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Israel Says Iran's Top Navy Commander Killed; DHS Funding Talks Stall as TSA Agents Brace for Second Missed Paycheck; Oil Prices Rise as Investors Doubt Quick End to War With Iran. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired March 26, 2026 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: (INAUDIBLE) commander killed the key factor in the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, as President Trump claims Iran wants to end the war and they're just afraid to say it.

Now, hours before lawmakers go on a two-week recess, there is no end in sight for the partial government shutdown, long lines, frustrated travelers and strained TSA workers facing another week with no paycheck.

Also, a high stakes rescue caught on camera, a woman found clinging to a cliff saved above the crashing waves of San Francisco.

John and Kate are out this morning. I'm Sara Sidner with Erica Hill. This is CNN News Central.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: The breaking news this hour, another major blow to the leadership in Iran, Israel says it has killed the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Navy. Now, he's been a key figure in the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz. That's, of course, the critical waterway and oil route.

Iran isn't commenting right now, but all of this coming is, frankly, the signals are mixed about whether the U.S. and Iran are actually talking. Iran's foreign minister says the two sides have exchanged messages through mediators, but says there are no actual negotiations. As for President Trump, he says that's not true, posting just moments ago that Iran is begging to make a deal, writing, yet they publicly state they are only looking at our proposal wrong. They better get serious soon, he writes, before it is too late. Because once that happens, there is no turning back.

Now, sources tell CNN Iran has begun fortifying Kharg Island, laying traps, positioning military personnel and air defenses in case the U.S. does decide to launch a ground attack. The tiny island itself handles about 90 percent of Iran's oil exports.

Two Marine units that specialize in amphibious landings have recently deployed to the Middle East, and we've also learned about 1,000 U.S. paratroopers are on standby to deploy to the region.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is live in Tel Aviv this morning. So, Jeremy, let's start off with this commander Israel says has been killed. What more do we know about the commander and how that could actually relate to these potential plans for Kharg Island?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, the Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, announcing this morning that Alireza Tangsiri, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, was killed overnight in an Israeli strike. He was also killed alongside a number of other senior naval commanders, according to the Israeli defense minister.

And this is incredibly significant, in part because Tangsiri played a key role in overseeing Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and the Israeli defense minister saying that this is sending a message not only to Iran but also to, quote, our American partners reflecting Israel's assistance in trying to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Now, there's no indication that the killing of Tangsiri will immediately lead to the reopening of that strait, but it will complicate Iran's efforts to continue to enforce that blockade and to threaten commercial shipping through that strait. It also comes as we are learning about the preparations that the United States is making for a potential ground operation inside of Iran potentially aims at Kharg Island, that key island just 20 miles off the coast of mainland Iran, where Iran processes 90 percent of its oil.

And Tangsiri would likely also have played a significant role in the defense of that island. And we are learning that Iran is preparing to defend that island from potential landing of American troops there, Iran laying traps and also reinforcing the islands with additional troops, all as the United States has already sent thousands of Marines to the Middle East and is preparing to deploy an additional 1,000 soldiers from the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division.

At the same time, there is, of course, a diplomatic track that is taking place with U.S. officials aiming for a potential meeting with Iranian officials as early as this weekend in Pakistan.

[07:05:02]

But so far, there doesn't seem to be much traction on that, and the gaps remain enormous between Iran and the United States.

And we're seeing the pace of fire continuing. Not only those Israeli strikes in Iran, including the one that killed this senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps official, but also Iran firing at least seven waves of ballistic missiles here at Israel. And I'm at one of the sites where one of these cluster munitions made impact. You can see some of the damage to the storefronts here, broken windows. One person who was not in a shelter was wounded, according to paramedics at this location.

And you can see that crews have already covered up the hole, the crater that was left here by one of those cluster munitions. This is one of several cluster munition impacts that we've seen today across Central Israel,

HILL: Jeremy Diamond, I really appreciate it, thank you. Sara? SIDNER: All right. This morning a deal to reopen, the Department of Homeland Security has hit a wall. Negotiations stalling after Republican lawmakers balked at a counterproposal from Democrats. Senate Majority Leader John Thune calling the counteroffer not even close to being real.

With lawmakers at odds, countless TSA employees are struggling. Some have reported receiving eviction notices, getting their utilities shut off, sleeping in their car, selling blood and plasma just to get by, even skipping meals. And while major airports got a brief midway reprieve, they're now bracing for another onslaught of weekend travelers.

CNN's Alayna Treene is joining us now. The president, of course, playing a role in this. He did not like one of the proposals, wasn't sure he was going to support it. What are you hearing from the White House at this point where everyone is frustrated about it?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And everyone in the White House are among those who are incredibly frustrated over this, because at this moment, look, Sara, we are at day 40 of this shutdown and Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans, and the White House, of course, involved in these negotiations as well, they are at a crippling standoff over that Republican proposal to fund all of the Department of Homeland Security except for Immigration and Custom Enforcement operations.

Now, we did see the Senate Democrats new proposal yesterday with what they are asking for. Essentially, they are arguing that they believe that this does not -- this new framework proposed by the Senate Republicans does not go far enough to address their concerns about ICE and the changes that they want. Among them that they sent in this counterproposal include officer identification, funding for body-worn cameras, protection of schools, churches, and other sensitive locations, as well as new training centers.

But Republicans are arguing that, look, if we're not going to be funding ICE in this new package, we do not need to address these at this time. I should note that some of those things I just pointed out that Democrats are now asking for are things that the White House had previously agreed to, but those are also things that were before, you know, this whole -- that was when the president thought that he was going to be able to get his Save America, his high priority voting restriction legislating through the door, including, you know, voter id.

Now, let's get back to the Trump of all of this. Republicans have been long hopeful that the president would be the one to kind of stand up and throw his influence behind that new proposal, particularly, as I should say, there are a lot of Republicans in the party who don't even like this proposal at all. They want this to go farther when it comes to ICE.

The president, however, though, has still not publicly endorsed it. And what we've been hearing repeatedly from the White House in their public statements, I'm hearing this as well in my private conversations with them, is that they believe that they don't really know how to come out of this, that the Republic -- Democrats, I should say, feel like this is the moment to push for these changes and these reforms that they have been asking for. And they see the shutdown as, you know, leverage right now over Republicans.

The White House and Republicans, however, are saying this needs to end, particularly as we're looking at all of these airports, of course, unsnarled by this shutdown, TSA workers not getting paid. And right now, it doesn't seem like there is a clear path out.

And so one of the key questions, of course, is going to be how much more involved we might see the president get in these talks to try and end. This is going to be a huge topic at his cabinet meeting later this morning. Sara?

SIDNER: Yes. And we're looking at some of those pictures from earlier today at Houston next to you. Just insane because that's outside where the cars usually are. That's where the line is. Some airports really dealing with hours-long lines and no end sight, unfortunately.

Alayna Treene, thank you for your reporting there from the White House for us.

Ahead, hours from now, former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro set to make his first court appearance. The unusual twist in the case involving his lawyer's legal fees, that's ahead.

And hundreds of millions of dollars in oil trades on Wall Street surged just minutes before President Trump posted positive news about talks with Iran. Is this a coincidence or something else?

And new video shown in court of the moment just after a woman says her husband tried to murder her on her birthday during a hike in Hawaii.

[07:10:05]

She took the stand to tell the terrifying story of what happened.

Those stories and more ahead.

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HILL: This morning, oil prices are rising as investors grow more doubtful that the war with Iran will end anytime soon. The national average for U.S. gas prices, that's still hovering, as you can see on your screen, just below $4 a gallon, a little slip today, but, really, we're sort of looking at the same price we've seen in the last couple of days.

[07:15:03]

It's important to note this is a full dollar higher than the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. before the war began almost a month ago. And there is growing concern as well this morning about a spike in oil trades that happened just moments before President Trump announced he was postponing strikes on Iran's power plants on Monday. That announcement then sent oil prices tumbling.

CNN Senior Business Reporter David Goldman joins me now. This has been getting a lot of attention on the socials here because it just seems a little off. What's really going on here?

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR REPORTER: Yes. Well, I wish that I had answers for you. There's a lot more that we don't know than we know.

So, I'll tell you what we know. Before -- about 15 minutes before President Trump on Monday morning said that there's going to be a five-day pause, there was an unusual spike in both S&P 500 futures and in oil futures, and we saw there were an enormous number of trades that happened right before then. So, was this someone who had inside information who was trading? We just don't know.

We know that there was this about $500 million worth of trades. So, someone made a good deal of money.

HILL: It sounds like a lot to me.

GOLDMAN: Exactly. But you know what? Computers do most of the trading in the markets. And they pick up on signals that you and I just can't, so was there something that was happening, we don't know. And I don't know that we're ever going to know, because a lot of this is just going to be anonymous, and there's a lot of noise happening in the market too. There are people from hundreds of different countries that are trading.

And do you think that oil futures were heavily traded right before President Trump made that announcement? Of course, there -- I mean, oil was trading at about $110 a barrel at that point. It was the story. So, we just don't know, unfortunately,

HILL: We don't know. But I would say -- but the follow-on to that, right, is there is continued investigation into this, even if we never know on that one. And there was certainly be one would hope added scrutiny as we continue to follow all of this to figure out whether there is any there, there.

GOLDMAN: Well, Senator Chris Murphy is calling for an investigation. We know that. And, you know, he sent out a message on social media saying that this was corruption. Again, we don't know that. But if you take a look, he said, you know, there was a $1.5 billion bet, you know, was it Trump? We don't know. We do not know. This is just speculation right now.

But, certainly, it doesn't look great.

HILL: Right.

GOLDMAN: But we don't know.

HILL: Yes, a little stinky. We'll keep an eye on that.

I did also just want to ask you a quick question on gas prices. You know, we keep $4 a gallon, right? We have to say every time, so many areas of the country, it is far above that as we know. That's just the national average. But there is also a move to try to bring gas prices down a little bit by the administration.

GOLDMAN: Yes. So, there's a few things that they're doing. I mean, first of all, they opened up the strategic petroleum reserve. They unsanctioned a bunch of oil. And there was an announcement yesterday that they're going to eliminate some of the smog protections that normally go in during the summer.

Is that going to make a difference? I think that, really, the reason that we're seeing this is that oil has started to creep a little bit lower after President Trump made that announcement. And that's the big input into gas prices. But oil's back up a little bit again today, so, we'll see if this sticks.

HILL: Yes, buckle up.

GOLDMAN: Yes.

HILL: Here we go.

GOLDMAN: You got it.

HILL: David Goldman, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Just ahead here, Savannah Guthrie opening up to her former Today Show co-host in her first interview since the disappearance of her mother. Savannah, talking about the pain, her family is living with every day that Nancy Guthrie remains missing.

And a landmark trial on social media addiction finds Meta and YouTube negligent. What this means for the future of social media.

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SIDNER: I love it. Let's go, play ball. It's opening day for many teams around baseball. This season got going last night with the Yankees beating the Giants.

CNN's Andy Scholes is here with more. It's a good thing that Berman's not here because he would have something snide to say about the Yankees, even though he lives here in New York. He is so Boston all the time.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: He would somehow figure out a way to make the Yankees' 7-0 win last night not very good. That's just what Berman does.

But, you know, for the first time we had baseball on Netflix last night. It's not going to happen very often though. Netflix, they had the Yankees-Giants opener last night. They're going to have the Home Run Derby over the summer and they also had the Fields of Dreams game in Iowa in August. But the broadcast got some mixed reviews with fans voicing some frustration over the new looking score bug they had. Netflix also missed the first ever automated ball strike challenge. So, Jose Caballero challenged this pitch in the top of the fourth, but they never showed the animation of where the ball actually went because Netflix was doing an interview in the dugout at the time.

Now, the call was upheld as a strike, so the challenge was unsuccessful, but it was a successful opener for the Yankees despite Aaron Judge going 0-5 with four strikeouts. Max Free awesome on the mound, pitched six and a third shutout innings in the 7-0 win.

And you got games all day long today in baseball. The Mets are going to get things started against the Pirates at 1:15 Eastern.

All right, in the NBA, meanwhile, we had a wild one between the Rockets and the Timberwolves. The game was tied at 95 in the closing seconds. Kevin Durant turns the ball over here and Julius Randle going for the win on the other side. But Alperen Sengun flying in for the game saving block, but he paid for that. He busted his lip pretty bad. But that seemed to fire up Houston. They went on a 13-0 run to start overtime.

So, game over, right? No. The Timberwolves then went on a 15-0 run and would end up winning this game 110-108.

[07:25:04]

It was the largest overtime comeback in NBA history. Teams that had gone up 10 in O.T. in the NBA had been 180-0. Only the Rock.

All right, it's going to be a big basketball night. It's Sweet 16 time. Texas and Purdue going to get things started at 7:10 Eastern, then Iowa and Nebraska will tip at 7:30. That game's followed by Houston Cougars taking on Illinois. Those two games are in Houston, so going to be a home game for my Houston Cougars.

And Houston needs two wins to get back to the Final Four for a second straight year. And while they have the home court they don't think it's going to be much of an advantage, other than for the fans' wallets.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MILOS UZAN, HOUSTON GUARD: Save them a lot more money especially our families as well. It doesn't really give you too much of an advantage, honestly. Every team here is good. I think we just continue with the same preparation and live with the results.

BRAD UNDERWOOD, ILLINOIS HEAD COACH: I'm an old JUCO ball coach. I drove on 16-passenger vans. I drove from Dodge City, Kansas to Mesa, Arizona, for a basketball game, for a tournament in a bus. You had told me back then that I'm getting to coach basketball in the Sweet 16 and play Houston, I would sign up for it. I would crawl to get there.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SCHOLES: Crawl to get there, great sound bite there from Coach Brad Underwood.

But, Sara, if I am an absolute zombie tomorrow, it's because that Houston-Illinois game tips off at 10:05 Eastern, if it's on time. So, it's going to be a late night for me trying to watch my Cougs.

SIDNER: I got to say, since my Gators are out of it, I do hope that Houston ends up winning it all, because, boy, did we have a buzzer beater between the two of us. You were not speaking to me for a couple of days, and that's fine since my Gators beat you guys. So, I'm hoping for the Cougs. I'm rooting for you, Andy.

SCHOLES: Well, I appreciate it, fingers crossed.

SIDNER: All right. Ahead, another spring break weekend around the corner, and some airport lines are hitting four hours long. Is Congress going to get to a deal to try and get TSA workers their checks?

Also, clinging to a cliff 70 feet down, how an incredible rescue unfolded.

Those stories and more ahead.

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