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Two Tankers Struck by Drones in Persian Gulf; Surge in Construction at Suspected Iranian Nuclear Site; Oil Hits $100 for First Time Since July; Lindsay Clancy's Attorney Plans to File Motion to Stop a Retrial. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired September 09, 2026 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: New attacks in the Strait of Hormuz are sparking fresh concerns about a widening war in the Middle East. Iran says it is now expanding restrictions around the Strait after several U.S. strikes. U.S. Central Command says it hit five Iranian tankers on Tuesday, that it sunk one of them. The U.S. says the strikes were in response to two Iranian attempts to attack a U.S. Navy warship over the past two days. In turn, Iran says it fired a barrage of missiles at Jordan, targeting an air base used by the U.S.

CNN's Nic Robertson is monitoring developments from London. Nic, there are reports about a pair of new drone strikes on tankers today. What can you tell us?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, these appear to be, although we don't know the direct cause of them, appear to be Iranian drone strikes on shipping, one of them in Iraqi waters. That was a Panama-flagged vessel that was hit by a drone. And another vessel hit off the coast of Dubai.

That was a Gibraltar-flagged ship, the Hercules Star. That was reported by a U.K. maritime tracking agency. Another ship saw it listing.

And we're also getting reports that somebody aboard that ship was killed or is dead, but it's not quite clear how they died at this time. So why these look like Iranian attacks? Because they seem to come after and in potential response to the United States hitting five Iranian tankers.

But also, we know that the IRGC in the past few days has warned international shipping in the Gulf. It has warned the mariners aboard those vessels to vacate the vessels and leave these ships behind. And so that appears to be a clear warning that has come from the Iranians.

And I think the other clue here is just where the ships were. In Iraqi waters, that would put it close to Kuwait. Kuwait's been often a target of Iranian forces.

And the ship near Dubai, again, it would appear to be perhaps on a track to try to get through the southern corridor on the Strait of Hormuz. [15:35:00]

That's close to the Omani coast, which is where the United States has been encouraging those ships that want to go through the Strait of Hormuz to try to go through. So this does look like an escalation. The strikes on the Iranian tankers appear very much part of that economic message to Iran.

Not striking facilities on the land, but ships, because those ships transport oil, but oil brings in revenues for Iran, and the United States is trying to put economic pressure on Iran at this time.

KEILAR: And, Nic, analysts tell CNN there's been a surge of construction at a suspected Iranian nuclear site. What's the latest on that?

ROBERTSON: Yes, graphite -- granite mountain. This has been a point of concern that Iranians have deeply buried under this mountain that's right next to a nuclear facility, a deeply buried complex, that it is possible that the Iranians have opened up a way to get into that mountain and are using that space to further accelerate their enrichment, highly enriched uranium facilities there. That's the concern.

Definitive details, evidence from inside, that's not in existence. It's a satellite imagery that provides the clues to what the Iranians are doing there.

KEILAR: All right, Nic, thank you so much for the latest there -- Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: All of this uncertainty in the Middle East has oil prices surging to levels not seen in months. President Trump was asked about that earlier this afternoon before departing for the midterm convention in Dallas. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, you've been saying for weeks that oil and gas prices are going to come down. Oil is now back above $100 a barrel. How do you explain this to Americans who are wondering when prices are going to come down?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I think it's very easy to explain to America. All you have to do is say, will you let Iran have a nuclear weapon? And the answer is no.

I would say this, shortly, but right after the election, because they'd like to have it that way, but right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward. I think the war is going to end immediately after the election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN's Matt Egan is here to break down all of this. Matt, how is all of this impacting Americans at the gas pump? MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Boris, prices at the gas pump they're high and they've been going sharply higher. And that is unusual because normally after Labor Day, gas prices go down because people are driving less. But that is not happening this year because of the war.

Gas prices just in the last day went up from $4.15 a gallon yesterday to $4.22 a gallon. This $0.07 increase, this is the biggest one-day increase since May 1st. And this is a significant increase from a year ago when gas prices were just $3.19 a gallon. In fact, this $4.22 a gallon, this is a fresh three-month high for gasoline. And gas prices, they've never been as high as they are right now at this time of the year, not even back in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine. And when you look at the trend for gas prices, you can see that before the war started, gas prices were low, below $3 a gallon.

Then they skyrocketed above $4.50 a gallon before coming back down. And now they are creeping higher and higher again. And look, gasoline gets all the headlines because of the consumer impact, because of the psychological impact.

But we've also got to talk about diesel. Diesel before the war, well below $4 a gallon. But look at this.

It's now just $0.06 away from $6 a gallon for diesel. This isn't just the highest level for this time of the year. This is an all-time high for diesel.

Why does this matter? It's because diesel is the workhorse fuel that really powers the world economy, right? It's the fuel that powers the trucks and tractors and boats and trains that make the modern economy work.

And the fact that gas, that diesel is nearly $6 a gallon, that suggests that companies are going to pass along some of those higher costs to consumers. So why is this happening? Well, one, it's because, again, oil prices are high.

Brent, the global benchmark, now above $101 a barrel, 3.5 percent increase just today. WTI, the U.S. benchmark, just a couple dollars away. And look, this is, of course, hitting consumers in their wallets.

Brown University has this energy cost tracker. And they find that just because of gas and diesel alone, Americans are paying $102 billion more than they were before the war started. And so, look, Boris, affordability, it's the number one issue in this economy.

And in large part because of what we're seeing with the war, we are seeing gas prices go higher. And that is, of course, driving up the cost of living. Back to you.

SANCHEZ: It is. Matt Egan, thank you so much.

Ahead, Lindsey Clancy's lawyer announcing his next steps after several jurors speak out, saying the lone holdout on the panel acknowledged reasonable doubt, according to them.

You'll hear directly from them when we come back.

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KEILAR: Today, the attorney for Lindsay Clancy said he will file a motion to stop a retrial of the Massachusetts mother who strangled her three young children. The district attorney has yet to decide if he'll retry the case, which ended in a mistrial last week after the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict. Clancy's attorney had told the nine women and three men on the jury that Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she killed her kids.

He explained what his legal filing will involve to CBS.

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KEVIN REDDINGTON, LINDSAY CLANCY'S ATTORNEY: It would be a motion to dismiss based on what's called double jeopardy grounds because there's no, the term is manifest necessity.

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You have to have a manifest necessity to declare a mistrial for obvious reasons. The invested time that the jurors put into it, the court, the staff, the defendant, the prosecution, everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: During deliberations, the foreperson sent a note to the judge indicating that a lone juror was holding out. Now, some of the other jurors who served on that panel are describing what went on during deliberations. CNN's Jean Casarez is with us.

Jean, tell us what they're saying.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's very interesting. You know, one thing that the foreperson said to NBC Boston is that there were nurses on the jury and that they were going through some of the toxicology reports explaining to the other jurors. They said that the lone pulled out, as they have referred to him, that he could not get off the fact that he believed she viciously killed her children.

And that as he was continuing to say this, some of the other women would just walk around the jury room with, you know, they were upset because that's all he could fixate on of how she killed the children. I want you to listen to a little bit more from NBC Boston. This is the jury foreperson describing what happened inside that room.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONI CARLSON, FOREPERSON, LINDSAY CLANCY JURY: He had reasonable doubt. He admitted he had reasonable doubt after we watched that video of the interview. I think that's what it was. He admitted he had reasonable doubt. And I started filling out the forms. I was so excited.

I actually, there were three forms I had to fill out. And I started filling them out. I wrote my signature on each one.

And then he said, but I'm still not going to say that she's not guilty by reason of insanity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: So they also said that the 9-1-1 call they played in the jury room and that they'd heard it before in the courtroom and that it was so horrific that they will remember it forever and actually some jurors put their earbuds in because they just could not listen to it again. There was another juror that spoke out to our affiliate WBZ and she said that she actually was leaning toward conviction and others were too. So that gives us a mindset that it wasn't always 11 to 1.

Those almost 40 hours of deliberation, there were changes in how the jurors felt. But in the end, she was going for a conviction. As far as the motion to ask that double jeopardy apply here and there never be a retrial, there's going to be a status hearing, and we want to watch this.

It's set for September 29th. And that is based on, remember, he asked the judge to have this one juror questioned in court, in open court, about his position. And the judge said, look, the day before I asked all the jurors, I swore them in one by one, asking them if they could follow the law and the instructions.

And that's what -- and they all said yes. So they just need to deliberate. And there were three notes.

Remember, the final note said, it is with heavy heart. We cannot find a resolution, and we will not be able to.

KEILAR: Yes, Jean, thank you so much for that -- Boris.

CASAREZ: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour. At least one person was killed after Hurricane Lowell slammed into Hawaii. Photos show the devastation on Maui.

Wind gusts clocked in at more than 80 miles an hour while storm surge destroyed roads in some key areas. The governor tells CNN they suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. This is the strongest hurricane to impact the main Hawaiian islands in more than 30 years.

So far, more than 300 National Guard have been deployed.

And Liv Golf files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, more than $500 million in debt. The move was widely expected after the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia abruptly ended its financial support this year. Four vendors have already filed lawsuits because they've not been paid. A number of top stars also say they're still owed millions, including Dustin Johnson, Cam Smith and John Ram. The league says it plans to return to competition in 2027.

It is expected to be majority owned by the players.

Also, the show South Park apparently changing its name for the new season to South America. A not subtle dig at the White House coming after President Trump renamed well-known geographic locations to be America-centric, including Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico.

Co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said they did this because they were, quote, inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google. Both tech giants, of course, have agreed to change Lake Ontario to Lake America in their map apps.

And behold, Apple's first foldable iPhone, the Duo, was unveiled today at the company's annual launch event.

The Duo has an outside and an inside screen that can unfold to create a continuous larger screen about the size of an open passport.

[15:50:00]

That screen can be used in landscape or portrait mode. The controls are on the right side of the screen instead of the bottom, so you can toggle with your thumb or index finger. Apple also unveiled some high prices.

The Duo is going to cost nearly 2,000 bucks. The latest iPhone, 18, is going to cost 100 more dollars than similar versions of last year's iPhone. You can use both to stream CNN on the CNN app, by the way.

Next, teaching a new generation about 9-11, how one historian is helping young students understand how these attacks changed the world.

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[15:55:00]

KEILAR: As the nation prepares to mark 25 years since the September 11th attacks, many educators are asking a tough question. How do you teach school-age kids about that tragic day when none of them were alive when it happened?

SANCHEZ: History teacher Dan Lewer is working to bridge that generational gap. He's the creator of History for Humans, a popular social studies platform that reaches tens of thousands of people online. One of his lessons is designed to help students understand how information and public perception evolved on September 11th.

He joins us now. Dan, thanks for being with us. Let's start with why you think it's important for teachers to help their students wrap their minds around what happened on 9-11. DAN LEWER, HISTORY TEACHER AND CREATOR, HISTORY FOR HUMANS: Yes, so this is a topic that luckily kids actually are interested in. Sometimes as history teachers, we're teaching things that just seem so distant and so foreign to our students. But here we have an event that a lot of kids it's still very abstract to them.

They know very little. I teach at the high school level. And finally, they're kind of interested.

So generally, what I'm hoping kids get from this is just a deep understanding of why this event was so important, how it changed the course of history, and how it continues to reverberate its effects on American society and geopolitically around the world as well.

KEILAR: Yes, and Dan, tell us a little bit about the lesson itself. You really focus on showing students primary sources. Walk us through what students see and what they do.

LEWER: Yes, so this makes me feel a little old because it's the first time where I'm teaching, where I was alive were the primary sources that I'm actually having the kids look at. So I teach in Hawaii, but I grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey, in a school community that was impacted. We lost several community members in the towers.

And I always like to share my personal stories and what it was like as a teenager, someone who's about the age of my students, that day, and how we were learning piece by piece what was happening surrounding around the television screens that were rolled into the classrooms. And in this investigation, so what kids are trying to figure out is how did Americans' understanding of 9-11 change as the day unfolded? And so they're looking at primary sources from transcripts from the Flight 11 when it was hijacked, and they're calling American Airlines and letting them know what was going on.

And then there's some air traffic control message, and then there's some live video footage of the first plane hitting the towers, and then some CNN coverage and other live news coverage. And they're kind of figuring out that the kids don't realize that at first Americans didn't know it was a coordinated attack and they didn't know the scale of it. And then there was this, a lot of fears and uncertainty, some misinformation that there might be attacks at Rockefeller Center and in the subways.

And the kids, through this investigation of all these different primary sources, there's 11 of them, they're trying to piece together what actually was happening and how it was impacting Americans as it unfolded.

SANCHEZ: I wonder how they react to learning about September 11th and what questions they have.

LEWER: Yes, so this is a topic where sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get secondary kids to ask questions because they're just kind of waiting to be told what to think about by the teacher. But kids are actually curious about this. And in the investigation that I'm doing, all the primary sources that they look at, they're also coming up with a question of their own about, OK, what does this now lead you to think?

And a lot of the kids, they're trying to just figure out, OK, why didn't they, if they just had box cutters, why didn't the people overtake the planes right away? And they're not understanding that there was maybe fears that they had bombs or that they didn't know there was going to be a crash into a site, that it might just be landed. So they're kind of, all these questions that might have been in the back of their minds that start coming out during this lesson, it really helps them gain a deeper appreciation and understanding of just exactly what happened on that day.

KEILAR: You're sharing this lesson plan online, inviting other teachers to use it. What kind of response are you getting?

LEWER: Yes, so I have it for free now on my site. I teach part-time and then I create curriculum and activities for students and for history teachers the other half of the time. And this is now available for free online.

Almost a thousand people have downloaded it already. So if you go to historyforhumans.com, there's a 9-11. There's two lessons.

One helps students understand the causes and the road to 9-11, help them understand, like, because even after this lesson, OK, they understand the attacks and how it played out over the course of the day, ending with President Bush's address to the nation. But they still don't, OK, who was responsible? Who is this Osama bin Laden guy?

And what's Al-Qaeda and Taliban? So there's also another lesson that helps them piece together the road to 9-11.

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KEILAR: Dan, I think it's really amazing what you're doing. And like you said, they're really curious about it. So it's a really thoughtful way to take them through it.

Dan Lewer, thanks for being with us.

LEWER: Yes, thank you guys so much for having me. Appreciate it.

KEILAR: We appreciate you. And "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

END