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CNN This Morning
3,500 U.S. Troops Now in Region, Iran Threatens to 'Rain Fire'; Is Diplomacy Possible with Iran?; TSA Workers Expected to See Back Pay Soon. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired March 30, 2026 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:00:07]
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Thousands of U.S. Marines and sailors arrive in the Middle East. Are all the place [SIC] -- pieces now in place for a possible invasion of Iran?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We negotiate with them, and then we always have to blow them up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Iran accusing the U.S. of privately plotting that ground invasion while publicly seeking talks. Is Tehran right?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It feels like a hostage situation, because we're not being paid.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Today, TSA agents could finally get paid. Will that help at all with wait times at the airports?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I took an oath to the Constitution. The president takes an oath to the Constitution, as well, but he's not following it at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Millions showing up for No Kings rallies across the country. Is anyone in power actually listening?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think Marco Rubio is the only person in the administration that I would support going into 2028.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Marco Rubio tripling his support at CPAC. Is J.D. Vance's war stance hurting him with MAGA?
CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.
Thousands of U.S. troops arriving in the Middle East, as Iran says it is ready and waiting. Is the stage now set for a ground invasion?
Good Monday morning, everyone. I'm Erica Hill in for Audie Cornish. We do begin with the breaking news in the war with Iran.
In an interview with "The Financial Times," President Trump again floating the idea of taking Kharg Island, a key hub of cars for Iran's oil production. It handles about 90 percent of Iran's oil exports.
Trump adding, quote, "We have a lot of options. It would also mean we had to be there for a while."
Over the weekend, 3,500 U.S. sailors and Marines arriving to the Middle East on the USS Tripoli. Iran says its forces, meantime, are waiting for U.S. ground invasion so they can, quote, "rain fire upon them."
Also, this morning, new images of an Iranian attack on an air base in Saudi Arabia; a vital U.S. radar aircraft destroyed. That aircraft could have monitored up to 120,000 miles of battle space.
Joining us now, CNN correspondent Paula Hancocks is live in Abu Dhabi. So, give us a sense, Paula. We've heard so much about potential talks. Where do those talks stand this morning?
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erica, we're hearing very different messages from each side. We're hearing optimism from the Trump administration that most of those 15 peace points on that plan have actually been accepted by Iran.
But that is not what we are hearing from Tehran at all. Now, we've just heard a press conference from the foreign ministry spokesperson, and they have pointed out one thing that the U.S. agrees on: that there are no direct negotiations at this time with the U.S. But that's where the similarities end.
He has also said that the demands that the U.S. has in that plan are, quote, "largely excessive, unrealistic and unreasonable."
Now, we've heard from state media that what Iran is looking for is an acknowledgment of its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, that key waterway; something which the U.S., Israel, and quite frankly, most of the world would not agree to.
So, we are hearing very different things from both sides.
We're also hearing from an Iranian security official, telling CNN that it's up to Tehran when this war ends, rejecting what we're hearing from President Trump, from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, putting this timeline in weeks, saying that Iran is prepared to be able to be in this for the long term, if necessary.
Now, when it comes to diplomacy, that is, on one side; it isn't changing anything on the ground. If anything, this is escalating at this point.
We saw over the weekend the Houthi rebels getting involved, as well. That is another front for Israel to contend with. Two ballistic missiles being intercepted there.
And we are also seeing that -- that Israel has had a direct hit on one of its oil facilities from debris. There is some damage there -- Erica.
HILL: Yes. Paula, really appreciate bringing us up to speed on all of that. Thank you.
Also with me here, CNN global affairs analyst Kim Dozier. Kim, as we look at all of these pieces now falling into place, you have the additional troops arriving in the region. You also have the Houthi rebels, right, as Paula was just mentioning, sort of joining the fight in some ways.
Is everything in place for a ground invasion?
KIM DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Certainly looks that way. It -- it feels like the peace talks are an afterthought.
The fact of the matter is, the 15-point plan that the U.S. has put forward versus Iran's five-point plan are so far apart that it would take weeks, if not months, to bring them together.
[06:05:12]
It feels more like the U.S. is saying, agree to these 15-points, or else; this is a stick-up. Whereas the Iran nuclear deal under the Obama administration, that took 20 months.
That's why you hear the Iranian leadership saying, you guys just want to invade. And when President Trump gives the kind of interview he just gave to "The F.T.," it looks like he's ticking through the options: Do I take Kharg Island? There was also a report overnight that he's considering sending the troops in to seize the nuclear material.
HILL: Which is -- which is fascinating, too, because that is not, right, at least from the way that I understand it, this is not sending troops in. We grab it like a movie, right?
DOZIER: Yes.
HILL: I think people think that you grab it, and you run out. I mean, this is a highly-specialized -- would be a highly-specialized mission. It's also not that quick.
DOZIER: Yes, this -- this would not be a raid. This would be basically a mining operation under fire. And the nuclear material is thought to be buried at two different
locations: one near Isfahan, within reach of a bunch of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps units, and one near Tehran.
So, you'd have to bring in earth-moving equipment, specialized teams, and then ground troops to surround them to protect them.
So, possibly, that's why we're seeing so many thousands of troops sent to the area. But there's also the possibility that President Trump hasn't decided what to do yet.
HILL: And we -- and as we were reporting, of course, at the end of last week, there are multiple options being presented to him.
DOZIER: Yes.
HILL: All of them have significant risk for U.S. casualties. And frankly, none of them have a guarantee of success.
DOZIER: Yes.
HILL: There's also the fact that the Houthis have now entered, essentially, the fight. How does that change the calculus?
DOZIER: That's going to ratchet up the economic pressure on the White House. Because at this point, the Houthis have just done volleys of missiles and drones; some more today against Israel. They haven't yet stepped up to the most likely next step, is closing the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
Now, that is the strait that leads into the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, where 10 to 15 percent of the world's commerce travels through.
Now, it had been shut from about 2023 to 2025 because of Houthi attacks over the war in Gaza. It had just reopened and recovered when people stopped using it when the war in Iran launched. We could see the Houthis shut that off again.
It took billions of dollars and a Western -- Western intervention to try to open it up. It just means more high prices at the gas tank and for other goods around the world.
HILL: Real quickly before I let you go, we have these images. So, it's an Air Force E-3 Sentry that was hit by an Iranian strike.
DOZIER: Yes.
HILL: Several -- Cedric Leighton, Colonel Cedric Leighton, our military analyst, called this a serious blow to U.S. surveillance capabilities. How significant is that?
DOZIER: I mean, those are expensive pieces of kit, and they can't be replaced overnight. So, they'll be able to backfill it, but it costs.
And it just -- it's also a picture that is being celebrated inside Iran and helps them. It helps reinforce the Iranian regime's idea that it is winning every time it causes any damage to the United States, because the Iranians think they can take more pain.
HILL: Kim, always appreciate your insight. Thank you.
DOZIER: Thank you.
HILL: Just ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, it may finally be payday for TSA. Does President Trump's intervention actually hurt the GOP's leverage?
Plus, is the president softening when it comes to Cuba? Why he's now relaxing the oil blockade on the island.
And a thrilling finish sends the Huskies, both the men and the women, back to the Final Four. This final shot still getting plenty of attention this morning, sealing UCONN's victory over Duke.
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[06:13:39]
HILL: Live pictures for you this morning. That is Atlanta's airport. The longest wait time that we have seen this morning so far is an hour in Houston. A big change from what we saw last week.
Could there also be some relief today for the TSA? CNN is learning TSA workers are starting to see their back pay processed.
Tens of thousands of TSA agents, of course, have missed multiple paychecks since the partial government shutdown began on February 14. Of course, they were still required, though, to show up for work.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARLOS RODRIGUEZ, TSA OFFICER, REGIONAL VP OF AFGE NORTHEAST: My coworkers and I have been working for 43 days without being paid, and we have never wavered in our commitment to secure the flying public and keep our oath to the American people of protecting the transportation systems and their lives, while we have been worried about who's protecting our families at home. So, the situation is dire.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: On Friday, President Trump ordering the agency to immediately resume compensating them. Since Congress, though, still has not agreed on a deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, it's unclear if that is just a temporary fix.
Joining me in the group chat, Sara Fischer, CNN's senior media analyst and senior media reporter for Axios; Mario Parker, reporter at Bloomberg News; and Susan Page, Washington bureau chief for "USA Today."
So, when we look at where things stand in terms of any potential leverage, does the president lose some leverage by funding only TSA workers? And with these question marks about how long, Susan, and where this is all coming from?
[06:15:02]
SUSAN PAGE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "USA TODAY": Absolutely. I mean, we had seen this -- this partial shutdown go along for quite some time without any sense of real urgency about having to settle it.
And the pressure point was also always those lines at U.S. airports. If you have accommodated that problem, and the president has said he will continue to use the Big, Beautiful Bill to provide this funding going forward, why bother to settle? Why compromise on the issues that have divided them so far?
HILL: And when we look at where the division is -- and there is plenty of that, Mario, to look at -- we have this bipartisan bill that passed unanimously in the wee hours of Friday morning that did not fly, as we know, in the House.
So, given where things are, it would seem another standoff, more finger pointing. I just want to play a little bit of what we heard on the Sundays.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ANDY KIM (D-NJ): What we know is that we had a bill that we passed through the Senate unanimously, a bipartisan piece of legislation that sits over at the House of Representatives.
If that bill went for a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives, it would have passed. I've heard that from Democrats, as well as Republicans.
REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): We actually read their bill, and, frankly, a number of senators have expressed buyer's remorse with what they did at 3 in the morning.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Is there any sense of when or how this ends?
MARIO PARKER, REPORTER, BLOOMBERG NEWS: There's no sense just yet. I mean, you saw some of the divisions that are playing out from the different wings of the MAGA-sphere; the Republican Party, as well. Right?
So, in the Senate, you've seen a more moderate take there in terms of how they were going to address some of these issues. I mean, when it got to the House, you saw that there was just this huge resistance from Mike Johnson and that sect of the Republican Party, who had no appetite for passing anything that would even have the semblance of not funding ICE or CBP. Right?
So, you're seeing these political divisions kind of play out within the Republican Party.
I'm not sure how this is resolved, other than when President Trump steps in and puts his finger on the scale one way or the other. Right now, he's put his finger on the scale more toward the House Republicans as he pushes with the SAVE America Act, as he pushes to not relent on ICE and CBP funding.
HILL: It is. It is quite a remarkable. I'm also struck by the messaging of it all, right? As you rightly point out, those lines were so important. And as the American people are watching those lines, and they're learning about TSA not getting paid again, yet being required to show up for work.
I was struck by the fact that they are no longer allowed to accept donations. So, according to our reporting, it's, please be advised, they were told. TSA agents were told in an email, "Funds are disbursed, pay will be hitting TSA accounts. So, we must immediately no longer accept any donations of gift cards."
Again, this was an email that TSA employees received, according to our reporting at CNN. That messaging, too, it is -- it's bizarrely punitive.
SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST: Yes. Especially because people have so much empathy for their TSA agents. They know that they're working without pay. This is not the message that they want to hear. Like, don't be helping out your fellow agents.
We were talking about choke points in these negotiations. One thing that I think is going to be a choke point: a lot of TSA agents are leaving --
HILL: Yes.
FISCHER: -- the Department of Homeland Security, because they're not getting paid. And they can't, as Carlos Rodriguez was just saying in that great interview, sustain this for their families for weeks on end without getting paid.
We know that the Congress is going to be out for the next, what, two weeks. So, this is not going to get resolved any time soon.
I think the next chokehold is, even if we do get funding back, you're going to have a lot of people who have exited, and the lines are still going to be long.
HILL: Well, and it's not -- it's a question of would any of those workers come back. So, we have 500 who have quit at this point.
FISCHER: Yes.
HILL: And to your point, I will say former TSA officials who I've been speaking with on background over the last couple of weeks have said to me, this is also a major concern moving forward. Because how do you recruit --
FISCHER: Totally.
HILL: -- when people see this key position? We're told you are essential, and yet, you cannot count on a paycheck.
FISCHER: It's going to be very hard for them to recruit. That's the government's biggest messaging problem, quite frankly, is that this shutdown is not a one-time thing. It's going to have reverberating effects for weeks and years to come.
HILL: Yes, absolutely.
All right. Stay with us. After the break here on CNN THIS MORNING, Pakistan saying it is ready to host talks between the U.S. and Iran. But will those talks actually happen?
Plus, President Trump's ballroom project getting bigger. What he's building underneath it.
And good morning, Cincinnati, Ohio. The sun getting ready. I swear it's coming. The sun is coming.
Stay with us. This is CNN THIS MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:23:33]
HILL: Twenty-three minutes past the hour now. Five things to know to get your day going.
A Russian oil tanker now entering Cuban waters as President Trump eases the oil embargo on the island. Cuba, of course, is in the middle of an energy crisis after oil shipments from Venezuela were virtually cut off in January.
The island's power grid recently collapsed, causing islandwide outages.
President Trump now says he has, quote, "no problem" with oil arriving to Cuba.
President Trump also talking construction on his White House ballroom, saying it's ahead of schedule and under budget, boasting the most impressive part of the $400 million project is actually underground.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The military is building a massive complex under the ballroom, and that's under construction. And we're doing very well.
So, we're ahead of schedule. It's part of it. The ballroom essentially becomes a shed for what's being built under the military, including from drones and including from any other thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Any day now, a judge is set to decide on whether to issue an injunction halting the project, which has received widespread criticism. A lawsuit is trying to stop construction, alleging Trump bypassed the
required reviews and public input before moving forward with the project.
The Artemis II rocket being prepped now for the first Moon mission in more than 50 years, and it could launch as early as Wednesday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REID WISEMAN, ARTEMIS II COMMANDER: Just to remind everyone, this is a test flight. This is the first time we're going to try this. This is the first time we're loading humans on board.
And I will tell you, the four of us, we are ready to go. The team is ready to go, and the vehicle is ready to go, but not for one second do we have an expectation that we are going.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[06:25:04]
HILL: The Artemis II crew is also set to make history with the first woman and the first black astronaut to travel to deep space.
And your TV is not broken. Stay with me on this one. That is not a filter. That's what the sky actually looked like on Saturday in Australia.
A powerful weather system there stirring up a dust storm that turned the sky red.
OK, and we're saving the best for last here. The women's Final Four halfway there. Powerhouse programs UCONN and UCLA punching their tickets on Sunday. They'll face off against the winners of the two remaining Elite Eight games later tonight.
And over on the men's side, a dramatic buzzer beater sending the Huskies onto Indy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) ahead. Boozer, that ball deflected and stolen by Mullins. Karaban, two seconds. Mullins tosses it up. Oh! It's good with point three.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: That shot, UCONN coming back from a 19-point deficit against Duke to lock in their spot in the Final Four.
UCONN will join Illinois, Michigan, and Arizona in Indianapolis next weekend.
And of course, you can catch the men's Final Four April 4 and 6, only on our sister networks, TBS and HBO Max. Straight ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, millions taking to the
streets to protest President Trump. How effective is the message if the Trump administration doesn't seem to be listening?
Plus, oil crossing $116 a barrel. The Asian markets dipping as Asia's oil supplies run low. A new report warning the U.S. and Europe are next.
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[06:30:00]
