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New Video Shows Damage in Tel Aviv from Iranian Strikes; Flyers Face Hours-Long Wait Times At Airports Across U.S.; NTSB Hopes for More Info Today from LaGuardia Plane Recorders. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired March 24, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, Tel Aviv targeted. New drone footage into The Situation Room showing the aftermath of Iranian strikes there. This after Israel hit more than 50 targets inside Iran overnight.

Also, pushed to the limit, new reporting this morning on the massive lines at TSA checkpoints, at least one major airport nearing its breaking point.

Plus, oil refinery explosion, what led to this massive inferno at one of the nation's largest refineries.

And later, climbing gas prices, now to almost $4 a gallon, is risen more than a dollar in just one month. How much higher will it go? We're making it make sense this morning.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. Pamela Brown is off. You're in The Situation Room.

This morning, we're getting brand new video right here into The Situation Room showing massive damage in Tel Aviv. Israel says, Iran launched seven waves of missiles since midnight. This drone footage shows the entire side of a building blown off. There have been at least four impact sites across the city.

Israel is also striking Iran, saying it hit more than 50 targets overnight. Israel, in addition, is targeting Beirut, and you can see the damage from those strikes here. Defense Minister Israel Katz is calling for the seizure of Southern Lebanon and has ordered the destruction of all bridges that connect that area with the rest of the country.

And take a look at this. Here's a live look at Beirut. You can see plumes of smoke rising over the Lebanese Capitol.

And Iran is pushing back on President Trump's claims that talks with Iran are going well. The Foreign Ministry says there's no, quote, dialogue, repeat, no dialogue between Tehran and Washington.

CNN's Chief National Security Analyst Jim Sciutto is in Tel Aviv, along with CNN's Jeremy Diamond.

Jeremy, first of all, tell us about these overnight strikes by Iran that hit various parts of Israel.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, since overnight last night, we have seen wave after wave of Iranian ballistic missiles, so far about seven waves, at least in total. And I just came back from one of those sites here in Tel Aviv where I saw a building that was partially shorn off by the power of the blast, even though this was actually one of the smaller ballistic missiles that Iran has fired at Israel. No injuries there despite some of the destruction that we saw. Clearly, people are following the instructions and going to their bomb shelters.

We also just saw another impact in the southern part of Israel in the Negev Desert. There, a Bedouin community was impacted. At least one man is in moderate condition. And Israel, of course, has been keeping up its wave of attacks in Iran. Those, of course, have been far deadlier and far wider in scope. At least 50 targets were struck overnight, according to the Israeli military. These included production sites, missile production sites, including in Isfahan, which is also the city where Iran has one of its nuclear facilities as well.

So, we're seeing as Israel is keeping up the pace of these strikes, Iranian missiles also still coming in, despite the fact that the Israeli military says they've destroyed about 70 percent of those ballistic missile launchers.

BLITZER: Interesting. And, Jim Sciutto, you're there in Israel right now. I know Israel launched several overnight attacks in Lebanon. What can you tell us about the Israeli objective there?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Wolf, it looks to be expanding its ground operations and perhaps longer term ground presence in Southern Lebanon, the Israelis talking about their goal being destroying all the bridges that connect Southern Lebanon across the Litani River seeming to prepare the ground to push forces up to the Litani River, perhaps create some sort of buffer zone inside Lebanon. In reaction to that and the latest military strikes there, Lebanon has now expelled Israel's ambassador to Lebanon.

But, you know, given what Jeremy saw today as we were traveling across from Jordan into Israel today, we heard the air raid warnings in Jordan as well.

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President Trump, I know, is talking about the possibility of progress in peace talks. But as far as the pace of the war is concerned, Iranian attacks on Israel, Israeli attacks inside Southern Lebanon, the facts on the ground are contradicting the president's hopeful words.

And we're also hearing from Israeli officials here that they don't believe there is substantive top progress in those talks yet or even really the groundwork for substantive progress. It doesn't mean that couldn't change tomorrow, certainly, and all of us w would love to see progress in peace talks, but as far as the pace of the war that we're witnessing here, it contradicts those rosy words we've heard from the president in the last 24 hours.

BLITZER: I'm sure, Jeremy, there must be some serious disappointment among Israelis right now, including in the Israeli military, that Israel's the air defense missile system, the Iron Dome, which is highly rated, has not prevented all of these Iranian missiles and rockets and drones from coming into Israel, and they're not being destroyed in the air. What's the mood over there?

DIAMOND: Well, listen, there's no question that Israelis have been watching over the last few days is there have been several of these Iranian missiles that have made it through Israel's air defense system, and we're not just talking about those cluster munitions, but full-on ballistic missile impact.

It seems that Israel is using this multi-layered defense system, you know, beyond the Iron Dome, which is for short-range missiles. They have the David's Sling, which is the next layer of protection, then the Arrow missile defenses. Increasingly, we've been watching as the Israelis have been using David's Sling and Iron Dome rather than that Arrow system to intercept those ballistic missiles.

And that's notable, because we've seen reports in the past about the fact that Israel could be running out of some of these interceptors. The fact that they're using different types of aerial defense systems to try and intercept these ballistic missiles could be evidence of that, although we don't have that concretely confirmed as of yet.

But, clearly, is Iran is managing to get through Israel's air defense systems at times. Again, we haven't seen any fatalities in the last few days, but several injuries and impacts that are certainly shaking the public there.

SCIUTTO: And that is a concern, Wolf, as well for us military forces in the region that those interceptor missiles, you know, those that supply, for instance, the Patriot Missile Defense System, there is not an endless supply of them. And that's why you hear that constant talk of what they call magazine depth, right? How long can they maintain this pace of interceptions? It's a concern not just with the Israeli military, but also the U.S. military.

BLITZER: All right. Jim Sciutto, good to have you in Tel Aviv. Jeremy Diamond, always good to have you over there. To both of you, stay safe, and we'll stay in very close touch with both of you. Thank you very, very much.

Also happening now, Houston's Bush Airport, a major U.S. airport hub, is nearing its breaking point as TSA wait times continue to grow. This as so many other airports are seemingly back to normal this morning.

CNN's Ryan Young is over at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Ed Lavandera is on the scene for us at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. Ed, let me start with you. What are you seeing there in Houston this morning? ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's another nightmare scenario for travelers. Wait times at the -- there's only two TSA checkpoints that are open in this entire airport. There's usually nine, I believe, and only two of them are open. One of them here in Terminal E where we are, terminal A is the other one. The wait times around 250 minutes.

This is nearing the end of the line but, Wolf, it's almost impossible to kind of give you a sense of how horrific these lines are. But this is the main lobby area of the check-in area. You can see how, you know, the lines have been set up to kind of snake their way through down here. Then you have to go downstairs through an escalator, to the baggage claim area, where there's hundreds of yards of lines kind of snaking their way through there.

Then you have to go down another escalator to get into the subterranean like subway level that connects all of the terminals together. And that's another hundreds and hundreds of yards of lines down there as well. And that's -- you know, so this kind of gets you toward the end.

We have seen, Wolf, federal ICE agents here, probably more than a couple dozen now. This is the end of the line from where we are. This used to be about an hour wait. The line seems to be moving faster today, but still the wait times, according to the airport here in Houston, is still about 250 minutes. So, that's four-plus hours.

We've talked to countless people who are missing flights. Many people who told us yesterday, they were planning on just sleeping here at the airport once they got past security. So, you know, another nightmare scenario and headache unfolding here once again at the Houston area. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right. Ed Lavandera on the scene for us in Houston, thank you.

I want to go to CNN's Ryan Young. He's over at Atlanta's Hartsfield- Jackson International Airport this morning. Ryan, what do TSA wait times look like in Atlanta this morning?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, I almost can't believe I'm able to say this. The times have dropped off tremendously.

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This morning, people were waiting an hour in line. Now, that is not the case. If you look at the main checkpoint here, there seems like a less than a dozen people.

One thing I should note to everyone, Tuesday is a traditionally slow day here at this airport. It's a great day to travel out because there's not as much volume. So, they knew today was going to drop off, but I don't think people thought they were going to see the numbers where they are right now. And that's TSA pre, this is the main checkpoint and we're seeing those numbers just fall off. Of course, the other thing that people have been asking about is, of course, what are the ICE agents doing, who are walking through the airport? What kind of responsibilities they have? Here are two of the officers who are sort of walking through the airport now. They're patrolling the outside areas of the airport, keeping people safe, interacting with some of the people as they walk by. But for the most part, they have this defensive posture where they're just sort of walking around and making sure the perimeter is safe. The Atlanta Police Department has also added extra security on this side as well.

So, they want to make sure that traveling public is safe. So far, the interactions between the people and the agents have been pretty nice because they're not wearing the mask. There was a protest yesterday. Only about a dozen protesters showed up. They moved on pretty quickly.

But now the question is, what does the rest of the week look like for travelers coming through this airport? We know normally on Thursday, things pick back up here when more agents call out. Because, of course, that paycheck on the 27th is something a lot of people have circled because they really want to get paid. I've talked to a few TSA agents off camera. They say things are getting really tight at home. They think they can make it through the rest of the week. But, of course, with gas prices going up, they want to see some impact with their paychecks in the near future. Wolf?

BLITZER: We know, Ryan, that the TSA agents who have been deployed to Atlanta where you are and to other airports around the country, their goal is to try to help the TSA agents and make those lines less severe. But is there any indication that the ICE agents are getting involved in immigration-related questioning and other activities at the airports?

YOUNG: Great question. And there were some people who were nervous about that earlier. What we've noticed is, as they're walking through here, they're not even interacting with anybody. We've never even seen them take a license from anybody as well. The one area of the job that we have seen him do is every now and then, they'll stand like this gentleman is right behind some of the TSA agents, but not even interacting with the public. So, he's standing there guarding, but not taking any sort of boarding pass or I.D. from anyone. And that's the position that we've seen everyone in over the last 24 hours. Of course, that could change, but as of right now, they're just sort of doing that perimeter of security.

BLITZER: All right. Let's see how that unfolds.

Ryan Young in Atlanta, Ed Lavandera in Houston, we'll check back with both of you, of course, throughout the day.

Also happening now, NTSB investigators are reviewing the cockpit voice recorder from Sunday night's fatal collision over at LaGuardia Airport in New York. In this video, you can see the fire truck responding to an unrelated call, driving onto a roadway and into the path of that Air Canada flight. The passenger plane was traveling at about 100 miles an hour at the moment of impact. The pilot and the co-pilot were both killed and dozens of people on board that plane were injured, some of them remaining in hospital right now.

CNN Aviation Correspondent Pete Muntean is now on the scene for us at LaGuardia. What are investigators focusing on this morning? What are you hearing, Pete?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the big headline from National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy is that it is way too early to assign blame for this fatal collision on any one specific thing, especially air traffic control.

Here is what the National Transportation Safety Board is doing right now. They are reviewing the cockpit voice recorder tape that has been taken to the NTSB lab in Washington, D.C. It was cut out from the tail of this Air Canada Express Flight, the CJ-900, and driven down to D.C. because of the air travel mess that is plaguing so many TSA checkpoints across the country.

The NTSB is also reviewing data from the air traffic control tower itself, specifically when it comes to staffing. The NTSB is looking at not only time cards for air traffic controllers but also signage seats, so they can precisely say exactly how many controllers were in what's called the tower cab at the moment of the collision.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy was on Fox News this morning, and I want you to listen to her response to a question about whether or not air traffic control was to blame for this crash. Listen.

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JENNIFER HOMENDY, NTSB CHAIRWOMAN: I think it's too early to say that. We have found in all of our investigations that it is not a single error that led to a terrible tragedy. It is -- our aviation safe -- our aviation system is incredibly safe and it takes multiple failures to occur for an accident like this.

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So, we're going to look very comprehensively

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: In spite of Homendy saying aviation is safe, we know from anonymous safety reports submitted by pilots that they were concerned that the airport here, LaGuardia, was at capacity leading up to this crash. In fact, one anonymous report that we accessed said that a pilot reported this could be the next Reagan National Airport, the collision that occurred that killed 67 people back on January 29th, 2025.

One other thing the NTSB is looking at is a review of FAA data from a system called ADSDx. That is something that warns a ground radar warning system that warns of collisions on the ground in the making, would've potentially warned of this collision as it was about to take place. We will see what that readout says.

Other big questions here about what was taking place in the firefighting truck that was responding to this unrelated incident on the other side of the airport then crossing Runway Four here, back to the airport firehouse on the other side of the airport. Were they able to see the airplane that was approaching from their left side? Did they look both ways? Lots of big questions now that those firefighters on board we know will survive. Of course, the NTSB will want to interview them along with the air traffic controllers in the tower cab.

A lot of things for investigators to look out here, Wolf?

BLITZER: Certainly true. Pete Muntean on the scene for us at LaGuardia, thank you very much.

And still ahead, CNN's new reporting on the mounting investigation happening in London right now after several ambulances for a Jewish volunteer group were set on fire.

And how Florida Democrats hope a special election in President Trump's own backyard will send a message about the party's momentum heading into the November midterm elections.

Stay with us, lot's going on. You're in The Situation Room.

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BLITZER: Happening now, police in London say they're treating an arson attack as a hate crime. Several ambulances belonging to a volunteer Jewish rescue organization were set on fire outside a synagogue. Security camera footage shows three masked men approach one of the ambulances and set it on fire.

Let's go live right now to CNN Correspondent Clare Sebastian. She's on the scene for us in London.

Clare, first of all, what are we learning about the investigation?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf. All eyes are really on this investigation at this point. The incident itself happened in the early hours of Monday morning. And as of now, I can tell you the U.K.'s counterterrorism police have taken over this investigation but they are not at this point treating it as a terrorist attack.

They have called it an anti-Semitic hate crime. This, of course, as you said, targeted four ambulances belonging to a Jewish volunteer rescue organization, which were basically destroyed by this fire lighting up the sky, as you can see in this suburb of North London.

Nothing is confirmed at this point in terms of attribution, but the key priority for investigators at this stage is determining whether an online claim of responsibility from an Islamist group that the head of London's police service says has potential Iran links, determining whether that is authentic or not.

And I think the key to this obviously is that we've seen in the U.K. since October 7th, a rise in anti-Semitic incidents. We saw last year on Yom Kippur that attack on the synagogue in Manchester that killed two people. This has been a rising sort of climate that we've seen in the U.K.

And, of course, there's a concern that the war with Iran is now sort of adding another layer of danger. People in this community, and I was down there yesterday in the aftermath of this attack, while they were shocked to see ambulances targeted, many of them told me that they were worried something like this would happen.

So, look, we are going to see now an increased even further police presence outside Jewish sites. London's Met Police are going to deploy extra officers. But what these people in this community really want, Wolf, is to see their leaders tackle what they say is this growing climate of hate.

BLITZER: And these latest attacks on these Jewish ambulances, Clare, we're in a part of London that's very heavily Jewish-populated, right?

SEBASTIAN: Absolutely, Wolf. I actually grew up pretty close to here, Golders Green in North London. It's really sort of the epicenter of London's Jewish community. There were multiple synagogues in the sort of within sighting distance of this attack. The ambulances were parked outside of one, lots of Jewish schools, Jewish shop shops. It's a very visible Jewish area. And lots of members of the community came down to the site where this happened yesterday to express their unease and their fear and to sort of come together.

So, as I said, a lot of shock about what exactly was targeted but not that much surprised that they were in the cross hers of something like this. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right. Clare Sebastian in London staying on top of this story for us, thank you very, very much.

Also happening now, a fire investigation near Houston, Texas, after a massive fire at an oil refinery. This happened in Port Arthur about 90 miles outside of Houston. No one was hurt, but the fire and explosion that followed sent large plumes of smoke into the air. State officials are now monitoring the air quality around the refinery. And the explosion is expected to send gas and diesel prices even higher.

Coming up, the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to reshape the way states use mail-in voting, something President Trump has publicly railed against for years. The impact such a significant change could have on this year's midterm elections coming up in November and beyond.

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BLITZER: Happening now, voters in Florida are headed to the polls in President Trump's own backyard. Democrats hope to notch win in the special statehouse election for a Palm Beach District, that includes the president's Mar-a-Lago residence. Republican John Maple, who has President Trump's endorsement, faces Democratic business owner Emily Gregory. President Trump voted by mail in this special election, even as he has sought to limit mail-in voting with legislation and has publicly decried it for years.

Listen.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: You will never have an honest election if you have mail-in. And it's time that the Republicans get tough and stop it because the Democrat.

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