Return to Transcripts main page
The Story Is with Elex Michaelson
Trump Postpones Strike Threats, Says U.S. in Talks with Iran; 64 Killed in Colombia Military Plane Crash; Investigation Underway After Deadly Runway Collision; ICE Deploys to 14 U.S. Airports to Aid Understaffed TSA; Long Lines, Traveler Wait Times at Some U.S. Airports; Senate Republican Plan Emerges to End DHS Shutdown; Lebanon: 1,000+ Killed, 1 Million Displaced by Israeli Strikes. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired March 24, 2026 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[00:00:00]
ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR: I think it's sweet. And it also reminds me of dances when I was very young and they used to dance like this because you were kept far away from the girl and because you love -- that song brings me right back to that era. But she's so great and I'm glad to hear she's feeling better, too.
LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you know, in honor of that song, for all the times you've stood by me, for all the wrongs you've helped me see, have a great show, Elex Michaelson.
MICHAELSON: There we go. All right, Laura Coates, have a great night.
THE STORY IS starts right now.
ANNOUNCER: Live from Los Angeles, THE STORY IS with Elex Michaelson.
MICHAELSON: I'm Elex Michaelson. Welcome to THE STORY IS live from Los Angeles.
But the story is in the Middle East. Right now new video posted by Iranian state media claims to show missiles being fired at Israeli cities and U.S. military bases in the region. It's not clear exactly where they're talking about, and we do not have any reports of any of these missiles actually hitting anything. But this video just came out.
This comes after reports that Iran had, quote, "special plans for Tel Aviv and regional allies." It's unclear from the video or the posts when this footage was actually filmed. This comes as President Trump has declared a five-day pause on striking Iran's power plants after he claims the two countries made major points of agreements after talks. But he warns that the U.S. will not hesitate to ramp up military operations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have points, major points of agreement, I would say almost all points of agreement. Perhaps that hasn't been conveyed. The communication, as you know, has been blown to pieces. They're unable to talk to each other. We're doing a five-day period. We'll see how that goes. And if it goes well, we're going to end up with settling this. Otherwise, we'll just keep bombing our little hearts out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: State media is reporting that Iran's Foreign Ministry says there has been no dialogue. A senior adviser to the supreme leader says the war will continue until Iran receives full compensation for damages.
Here's what President Trump had to say about the alleged negotiations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Mr. President, who are speaking with in Iran?
TRUMP: A top, a top person. Don't forget, we've wiped out the leadership phase one, phase two, and largely phase three. But we're dealing with the man who I believe is the most respected and the leader. You know, it's a little tough. They've wiped out -- we've wiped out everybody.
COLLINS: Is that the supreme leader?
TRUMP: No, not the supreme leader. We don't -- well, nobody's ever -- nobody heard of the second supreme leader. The son. Nobody -- we have not heard from the son. Every once in a while, you see a statement made. But we haven't. We don't know if he's living.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Now Monday marked another day of heavy Israeli bombardment in Iran's capital. Video by the Iranian Red Crescent shows rescue workers saving a child from a residential building that was struck.
Let's bring in CNN's Mike Valerio live from Beijing.
Mike, what do we know about these possible talks between the U.S. and Iran?
MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Very interesting. Perhaps Pakistan is getting ready to enter the chat, Elex. Pakistan and its Foreign Ministry say that it is, quote, "ready to host talks" when the two sides agree to them. That reporting coming from our superstar reporter, Sofia Seifi, who's based in Islamabad, one of the MVPs of the CNN Asia family.
So that reporting is coming from her and also Kristen Holmes from the White House is saying that there is a proposal out there, Elex, for in-person meetings between U.S. and Iranian officials in Pakistan, in Islamabad. And an interesting wrinkle to that, perhaps Vice President Vance would attend those discussions in Islamabad. That certainly is notable because of his well-known opposition to any kind of U.S. foreign entanglements and engagement in any kind of war like this.
And as to why Pakistan perhaps makes sense coming into the equation here, well, it has very warm ties with Washington, D.C. I mean, that could be the understatement of noontime here in this time zone. Very warm ties because Pakistan says that essentially President Trump saved the country, ended the latest skirmish, or I should say war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir in the springtime of last year. Pakistani ships are getting through. Gulf countries have been bombed that otherwise might have been mediators in a conflict such as this.
And Islamabad also has very good rapport, a very good rapport in relations, not only with Tehran but with Beijing, where we are right now, a very key player in this conversation because 90 percent or between 80 percent and 90 percent of Iranian oil comes to Beijing.
One more point we want to end on, the 15 points of agreement.
[00:05:03]
That was apparently presented to Iran through Pakistan. Another point for Pakistan on the board being involved in this latest chapter of the war, but we're also learning through Kristen Holmes at the White House and the CNN and White House team, that this was more of a proposal of expectations. And we don't even know if Iran agreed to any of these 15 points. We don't even know what the 15 points were, aside from one of them was that Iran would never have a nuclear bomb, which Tehran, for what it's worth has said it's agreed to publicly before, but, you know, the president is saying, oh, yes, Iran has agreed to all these 15 points.
We might have a reality check that that could be not so much -- Elex.
MICHAELSON: Well, Mike, another one of the big fights has been over the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. government has said that Iran is basically putting mines there that could potentially blow up ships, which is why people are afraid to go there. Iran says it's not mining Hormuz.
VALERIO: Right.
MICHAELSON: Who do we trust here?
VALERIO: Well, I mean, it's a great question. We present the facts and you can decide at home based on the facts that we put out there. So Iran has said over the past 12 hours, this is notable, that it is not mining the Strait of Hormuz. And they went on to say that they don't need to, question mark, because they, from their point of view, have enough operational control over the waterway.
That certainly the point that we want to get out to all of our viewers at home conflicts with what U.S. administration officials are saying and our own reporting from CNN, where U.S. officials believe that Iran was already beginning to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz. One other facet of reporting before we go from Iran, I think it was so notable, you showed in the intro. That video of the boy being saved from that building in Tehran. There's almost an internet blackout. So video from Iran, very hard to
get to, but we've been tracking that story line of Red Crescent officials working for hours trying to find people in that rubble in Tehran, searching for that boy and just such a piece of good news coming out through X from the Iranian Red Crescent that that boy in the yellow shirt was pulled out of that rubble -- Elex.
MICHAELSON: Yes, indeed. Mike Valerio, starting us off in Beijing. Thank you.
Let's now bring in CNN military analyst, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton to dive deeper into all this. Joining us live now from Washington.
Cedric, Iran says it doesn't need to lay mines. Do you believe them?
COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Elex, not exactly, but they're kind of right in one way. And it's kind of interesting because all they have to do is threaten to lay mines and threaten to disperse them. That may be enough to really gum up the works as far as the Strait of Hormuz is concerned. So that's one thing.
I do actually believe that there were some mines that have actually been laid. At least that's what seems to be, you know, what seems to be the case right now, but they don't have to lay very many of them. And yet they have an arsenal reputed to be somewhere around 5,000 or so of these mines and they can certainly do a lot of damage if they choose to do so. But my feeling is, is that they probably haven't done that yet. They haven't pressed that lever yet because they feel they don't need to.
MICHAELSON: So right off the top of the show, we showed video of Iranian missiles being launched. Iran's state TV is announcing that Iran has, quote, "special plans for Tel Aviv." What could those special plans be? And do we know of any actual hits of any of these missiles?
LEIGHTON: Yes. So far we don't know of any hits of any of those missiles. So this is kind of interesting because usually you'll get the Israelis to say that there's been an impact or they've had an alert in, you know, Tel Aviv or, you know, wherever in Israel that the missiles are thought to be headed toward. So what the special plan could be is in some cases more of the same in the sense that they might be cluster munition warheads.
So this would be a warhead that has a whole bunch of cluster munitions in it, somewhere upwards of 80 in some cases. And they separate just before the warhead enters -- reenters into the target zone. And so as they -- as they do that, they can cause a lot of damage in many different areas so that might be one surprise. The worst kind of surprise, of course, would be if there was some kind of biological agent or a chemical agent attached to them.
We do not know of anything like that happening at this point, but that is, you know, certainly a worst case scenario. And it's certainly something that the Israelis have been worried about for some time. MICHAELSON: And lastly, we hear that the U.S. is sending extra forces
to the region, including Marines. What does that tell you? And because the Marines are being sent there, does that mean there's a good chance that we will have some sort of ground troops?
[00:10:06]
LEIGHTON: Well, ground troops are, of course, you know, part of what the Marines do. They come in and they take over territory in terms of amphibious operations. So one possibility is that they could be used around the Strait of Hormuz. I -- perhaps to secure the beachhead around the Iranian shoreline there, and perhaps even go into Bandar Abbas, which is a city and a main naval port, naval base for the Iranians.
The other thing that, of course, could be part of the mission for the Marine expeditionary unit that is headed there, actually there are two of them, could also be Kharg Island. That's of course in the northern part of the Persian Gulf. And that's where 90 percent of their oil is basically refined and processed for export. So those are two possibilities. And then the third one would be that these Marines might be used in part for a nuclear retrieval mission, and that would be going after those canisters, the scuba tank sized canisters of highly enriched uranium.
But the knowledge of exactly where those are is, you know, is not definitive at this point. And so that's perhaps a stretch as far as our mission goes. So that would be if those Marines are used, they may just be there as a presence for the U.S. to have some leverage over the area. But that's one of the areas where the U.S. could potentially put ground troops actually on the ground on Iranian soil if they chose to do so.
MICHAELSON: Cedric Leighton, starting things off for us once again from Washington. Cedric, thanks so much for your insights.
LEIGHTON: You bet, Elex.
MICHAELSON: Other news now, at least 34 people were killed when a Colombian air force plane crashed shortly after takeoff with more than 100 passengers and crew on board. Video circulating online shows the aircraft's wreckage engulfed in flames, black smoke in a rural field.
CNN's Stefano Pozzebon has the latest details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Colombian soldiers were killed on Monday morning as an air force plane a Hercules C-130 crashed on Monday morning just after taking off from the remote outpost of Puerto Leguizamo which is a remote town deep in the Colombian Amazon jungle next to the border with Peru.
According to the joint chief of staff of the Colombian military forces, 125 troops were on board of the plane en route to Puerto Asis, which is a logistical hub for the whole region of the Colombian Amazon. Of these 125, 11 were crew members and 114 were soldiers from the Colombian Army. The Colombian President Gustavo Petro said that at least 80 of these soldiers had been rescued and thanked the local community down in Puerto Leguizamo for providing the first aid and the -- and arriving at the scene to try rescue as many people as possible.
Several of them have already been taken to the Colombian capital, Bogota. Authorities are not speculating on what caused the accident, but have so far ruled out the possibility that this was the result of an attack from armed insurgents that are operating in the jungle.
GEN. CARLOS FERNANDO SILVA RUEDA, COLOMBIAN AIR FORCE COMMANDER: At the moment we have no details on what caused the plane to crash other than that, as soon as it took off, it experienced a problem and crashed a couple of kilometers from the airport.
POZZEBON: And the Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said that the soldiers were carrying ammunitions with them. And this is why in some of the videos, you can hear the explosions from some of the cartridges after the plane crashed and took fire.
This incident is likely to throw even further into the spotlight how dangerous it can be to travel in the Colombian Amazon region, where several of the civilian and military aircraft are old and no longer suitable for flying. In a post on X, Petro lamented that he had tried to upgrade the military fleet. However, he said the bureaucracy got in the way.
For CNN, this is Stefano Pozzebon, Bogota.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: From one aviation story to another, federal investigators are now on the ground at New York's LaGuardia Airport after a deadly runway collision on Sunday night. National Transportation Safety Board says multiple teams are sifting through the wreckage and examining every angle of this accident as part of the investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNIFER HOMENDY, CHAIR, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: There is a tremendous, tremendous amount of debris from Taxiway Delta across Runway Four into some other areas. It's pretty expansive. In order to get to the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, we -- the Port Authority and the emergency responders cut a hole on the roof of the aircraft.
[00:15:10]
And hopefully we'll have information to share. My hope is that we'll have information to share on that tomorrow.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Authorities say the pilot and co-pilot were killed when the landing Air Canada jet struck a Port Authority fire and rescue truck attempting to cross the runway while responding to a separate incident. One of those pilots has been identified as Antoine Forest. His family members have expressed his love of flying and FAA officials describe both pilots as young men at the start of their careers.
CNN's Shimon Prokupecz has more on the collision.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): New video shows the moment of a deadly collision between an Air Canada plane and a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport. Ten seconds after giving the truck permission to cross the runway, the air traffic controller frantically warns it to wait.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop, stop, stop. Stop, stop, stop. Stop, truck one, stop. Truck one, stop.
PROKUPECZ: But it was too late to stop the collision that killed two pilots and injured dozens.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I see you collided with the vehicle. Just hold position. I know you can't move. Vehicles are responding to you now.
PROKUPECZ: The Air Canada plane was going 104 miles an hour when it hit the truck. Passenger Rebecca Liquori described the moments just before the crash.
REBECCA LIQUORI, AIR CANADA PASSENGER: You heard the pilot try to brake like he was trying to prevent the collision that occurred. And as you heard the break, you just, a couple seconds later, it was just a very loud boom and everybody just jolted out of their seats. People, people hit their heads. People were bleeding.
PROKUPECZ: Forty-one passengers and two crew members went to the hospital. The Port Authority said 32 people have already been released. Many ended up sliding off the plane's wing to exit safely. One of the flight attendants was found alive outside the plane still strapped to her seat, according to a law enforcement official.
LIQUORI: It was a very harrowing scene. We were all emotional and it was just very scary.
PROKUPECZ: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy tried to reassure travelers at a news conference at LaGuardia on Monday.
SEAN DUFFY, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: It's incredibly sad. It's troubling, and I just want to let America know that we are working our hearts off to make sure that when people travel, whether by rail or car or by air, that they travel safely.
PROKUPECZ: The collision shut down New York City's second largest airport for more than 14 hours, leading to hundreds of canceled flights. This comes as there's already been significant travel disruptions and delays resulting from the government's partial shutdown.
GOV. KATHY HOCHUL, NEW YORK: Let's acknowledge the tremendous stress, particularly in recent days, that our airline workers are under. And as we come through here, know that this is an ecosystem which is not self-sustaining.
PROKUPECZ: It's really tough times here. And certainly for many of the victims here and the people who are aboard that, who were aboard the plane, who really just took action to try and save each other, to get off that plane.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: Our thanks to Shimon Prokupecz for that reporting from New York.
Still to come, the White House deploys ICE agents to more than a dozen airports across the U.S. So what are they doing there? Peter Greenberg joins us live to explain, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:22:56]
MICHAELSON: President Trump's pick to lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been approved.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R-OK): On this vote. The ayes are 54, the nays are 45. The nomination of Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma to be secretary of Homeland Security is confirmed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Senator Markwayne Mullin will now be one of the faces of the contentious immigration enforcement effort and the ongoing partial government shutdown. Remember, DHS funding lapsed more than five weeks ago. Democrats are demanding changes to ICE tactics and procedures after federal agents fatally shot two Americans in Minnesota in January. Mullin is taking over from the embattled Kristi Noem, who was ousted earlier this month.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been deployed at 14 different airports across the U.S. They're just meant to help the understaffed TSA, which is experiencing massive numbers of callouts due to the partial government shutdown. They're not getting paid so some people are saying, I'm not going to show up for work if I'm not getting paid.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to answer how many agents in total were mobilized, but officials suggest there are plans to expand the number of airports getting help from ICE.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM HOMAN, WHITE HOUSE BORDER CZAR: We got 14 right now, and there will be more. Their number one mission there, as the president said, is help TSA with security, help move the flow of people through those lines.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: The plan has been met with mixed response. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer says ICE agents who are unfamiliar with TSA responsibilities aren't going to make airports any safer. And while some travelers appreciate efforts to reduce waiting, they're more concerned with TSA officers still going unpaid.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN HOFFMAN, TRAVELER: The lines are shorter today, I guess, but in my mind, we could fund TSA a lot less expensive than we can send ICE here and put them up in hotels and all the things that go along with that.
LARRY PITTZ, TRAVELER: TSA agents, they're not getting paid. So who wants to work without getting paid? They're not getting paid. They're not going to come to work.
[00:25:03]
I understand completely. I would be the same way. And that's what's affecting everything. You know, they're not here to process everybody through the lines quick enough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Remember the plan is for them to eventually get paid once the government is back open.
Now others are being more vocal with their reactions. Crowds gathered outside Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to protest the presence of ICE agents. It's unclear how long those agents will be present.
We also don't know if having an ICE presence at some airports is increasing efficiency or lowering wait times. This is what Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport look like on Monday, with security lines stretching outside the building. Travelers were warned wait times could exceed four hours since the airport was down to just two operating security checkpoints.
CNN crews also saw long lines at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. It's not currently on the list of airports receiving support from ICE agents.
Let's bring in Peter Greenberg who knows travel as much as anybody, travel editor at CBS News, to talk about all of this.
Peter, good to see you. What exactly is ICE doing at airports? What is their actual job there? And is that helping?
PETER GREENBERG, TRAVEL EDITOR, CBS NEWS: Well, here's the answer. No one knows. Are they there to help the TSA when in fact the ICE agents are not trained as TSA agents? They can't handle monitoring devices. They can't check your security or your forms of I.D. They can't move bags or inspect them, or are they there to apprehend illegal, you know, immigrants trying to travel on planes?
The only thing that ICE is really doing right now, from my observation, is ornamental. They're there to direct traffic, tell you what line you're going to stand in, which is not going to move very much faster. So right now in those 14 airports, it hasn't really helped.
I flew here last night. I'm in Brazil right now. I flew here last night on a nonstop flight from Houston. Almost every plane at the gate, and it was not doing a big push time, was being held at the gate for at least an hour because at push time, there were no passengers. They still hadn't gotten through the security checkpoints. So almost every plane that was leaving Houston last night was already late because of that.
MICHAELSON: I mean, that's a remarkable thing. What you're saying is that the lines were so long people couldn't get there that they literally had to hold the planes there. I mean, you fly as much as anybody. That doesn't happen very often, right?
GREENBERG: No, it doesn't because airlines really have to pride themselves on time performance or that plane doesn't connect with other planes and the system falls apart. Now, the good news is it was a nighttime departure. Our flight was not connecting with any other flight. But still, the fact that they had to hold that plane because only half the passengers were there at the time the plane was supposed to depart the gate.
MICHAELSON: Now, one of the interesting stories in all this is the massive disparities in wait lines, depending on where you're going. Like I traveled last week to Washington, D.C., and I left from LAX. There was no wait in either airport. And then I see the pictures from Atlanta and from Houston and some other airports where it's like four hours.
Why is it that some airports with the same staffing issues are handling it so much better?
GREENBERG: It's the time of the day you're flying. If you're flying between 6:00 and 8:00 in the morning, good luck. If you're flying between 12:00 and 3:00 in the afternoon, not a problem. Any time after 4:00 in the afternoon until 8:30 at night, problem. It's the push times that you'd have even if there wasn't a government shutdown. And it's a question of how they manage their staff because they have to close lines if they don't have enough employees.
So precheck at Houston today didn't exist. Today precheck was closed. So all these people went to the regular line. Clear, didn't help you because all clear does is get to the front of the precheck line and that was closed. So we're seeing this happen at airport after airport after airport. And now we have to look at some other numbers. If you look at the averages the DHS is telling you about number of TSA agents who are calling in sick, they'll tell you it's an average of 10 percent. It's much higher than that. At Houston's Hobby Airport, the smaller
airport yesterday where I was flying out of, I was flying out of Intercontinental. But at Hobby, the absentee rate was 55 percent. That's not sustainable.
MICHAELSON: It's not So if somebody is watching this right now and they've got a flight tomorrow or the next day, sort of what's your advice on how to handle this? What do you do?
GREENBERG: Well, you got -- you got to look at those push times. Between 6:00 and 8:00 in the morning, get out there three and a half hours early. Between noon and 3:00, you know, you get out there two and a half hours early.
MICHAELSON: Wow.
GREENBERG: But after 4:00 in the afternoon, on any given day, it's a -- it's a mess. So get out there as early as you can.
MICHAELSON: And if you get out there and you wait for three or four hours and you're not able to get to your flight and your flight takes off without you, do you have any recourse? Or are you just sort of out of luck?
GREENBERG: Well, remember, the only time the airlines will help you is if it's determined that the problem was caused under their operational control. This is not that situation. They can stand -- It's like weather. Weather and TSA, the airlines are off the hook.
MICHAELSON: So, you're sort of on your own, so you better get there early. Because if you don't make it, you don't make it, and you're not getting your money back.
GREENBERG: Look, the passengers were lucky last night that they held the planes. Normally, they don't do that. So yes, get there early, as early as you can.
MICHAELSON: Jeez. Peter Greenberg, let's hope that our government can work better than this, and we can get these people paid for actually doing their jobs. This is not the way to run a country.
Thank you so much for joining us from Brazil. Safe travels to you on the way home.
GREENBERG: Thank you.
MICHAELSON: Now, authorities in London are looking for three suspects captured on security camera footage setting several ambulances on fire.
Those ambulances belong to a Jewish volunteer rescue group in a neighborhood home to London's largest Jewish community.
An Islamist group have allegedly claimed responsibility for what police are calling an antisemitic hate crime. No one was hurt, but the fires were set outside a synagogue, and
counterterrorism police are leading the investigation, even though it has not yet been labeled a terrorist incident.
Residents in the suburb of Golders Green were awoken by flames and loud explosions, and some have been evacuated as a precaution.
Coming up -- a live picture from Washington -- there could be a deal emerging on Capitol Hill to end that partial government shutdown and get everybody paid. Maybe.
The latest on that, the politics behind all of this mess. Michael Genovese with us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:36:39]
MICHAELSON: A Southern California sheriff running for governor has seized more than half a million ballots from November's special election on redistricting.
According to the Associated Press, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican, says he's investigating a ballot count discrepancy.
Now, in that election, voters overwhelmingly approved a measure to redraw California's congressional district lines to favor Democrats in the upcoming midterms. County election officials dispute Bianco's claims of a potential count discrepancy.
Bianco says he's simply responding to a complaint from a local citizens group and denies his investigation has anything to do with his campaign.
Live to Washington now. Top Republicans in the U.S. Senate appear to be coming together in support of a plan to end the partial government shutdown.
It calls for restoring all Homeland Security Department funding, except for a small portion of immigration enforcement budget.
President Trump rejected a similar plan over the weekend. He says he didn't want to make any deals with what he calls "crazy, country- destroying radical left Democrats" until the Senate passes his SAVE America Act.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm tying Homeland Security into voter identification with picture and proof of citizen -- citizenship in order to vote. And those two items are the most important thing having to do with Homeland Security.
So, it's part -- it should be part of the Homeland Security bill. And I'm requesting that the Republican senators do that immediately. You don't have to take a fast vote. Don't worry about Easter, going
home. In fact, make this one for Jesus. OK? Make this one for Jesus. That's what I tell them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Let's bring in Michael Genovese, president of the Global Policy Institute at Loyola Marymount University.
Michael, welcome back to THE STORY IS.
There was an era where that one comment would be repeated for months: "make this one for Jesus." And now, it'll just go the wayside of everything else.
MICHAEL GENOVESE, PRESIDENT, GLOBAL POLICY INSTITUTE: Well, there are so many -- so many crazy and bizarre things that Donald Trump says, good and bad, that you just -- you might make his greatest hits album.
But that's just an odd thing to say. And it's out of context. And where does -- where does he pull these out of?
MICHAELSON: So, talk about sort of this push and pull. Because it's interesting that it seems like some of the Republicans in the Senate are finally getting to a point where they're like, OK, let's end this thing. Let's pay those workers. Let's move on to the next thing. But Trump doesn't want to.
GENOVESE: Well, you know, the Congress has been paralyzed for a while, and it's their own fault. The Republicans have a majority, but they can't get it to get everyone on board.
And so, the Democrats are using that to try to get a slice of the pie, to try to get some concessions.
Donald Trump won't have that. He'd rather lose than get 90 percent of what he wants, which is unusual for a politician. But he claims he's not a politician.
And so, he wants -- he wants it all. He wants the whole package. I don't know how he gets it, but he's not willing to expend his political capital on this, because Iran is such a big deal right now.
MICHAELSON: But he thinks that he's winning, because he thinks that the -- I mean, he said it today. He thinks the Democrats are being blamed for this. So, even if people are suffering, he thinks it's a political winner for him, because the Democrats are taking the blame, in his mind.
GENOVESE: In his mind. The polls are a little more favoring the Democrats. But it's not -- it's not overwhelming.
So, it's really an argument that no one has won and no perception has been really clear that the Democrats are at fault or the Republicans are at fault.
[00:40:07]
Remember, the Republicans control the White House, the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. And so, to ask the Democrats to sort of bail them out is an odd thing to ask --
MICHAELSON: Right.
GENOVESE: -- where they have the control of the government. They could do it.
MICHAELSON: Yes. Although they do have to get 60 votes in the Senate on -- on many things.
GENOVESE: Right.
MICHAELSON: And that makes it more complicated, which means you need Democratic votes.
All right. Let's talk about the war, because you just brought that up. And that is distracting him and the whole country at this point.
What was the original sort of plan for the war and how has that changed?
GENOVESE: It's unclear, because Donald Trump never made the case to the American public. We heard it was about having a surge of people take over and have democratizing of Iran. We've heard of its nuclear. We've heard it's decapitation. We've heard its regime change. He used all of those things.
And that's a function of bad planning. They didn't plan their -- their position. The great American philosopher and baseball player Yogi Berra, who used to hold court at stadia across the nation, once said, "If you don't know where you're going, how are you going to know when you get there?"
And so, what's the definition of victory? Is it regime change? Is it democratization? Is it just nuclear? It's all of those things and none of those things. And so, they're not sure what their goal is, what the end game is, what victory looks like.
MICHAELSON: Let me throw out a counterargument to that.
GENOVESE: Please.
MICHAELSON: What if it is he's throwing all of those things out there, because then he gets to pick one? By laying all these different options out there, he can kind of choose when he wants to leave and say, this was our thing. And then he says, victory.
GENOVESE: Well, that could be just a public relations gimmick. You're right. And I think Donald Trump is great at public relations. He reads an audience. He reads what the public wants.
I'm not sure that the public on this is that naive about it, because we're talking about Americans being killed, and people take that very seriously. It's not the game of politics. This is the game of life and death.
And so, Donald Trump, I think, has a -- really a weak case to sell.
MICHAELSON: But then it's interesting, because the administration, including Donald Trump, are putting out videos of it literally as a video game and treating it like a reality show, like a joke with music in it. That sort of undermines the seriousness of this moment.
GENOVESE: It -- it demeans the death of the 13 Americans. It demeans American power. It undermines us as a serious nation. If we're serious, let's be serious.
If we're going to be frivolous, let's be -- let's just forget that we were the leaders of the world and just have a reduced power, reduced role in the world.
MICHAELSON: So, you actually consulted for the Pentagon during the first George Bush administration, George H.W. Bush. Of course, Operation Desert Storm happened during then.
What do you see as the key differences between these two?
GENOVESE: Well, you know, during H.W.'s presidency, I hate to say he had the grown-ups in charge, but they had careful planning. They had a wide-range discussion. They brought in experts from the outside. They argued; they debated. They looked at options. They looked at a wide range of options.
What might happen? What could go wrong? What should we do if "X" happens? And so, they really tried to cover the waterfront.
MICHAELSON: Yes.
GENOVESE: In this administration, they're afraid to raise questions with Donald Trump, because they don't want to offend him.
And so, no one is there to say that the emperor has no clothes, or that to speak truth to power. It's like a cocoon of flatterers around him, when what he needs right now is people who will give him hard truths, challenge some of his assumptions, tell him he might be wrong. It's really hard to do with Donald Trump.
George H.W. Bush allowed people not to demean him in any way, but to say, we think you're wrong. We think you should rethink this. Donald Trump doesn't allow that.
MICHAELSON: Well, and everybody that's tried that, for the most part, get kicked out, right?
GENOVESE: Yes..
MICHAELSON: They end up not surviving in that -- in that situation.
And the other thing that George H.W. Bush did: allies; brought them along, right? And built up a global consensus on this. Brought the American people along, had an end goal, and then got out.
CONGRESS: And he got --
MICHAELSON: Didn't keep going.
GENOVESE: And he brought Congress into the conversation.
MICHAELSON: Right.
GENOVESE: So, he did all the -- pretty much all the things you need to do to make the case and to build the case.
Donald Trump thinks -- I don't want to say he thinks he's a dictator, but he thinks he can just say something, pontificate, and everyone's going to fall into line. The world isn't that simple.
MICHAELSON: But isn't that -- kind of been the experience of his entire life? I mean, isn't that how it's always worked out for him?
GENOVESE: And that's why he had six bankruptcies. That's why he was impeached twice. I mean --
MICHAELSON: And still got elected president.
GENOVESE: It's -- it's -- twice, exactly. And it's an up and down world for Donald Trump. It's a world of extremes. It's hard for us to live in a world of extremes.
MICHAELSON: Yes.
GENOVESE: Donald Trump can do it. He has the temperament.
MICHAELSON: But every time there's been a consequence for him, he seemed to find a way to sort of weasel his way out and keep going.
GENOVESE; He's done it very well, too.
MICHAELSON: It's kind of amazing if you think about it.
GENOVESE: He's got a skill. That's what -- that's his superpower.
MICHAELSON: Yes. Michael Genovese, thank you so much. Like a cat with nine lives. Yes.
Israel is expanding strikes on Hezbollah. Targets are taking an increasing toll on Southern Lebanon. Coming up, we'll take a closer look at how the Lebanon -- Lebanese people are navigating the latest escalation. Nick Paton Walsh takes us to the region when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:49:56]
MICHAELSON: A live picture right now from Beirut, Lebanon, where it is now Tuesday morning. The sun is coming up.
Displaced Lebanese who fled Israeli attacks in Southern Lebanon are vowing to return to their villages, despite roads being cut off.
The IDF has been ramping up strikes on homes and bridges along the Litani River to try to sever Hezbollah supply lines.
CNN's Nick Paton Walsh brings us a closer look at what people there are enduring.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Something familiarly awful is happening here. Israel said, Leave to the town of Nabatiyeh two weeks ago. Now, life is ground out of its streets.
WALSH: This extraordinary devastation just helps explain how the South is being emptied.
Ultimately, a strategic part of the Israeli campaign here and there's blasts, distant.
WALSH (voice-over): Even higher up, still no calm.
WALSH: They deal with the constant noise of jets around them here, but also just overnight intensification of airstrikes. And because they're up on the Hill here, they feel and see everything. And of course, the injured from it come into here, as well.
DR. HASSAN WAZNI, GENERAL DIRECTOR, NABATIEH GOVERNMENTAL HOSPITAL: All strike hear here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You hear everything.
WAZNI: Everything. Yes. We hear everything. Like yesterday was horrible. Yesterday, many. Too many strikes.
WALSH (voice-over): There are fewer people below. So fewer patients than at the start.
HUSSEIN NADAR, NURSE, NABATIEH GOVERNMENTAL HOSPITAL: Once we've got nine children together have been injured. Three of them died, and the rest lost their families.
Eighteen people martyred in that strike. All civilians.
WALSH (voice-over): The burns unit treating a rescue worker who ran headlong into the carnage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
GRAPHIC: We moved towards it. The missile hadn't exploded yet. But the building was fall (ph). More than 30 or 40 people. We started evacuating them and so on. Eventually, the missile went off.
WALSH (voice-over): And doctors' families have moved in, as it's safer here. To the South, near to where we also filmed with Hezbollah's
permission, life, too, is being squeezed out. Sunday, Israel warned twice it would blow up all the bridges to the South, sparking panic. Which one would they hit first?
WALSH: They're shouting, warning about the jets. Which we've been hearing over the last half hour. Now, this one particularly low.
WALSH (voice-over): This, the force used. And they would hit it twice again later.
Yet more isolated now in Tyr is the entire village of Majdal Zun, who we met earlier, and fled their homes to this school.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fifty -- 50 families.
WALSH: Fifty?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fifty-one families, about 245 people.
WALSH (voice-over): Five of the men dead, two girls here without fathers, who sleep with their grandmothers here but are still girls.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to tell you a secret. (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
GRAPHIC: They were fighting, but they made up.
WALSH (voice-over): Although Zainab keeps pushing Yasmin's (ph) arm away, still.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
GRAPHIC: We built a secret bakery, her and me. We can show it to you. It was ruined by the cats.
WALSH (voice-over): A million are forced from their homes in Lebanon and into anger. Imagination, where these girls hide from horror, even in the mud. Mohammed is 16 and worldly.
WALSH: What do you think of Trump?
MOHAMMED, AGED 16: Not good.
WALSH: Not good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bad. Very bad.
MOHAMMED: Very -- very not good. I hate him. He's so bad. And we know that about, the Epstein.
WALSH: Yes.
MOHAMMED: Yes.
WALSH: The Epstein files. MOHAMMED: Yes.
WALSH (voice-over): But no calm here either.
WALSH: So, they say that four days ago, they got what must have been a fake warning, a telephone call to the people here to get out as quickly as possible.
So, they say they ran out down here as fast as they could, and hid down on the beach for five hours until the threat had passed.
WALSH (voice-over): The city's old ruins sit silent and powerless as it keeps getting new ones.
[00:55:04]
Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, South Lebanon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: Our thanks to Nick for that story.
Extreme weather has taken over the month of March, from catastrophic floods in Hawaii to a historic heat wave out West. More of that on the next hour of THE STORY IS.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MICHAELSON: Well, it turns out that Travis Kelce has apparently a lot more football in him.
At the last of -- end of last season, it looked like the 36-year-old might retire.
