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Israel Reiterates Plan to Control Parts of Lebanon After War; Russian Envoy Says Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is in Iran; Artemis II Crew Set to Take Off on Historic Journey Tomorrow; White House Suggests Securing Strait of Hormuz Not Essential Objective; U.S. Army Investigating Apache Helicopters Over Kid Rock's Home; Stocks Up on Unconfirmed Rumor Iran May Be Open to Ending War. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired March 31, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:31]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": $4 and rising, gas prices hitting the dreaded $4 mark, a consequence of the war with Iran. Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth says that Europe should, "Step up to reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz."

Plus, over the moon, NASA's ambitious Artemis II mission aims to send humans around the moon and back again. One small step closer to returning astronauts to the lunar surface.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": And President Trump unveiling plans for his presidential library, a skyscraper featuring some of the greatest hits, so to speak, of Donald Trump's political life. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

SANCHEZ: We start this hour with Breaking News on the war with Iran. Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth with a new message after revealing he recently visited troops in the Middle East. The defense secretary saying the U.S. needs to be unpredictable about any potential ground force operation in Iran.

Adding the Pentagon has, "15 different ways" we could come at them with boots on the ground. He then said this about his military objective as President Trump tries to hold talks with the regime.

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PETE HEGSETH, UNITED STATES DEFENSE SECRETARY: I didn't mean it flippantly when I said, in the meantime, we'll negotiate with bombs. Our job is to ensure that we compel Iran to realize that this new regime, this regime in charge, is in a better place if they make that deal.

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SANCHEZ: Meantime, more missile debris is raining down in central Israel as new Iranian attacks are intercepted. And just minutes ago, CNN obtained this video of an Israeli strike in southern Beirut.

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Let's go live now to CNN's Jeremy Diamond, who's in Tel Aviv for us. Jeremy, what's the latest?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, as you can see, the Israeli military is continuing to carry out severe strikes in both the Lebanese capital as well as in southern Lebanon. But what we are certainly watching ratcheting up is the rhetoric coming from Israeli officials about their plans for future ground operations inside of Lebanon.

We have been watching over the course of the last few weeks, what is essentially a slow-moving ground invasion of southern Lebanon. Israeli troops are operating as far as six miles inside of Lebanese territory, according to an Israeli military official. And what we are seeing is that the Israeli government's senior officials are now vowing to control the entirety of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, which can be as far as 20 miles into Lebanese territory.

They say they're going to establish a buffer zone there that will remain even after Israeli ground operations against Hezbollah in that territory have ended, essentially laying out plans for a future occupation of the southern part of Lebanon. And the Israeli defense minister also saying that the 600,000 residents of that area of southern Lebanon will not return to their homes until there is safety and security for Israel's northern residents.

He's also vowed to demolish large swathes of civilian infrastructure in southern Lebanon, which would be a violation of international law if there is no military necessity to carrying out those demolitions. He is saying that it is akin to what the Israeli military has done in parts of Gaza.

SANCHEZ: And Jeremy, we have some new reporting, some new at least statements regarding the well-being of the new Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. There have been a lot of questions about how he's doing, whether he's even in Iran. What are you learning there?

DIAMOND: Yeah, well, Boris, you know we've reported several times now that Mojtaba Khamenei appears to have been injured in that initial strike that killed his father, the previous supreme leader, and several other members of the new supreme leader's family, we should note. Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth has suggested that Mojtaba Khamenei is disfigured in some way, although he didn't provide evidence for that.

But we've now heard from Russia's ambassador to Iran. Russia, of course, a key ally of Iran. And the ambassador to Iran, Alexey Dedov, says that as the Iranian leadership has stated, the new leader is in Iran, but for obvious reasons, refraining from public appearances.

[14:05:00]

And that's the first time that we've heard from a senior Russian official anything about the current status of the new supreme leader. And what he's now saying is that he's effectively in Iran, but remaining in hiding, presumably to avoid being assassinated in an Israeli military strike. But again, we have yet to actually see any footage of the new Supreme Leader that we can verify since he took this position several weeks ago. And again, he certainly hasn't made a public appearance.

SANCHEZ: Jeremy Diamond, live for us in Tel Aviv. Thank you so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: Right now, it's all systems go for mankind's first mission to the moon in more than a half century. The Artemis II crew is gearing up to boldly go on a 10-day journey around the dark side of the moon and back to Earth. And it's a mission that is expected to serve as the foundation for eventual deep space travel. The excitement is building before this historic launch blasts off tomorrow evening.

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JEFF SPAULDING, SENIOR NASA TEST DIRECTOR, ARTEMIS II: I think everybody understands what our mission is, and that's to get back to the moon. And we're going to establish a presence there in the very near future. So I think there's a lot of excitement and fervor within all of the groups that are out there, but especially here at Kennedy. The folks that I see are very, very excited to get on with this mission and get started with the next one.

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KEILAR: Anthony Colangelo is the Host of the space podcast, "Main Engine Cut Off." And Anthony, as we are looking towards this weather brief early tomorrow, hoping that this is actually a go when it's supposed to be a go, what are you watching for?

ANTHONY COLANGELO, SPACE PODCAST HOST, "MAIN ENGINE CUT OFF": Weather looks really good, surprisingly, in Florida. There's a lot of weather constraints that they have to watch. There's cloud types. There's lightning risks. And one of the trickiest that is often forgotten about with crewed missions is they have to make sure the weather is OK downrange as well in case the crew needs to abort off of the rocket.

So the weather has to be good, not only in Florida, but all the way out into the Atlantic Ocean as well. If you know anything about weather, that's a tricky needle to thread sometimes.

KEILAR: Yeah, it really is in Florida, for sure. And the astronauts will be waking up tomorrow around 9:45 a.m. That's right, 9:45 a.m., which is a lovely sleep in, but they have a lot of work ahead of them in the days to come, of course. What will they be doing before they head out to the launch pad?

COLANGELO: They're going to be getting suited up inside the Space Center buildings, making sure all their suits are checked out. Certainly those are important in their life support system for dynamic events like launch and re-entry. You know, the suits are basically a full backup of a life support system.

And even on the mission, they can provide life support for up to six days for each crew member. So if something goes wrong with the spacecraft, those are miniature spaceships in themselves that can fly the crew all the way home effectively. So they'll be doing that inside while the vehicle is getting ready outside.

They're going to start fueling this thing up about 7:30 a.m. That'll take a couple of hours. And by the time that they roll out to the pad, the vehicle will be totally fueled up. They'll be topping up those propellants because they keep boiling off in the Florida sun.

They're very cold propellant, so you've got to keep them really cold to keep them in the vehicle. And then they'll board about four hours before liftoff.

KEILAR: I know we're really excited because of the moon aspect of this, right? But the heart of this mission is just so important. If you can talk to us a little bit about this, paving the way for the eventual return to the moon and how that's building the foundation for the first crewed mission to Mars.

COLANGELO: Yeah, so there's been a lot of shuffling of the roadmap overall in this new administration. Last week, there was big sweeping announcements in D.C. about what the roadmap will be from this mission. But this is the first time that we're putting humans on this vehicle, both the rocket and the spacecraft itself.

So we haven't tested things out like the life support systems, some of the crew systems. You have to be able to have enough room to work out and keep your muscles active, so that when you actually land on the moon, you're able to do physical work. You don't just want to be, you know, wasting away for a couple of days on the way out to the moon.

You want to be ready to go when you hit the lunar surface. So all of those crew systems will get their shakedown. And then in the coming years, we'll do a couple of tests where this spacecraft will meet up with lunar landers in Earth orbit and then eventually, go for the first crewed lunar landing at that point. Hopefully, it's over 50 years, not over 60 years if it's not delayed too long. But there's a ton of activity that has to happen in the next five years for this to really come together well.

KEILAR: Yeah, this is the first crewed moon mission in more than 50 years. And younger generations of Americans, they haven't experienced, right, the excitement of that kind of thing. What do you hope the takeaway is for those who are watching this deep space travel for the first time?

COLANGELO: It's kind of shocking how few people have heard about this. I'm going around and telling people, did you know people are launching to the moon tomorrow? And most have said no, I don't know about that which is, I think, a little bit of a criticism of the vehicle that NASA doesn't have the confidence that this thing is going to be fueled and ready at the time that they say, because they've had problems with that historically.

So it's tough for them to go out and make a lot of noise when the vehicle tends to slip a lot. So that's tricky. And certainly in the space age, you know, launches were happening every couple of months. Now it's every couple of years. So it's hard for them to build excitement.

But, you know, when you really think about it, we have not had an interesting human spaceflight program this interesting in certainly my lifetime. And I'm thrilled to be able to watch it and just see, you know, even with my young kids to see people around the moon for the first time in this long.

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I think it's going to be more incredible than people are giving it credit for right now.

KEILAR: Well, hey, listen, always better to kind of undersell it and just get very excited as it's going, I guess, because hopefully this is just amazing and it just gets everyone really excited about this kind of space travel. Anthony Colangelo, great to speak with you, with how excited you are.

COLANGELO: Thanks again.

KEILAR: And as we do countdown to launch, be sure to join our very own, Boris Sanchez, for a CNN special report, because Boris is going to be in Florida for the big day. CNN's live event, which is "Mission to the Moon: Artemis II Launch" will air live tomorrow starting at 5 p.m. And do not forget, CNN All Access is here to answer your questions about the historic mission to the moon. You can actually send your questions to AskArtemis@cnn.com. Space experts and former astronauts will be answering them during CNN's all access coverage of the Artemis II Mission. Tune in at CNN.com/watch.

And still to come, the Trump administration suggesting re-opening the Strait of Hormuz is not an essential objective of the war with Iran, what that could mean for gas prices. Plus, states defy President Trump as they rule out legislation to regulate A.I., what they're demanding from tech companies.

And then later, everything we know about a U.S. Army investigation of a video appearing to show Apache helicopters hovering outside Kid Rock's home. We'll have that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

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SANCHEZ: Right now, stocks are rallying on renewed hopes the war with Iran may soon come to an end. The Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump is willing to end it without reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Then markets got a bigger boost from an unconfirmed rumor that Iran's president may be open to discussing an end to the war with some conditions.

This morning, Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth was asked if securing the strait was an objective of the operation

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HEGSETH: This Strait of Hormuz issue, which we've set the conditions for success, and we will make sure Iran knows that very clearly, is not just a United States of America problem set. We've been willing to lead. President Trump's led the entire time, but it's not just us. So ultimately, I think other countries should pay attention when the president speaks. He's proven that when he speaks, he means something.

And he's pointing out, you might want to start learning how to fight for yourself.

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SANCHEZ: Today, the national average for gas is above $4 from the first time since the war began some 30 days ago. The White House, though, says that these gas costs are going to, "plummet" once the war ends.

Let's discuss further with CNN Anchor and Business Editor-at-Large, Richard Quest. Richard, if the war ends with the Strait of Hormuz reopened, how soon after do you think these gas prices will plummet, as the White House suggests?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN ANCHOR AND BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE: I think very quickly, because what would happen is, as soon as the supply through the Strait becomes secured in a sense of stable, so the international price of a barrel of Brent crude and by relation, West Texas, would fall sharply as well. Now, will it fall back to the sort of prices, $60, $65 a barrel that we were at before the war? Probably not.

It'll take a bit longer to get down to there. But could it go from $105, $110 down to $80, $75? Absolutely. I think that the line, what's good for the sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. What sent the thing up will bring it down if, and that's the big if, there is evidence that the Strait is open and the ships are sailing and the supply routes are safe and secure. And that's a big if.

SANCHEZ: How do you see the way that markets are responding to what's out there right now about the possibility that talks are going well, even as President Trump is sending more American assets and manpower to the region?

QUEST: The markets are more hope than expectation. There is an irrationality to the numbers that you're showing on the screen. The markets have been so beaten up, down 9 percent, 10 percent from more recent highs on the NASDAQ, which was in correction, that they're looking for straws and they're grasping them.

Now, those gains that you're seeing, Boris, could and easily evaporate pretty quickly if nothing becomes true. So the president does have the ability to jaw-jaw the market up, but only temporarily until you require the evidence to back up the gains. And at the moment, the evidence simply isn't there.

So yes, you can have a sugar high on the back of a comment this way or that way, but you need some carbohydrates and protein if you're actually going to get a solid market.

SANCHEZ: I also wanted to ask you about this post from President Trump this morning, saying that some U.S. allies, if they want to resolve this issue of world energy prices, should go to the Strait themselves or potentially buy fuel from the United States.

[14:20:00]

If they go that second route, does that change the dynamic? Would that bring oil prices down?

QUEST: Well, first of all, the U.S. has to have spare supply to sell. And bearing in mind other demands in the U.S., you know, you don't just it's not like just sort of filling up the car, you've got to get the right blend of the right sweet crude of the right type in the right place. And you've got to do the same with LNG.

And then you've got to transport it either across the Pacific or across the Atlantic. So yes, the Europeans and the Asian countries are very well aware of the ability to buy out of the U.S. if there is product to buy. But there is a scarcity at the moment, and it has to be at the right price.

As for his comment, go and get it. I mean, this is just sort of more how to insult your allies as best you can. Nobody really knows what he means by that. This is a war that the U.S. has, as the critics will tell you, this is a war the U.S. started without consulting the allies. And to be true, all the allies pretty much to a country are saying, you started this, you didn't ask our opinion about getting into it. But you'd happily have us try and find your way out of it. And that's what's annoying them.

SANCHEZ: Richard Quest, thanks so much for the analysis. It's always appreciated.

Up next, President Trump releasing renderings of a towering presidential library in his honor. We'll show you the features right after this.

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KEILAR: Miami skyline could be getting a big addition. President Trump sharing a video showing what his presidential library could look like. The library paying tribute to some of the key moments of the president's political life, from his ride down the Golden Escalator to his fist pump after the 2024 assassination attempt.

CNN Senior White House Reporter, Betsy Klein is following this story. Betsy, what could this library include? BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, Brianna, traditionally presidential libraries are a museum and a place to store the full extent of the presidential archive. But President Trump has spent most of his presidency bucking tradition, and so we don't expect this library to be business as usual.

The president's son, Eric Trump, posting a two-minute video that appears to be A.I.-generated of these plans. Eric Trump, of course, is being tasked with leading the fundraising for this effort. And we don't yet know if these plans are indeed final. We've asked the White House and the Trump Organization for more details, but we have some notable highlights here.

Number one, unlike other libraries, this is a skyscraper, clearly a nod to the president's roots as a real estate developer. Separately, there is a full-size Air Force One that appears to be parked in the lobby, along with replicas of the Oval Office, his ballroom, and the Presidential Walk of Fame he has installed along the West Colonnade.

And third, there are a series of Trump-related Easter eggs throughout these plans. That includes what appears to be a replica of that golden escalator he rode down back in 2015 when he announced his presidential bid, as well as that golden sculpture, the president's fist in the air, that fight, fight, fight moment after his assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.

But it took more than five years to construct the Obama Presidential Library, so it appears this is far from imminent, but we'll be watching very closely, Brianna.

KEILAR: And north of Miami, in West Palm Beach, we're learning about something else named after President Trump. What can you tell us?

KLEIN: Yeah, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida yesterday signed a bill approving a name change for Palm Beach International Airport to the Donald J. Trump International Airport. This comes after the road from that airport to the president's Mar-a-Lago Club was renamed Donald Trump Boulevard. This airport is going to get a new codename from PBI. It will now be DJT, in honor of the president.

Of course, this comes after the president and his allies have installed his name on a number of other entities. That includes the Kennedy Center, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Trump Coin, TrumpRx, the list goes on and on. And Florida Democrats are already raising concerns about whether the Trump family might stand to profit from this name change.

A spokesperson for the Trump Organization told CNN the Trump family won't receive any royalties or licensing fees from this name change, Brianna.

KEILAR: Betsy Klein, thank you so much for that report for us from the White House.

President Trump calling out American allies, saying those in need of fuel should go to the Strait of Hormuz and take it. We'll discuss that right after the break.

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