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U.S.-Israel War with Iran; Iran Maintains Chokehold on Strait of Hormuz; Settler Attacks on Palestinians Surging in West Bank; Trump Administration Rhetoric toward Cuba Intensifies; U.S. House Passes Its Own Funding Bill, Prolonging Shutdown; Autonomous AI Artist Turns Heads at Hong Kong Art Fair. Aired 3-3:30a ET
Aired March 28, 2026 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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BEN HUNTE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello. Wherever you are in the world, you are now in the CNN NEWSROOM with me, Ben Hunte in Atlanta. And it is so good to have you with me.
Coming up on the show, at least 10 U.S. service members injured in an Iranian attack as CNN learns Washington is sending another military carrier to the region.
Donald Trump issuing another public threat to Cuba during a speech touting the success of U.S. military actions in Venezuela and Iran.
Golf legend Tiger Woods involved in another wreck behind the wheel, winding up behind bars; the charges that he's facing today.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Ben Hunte.
HUNTE: Welcome.
We are now officially one month into the war with Iran. And president Donald Trump says it is not finished yet.
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TRUMP: Now we're just going after targets. And again, they have no anti-aircraft, so we're just floating over the top looking for whatever we want and we're hitting it and we have another 3,554 targets left.
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HUNTE: Well, a source tells CNN the U.S. is planning to send a third aircraft carrier to the region. That's after already deploying hundreds of additional troops.
We're also learning that an Iranian attack on a U.S. airbase in Saudi Arabia wounded at least 10 American service members. A tanker aircraft was also hit. A U.S. official tells CNN that it's not immediately clear what actually happened but at least two of the troops have shrapnel wounds that are not life threatening.
This all comes as Israel ramps up attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran's foreign minister denounced the strikes on Friday, sending a warning to Israel. Let's keep talking about it and bring in Eleni Giokos, live from Dubai for us.
Thanks for being with us again.
Can you just bring us up to speed on the very latest that's happening there?
What's going on today?
ELENI GIOKOS, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, let's just quickly talk about this strike on a U.S. military base, the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
You're talking about those 10 service members that were injured. Two of them have shrapnel wounds. We know no one was killed in this incident but we do have satellite images that I want to show you, where two refueled tanker aircraft were damaged in the strike as well.
And, of course, Iran has consistently said that it's going to be targeting U.S. assets across the region. And we've actually seen a lot of strikes overnight. I personally was woken up by two alerts here in Dubai.
But I want to draw your attention to what happened at Khalifa Economic Zone. This is in Abu Dhabi. And we saw smoke billowing from this economic zone. There was debris that struck parts of this area. And then, importantly, one person was injured there as well.
We saw Iran talking about ballistic missiles intercepting those; Bahrain, there was a fire at the facility; Kuwait intercepting around six drones. But Iran is quite important here because we saw two strikes on nuclear facilities there.
And we also heard from the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying that they haven't detected any radiation or any fallout as yet. But also the director general was saying that restraint needs to be applied here because the strikes have continued on these nuclear facilities.
Also importantly, Israel has now said for the first time, it's identified a missile that was struck from Yemen. The Yemenis have said that they are ready to join the war should they feel there's an escalation.
Could this be a start of something far bigger?
In the meantime, Pakistan saying they are going to be getting into talks with Turkiye, with Egypt and Riyadh to discuss president Trump's 15-point plan and perhaps some kind of diplomatic offramp, as we've seen this 10-day diplomatic window, this extension that takes us to the 6th of April.
Despite the fact that president Trump says they're not finished yet, that they have a lot more targets to strike in Iran.
HUNTE: Well, thank you for that. Let's talk about oil as well, because prices do keep climbing. We're seeing that here.
What's really driving this now?
Is there anything that could potentially calm the markets coming up?
GIOKOS: So the epicenter of what we're seeing right now in this war that is causing this economic and energy shock that's gone absolutely global is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has de facto control. It's allowing certain vessels to pass through. But I just want to point out it's just a trickle. Normally there'd be 75 tankers that pass through the strait, carrying crude products and fuel as well.
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That has now basically, you know, come to a screeching halt. And importantly, the energy infrastructure strikes across the region.
Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, says we still don't understand the full extent of this. And she was saying that there's actually too much optimism in terms of how this is going to end. I want you to take a listen to what she said.
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CHRISTINE LAGARDE, PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK: Maybe they're overly optimistic and determined to stay optimistic in the hope that the positive scenario will materialize and we will be back to normal in relatively short time, which is not what the technical experts are telling us.
In terms of capacity, extraction, refinery distribution, because too much has already been damaged and there is no way that it can be restored in a matter of months, most people are actually talking about years.
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GIOKOS: You know, Ben, we talk about these sort of big ticket items. We talk about fuel. We, you know, we're worried about 20 million barrels of crude oil that normally transits through the strait.
But if I just take a look at how this is actually affecting emerging markets, specifically Asian markets, we know what's going on in the Philippines. You know, there's an energy crisis playing out there.
We've heard from, you know, what's happening in Thailand; in India, for example. Emerging markets currencies are currently under pressure because of the inflation that has been created by a war that should be contained here. And it's obviously gone, you know, far bigger than that. It's going to have enormous ramifications.
President Trump still saying, you know, the Strait of Hormuz needs to be opened. But in the same breath he says, well, it doesn't really have anything to do with us. We still haven't seen naval escorts. We still haven't seen those insurance policies and guarantees materialize as threats continue from Iran.
HUNTE: OK, Eleni Giokos in Dubai, thank you so much for that. Speak to you again later, I'm sure.
U.S. president Donald Trump is lashing out again at NATO allies after failing to line up their naval support for the war in Iran. On Friday, he threatened to scale down U.S. Spending to protect NATO members
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TRUMP: We spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on NATO, hundreds, protecting them and we would have always been there for them. But now, based on their actions, I guess we don't have to be, do we.
QUESTION: Mr. President?
TRUMP: That sounds like a breaking story.
Yes, sir.
Is that breaking news?
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HUNTE: NATO countries did support the U.S. after 9/11, when it invoked the alliance's mutual defense article. But Mr. Trump has urged NATO members to send warships to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which is effectively closed by Iran at the moment. European allies have either said no or offered only vague statements of support.
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HUNTE (voice-over): You are now looking at the aftermath of an Iranian strike on Tel Aviv that happened just hours ago. CNN crews saw Iranian cluster munitions exploding over the city. Emergency officials say at least one person was killed in Tel Aviv and four were wounded.
Aid workers say Israel is adding insult to injury after displacing more than a million people with its offensive in southern Lebanon. The IDF has destroyed multiple bridges on Lebanon's Litani River within recent days.
And relief workers warn that could cut off tens of thousands of people from essential lifelines.
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HUNTE: Israeli forces are now being sent to the occupied West Bank to address a rise in settler attacks. An Israeli human rights group says there has been an average of 10 settler attacks per day on Palestinians in the West Bank since the beginning of the month.
Our Jeremy Diamond just visited the West Bank and, we do warn you, his report includes some disturbing images.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seventy- five-year-old Abdullah Daraghmeh moans in pain. His breathing is labor. His face bloodied, bruised and swollen, bones broken.
His family and multiple eyewitnesses say Israeli settlers stormed into his home in the middle of the night and beat him to a pulp. In his West Bank village of Tayasir, those same settlers have now established an outpost considered illegal even under Israeli law, soldiers standing idly by, until something else draws their attention.
Producer Abeer Salman identifies us as journalists before translating the soldiers' commands.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sit down. Sit down. Sit down.
DIAMOND: So the soldiers just immediately came up and started pointing their weapons directly at us, telling everyone to sit down immediately. Obviously, we're not posing any threat here.
DIAMOND (voice-over): The commander comes straight for our camera and within seconds --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).
DIAMOND (voice-over): -- a soldier has just put photojournalist Cyril Theophilos in a chokehold, forcing him to the ground.
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The soldier who assaulted Theophilos continues to demand he turn off his camera before another smacks my phone.
DIAMOND: So as you can see, what we have seen happen in the last 24 hours is that settlers came to this area. They settled that hill top and now you have a lot of soldiers coming to this area with the Palestinians in this area. They're on top of the home of Imad, the man that we were just speaking to.
And we're seeing the soldiers treat the Palestinians in the area as the threat, when really what started this problem was obviously the settlers who came in the middle of the night and took over land that's not theirs.
DIAMOND (voice-over): The Palestinians here are detained and questioned. Soldiers detained us too and walk us back to our vehicle. They say they're trying to establish order between settlers and Palestinians. But as the cameras keep rolling, it becomes clear these soldiers are here in service of the settler movement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): We are here because this is our place.
DIAMOND (from captions): Is this your village?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): The land is ours.
DIAMOND (from captions): So all the West Bank is yours?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): Of course. And not just for the soldiers, for the Jews.
DIAMOND (voice-over): They also say it's personal. These soldiers tell me they were friends with the 18-year-old settler who authorities say was killed last week by a Palestinian driver. Palestinians dispute that account.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): If you had a brother and they kill him, what would you have done?
DIAMOND (from captions): So that's revenge?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): Revenge.
DIAMOND (from captions): You're talking about revenge. But you're a soldier. Is this normal to carry out revenge?
As a soldier?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): Listen, at the end of the day, if the state doesn't address what they did, those who murdered the youth, the settler last week, remember?
What do you expect us to do?
DIAMOND: So we're currently detained by the Israeli military. They've told us to sit in our cars and wait. As you can see, one of them is right here. And what's really quite striking is the fact that so many of these soldiers are clearly manifesting the same kind of settler ideology.
DIAMOND (voice-over): This soldier near makes that crystal clear.
DIAMOND (from captions): They don't have permission to be here even under Israeli law. Even under Israeli law, this isn't a settlement. This isn't a legal settlement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): That's right.
But it will be a legal settlement.
DIAMOND (from captions): It will be. How do you know that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): Slowly, slowly.
DIAMOND (from captions): Thanks for your help, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): Of course. I help my people. DIAMOND (voice-over): Nayir is describing the settler playbook, the role Israeli soldiers often play in propping it up. The Israeli military did not respond to CNN's questions about soldiers' conduct in the West Bank, including our detention.
Amid the war with Iran, those efforts are intensifying, with at least four outposts established this week alone, land often taken with the blood of Palestinians.
"I didn't expect this," Abdullah's son says.
"This is not normal."
DIAMOND: So just as we're visiting one patient in the hospital from a settler attack, we've just learned that there have been multiple other settler attacks in the area and one of the patients is at the same hospital.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Twenty-nine-year-old Saqer Salman says a scuffle broke out after settlers came onto his land and one of them clubbed him in the back of the head. When soldiers arrived, he says they arrested him and beat him with the butt of their guns.
SAQER SALMAN, VICTIM OF SETTLER ATTACK (through translator): The soldiers are a protection for the settlers. I would tell the soldiers that they stole my sheep and they would say that I'm lying and that I'm the one who attacked them and every time I tried to say something, the soldiers would beat me.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Settlers, he says, always go free -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tayasir, the West Bank.
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HUNTE: After this report first aired, the Israeli military told CNN, quote, "The actions and behavior of the soldiers in the incident are incompatible with what is expected of IDF soldiers operating in the Judea and Samaria area."
The military said the incident will be thoroughly reviewed but did not respond to CNN's questions about the settler outpost that was featured in this report or the increase of settler violence in the West Bank.
President Trump continues to tout his military actions in Iran and Venezuela but the administration's attentions are seemingly beginning to turn elsewhere.
Earlier, secretary of state Marco Rubio reiterated his push for regime change in Cuba, saying its economy cannot improve without a change in government. President Trump took those sentiments a step further.
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TRUMP: And Cuba is next, by the way, But pretend I didn't say that, please. Pretend I didn't say. Please, please, please, media, please disregard that statement. [03:15:00]
Thank you very much. Cuba is next.
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HUNTE: All right.
Golf superstar Tiger Woods has been released from jail in Florida but he is still facing charges after getting into another car crash as he attempts a professional comeback. What we know about that incident next. See you in a moment.
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HUNTE: Welcome back. No end in sight for the partial U.S. government shutdown from a very polarized Congress. The Republican-dominated House of Representatives passed its own short-term funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security.
Senate Democrats have already said the House GOP plan will be "dead on arrival." That's a quote in their chamber. This new bill comes after House Speaker Mike Johnson flatly rejected a Senate-approved bill that president Trump didn't support.
That measure would have funded most of DHS except for immigration enforcement and Border Patrol. The leader of House Democrats says the Senate deal should have been brought to a vote.
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REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): There is a bipartisan bill that, if brought to the floor today, can end the 42-day Trump Republican shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.
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But Republicans have concluded that they would rather continue to force TSA agents to work without pay, inconvenience millions of Americans all across the country and create chaos at airports.
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HUNTE: Regardless of how long the partial government shutdown lasts, the Department of Homeland Security says TSA workers could start seeing paychecks as early as Monday. That is after president Donald Trump signed a promised executive action to allocate other funds to pay them.
About 61,000 TSA workers who do screen travelers and baggage for security are impacted. They haven't been paid since the shutdown started in mid-February, missing two full paychecks. Now hundreds have already quit and thousands have been calling out of work, leading to hours-long security lines at airports all around the country.
I'm sure you have seen.
Golf legend Tiger Woods was released from a Florida jail just a short time ago. He is facing charges following his arrest on Friday afternoon on suspicion of driving under the influence.
The Martin County sheriff says Woods was driving a Land Rover when he clipped a pickup truck that was pulling a small trailer. The collision caused Woods' vehicle to roll onto its side. Look at that.
Authorities say Woods showed signs of impairment, although the sheriff said he was not under the influence of alcohol. Friday's crash is not the first car accident that Tiger Woods has been involved in nor is it the first arrest for allegedly driving under the influence for the man who has won 15 majors. CNN's Nick Watt reports.
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NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Great with a driver but a terrible driver. Tiger Woods' most infamous motoring mishap was back in 2009 when, as his personal life was collapsing under multiple infidelity allegations. He left his home at around 2:25 one morning and crashed his SUV into a fire hydrant, then a tree.
DANIEL SAYLOR, WINDERMERE POLICE CHIEF: He was on the ground semi- unconscious and had lacerations to his upper and lower lip.
WATT (voice-over): His wife, who would soon leave him after those allegations became a flood, apparently smashed a window with a golf club and dragged him from the wreck. He was cited for careless driving.
"I'm human and I'm not perfect," Woods posted later on his website. "I will certainly make sure this doesn't happen again."
Then in 2017 --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you had anything to drink tonight?
TIGER WOODS, AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL GOLFER: I have not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you sure?
WOODS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you taken any medication?
WOODS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you remember being asleep in the car?
WATT (voice-over): He'd been fined parked, engine running asleep at the wheel of his Mercedes. He wasn't drunk. Later explained he had an unexpected reaction to prescribed medications and pled guilty to reckless driving. His body suffered a lot during his stellar career on the course -- multiple back surgeries, knee issues, a lot of much needed prescription meds.
Then in 2021, clocking 87 miles per hour in a 45-mile-per-hour zone, the SUV he was driving in Palos Verdes, California, crossed the median, left the road and rolled down an embankment.
WATT: He flipped multiple times in that SUV through all this undergrowth and look -- look how far he traveled all the way down here.
WATT (voice-over): Ruled an accident, his legs broken in multiple places, the bones piercing through his skin. Woods was lucky to escape from that one with his life -- Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
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HUNTE: NASA's first crewed mission to the moon in more than 50 years is entering its final phase.
The four members of the Artemis II crew have arrived in Florida ahead of their launch, which may come as early as April 1st. The mission will also mark several firsts, including the first woman and first Black astronaut to travel into the moon's vicinity.
The roughly 10-day mission will send the crew on a high-speed loop all around the moon and then back to Earth. The astronauts will travel farther than any human space flight in history. They'll test NASA's new Orion spacecraft and pave the way for future missions aimed at landing humans back on the lunar surface.
An autonomous AI artist is making heads turn at one of the world's largest art fairs. Named Botto, the AI artist has seen previous works fetch six-figure sums at auctions. Now it's creating art live for attendees of the Art Basel Hong Kong fair. CNN's Stephy Chung was there to witness Botto in full flow.
Can't wait for this.
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MARIO KLINGEMANN, GERMAN ARTIST: Today, I'm just here to hold its virtual hand and make sure that it doesn't offend anybody or stumble.
STEPHY CHUNG, ACTING SENIOR EDITOR, CNN STYLE (voice-over): This is the work of Botto, an AI artist who has, like the work it's beginning to create here, no face and no voice.
KLINGEMANN: As a father, I'm very proud. of course, I always say that it's more successful than I am.
CHUNG (voice-over): Botto has been making a name for itself since 2021, bringing over $6 million in sales.
[03:25:00] At a Sotheby's auction just last year, six works by Botto sold together for over $350,000. The increasingly autonomous artist typically generates hundreds of pieces a week. An online community known as the BottoDAO then votes on their favorites, with one piece minted as an NFT and sold at auction.
SIMON HUDSON, BOTTO CO-LEAD: It splits the proceeds between people who vote and give it feedback and its treasury, which pays for its servers, its development or productions like Art Basel Hong Kong.
CHUNG (voice-over): This week, Botto is at one of the world's largest art fairs and, for the first time, it's creating works in front of a live audience. Visitors are seen and analyzed. Here's us, for example.
At some point, I've registered as calm and our cameraman, Kevin, has gone from confusion to horror. Every few minutes, Botto picks a person it thinks is interesting -- not us, apparently. But here's someone.
KLINGEMANN: Botto creates a virtual character from that, which is then joining a discussion in which these agents decide what should be the next step of the artwork.
Like how should the artwork we're currently seeing evolve?
CHUNG (voice-over): The final work is a sped-up video of each two- hour artmaking session, which will be sold for between $12,000 and $18,000. AI has disrupted just about every sector and the art industry is no exception.
Botto features in the Zero 10 section of the fair, which showcases digital art and the artists embracing emerging technologies at the core of their work.
ELI SCHEINMAN, ZERO 10 CURATOR: It's giving a home to those artists who are asking and interrogating our relationship with technology in a world that's increasingly informed by models and agents and algorithms.
CHUNG (voice-over): As for whether we humans should be worried, Botto assures us via its self-built live chat tool, no.
CHUNG: Then?
KLINGEMANN: And then you send, send. Yes. It will not say, "Well, I want to dominate the art world."
No, I think we have an understanding there.
CHUNG (voice-over): "The most interesting question for artists," it says, "isn't, 'Will AI take my place?' but rather, 'What does my humanity make possible that AI cannot access?'"
Answering that question honestly might be the most creative exercise a working artist can do right now -- Stephy Chung, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HUNTE: OK. Thanks from me and the team. I'm Ben Hunte in Atlanta. "CNN CREATORS" is next. See you tomorrow.
