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The Story Is with Elex Michaelson

Trump Criticizes Israel Over Attack On Iran Gas; Global Oil Crisis May Only Have Temporary Effects; Trump Officials Testify At The Senate Amid War With Iran; European Groups Join Aid Convoy To Cuba Amid Crippling Oil Blockade; Senate Committee To Vote On DHS Secretary; Ex-Counterterrorism Chief: Israel Drew U.S. Into Iran War; Trump Calls for End to Strikes on Energy Targets; Interview with Former Mossad Official Rami Igra; "New York Times" Reveals Sex Abuse Allegations Against Cesar Chavez. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired March 19, 2026 - 01:00   ET

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

[01:00:00]

ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Hosting Nigeria's president and his wife at Windsor Castle on Wednesday. It is the first state visit by a Nigerian leader to the United Kingdom in 37 years. A royal salute, a carriage procession and a state dinner. Part of that ceremony.

Trade between the two countries is at record high with cultural and commercial ties on the agenda at that meeting. Britain is home to about 300,000 people of Nigerian background. That's it for this hour of The Story Is. The next hour starts right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

MICHAELSON: And welcome The Story Is. I'm Elex Michaelson live in Los Angeles. Tonight, our breaking news, a rare rebuke of Israel from President Trump over the war with Iran. State media in Tehran reports new attacks on its oil production facilities in the world's largest natural gas field. This marks a significant escalation in the conflict.

President Trump says that Israel lashed out in anger and the U.S. knew nothing about it. He goes on to say, no more attacks will be made by Israel pertaining to this extremely important and valuable gas field.

Iran wasted no time in firing back at oil facilities around the Persian Gulf. Qatar reports extensive damage at its main energy hub. And Saudi Arabia says it intercepted four ballistic missiles over the capital where regional foreign ministers were meeting.

Now, the diplomats called for Iran to immediately end its attacks, which they said targeted residential areas, oil facilities, desalination plants, airports and diplomatic premises. Senior international correspondent Ivan Watson tracking all this from Hong Kong. Ivan, talk us through these attacks on energy installations and why they matter so much.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're an expansion of this two and a half week old conflict because I think this is the most damage we've seen thus far to these valuable kind of energy infrastructure installations.

And it started with explosions on the northern side of the Persian Gulf, the Iranian coast on its side of this vast South Parse offshore natural gas field. This is the biggest in the world and big damage. And we see images of it in the Iranian side of that.

And the Iranian state media was saying, hey, this means the red lines in this conflict, if you can believe there are red lines, have changed. And a spokesperson for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vowed that there would be retribution. And what do we see? Well, big attacks on Qatar on the south side of the Gulf. It shares this South Parse gas field.

And it reported that its Ras Laffan industrial city, which is kind of the jewel of its gas economy and industry, got hit and major fires there. And major damage report there saying that it got hit twice.

The UAE said Abu Dhabi had to shut down its gas facilities after they suffered damage. And just in the last couple of hours we've heard reports of a ship off the coast of Ras Laffan, Qatar being struck as well. And then also reports of targeting of Saudi Arabia's eastern oil areas.

Then in the last couple of hours, and you pointed this out, President Trump puts out a statement on truth social and he actually accuses Israel of targeting Iran's gas installations at the South Parse field.

He claims the U.S. knew nothing about this attack and he's vowed that no more attacks will take place to this valuable area and he wants Iran not to target Qatar.

Not clear how Tehran is going to respond to this. There is remarkably little trust between Washington and Tehran right now. And also we have an Israeli official telling CNN that actually the U.S. coordinated the attack on Iran's gas infrastructure ahead of time.

So, I don't know where the truth is on this and whether this will continue to escalate and disrupt global oil and energy markets or not. We're going to have to see where this goes from here.

MICHAELSON: Somebody's lying because it is impossible that both those things are true. And it'll be interesting to see if there's any evidence that comes out in the days ahead to prove it one way or another. Ivan Watson starting us off live in Hong Kong. Ivan, thank you very much.

Let's talk your money now. The U.S. Federal Reserve is predicting the disruptions to the global energy market. So it's going to be relatively short lived, but it's given itself some wiggle room.

[01:05:05]

Fed chief Jerome Powell says we just don't know how things are going to shake out. What we do know though is that interest rates will not be going down yet. As expected, the Fed voted to keep benchmark lending rates unchanged at 3 1/2 to 3 1/4 percent.

Join me now to talk about that Ryan Patel, senior fellow with the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, joining us live here in Los Angeles. Ryan, thanks for being with us. This idea of this being temporary, do you buy that?

RYAN PATEL, SENIOR FELLOW WITH THE DRUCKER SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT, CLAREMONT GRADUATE UNIVERSITY: It makes us feel better? Yes, sure. I mean, I think the temporary piece of what you know, Jerome Powell also mentioning too. Right. The interest rate's not going anywhere. That's the easiest decision he's made.

MICHAELSON: Yes.

PATEL: Right. And I think part of this is the spotlight's not on him no more. Right. The spotlight really is what --

MICHAELSON: We're not talking -- we're not talking about firing Jerome Powell. That's like 85 news cycles ago.

PATEL: And we're not saying when is it going to come down?

MICHAELSON: Yes.

PATEL: You can't ask the answer that question based on what is going on right now. And you know, inflation, oil prices, crisis, all those things are interconnected.

MICHAELSON: So the interest rate thing real quickly, what does that mean for the average person? How does that affect their daily life?

PATEL: Yes, I mean if you were hoping for to refi a mortgage or you were hoping to get these interest rates to go lower so you can do something with it. You know, to me the timeline just further out. Right. I mean the whole point of last year when you and I were saying speaking was how fast can we recover and how fast can it unlock home prices of real estate markets now? It's got to take a little bit longer.

MICHAELSON: Yes. So we've been showing throughout the night this live picture of where crude oil prices are at. In the last hour they were at 111, which is up from yesterday was like 100. How high do we think they can go? How high have they ever gone before?

PATEL: Yes, right. Historical prices. Right. 140, 150 in the 1970 -- two decades ago. And even when the oil prices in the 1970s, you've seen spikes like this. The issue here of this time, why it's different is that 20 percent of the oil that goes through the Strait. Right. That to me is a huge thing and we're so interconnected and does make an impact to global other aspects as well.

And you just did some breaking news before I even walked in here. That there's more attacks occurring oil fields, which is not even in what markets have even priced right in going into tomorrow and today. And we saw Asia markets already reacting to it. So you know, we're -- it's still we've got to buckle down. MICHAELSON: And we just saw that oil price went up a dollar in the

last hour just as we were talking.

So, what kind of position is the U.S. now in because of what we're seeing in the Strait of Hormuz? This is impacting all these different countries in different ways. Who does it benefit? Who's really hurting right now?

PATEL: Yes. I mean right now, you know, in the conversation you would think it's the U.S. but really they're at the bottom. They're really kind of more insulated than Asia. For example, when you think of China, Japan and India, who gets in South Korea, that gets a lot of their oil from the Middle East. Then you kind of go down the route to emerging markets. Who doesn't have maybe Pakistan, Bangladesh, that doesn't have the currency to kind of withstand or the reserves to withstand like the U.S. can then finally, you know, countries like Italy and Germany in the E.U., also have an impact where the U.S. is in a better position than they had been compared to a decade ago where they can go to the reserves and insulate some of it better than before.

MICHAELSON: Meaning the U.S. has more energy independence than we used to because of some of these decisions that Republicans would say to drill baby, drill. But pretty good to have some of that going on right now.

So let's talk about where we are. For everybody watching us right now, everybody's gas prices are going to get more expensive, probably going to see inflation. Right. And we're going to see prices on everything get more expensive. So how should we prepare? What should we be doing?

PATEL: Well, I think first off, if we are going to go down that route, you can't be caught off surprise at going, let me wait until it gets there. Let me wait until it gets to 140, $150 per barrel or 40 more percent. That's not a -- that's not a plan or a strategy.

I think part of oil or gas, for those of the average consumer, be very efficient with how you spend and drive. If you go to the grocery store four times a week, make that one time a week and get everything you need that week.

And I know it sounds very small, but overall when the gas prices have increased 40 percent and you have to drive to work every two, you know, you have to fill gas every two, you know, you have to go and get that gas at a price that you feel like you can. And so all those little things, to me, matter when it comes to that. And also, don't assume this is not just about gas prices. This is about global supply chain.

MICHAELSON: Right.

PATEL: So global supply chain leads to what? Manufacturing, food. So pay attention to those prices, too, when you're going to the grocery store as well. So again, I don't want people to figure out I'm just paying attention to gas prices. It is a supply chain problem that we're facing right now. MICHAELSON: And everything could be more expensive and it's not as

easy for these ships to move and then what happens as a result of that. And you suggested that if you've got a boss that allows it, maybe ask to work from home sometime.

PATEL: Yes, I mean, that's something I think companies should be open to right now. When you see prices to that degree, it saves you one more day to come in, you know, over a couple of weeks. 15, 20 bucks you can save in your pocket that you can use somewhere else.

[01:10:06]

MICHAELSON: Well, we appreciate you making the drive here. Hopefully we can reimburse you for that. Ryan Patel, thank you so much. Great to see you. Always.

PATEL: Appreciate it.

MICHAELSON: European Union lawmakers are set to vote in the coming day on the long delayed U.S.-E.U. trade deal that has been criticized by some in Europe as too favorable to the US.

Now, under that deal, most European exports to the U.S. will be subject to a 15 percent tariff rate, but many U.S. products heading to Europe would face zero import taxes. The trade deal was hammered out before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down many of President Trump's global tariffs, raising questions over the legal basis behind the agreement.

Top Trump administration officials have now testified publicly for the first time since the launch of the war with Iran nearly three weeks ago. But comments from National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard are drawing the most attention.

She said it's not her job to determine what constitutes an imminent threat, even though the administration has argued military action was necessary because of an imminent threat from Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no.

TUSLI GABBARD, U.S. NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR: Senator, the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president. It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat.

OSSOFF: It is precisely your responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: And her job is the director of National Intelligence. Gabbard's testimony also omitted part of an intel assessment that said Iran's nuclear program was obliterated by U.S. and Israeli bombs last year. Senate Democrat Mark Warner, the ranking member on that committee, asked her why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): Even in your printed testimony today on page six and your last paragraph on page six, as a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran's nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There's been no efforts to try to rebuild their enrichment capability.

You omitted that paragraph from your oral opening. Was that because the president said there was an imminent threat two weeks?

GABBARD: No, sir. I recognized that the time was running long and I skipped through some of the portions --

WARNER: You chose to take --

GABBARD: -- my oral delivered remarks.

WARNER: You chose to omit the parts that can contradict the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: The story is in Cuba, where desperately needed aid is slowly arriving as the country grapples with an energy crisis there. A shipment of supplies from Europe arrived in Havana on Wednesday.

Now, almost three months after the U.S. effectively imposed an oil blockade on Cuba that has worsened its energy crunch, nearly every aspect of Cuban society has been feeling the strain. Human Rights Watch says the humanitarian situation is extremely fragile. Without fuel, hospital treatments and surgeries are limited. People are using wood fires to heat water. Power blackouts have become commonplace and essential services are stretched to their limits.

Montreal based artist Luca Hollinger has been living part time in Havana for the past decade. He told us last hour what it's like for many ordinary folks during the energy crisis and tensions with the US.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LUKA HOLLINGER, ARTIST: I'm currently here in Parque Central in Central park of Havana, where we are losing electricity on a daily basis. So we're living day to day. But that doesn't stop me or the Cuban people because just happy to be alive. We're happy to be here. And it comes with difficulties, obviously, but everything comes with difficulties these days.

I think materialistic need, a tangible need, would maybe be gasoline. At this moment, we're running out of gas. But I feel like the people, the Cuban people, what they most need right now is maybe a voice, you know, a feeling that they're being heard or that they haven't a say. Right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Our thanks to Luca Hollinger for that interview. Meanwhile, the family of a U.S. college student who went missing in Spain is pleading for information that could help track him down. 20- year-old Jimmy Gracey, a junior at the University of Alabama, was last seen in the early hours of Tuesday morning while on spring break in Barcelona.

His family says he went to a nightclub but never returned to his rental home. Gracey's mother says police have his phone that was recovered after being stolen.

A day after the U.S. counterterrorism chief announced his resignation, he has poking some holes in the Trump administration's justification for war with Iran and blaming U.S. involvement on Israel. We will talk to somebody who was the chief of staff for the DHS, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:19:08]

MICHAELSON: Washington Post is reporting that U.S. officials have detected unidentified drones flying above Fort McNair, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth live. That is according to three people briefed on the situation.

Officials are still trying to figure out where the drones came from. The Post reports that a senior U.S. official said that multiple drones were spotted over the Washington army base on a single night in the last 10 days. That has led to increased security measures and a meeting at the White House to discuss how to respond.

The U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee set to vote Thursday on President Trump's nominee to lead the Homeland Security Department. This comes one day after Senator Markwayne Mullin faced a fiery confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers questioned him about immigration, disaster response, his temperament and his own career.

[01:20:20[

Mullin said he'd run the department differently than ousted Secretary Kristi Noem. One of the biggest changes would be how ICE is deployed around the country. Mullin's plan suggests a return to traditional operations instead of the broad immigration sweeps seen under Noem.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIIP)

SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): I would love to see ICE become a transport more than the front line. If we can get back into just simply working with law enforcement, we're going to them and we're picking up these criminals from their jail one -- we're going to reimburse them for having the person there. And partnership is vitally important.

Let me earn your respect. Let me earn the job. I won't fail you. I won't back down from a challenge. And I also admit when I'm wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MICHAELSON: For more, I'm joined by Chad Sweet. He is the co-founder and CEO of the Chertoff Group and the former chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security during the Bush administration. Thanks so much for being with us.

CHAD SWEET, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, THE CHERTOFF GROUP: My pleasure.

MICHAELSON: How does Homeland Security change if Markwayne Mullin is in charge instead of Kristi Noem?

SWEET: I think one of the most important things right now is that it'll bring stability at a time which is critical. If we think about DHS right now as in a leadership leaderless vacuum, and we're asking them to defend the homeland in a tier one global crisis.

So, one of the most important parts of the mission when I was there was being prepared for an event like this where we tracked, for example, sleeper cells from Iran. I know the department's doing that actively now, and we've already seen, unfortunately, some very close calls with respect to home lone wolf attacks as well.

So, one of the most important things that someone like Secretary Mullen, or I should say Senator Mullen, if he becomes secretary, can bring is that stability in a time of crisis.

MICHAELSON: Do you think he's the right man for the job?

SWEET: I do. I think having served -- if you look at the department today, it has unfortunately still reporting to over 80 different congressional committees, which is one of the 911 Commission recommendations, was to streamline that because it's tremendous taxing of the department.

He will be the first secretary ever to come from Congress. And so I think his 14 years on both the House and Senate side will play an important role in making the department effective with its congressional partners and oversight.

MICHAELSON: And probably an important role in getting confirmed because these are a lot of his friends --

SWEET: Absolutely.

MICHAELSON: -- and colleagues that are going to be voting for him. So --

SWEET: Yeah, and it's -- it's kind of interesting. I don't know if you feel this way, but if you heard the hearings, there was obviously some moments of tension and sparks, but that's to be expected. I do think it is interesting to watch, though, how Senator Mullin has managed to take former folks that were, you know, critics or even folks that he ended up having confrontations with.

An example would be Sean O'Brien, the head of the Teamsters, who we all saw, you know, unfortunately, in that where they almost got into a -- not only a verbal dispute or we're challenging each other to an actual fight. If you look at the result, though, he managed to work that out and together, Sean was sitting right behind him in the front row.

And I think that's an example of where he is demonstrating his ability to bring any kind of past conflicts to resolution so he can move forward to be a constructive leader for the department and the nation.

MICHAELSON: That is quite something because for people who haven't seen that, it basically looked like a scene out of the WWE where they were challenging each other to a fight in the middle of a congressional hearing and Bernie Sanders was the person in between, which is funny in its own right, but that's where --

SWEET: That's right. You know, you've got Bernie, an 80-year-old plus gentleman trying to keep things calm that says so --

MICHAELSON: He's the ref. So let's talk about this shutdown, though, because right now Democrats and Republicans have not been able to find a way to agree with, to get the government back open. Is there anything that the new secretary can do on that front? Do you think that gives Democrats any more reason to sort of move on this?

SWEET: I certainly hope so. If a former Teamster head and a Republican nominee can come together and put things behind them to put national security and homeland security first, so can the Congress.

And I think if we saw just this week out of the White House, led by the border czar, Tom Homan, he laid out some new pivots that the administration is prepared to make. And I think the combination of a new head of the department, along with these strategic pivots on the part of the administration, it offers an exciting opening to bring this unfortunate chapter to close.

[01:25:04]

And if we look at it right now, we are seeing the potentially the longest partial shutdown in history on day 33 as we speak. The longest one was 35, and we're now getting dangerously close to that. And the strains that it's putting on the nation at a time again when DHS is in a leaderless vacuum, to ask them to be in the middle of a tier one global conflict is just not acceptable from a risk perspective.

MICHAELSON: And not fair to all the hard working men and women who have to do their job every day, including all those TSA agents and are not getting paid.

SWEET: That's exactly --

MICHAELSON: So let's hope that's exactly a resolution for their sake as well. Chad Sweet, thank you so much for joining us from Washington and sharing your views.

SWEET: My pleasure. Thank you.

MICHAELSON: The head of the U.S. Postal Service says the agency will run out of cash in less than a year without the help of Congress. USPS does not get tax dollars for its operating expenses and reported net losses of $9 billion last fiscal year.

Postmaster General David Steiner is urging Congress to increase the agency's borrowing limit and also suggested raising the price of postage. Data from the Pew Research center shows the USPS has struggled with losing money for years alongside a decline in the volume of physical mail.

Coming up, what are Israel's goals in this war with Iran? I'll speak to a former division chief of the Mossad, Israel's national intelligence agency. He joins me live from Israel, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:30:57]

ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to THE STORY IS. I'm Elex Michaelson.

Let's take a look at today's top stories.

President Trump is set to meet with Japan's prime minister at the White House on Thursday. The White House has been urging Japan and other allies to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz amid the war with Iran. But Japan is limited by its pacifist constitution, and the prime minister has said she has no plans to send warships to the Middle East.

France is calling for an end to strikes targeting civilian infrastructure. It comes after a series of attacks Wednesday on oil and gas sites in a number of Gulf states. French President Emmanuel Macron says he spoke with President Trump, as well as Qatar's emir. Macron is urging that essential needs like energy and water be protected.

Republican senators in the U.S. have rejected a new effort to rein in President Trump over the Iran war. The Senate voting 47 to 53 blocking a resolution that would require the president to get congressional approval for future U.S. military actions against Iran. This is the second time since the war started that Democrats have forced an unsuccessful vote on President Trump's war powers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, "THE TUCKER CARLSON SHOW": He said we knew that Israel was going to attack Iran and in retaliation for those attacks by Israel against Iran, Iran might attack American forces.

So the imminent threat that the secretary of State is describing is not from Iran. It's from Israel.

JOE KENT, FORMER DIRECTOR, U.S. NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER: Exactly. And I think this speaks to the broader issue. Who is in charge of our policy in the Middle East? Who is in charge of when we decide to go to war or not?

In this case, with what the secretary described, and later on the president, later on the Speaker of the House and the way the events played out, the Israelis drove the decision to take this action, which we knew would set off a series of events, meaning the Iranians would retaliate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: That was Joe Kent, the Trump administration's former director of the National Counterterrorism Center speaking earlier with conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson.

Kent announced his resignation on Tuesday citing concerns about the Iran war. Kent also told Carlson that Iran was not close to building a nuclear bomb and that there was, quote, "no intelligence that Iran was preparing to attack the U.S."

Iran's president is condemning what he calls a cowardly assassination of some of the country's top security officials. The latest among them is Iran's intelligence minister who Israel says killed and -- who Israel says was killed in an airstrike Tuesday overnight.

Iran held a funeral procession Wednesday for its top national security official, who was killed in a separate Israeli strike the day before.

A senior Israeli intelligence official says the goal of these killings is to create chaos in Iran's leadership.

Prime minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is hoping that Iranian people will take it from there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): We are undermining this regime in the hope of giving the Iranian people an opportunity to remove it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Joining me now on the phone is Rami Igra, the former division chief of the Israeli Mossad Hostages and MIA Unit. He is in Tel Aviv.

I know we were going to see you on video, but you just recently had to go into a shelter in Tel Aviv. How's everything on your end?

RAMI IGRA, FORMER DIVISION CHIEF, ISRAELI MOSSAD HOSTAGES AND MIA UNIT (via telephone): Good morning to you. Good afternoon.

Everything is ok. We are already used to it. And the public shelters in Israel have become really a scene of social intermingling, which is a lot of fun. So there is a good side or a smiling side to this war.

MICHAELSON: So some of the breaking news -- I'm glad to hear that -- in the last hour we have seen is that President Trump says that Israel attacked an oil field without the U.S. permission. We hear a source from Israel saying the U.S. knew about this.

[01:34:50]

MICHAELSON: And why are you saying that you're surprised by it? What do you make of that? And what do you make of the likelihood that Israel acted alone?

IGRA: I do not think that Israel would act alone because this attack brings this war into a different level. It's become an energy war.

And if you're looking at all the goals of this war, and this is the big question what are the objectives of this war? If you're looking at all these goals one of them was never to be an energy -- worldwide energy war, which could bring into -- which we could bring the world into a recession.

And forget the prices of oil, et cetera in America, it's going to bring Europe into a very difficult situation, and the rest of the world is looking at a recession if this war really breaks out.

I don't know -- I don't know why Israel decided to do this. The media here says that it was -- it was to signal the Iranian leadership that they should stop the -- stop the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Whether this is the truth or not, I don't think it's going to achieve its goal.

And here, we all have to understand something that it seems that the Israeli and the American leadership do not understand. The Iranians see this war as a religious war. This is a long-lasting war between the infidels and the others.

And as far as they're concerned, this war can continue for as long as you want. You want an example? They had an eight-year war with Iraq with a million casualties. So these people know to withstand the attacks.

Now, if the objective was to change the leadership in Iran, it looks like this is not going to happen as there is no -- the three elements that you need to have a revolution are nonexistent in Iran. Which means you need a movement, you need leadership and you need arms to confront the regime.

This does not exist in Iran --

MICHAELSON: Yes.

IGRA: -- and therefore the hope that all these attacks are going to bring the people out of the streets and they're going to revolt, I don't think it's realistic.

The other objective of this war, again which is a little unrealistic, is to find these 450 kilograms of enriched uranium which could be used for a nuclear bomb in the future.

So if you haven't done these two things, what are you ending with? You're ending with maybe an energy war, as we talked about a minute ago.

MICHAELSON: Right.

IGRA: We end with a -- we end with a much more extreme leadership in Iran and you end up with a big vengeance because Iran, you have to remember that the Imam Khamenei was not just a political leader. He is a religious leader.

MICHAELSON: Right.

IGRA: He is the head of the Shia. And the Shia are 350 million people in this world.

MICHAELSON: Sure.

IGRA: So we have opened the door --

MICHAELSON: Yes. And leading --

IGRA: -- none of us -- none of us know how it's going to end.

MICHAELSON: So from Israel's perspective, what does victory look like and how is that maybe different than the American perspective?

IGRA: This is a huge question. What is victory going to look like? Only one, if you ask me, only one of two things. Either there is a revolt in Iran, and it doesn't look like it's going to happen. Or we put our hands on the 450 kilograms of enriched uranium.

So if this is not going to happen -- these things are not going to happen at the end of this war we are going to -- we are going to confront a much more difficult Iranian regime.

By the way the killing of Larijani day before yesterday is really assassinated one of the more pragmatic leaders in the Iranian regime.

So we're going to be left with a -- with a -- with a -- with a new negotiations with the Iranians and these new negotiations for the Americans and for the Israelis are going to be much more difficult.

If you ask me what is victory for America? Victory for America is a declaration by Trump, whether it is connected to reality or not, it is a declaration we have won and therefore they have died.

I don't have to elaborate on this. You know it better than me.

MICHAELSON: He's -- well, he's already said that. He said we won within the first hour. But then he's also said we haven't won enough yet. And so there have been contradictory statements in terms of what victory looks like for the Americans.

[01:39:44]

MICHAELSON: But it will be interesting when President Trump, I guess makes that more definitive. Thank you so much --

IGRA: If you ask me -- if you ask me -- if you ask me --

MICHAELSON: Yes.

IGRA: President Trump got himself into a loop that he doesn't really know how to get out of. And this loop is becoming more and more serious.

And if the American and the Israelis go into an energy war or tried to invade Iran for this or that reason, we're going to look at a much more difficult problem that is going to last with us for a much longer time.

And let's all pray that this is -- that Trump wakes up this morning and says, we have won finally, and everybody can go home and try to negotiate a better situation in Iran.

MICHAELSON: Yes. It will be interesting to follow it along. Thank you so much for joining us on the phone.

We appreciate it Rami Igra in Tel Aviv. we appreciate your perspective.

The Spanish city of Valencia is saying goodbye to hundreds of statues that will go up in flames on Thursday. They're part of an annual festival where artists display satirical sculptures, which are burned on the final day.

War was the dominant inspiration this year. One sculpture depicted President Trump as Father Christmas surrounded by bombs another appeared to portray the U.S. President with the Russian, Israeli and former Venezuelan leaders as three wise men.

The artist who created all of this calls the scene "Silent Night", which he says is, quote, "anything but that".

You are watching THE STORY IS.

For our international viewers, "WORLDSPORT" is next. For our viewers in North America, I'll be right back.

Talking to Gustavo Arellano of "The L.A. Times" about this bombshell -- bombshell story about Cesar Chavez and how the Latino community is reacting. That's when we come back.

[01:41:38]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELSON: Celebrations honoring the most prominent Latino labor and civil rights leader in U.S. history, Cesar Chavez, are now canceled after shocking new allegations of sexual misconduct. "The New York Times" detailing accusations from women who say they were as young as 12 when Chavez first began sexually abusing them.

"Times" reporters spoke with more than 60 people, using union records and other documents to corroborate some of the accounts.

This is from their reporting. Quote, "Many of the women stayed silent for decades, both out of shame and for fear of tarnishing the image of a man who has become the face of the Latino civil rights movement, his image on school murals and his birthday, a state holiday in California."

One of those accusers is Dolores Huerta, who co-founded United Farm Workers alongside Chavez. She's a labor and civil rights icon in her own right and released this statement, quote, "I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farm workers' rights was my life's work. The formation of a union was the only vehicle to accomplish and secure those rights, and I wasn't going to let Cesar or anyone else get in the way."

CNN cannot independently verify the allegations against the late Chavez. In terms of Huerta's allegations, she alleges that she was essentially raped by him and that she ended up with two pregnancies because of that, and then gave up the kids. And the pregnancies were secret.

And the now 60-year-old kids only found out about this a few weeks ago.

I want to bring in "L.A. Times" columnist Gustavo Arellano. Gustavo, you have been covering the Latino movement in California for decades. You've won a Pulitzer Prize.

Give us some context on what Cesar Chavez has meant to the people of this western region, especially Latinos.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO, COLUMNIST, "L.A. TIMES": Cesar Chavez organized in the fields of California and across the southwest from the 60s right up until his death in 1993.

He was an advocate for an American underclass that still remains exploited to this day. That's why there's hundreds of streets, schools, parks, classrooms, boardrooms named after Cesar. So we're talking about a titan of American civil rights.

And to hear all of these allegations, I mean, people are stunned. People are disgusted. People are disappointed. People are just quiet.

And now, though, there's a reckoning that is happening that you would have never thought of of someone of that stature. But given the allegations and how damning they are, I'm not surprised it's happening.

MICHAELSON: Well, and let's read a statement now from the Chavez family, which did not exactly defend him. Let's put this up on the screen. And it says, "Mr. Chavez's family said on Tuesday night that they were not in a position to judge the claims. As a family steeped in the values of equity and justice, we honor the voices of those who feel unheard and who report sexual misconduct," they said in a statement. "These allegations are deeply painful to our family."

I mean, some of those closest to Chavez seem to distance themselves from him.

ARELLANO: There are people alleging that it is a conspiracy theory against Chavez, that we should not be believing the accusers.

But what my response to that is the family and also the two organizations, the Cesar Chavez Foundation and the United Farm Workers, whose main mission or who are the carriers of the torch of Cesar Chavez, they put out statements the day before this "New York Times" story came out so just yesterday, saying first and foremost, to center the survivors involving this.

So if we have these organizations saying, yes, we find these allegations to be so credible that we're offering our -- like, whatever these survivors need, what else do you need to hear?

MICHAELSON: So where do we go from here? Because he is such an icon. I mean, he's essentially like the Latino Martin Luther King Jr., where his name is everywhere. What do we do with that? And what do we do with the legacy of Cesar Chavez and what he did achieve for people in the farm workers movement?

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ARELLANO: You can change history and the fact remains that millions of people were inspired by the good that Cesar did along with other people. So to try to somehow say, that's all invalid, that's just not -- that's just not how history works.

But now we have to put a giant asterisk, not to El Movimiento (ph) but to Cesar Chavez and his legacy. We need to teach that history. We are -- and you know, this is me getting political now -- we are in an era where too many people like to have their history nice and clean, and we don't want to talk about the bad things that our heroes did.

Yes, we need to talk about these people. Frankly, people shouldn't have heroes. We -- they are just flesh and blood like the rest of us. They will mess up.

Bad people can do good things, just like good people can do bad things. And we are sadly seeing this at the expense of, you know -- and kudos goes to the survivors. As someone who has covered sex abuse in the Catholic Church for decades, I know how every survivor has their own journey to peace.

And if this is how they finally got to peace decades after their abuse happened, then that's what they deserve. And now -- right now, they at least know that they are vast -- there's a community behind them that believes them and wants to see justice done.

And if justice is telling the world that Cesar Chavez did horrible things, then so be it.

MICHAELSON: Yes. Dolores Huerta now in her 90s, said she kept this secret for 60 years.

Gustavo Arellano of "The L.A. Times". You can check out his reporting at latimes.com. Thank you.

We'll be right back to wrap things up. [01:51:20]

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MICHAELSON: Venezuela celebrating its historic championship of the World Baseball Classic by declaring a national holiday and suspending classes. The acting president, Delcy Rodriguez welcomed the trophy in a ceremony in Caracas on Wednesday. She says the national team's victory made Venezuela feel proud of their country.

Venezuela defeated the U.S. 3 to 2 in Miami Tuesday night to win its first-ever world title.

Thank you for watching THE STORY IS.

Tomorrow, a special edition of our show, live from Washington, D.C. Among my guests former speaker Nancy Pelosi, "Hardball" host Chris Matthews, and Michigan Senator Gary Peters. It's going to be quite a show. We hope you'll join us then.

Thanks for watching us.

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