle East that came through the Strait of Hormuz, you're experiencing very tight markets already. But then, for the rest of us, there's this hole in the global energy picture, which means that, as inventories are drawn down, forward-positioned inventories, commercial inventories that are being used right now, strategic reserves that are being deployed, as those get drawn down, the price just sort of sits higher for longer.

And that means that the pump, and, more importantly, the diesel fuel that is moving everything that we depend on in our economy stays higher for longer. That can wash its way into inflation.

KEILAR: So what are you looking for here? I mean, what are you looking to see for escalation or de-escalation? This could get worse.

BOOK: It could get worse. And so as we're starting to see infrastructure going offline, there's real questions about whether or not retaliation continues to reach out, not just into the immediate Persian Gulf area, but a lot of Saudi oil right now is being diverted out west to the Red Sea.

There are reports of potential risks to those cargoes going out the Red Sea from the Houthis and potentially...

KEILAR: You can just pull that earpiece out. You don't even need it. There you go.

BOOK: Doesn't even seem like it wants to stay in, so...

KEILAR: Yes, just ignore it. All right.

BOOK: OK, I will just pretend that didn't happen, and we will go on.

KEILAR: Yes. Yes. Here we go.

BOOK: But so, as the risk widens and you see a sort of a wider horizon being targeted by the Iranians and potentially by their allies, that's one sort of raising the risk horizon higher. On the other side of it, what we're looking for is whether or not

there's some sort of cease-fire or diplomatic solution available, because an organic end to this war militarily doesn't look like it's coming any time soon.

KEILAR: What did you think when you heard the president say he was not happy with how Israel could have conducted this strike? There's some daylight between Israel and the U.S. when it comes to striking Iranian infrastructure.

BOOK: Well, I think that has come up once before too. Israel struck storage tanks at a refinery in Tehran, and I believe that produced some blowback from the White House as well, maybe at a lower level.

I think we will have to see. War is unpredictable.

KEILAR: So the vice president as well as the energy secretary and the interior secretary are going to be at this American Petroleum Institute meeting this week. I wonder what you're watching for, what might come of that.

BOOK: Well, so most of what the White House has been pursuing right now are solutions on the supply side. So one of the things you would expect them to do is to talk to the suppliers and say, can we have more?

And industry has every reason to say yes, but they don't have a lot of ability to add oil supply to market immediately. So I think one of the immediate discussions will be, what can you do for us and how soon? But then the flip side of that also is that, as the White House watches prices rise, they're going to look at bigger interventions.

That's sort of the history of how governments respond to this. Nobody who's in elected office wants to sit there and do nothing, even if sometimes doing nothing to letting the market sort it out is a better solution.

KEILAR: And just real quickly, we don't know when this is going to end, right? I guess we could know the soonest that this might wrap up, which let's say it's in a few weeks, as the president originally planned.

How long should people prepare for gas prices to be what they are, on the short side?

BOOK: We're looking at weeks on the short side.

And sort of optimistically, one of the things that could happen is, if there is a solution, markets will probably sell off in a hurry. A lot of traders are pricing a lot of risk into the market. If it goes away, that could bring some price relief.

But I don't think we're coming all the way back down to where we were any time soon.

KEILAR: Kevin Book, great to speak with you about this. Thank you so much for your insights.

BOOK: Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: And still to come: longtime lawyer for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein telling lawmakers he did not know about the abuse. We will have more on what we're learning about his testimony on Capitol Hill.

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And then, later, new reporting on how weight loss treatments are on the verge of another dramatic shift.

We will have details ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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SANCHEZ: Today, Jeffrey Epstein's longtime lawyer and co-executor of his estate is testifying before the House Oversight Committee as part of their investigation into the late sex offender.

In his opening statement, attorney Darren Indyke denied having any knowledge of Epstein's abuse, saying he wasn't aware of what was happening after hours or behind closed doors. Indyke's testimony comes fewer than 24 hours after a tense briefing from Attorney General Pam Bondi.

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Sources tell CNN many Democrats walked out of that briefing because they want to hold their questions until she goes on the record. Earlier, the top Republican on the Oversight Committee blasted the move.

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REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY): We have a lot of dead weight on this committee. And the behavior of the Democrats yesterday was unacceptable. And we're going to have to come back and talk as a conference, the majority, to see what we do moving forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid is here.

So, Paula, first let's walk through this Indyke testimony. Who exactly is he?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: So, he's important in this investigation because he's in the center of a 2024 class action lawsuit that victims filed against him and another co-executor of Epstein's estate alleging that they helped to facilitate the sex trafficking operation.

They both denied that today. He testified that he -- quote -- "had no knowledge whatsoever of Epstein's activities" and if he had known that he was abusing or trafficking women, he would have quit working for him at once and severed all ties.

Now, some people may find that hard to believe, based on everything we have learned about Epstein, but it's all part of the fact gathering that this committee is doing. And now the other big outstanding question is whether we will also hear from Attorney General Pam Bondi under oath.

We know she's subpoenaed to testify next month. I was up on the Hill last night when she and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche came up to give a private briefing about their much-criticized handling of the release of the Epstein files. And some sources have suggested that this private briefing might be an attempt to get around the subpoena.

As you saw, there was a lot of drama, as there often is on the Hill. The Democrats stormed out, so they didn't ask her any substantive questions, because they only want to talk to her if cameras are present and she's under oath.

But the big questions are really now for Republicans, because this subpoena got the support of five Republicans, and there's going to be a lot of pressure for them to back off of this, because we know Pam Bondi's messaging on this issue has become a political liability for the White House.

Now, if she does not comply with the subpoena, which the chairman confirmed they're still moving forward with, she could be held in contempt. In most administrations, that would also be a political liability, but it's just a whole situation they would like to avoid.

So we're watching very closely to see if the chairman and those Republicans continue to support the subpoena.

SANCHEZ: You also have some new reporting on efforts by lawmakers and some Epstein survivors to get access to more files. What files?

REID: That's right. This is new team reporting, because we know there's a lot of public frustration about the fact that millions of documents were not released publicly.

Now, the Justice Department has said they had good reason. It was either internal deliberations or these are duplicates of other documents, won't reveal a lot of new things. But we know that some lawmakers are contemplating whether or not they need a new law to be passed, also one that had sort of an enforcement mechanism, right, if you don't do what we told you to do or you miss a deadline, that there's some sort of recourse.

Without that, laws can be pretty toothless. But, look, the Justice Department, I have talked to at least one senior official. They want this to be behind them. They believe that the law really put them in an untenable position. They had very little time to do this work properly.

They have taken a lot of heat for their improper redactions, for all these mistakes, for outing certain victims, and they would really like to just be done with this. But all of this really comes down to public pressure. If people continue to call lawmakers and put pressure on them, we could potentially see another law that prompts an additional release of documents.

SANCHEZ: We will see where it goes next.

Paula Reid, thank you so much for that reporting.

Coming up: DNI Tulsi Gabbard facing lawmakers yet again on Capitol Hill, asserting that Iran maintained the intention to rebuild the country's nuclear enrichment capabilities.

More on her testimony when we come back.

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