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U.S., Iran Trade First Strikes In A Month, Escalating Conflict; CNN Granted Access To Key Island In Bab Al-Mandab Strait; 900 Plus Dead, 4,200 Plus Missing After Catastrophic Flooding. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired August 31, 2026 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:42]

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everybody. I'm Polo Sandoval live in New York. And ahead here on CNN Newsroom, the U.S. and Iran trade their first strikes in a month. And this as the conflict heats back up.

An urgent search and rescue operations are underway this hour to reach hundreds of workers traffic trapped in tunnels in Nepal. And what can we expect from that massive oil deal between the U.S. and Venezuela? We'll hear from an expert.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from New York, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Polo Sandoval.

SANDOVAL: We want to begin with new strikes between the U.S. and Iran as they threaten to reignite the conflict in the region after weeks of calm. And this is the first escalation that we've seen in a month after the U.S. said that it will inflict economic pain on Iran. Iran launched missiles and drone strikes against two U.S. air bases in Jordan on Sunday.

A spokesperson for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says that those strikes were in response to the U.S. attacks. And that's according to what we were hearing from state media. U.S. officials are defending their initial attack, Central Command saying that the military took aim at Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island. And this after observing Iranian forces preparing to fire rockets with mines into the Strait of Hormuz.

In a message carried by Iran's state broadcaster, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps called the U.S. sanctions, quote, "a strategic and deadly mistake, referring to the actions, not sanctions."

CNN's Paula Hancocks is joining me now from Abu Dhabi with more. Paula, so what's the latest? What else are we hearing?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Polo, what we've heard from U.S. Central Command is that this was a, quote, "limited, precise action," saying that it was mine-laying forces were posing an imminent threat. It's unclear at this point whether this is the end of the kinetic activity, but certainly what we've heard from CENTCOM is that they targeted two rocket launchers on Larak Island.

They say that they appeared as though they were going to be putting mines into the Strait of Hormuz or into the waters off the coast of Iran. The CENTCOM has claimed that they have demined the Strait of Hormuz, this critical waterway, saying that it is now safe to be able to transit that particular area.

Now, what we've seen from Tehran itself is that they have retaliated to air bases or military bases in Jordan were targeted. But the Defense Ministry in Jordan says that they intercepted and destroyed eight missiles. So none of those projectiles incoming posed any threat to civilians or to property, according to the Defense Ministry.

We've also heard from the Defense Ministry here in the UAE saying that they had responded to a drone that was coming from Iran and it was over the Emirati territorial waters.

Tehran had claimed that they had targeted a military base here in the UAE, but authorities here say that was incorrect and it was a drone over the waters itself. So, what we're seeing is this is the first kinetic activity really in more than a month. We have been seeing vessels in the Strait of Hormuz being targeted, but we hadn't really been seeing any of this kind of stuff, strikes by the U.S. and then, of course, the retaliation from Iran.

Now, we've heard from the President of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking to state media, and he said, quote, "We're not seeking war, but in the face of aggression, we will never sit idly by, and we are capable of delivering a decisive response."

What we have been hearing in recent days and weeks from the Trump administration is that their focus on was more on trying to punish Iran economically and trying to create economic isolation. We've heard from the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, saying that this would be a an economic D-Day, also saying to Reuters that their first focus is going to be on banks facilitating Iran's economic health. Polo.

[04:05:08]

SANDOVAL: Paula Hancocks, thank you so much for that live report. Let's continue our coverage of this conflict as all eyes are on the Strait of Hormuz right now and the struggle over who will control it amid the U.S. war with Iran. And that's bringing more attention to another key shipping chokepoint in the region, the Bab al-Mandab Strait. It connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and also the Indian Ocean.

Let's go live now to CNN's international diplomatic editor, Nick Robertson, who gained some exclusive access to one island there in the Strait. Nick, tell us where you are. Walk us through where you are and why it's so relevant in all of this.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes. Right now we're standing on Perim island, also known locally as Mayun Island. And what you're looking at behind me there is the Bab Bab al-Mandab Strait. And what I can see looking out looking over that shoulder is Eritrea.

What I can see looking out over that shoulder is Djibouti. I see the mountains rising up out of the sea. It's the African continent. And that tells you just how narrow the Bab al-Mandab Strait is. It's about 10 miles or so across to Africa, 15 kilometers, something like that.

What's happening here? There's been a little-known war that's been simmering here in Yemen for over a decade between the Yemeni government and the Houthis. And I think a lot of people don't know much about this conflict. They kind of think that the Houthis are a ragtag force, but they're not.

They're Iran's strongest proxy at the moment. They've got hypersonic missiles. They've been hitting Israel. They've got ship-seeking sophisticated missiles that can target them from a long distance. And they've been hitting international shipping, Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea here, Bab al-Mandab, Red Sea up there.

So, you've got the Houthis with their Iranian sponsors that have been ramping up the war here in recent weeks. And they're turning what was a local war into a geopolitical one, if you will, that has global consequences.

President Trump tries to manage the tensions with Iran by keeping the global price of oil down. This has been permanent for him over the last few months. Trying to keep it down, trying to keep it down. And what Iran is doing is putting pressure and blocking the Strait of Hormuz.

What Saudi has done is try to divert its Oil, get it out through the Red Sea. So, get it out down here. You know, a few years ago, 10 percent of the global oil trade came through here. Vital for commercial shipping, too.

Now it's down to about half of that. And if Iran continues to push its proxies here, and they continue in their operations to try to take the rest of the Red Sea coast, then they would take this place here, Perim Island, Mayun Island, they would take it. That would make shutting off this strait, the Bab al-Mandab Strait, much, much easier for them than it is right now, hitting ships while they're sort of at sea further north where -- where the Red Sea is much wider.

So this threat that Iran is sort of putting on the global stage at the moment, right now, by pushing its proxies, the Houthis, to shut off and take control of the Red Sea, shut off the Bab al-Mandab Strait, that potentially has political consequences for President Trump, because of course, if you shut off this route for oil, getting to global markets, particularly Asia, then that's going to drive up the price of oil. And that makes -- that gives President Trump political vulnerability, politics -- particularly going into the upcoming U.S. midterms.

And this really appears to be what Iran is doing at the moment. So you have this huge focus on the Strait of Hormuz, this little-known war here in Yemen, this is the sort of axis of it. This is the crunch point, the vital choke point across the Bab al-Mandab Strait here. So this is what's going on.

The access we've had has been really to get us here. Very few people get to witness the war going on here. We've been witnessing some of the destructive strikes that the Houthis have had up the coast here. We were in the port of Mocha, and we've seen there where multiple Houthi missiles have come in, destroyed the shipping there. There's ships sunk in the harbor area, big mess there.

We've seen some of the weapon systems that the Yemeni military have intercepted that Iran has been trying to smuggle into Yemen to the Houthis. There have been sophisticated air missiles that are designed to take down aircraft, sophisticated maritime missiles that are designed to hit shipping parts for drones, all manner of equipment, even ammunition smuggled in, hidden in fake truck batteries. So, this is what the Yemeni forces are up against. They really feel that this war's gone, got a global dimension and they really feel at the moment that they would like.

[04:10:08]

They say they're ready to fight this by themselves and much more prepared than they were. This war has been dragging on for a long time, but they right now feel the full force of the Houthis and they think that the war has an international dimension and they'd really like to see more support.

Now at the moment, there's been real concern that there might be operations, Houthi operations going on north of here. At the moment, we don't have the details on that. But as the Strait of Hormuz heats up, you can expect this here also to continue to heat up even more as Iran tries to put pressure on President Trump by trying to shut down Bab al-Mandab Strait here.

SANDOVAL: That live perspective there on the ground is so valuable. I mean, you mentioned dimension. This certainly adds yet another layer of complexity as we try to gain a better understanding and more nuance. Nic Robertson, our thanks to you and your entire team in Yemen, live for us with that exclusive reporting.

All right. We do want to go now to the death toll that continues to rise following the devastating flooding that swept across parts of Nepal and China last week. Nepal's disaster authority now says that more than 900 people have been killed. And the number of missing is also climbing as families are desperately searching for any clues as they try to find their missing loved ones.

Officials in Nepal now saying that more than 4,000 people are still unaccounted for. And the scale of this disaster, it is straining medical resources to preserve some of the victims remains to try to extract some DNA for testing and eventual identification.

India has deployed more than a dozen forensic scientists to Nepal to try to help speed up that process. But officials in southern Nepal have already been forced to bury nearly 200 unidentified bodies. And urgent search and rescue operations are currently underway to reach hundreds of workers believed to be trapped in tunnels in Nepal.

Specialist teams from China and India are joining roughly 10,000 Nepali troops trying to get help there. CNN's Hanako Montgomery with an update.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): In Nepal's mud-filled tunnels, desperate rescues are unfolding helicopters lifting survivors to safety, some too weak to walk. These tunnels were built to harness Nepal's rivers and fuel its booming hydropower industry. But now they're the focus of a frantic search. More than 900 are still missing, many of them workers trapped inside when the flood hit.

BHAKTI RAM BOHARA, FLOOD SURVIVOR (voiceover): Me and my brother in law were working in the same tunnel. I lost him. His wife is my sister and she is pregnant.

MONTGOMERY (voiceover): Amar Bista helped rescue these men. He and his team of volunteers trekked through dangerous terrain carrying medical supplies. And with the help of the Nepali army, they flew to the worst-hit areas where they used picks and shovels to find signs of life. Sometimes they found the dead instead.

The rescued men we spoke to say the tunnels were filled with bodies. The flood stripped them of everything they had, including their clothes.

AMAR BISTA, TOUR GUIDE AND VOLUNTEER: All the clothes -- they lost all the -- whatever they have. Like, they lost their phones. They lost their, like, everything they lost, you know.

MONTGOMERY: What about -- what about these men? Have they lost family members?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They lost their uncles, brothers. You know, like a cousins.

MONTGOMERY: Everyone's lost someone.

MONTGOMERY (voiceover): Four days in the mountains have left Amar haunted by what he's seen.

BISTA: Like, hundreds of people are there and no food. Everybody got a diarrhea, you know, like nothing. So I didn't -- I didn't have a word for this because --

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[04:15:00]

SANDOVAL: For joining us again for an update.

JOHN TORPEY, RESPONSE DIRECTOR, WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN: Of course. No problem. SANDOVAL: So John, what is World Central Kitchen's priority today now that access to some of the affected regions is improving, albeit with many challenges still ahead?

TORPEY: Yes, we've been -- we've been trying to be ahead of this for a while. We've been on the ground for multiple days now, starting in Nuwakot Bidur, making sure that we've seen the helicopters coming in. We're at the evacuation centers helping where we can. We're teaming with local restaurant partners to make sure we're getting food to as many people as possible.

We've also partnered with an organization called Nepal Scouts. We purchased a small mobile kitchen and put it in our truck yesterday to try and get to some of these hard-hit areas. We've been working with local communities that are in the areas that just need help getting food to people. They have the capacity to cook. So we're trying to get them food.

We're working with local mountaineering guides who are in the area to try and rally them to get areas where we can start cooking. So it's really an all the above response for us, trying to get as many meals as we can as quickly as we can.

SANDOVAL: And even with that crucial support from your local partners, John, and in the face of a host of challenges, what would you describe as perhaps the biggest obstacle for you and the rest of your team in getting water and sustenance not just to survivors but those who are trying to get either answers or closure for thousands of families?

TORPEY: Yes, I mean, you can go to the area. The Nepali military has just been fabulous. Every day we go by their heliport. There's seven helicopters. They're running nonstop search and rescue missions, evacuation missions.

They're posting information at the sites as people stand by at the gates and try to sit there for a glimmer of hope, hoping the next chopper will bring a loved one in or bring some closure to what's going on right now. You know, our job is to make sure that we're getting as many meals that these people are being taken care of, working with local restaurant partners, working with local communities, making sure that they're taken care of as best as possible.

SANDOVAL: And you do this in the face of ongoing threats of secondary flooding. So just tell us a little bit about how you monitor those conditions to make sure that your team is safe while they're on the ground and helping people.

TORPEY: Yes, that actually happened yesterday morning about 3:30. There was an alarm that went off. The river rose perhaps probably by about 15 foot. We were Worried that it was going to be the kind of the big -- the big flood from the -- from the, you know, the boulders of the dam that after the glaciers came. There's a big lake pooling right now. There's still continued worry that may give.

So we're constantly watching that, listening to local authorities, making sure that we're keeping our teams out of harm's way, but also really trying to push to get into some of these areas as much as possible to try and get the food again. We sent our scout team yesterday. They had about an eight-hour roundabout road to get to a school where we heard 200 people were without food. So we set them up with the ability to get in there, start cooking hot meals for them, start cooking a rice, dal, and vegetables. Anything that we can get to these people as quickly as possible is our utmost importance right now.

SANDOVAL: Well, it's also important to take care of yourselves as well. With so much death and destruction, even for the most seasoned and experienced humanitarian worker, we know that it takes an emotional toll. So, we're certainly thinking about you and the rest of the team as you continue to help so many people affected. John Torpey, thank you so much with World Central Kitchen with that update. Do stay in touch.

TORPEY: Thank you so much.

SANDOVAL: Alright, we do want to go now to the latest on this ongoing search in the Grand Canyon, with at least one person confirmed dead and 15 others still missing. And all this after a flash flooding hit Grand Canyon National Park. It was the body of a 46-year-old man that was recovered near Crystal Rapids along the Colorado River.

Park officials are saying that the flooding also knocked out a water pipeline that serves tourists in the area. And the limited water resources will likely hurt tourism ahead of the Labor Day holiday weekend. With so many families visiting this place, it will also mean less water will be available for firefighting efforts along the canyon's southern rim.

That area has a large concentration of hiking trails as well as lodging and visitor services. At least 62 people had to be evacuated due to the flooding this weekend.

[04:20:03]

Earlier, we heard from a former FEMA external affairs officer and active first responder, Jason Pack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON PACK, FORMER FEMA EXTERNAL AFFAIRS OFFICER: I think what's important, though is unaccounted for. We heard that term used by officials today, and that doesn't necessarily mean the worst and at least that's certainly what we're hoping for. That could mean that hikers don't have communication as we heard that the footpaths were mostly washed out. So hopefully they will be able to locate those things with aircraft, with technology like thermal imaging, these types of things to be able to find where these missing hikers are.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: And there's so much more ahead here on CNN Newsroom, including the U.S. and Venezuela striking a landmark oil deal. We'll get some expert insight into what it could mean for both countries. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANDOVAL: Welcome back. You're watching CNN Newsroom, and you're looking at some of these here photos from Venezuela's ousted president Nicolas Maduro. These images released from the New York jail that he's been held in since January. They were posted on the former Venezuelan leader's X account with a message of his family and directed to his family and supporters saying that he's, quote, "Standing firm."

[04:25:08]

The images are from June 25th, which was just a day after earthquakes in Venezuela killed more than 6,000 people. Maduro is facing narco terrorism, drug trafficking and weapons charges and his case expected to go to trial next June.

Washington and Caracas are hailing a new landmark oil deal giving the US a 55 percent stake in a new joint venture with a private Venezuelan operator. The White House is saying that the 100 year oil field lease would create the world's second largest oil company with access to more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves. Well, the deal is expected to bring nearly $100 billion in private investment to Venezuela.

Joining me now is Francisco Rodriguez. He's a Venezuelan native who is also a senior research fellow at the center for Economic and Policy Research. Francisco also teaches at the University of Den. Thank you so much for joining us.

FRANCISCO RODRIGUEZ, SR. RESEARCH FELLOW, CENTER FOR ECONOMIC AND POLICY RESEARCH: Thank you for having me.

SANDOVAL: So, Francisco, President Trump characterizes this development as the biggest deal in world history. With your expertise, how do you see it?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, I mean, certainly it's a very large deal. It involves 65 billion barrels of reserves and it involves a 25-year agreement in which the US is reportedly, and I say reportedly because very few details are known yet about it, but the U.S. is reportedly going to hold a 55 percent stake in joint ventures that are going to be producing 11 billion barrels over the next 25 years.

So, it's definitely, it's definitely a large deal, but as I said, the details are not yet well known. There have just been a few figures that have been given by, well, by President Trump and mostly by Interim President Delcy Rodriguez.

This involves about 20 percent of Venezuela's oil reserves. Remember, Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world and if the numbers hold up, then this would be, this would have the potential for, to form a remarkable turnaround in Venezuelan oil production. Venezuela's oil production has declined from 3 million barrels to its current level of around a million barrels. This would bring it up to around two and a half million barrels a day. SANDOVAL: As you point out, few details, few terms have been released. So, what are the essential details that you would like to see in order to get a better understanding of sort of the mechanics of this?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, first of all, it's puzzling that this has not been taken before the Venezuelan National Assembly. There's an article in Venezuela's constitution that says that all national public interest contracts have to be approved by the National Assembly. So, there is a risk that these contracts will be deemed illegitimate by a future government and possibly invalidated.

So, we need a clear explanation of why that has been the case or if they're taken before the National Assembly, which there's time to then, while the National Assembly should discuss it, see the substance of the contracts. We don't even know if the numbers that are being thrown about, for example, about revenue to Venezuela, $209 billion of revenue sounds like a lot, but it's really spread over 25 years. So, we're talking about $8 billion a year. It's not even clear if that's a nominal or a real value.

But the real question that I have is there's $100 billion in investment that is supposed to be part of this program. However, President Trump has at the same Time said that U.S. taxpayers are not going to pay a dime for this. So, if U.S. taxpayers are not going to pay in Venezuela doesn't have the money, where are those hundred billion dollars coming out of?

That's really the big question here. And until we have clarity with respect to that, we don't know whether this is a viable plan or not.

SANDOVAL: So based on what you're saying, it sounds like we should be skeptical of that figure that the president touted, that the U.S. would control some 65 billion of roughly 300 billion barrels of Venezuela's oil reserves.

RODRIGUEZ: Well, I mean, remember, yes, I mean, Venezuela has 3,300 billion barrels, but it's producing just about a million barrels per day, which is a very small percentage of its potential. So, there's a distinction between having a lot of oil and being able to produce. And that's the big problem. Venezuela's infrastructure needs significant amounts of repair, needs significant investment, needs security, property rights. And it's not clear that those conditions are there yet.

SANDOVAL: Yes. I have about a minute left with you, Francisco. Perhaps a closing thought of just the significance of this, and you touched on it at the top. I mean, less than a year ago, Maduro still leading this regime.

Here we are now about eight, nine months later, and now the U.S. on the verge of entering into this what appears to be a significant deal, as the President saying that this could more than double American --

[04:30:00]