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CNN International: Trump Visits Ireland As Gas Prices Rise Amid War With Iran; Airman Shot Down In Iran Recounts His Dramatic Rescue; South Korean Corals Worry Divers. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired September 14, 2026 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

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POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. I'm Polo Sandoval in New York. During his trip to Ireland this weekend, President Donald Trump weighed in on the conflict in Iran and rising gasoline prices in the United States. CNN's Jenn Sullivan has more on when the president said that he believes prices may eventually come down.

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JENN SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Donald Trump wrapping up his two-day visit to Ireland Sunday. The purpose of his trip was to attend the Irish Open, which was hosted at one of his properties. While it wasn't an official state visit, he did meet with the Irish officials, including the President of Ireland and the Taoiseach. Trump also answered questions from reporters Sunday, where he was asked about the war with Iran.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It could end before the midterm, but it'll end after the midterm. Iran wants to make a deal so badly. They are calling constantly. They want to make a deal.

SULLIVAN: Trump's visit attracted thousands of protesters across Ireland opposing the war and supporting Palestinian rights, among other issues. As the war with Iran stretches past six months, oil prices across the globe are sky high, but Trump dismissed concerns about rising prices.

TRUMP: Gasoline is going to drop like a rock.

SULLIVAN: In the last week, regular gas has jumped 16 cents. As of Sunday, gas cost an average of $4.31 a gallon, according to AAA.

SEN. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ): Right now, the American public is hurting. Food is expensive, gas expensive, buying a piece of property is expensive, car is expensive.

SULLIVAN: Even more concerning is the price of diesel at $6.20 a gallon. When it costs companies more to transport goods, the difference often falls on consumers. JUSTIN WOLFERS, PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY & ECONOMIC, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: You're probably already seeing those higher gas prices. That in turn means that inflation is very likely to be again higher next month.

SULLIVAN: Some experts worry oil prices could top $120 per barrel by the end of the year if fighting in the Middle East continues. I'm Jenn Sullivan reporting.

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SANDOVAL: An American airman shot down over Iran is speaking publicly for the first time about his harrowing escape and his subsequent rescue. In an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes, the weapon systems officer identified only by his call sign, Bravo described his whole ordeal. Here's CNN's Brian Stelter with more.

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BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: The U.S. military sharing new video and new detail about that rescue mission that ensued after an F- 15 was shot down over Iran back in April. The American airman who spent 50 hours behind enemy lines spoke for the first time in an interview that aired on the CBS News magazine 60 Minutes.

The man was identified by his mission call sign, Bravo. He said his parachute was damaged in the attack, so he basically free fell out of the sky, and the fall broke his back, an arm, and a shoulder. Correspondent Norah O'Donnell asked how he mustered the strength to -- to hike up a 7,000-foot ridge and contact the U.S. military.

NORAH O'DONNELL, CBS NEWS HOST: Given your injuries, how did you find the strength to make it up the mountain?

BRAVO, RESCUED WEAPONS SYSTEMS OFFICER: Never let a lack of motivation put you on Iranian TV.

O'DONNELL: You were thinking that?

BRAVO: Absolutely.

STELTER: Now, this interview was a big deal for the Pentagon and for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth personally. Sources tell CNN that Hegseth and political appointees in his office pushed for both crew members who were aboard the F-15 to give interviews and to tell their stories.

Both airmen initially expressed reservations about doing so, but after meeting with Hegseth, one of them agreed to go on camera. For the 60 Minutes broadcast, the military also declassified some of this video showing the moment when elite Air Force pararescue operators arrived to rescue Bravo. Here's more of what he told CBS.

BRAVO: This is not a story about what I went through. Instead, it's a story of the teamwork, of the training, of the faith, of the decisions and the leadership to do something that will live in history as an example of what America is willing to do in order to uphold our promise and leave no man behind.

STELTER: Now that is a powerful message, and it's understandably one that Hegseth would want to have out there, given the political undercurrents that he has been up against. The U.S. war in Iran has become as unpopular as past U.S. actions in Iraq and Vietnam. Poll after poll shows that most Americans do not believe the war is worth fighting.

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So Hegseth has been trying to come up with ways to push back against that and to change public perceptions. Sources told CNN that he wanted the April rescue mission to be shared and dramatically recounted for the public, and that's what happened on Sunday night on the most watched news program on U.S. TV.

It was a big moment for CBS News as well, coming three months after CBS News Editor-in- Chief Bari Weiss basically overhauled all of 60 Minutes, firing several of the top producers and correspondents. Weiss has been rebuilding the program, and she's been under pressure to prove that 60 Minutes can still land big exclusive interviews. So for Sunday night's season premiere, she certainly showed that the program is still capable of doing so. Brian Stelter, CNN.

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SANDOVAL: Let's stay on this topic. Earlier, I spoke with CNN Military Analyst and Retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton, and I asked him about the security concerns surrounding Airman Bravo after CBS cited threats from Iran as the reason that they held his -- withheld his identity.

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COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: That's the thing that was most surprising to me, you know, when it came to the actual interview, Polo, because I didn't expect to see him in in full face, and that I -- you know, I think was significant. Now, as far as the threats go that he may be facing, the Iranians have been pretty good at singling individual people out.

You know, they go after journalists, they go after you know certain other members of not just the media, but people who are in the public sphere and who talk about the Iran War, and so there is a risk that he could be exposed to those kinds of things.

SANDOVAL: This is so rare to hear directly from somebody who was directly involved to be authorized to speak publicly about all this. And the Chief Pentagon Spokesperson did tell CNN that the decision to participate in the interview was each pilot's alone. So presumably he did it, you know, on his own will. But are there any -- any pros, perhaps, for the Pentagon in -- in allowing these service members to -- to publicly share this account, you think, especially in a conflict that is deeply unpopular right now?

LEIGHTON: Yeah, I think one of the things that the Pentagon probably considered, Polo, was the idea that you know we needed to see somebody who had achieved a degree of mission success, and you know that was under very adverse conditions. And in this particular case, you had a situation where you had a -- an air crew member, the weapon systems officer go out and really tell the story of how the professionals in the combat search and rescue community actually come together now.

Now this is a very different situation than what we had back in 1980 during what was known as Operation Eagle Claw, which was the attempt, the abortive attempt to rescue the hostages who had been taken by the Iranian students at the Tehran U.S. Embassy, so this is a completely different story. A much, you know, certainly a success as compared to the failure that happened there, because there we lost service members.

There was a lack of interoperability in terms of communication between the different elements of the rescue package, and it wasn't as well organized as what you saw here. And in this particular case, the rescue mission that was mounted for both the pilot and the weapon systems officer was really a textbook case of how to do a combat search and rescue mission, and it also showcased the thorough training that these air crew members go through, and that I think is significant as well.

So that training obviously paid off in both cases, in the cases of both air crew members, and that I think is also a significant takeaway from this.

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SANDOVAL: Still to come on CNN Newsroom, what's driving the slumping phenomenon that has some experts concerned about South Korea's coral? Stay with us.

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SANDOVAL: Heavy rain left streets flooded and cars submerged in Westport, Connecticut, on Sunday. Emergency crews say that they responded to a series of calls involving stranded drivers as roads became impassable during the storm. Flash flood warnings were declared in the southern portions of Connecticut, as well as Rhode Island and in the state of Massachusetts.

And extreme weather due to the El Nino weather pattern is hitting a South Korean soft coral habitat. Many corals are slumping over and eventually dying. Let us get some scientific perspective in just a moment, but first CNN's Gage Goulding takes us beneath the waves.

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GAGE GOULDING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As divers explore along a South Korean island, they're alarmed at what they see below the water, slumping coral. A group of divers say many corals are collapsing as climate change pushes up water temperatures and contributes to intense weather events.

KO MYEONG-HYO, S. KOREAN HAENYEO FREE DIVER & PARAN OCEAN CITIZEN SCIENCE CENTER ACTIVIST (through translator): Today the outdoor air temperature is a bit high, and when I went underwater, even in the deep areas, so many corals are lying collapsed.

GOULDING: Off the coast of Jeju Island, the UNESCO-listed habitat is made up of soft coral, unlike hard corals, which have stony skeletons and form reefs, soft corals are bendable and flow at the currents. They stay upright through fluid pressure, but if the environment changes, they can sag or collapse. This puts clusters of coral at risk of dying.

YOON SANGHOON, ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERT ADVISER AT PARAN OCEAN CITIZEN CENTER (through translator): If a super El Nino comes, it will naturally raise water temperatures in the seas around Jeju, and we're witnessing these high temperatures now having a nearly devastating impact on the coral ecosystem there.

GOULDING: A record heat wave hit the Korean Peninsula this summer, while the south suffered heavy rains. Researchers say weather conditions such as these are potential triggers for soft coral slumping. The researchers say the dying coral has widespread effects.

SANGHOON (through translator): If this foundational ecosystem collapses, there is a very high possibility that the entire marine ecosystem could collapse as well.

GOULDING: The warmer waters have also caused fishers' catch to decline. A local fisher says the water has become too hot for species to spawn, and a typical five-hour workday has dwindled to just three hours, partially because there's less to catch.

MYEONG-HYO (through translator): That place, the coral habitat in Jeju Sea, is so beautiful and has been a source of comfort in my life. Watching it collapse like that, turning white, I was so bewildered and felt afraid, wondering, is the sea now completely collapsing.

GOULDING: Gage Goulding, CNN, Seoul.

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SANDOVAL: So, can anything be done? Let's -- let's tackle that topic and head over to Manuel Gonzalez Rivero. He's a Principal Research Scientist with Reef Process Dynamics. He's at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. Manuel, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to CNN.

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MANUEL GONZALEZ RIVERO, PRINCIPAL RESEARCH SCIENTIST, AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF MARINE SCIENCE: Hi Polo. Thank you for the opportunity.

SANDOVAL: So, just -- I wonder if we could just start by telling our viewers why some of the world's coral reefs have struggled so much to -- to recover from the damage that's been done by warming ocean temperatures.

GONZALEZ RIVERO: Well, we've been collecting data from all around the world, and the last 40 years what we're seeing is that marine heat wave, the main driver of decline. So the ocean, as get warmer, corals get exposed to thermal stress that -- that eventually, if it lasts long enough, it kills it. The main challenge that we're seeing is now that the -- the window in between those events is getting shorter, and there's less -- less and less time for corals to recover at that time.

SANDOVAL: You may have heard just now in Gage's piece how -- how one expert referred to these as foundational ecosystem, so it really highlights the -- the importance of them. Can you explain why specifically hard coral is so vital for these living underwater systems, not just for marine organisms, but also even for coastlines that are vulnerable to storms?

GONZALEZ RIVERO: Yeah, hard corals are the main what we call ecosystem engineers, the foundational species, as you call them, because they are the ones that provide the habitat. Without them, a lot of the species wouldn't survive in those environments, and -- and hard corals are the -- the sustenance (ph) or the habitat that enable the large biodiversity (ph), and if we think about it, like about 60 to 80 percent of the proteins that we consume in the Pacific actually come for coral reef, and that's because the hard corals provide the structure for fish to live and reproduce and feed in there.

SANDOVAL: I've read in the past that coral they're some of the slowest growing organisms on the planet. I mean, how, in general, how long does it take for them to -- to reproduce or -- or to grow?

GONZALEZ RIVERO: Usually, corals reproduce once a year, if not twice. But they grow really slow. So they probably grow less than a millimeter per year, and some of those corals, the massive corals, can actually grow to hundreds of years. So they are actually long-lasting organisms. Unfortunately, the marine heat wave can actually kill those organisms in just one season.

SANDOVAL: It is so important to stay on this, and of course to try to find different ways of mitigating that impact. They are a crucial ecosystem. Manuel Gonzalez Rivero, we really appreciate your scientific research and all of your valuable scientific insight. Thank you for your time.

GONZALEZ RIVERO: Thank you, Polo. It's great to be here.

SANDOVAL: Thank you. The Atlantic hurricane season it is breaking records, but not for the reason you might think. CNN Meteorologist Melissa Nord breaks down what's preventing tropical systems from achieving hurricane status.

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MELISSA NORD, CNN METEOROLOGIST: September 10th is the peak of hurricane season. We usually see a lot of activity in the Atlantic here in mid-September, but this year we have not and are not seeing much activity either. We've had five named storms, most of those short-lived tropical storms on the northern Gulf Coast, but yet to see any of those reach hurricane criteria.

So this is now the latest ever that we've seen a hurricane form in the Atlantic Ocean Basin since the start of the satellite era back in the 1960s. The main culprit and reason why is this El Nino, which continues to intensify.

That's the difference from normal of how warm those ocean temperatures are near the equator in the Pacific. And you think, why does the Pacific Ocean have to do with Atlantic hurricane season?

Well, we end up seeing more wind shear when we have an El Nino present. So more wind shear disrupts circulations of those tropical systems trying to get going. So we see less of them form in the first place, less of them intensifying into hurricanes with it disrupting their circulation. So the map, no tropical activity expected the next week, and we will likely see that continuing for longer with the presence of wind shear.

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SANDOVAL: Still to come here on CNN Newsroom, an exciting end to the U.S. Open, specifically the men's singles final and the growing, the crowning, I should say, of a Grand Slam champion. We have that story for you after the break. Stay with us. You're watching CNN Newsroom.

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SANDOVAL: Well, there are just a few hours left until the primetime ceremony of the 78th Emmy Awards. Television Academy has already handed out two nights worth of trophies, but the biggest awards are still to come. And this year's nominations were dominated by the medical drama "The Pitt" which is produced in part by CNN's parent company, and the final season of the comedy, "Hacks" So stay tuned.

Well, Germany's Alexander Zverev has won the U.S. Open men's singles championship, capping his breakthrough year with a second Grand Slam title. The top seed defeated American Ben Shelton in four sets, regaining control after Shelton rallied to take the third. He then dominated the fourth, denying Shelton a comeback in his first Grand Slam final appearance.

And Shelton's loss disappointed some of the home crowd that was hoping to see an American man win a Grand Slam title for the first time in 23 years, and the match marked a full circle moment though for Zverev, who let a two-set lead slip away during his last finals appearance some six years ago. CNN's World Sports Patrick Snell caught up with Alexander's Zverev court side after the big win.

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PATRICK SNELL, CNN WORLD SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Well, many congratulations. You are holding a magnificent piece of silverware, but let's start with the most. You clinched it. You appeared to not initially realize you'd won the title. What -- what's going through your mind at that moment?

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ALEXANDER ZVEREV, U.S. OPEN MEN'S SINGLES CHAMPION: I thought -- I thought it was 5-1. I thought it was 5-1 instead of 6-2. So I thought I have one more game left. So I was quite focused. I was quite calm. But then I was luckily on the side of my team, and they're all screaming that it's over. So very happy that that it was.

SNELL: They confirmed it for you.

ZVEREV: Yeah, they confirmed it for me.

SNELL: What a moment that was. What a year it's been for you, actually. You win the French Open. Now, the U.S. Open. At the start of the year, though, would you ever have dreamt it possible that you would go on to win not just one but two Grand Slam single titles?

ZVEREV: Yeah, of course, that's what you work for. But I would definitely -- if you would have given me a paper at the beginning of the season for one Grand Slam title, I would have signed it. That's for sure. But standing here with two is -- is absolutely amazing, and I couldn't be happier.

SNELL: You've spoken before about the scar tissue over the years, the doubts that creep in. Would you ever win a Grand Slam singles title, a major? How do you reflect back on that now, and how high is the bar moving forward?

ZVEREV: Yeah, it's funny. The scar tissue started here six years ago, but yeah, I mean, I definitely had tough moments, especially I think in Paris, I had a lot of stress on me, but here I was just enjoying my time on the court because -- because I won in Paris already, so it was much more enjoyable. Had a lot of fun on the court, and definitely happy with how I played.

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SANDOVAL: Pope Leo will be marking his second birthday as Pontiff today as he turned 71 years old. He became the first U.S. born leader of the Catholic Church last year after the death of Pope Francis. Well, since his election, Pope Leo has addressed several controversial issues, including artificial intelligence, climate change, international conflicts, and also human rights, as well as modern technologies. Happy birthday to the Pontiff.

And thank you so much for watching. I'm Polo Sandoval in New York. Our live coverage continues with CNN Headline Express in a moment.

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