Israel Continues Pounding Iran, Hits Lebanon

0:00This is CNN Breaking News. Breaking this morning, waves of strikes batter Iran as U.S. assets come under fire in the Middle East. Good morning, everybody. I'm Oni Cornish. We are in day five of the war with Iran, and there's a lot going on right now. Here's what we know at this hour. Israel's 10th wave of attacks on Tehran, now underway. Iran and Lebanon both hitting back. Now this is new video of missiles being intercepted over Jerusalem. And Israel's military also hit targets in Lebanon. This new video shows that smoke is rising near Beirut's airport. American assets are under fire, a consulate in Dubai, a CIA station in Saudi Arabia, and a U.S. base in Qatar have all sustained hits. Now, we've learned also the identities of some of the U.S. troops killed in the early hours of the war. They include a heroic son and a mother of two who was days away from returning home.

1:04And just two hours from now, we're going to get a new briefing from the Pentagon. Pete Hegseth will speak to reporters that's happening at 8 a.m. Eastern. Now, we're going to have live team coverage across the region and here at home. We're going to start with CNN's Nick Robertson, who is in Saudi Arabia. Nick, I want to talk about what's happening in the region. Where are you hearing? Yeah. And Saudi Arabia hearing, specifically, the U.S. Embassy, State Department, has authorized non-emergency staff to be able to leave. The consulate in Jeddah, the consulate in the east of the country, and the oil-producing sector in Iran, were under strict shelter-in-place instructions through the day yesterday. The Iranians continue their strikes and attentive strikes on Saudi Arabia in the early hours this morning. Nine drones were intercepted. Another drone was intercepted in the last couple of hours in the eastern province.

2:04And here in Saudi Arabia, they are watching for how Iran may be escalating their attacks. A lot of the intercepts that have been successfully intercepted here have been drone attacks. This morning, two crews missiles indicating an escalation of the type of attack by Iran on Saudi Arabia were shot down successfully. No injuries reported as far as we know. In a town just south of Riyadh, and right next to that town is a massive Saudi military airbase. But in the last few minutes, we've heard that there has been an attempted attack again on Rastonora, the massive oil-producing facility here in Saudi Arabia. And of course, the concern for the Saudis is that their oil sector is potentially vulnerable, they're defending it, successfully defending it so far. But there is a risk, and they recognize this, that a strike on their oil facilities could put pressure on them to be dragged potentially into the war here, something that they are

3:09not inclined to do. Something that they are concerned about and have given Iran's strong diplomatic signals not to do, you know, the option to respond if they are attacked remains an option. However, this is feeling to the Saudis as if it is an escalation of Iran's attacks going on. And I think the bigger picture that underscores there is that adds to the assessment here at the moment that Iran still has command and control capability and can escalate its targets, pick and choose as it did a little over 24 hours ago to send four drones successfully hitting the embassy here in the center of Riyadh, the U.S. Embassy, and not just the embassy building itself, but hitting the CIA station there, fire damage, the extent of which we don't quite know yet. Okay, and of course, people are watching this closely as the number of civilian deaths

4:12would rise, Nick Robertson, thank you so much. I want to turn to this because throughout the program, we are going to talk a lot about the reasons the U.S. went to this war. But first, the Pentagon has identified four of the six U.S. service members who have been killed in an Iranian drone strike this happened on Sunday. Now, all four were assigned to the 103rd's statement command unit out of Iowa. The other two have yet to be identified. I've got CNN's Ryan Todd here. Thank you so much for being here. I was going online and seeing links to one of the service members' mothers just distraught on Facebook. Can you tell us more about what you've learned about some of these soldiers? Well, Adi, this is the first information we're getting on these four who were killed, confirmed publicly for who were killed. There are two others who were killed who have not been publicly identified yet, but as Adi mentioned, we are getting those names in a little bit of detail about where they're from and Adi mentioned the unit that they're assigned from. They were all assigned out of an army reserve unit out of Iowa.

5:13They were killed at the port of Shueba in Kuwait. Again, two soldiers not identified, but of the four we know who have been identified. They are Captain Cody Cork, 35 years old. There's a picture of him. He is from Lakeland, Florida. Sergeant's first-class Noah Tegens. He is 42 years old from Bellevue, Nebraska. Sergeant first-class Nicole Amor, 39 years old from White Bear Lake, Minnesota, and Sergeant Declan Cody, 20 years old from Des Moines, Iowa. Now, one reservist who served with Captain Cody Cork, this person, Sergeant first-class Brian Cochin-Dorfer. He spoke with CNN affiliate WESH in Orlando about Cody Cork and what it was like to work with him in that unit. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around. Look, I'm going to start tearing up. God, you just hate somebody you know, you see it on news, but when it's somebody that hits home because you know the individual, you know, and you got to serve on them. A tactician, solid leader, get the mission done.

6:16But however, on the back end of that, he cared about people. Hey, I'm not going to put soldiers in harm's way. That's what you look for in the commander. Now, these soldiers who were killed, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, were serving at what he called a tactical operation center that was fortified at the time of the attack. When he says a projectile made it through air defenses and the attack, he says, came quickly and without warning, we'll see if we can get some idea on the other two who were killed and some information about them in the coming hours. Am I correct, that Nicole Amore was a parent? I believe she was, and I know that at least we did have information that at least one of them, I believe it was Nicole Amore who was very close to being sent home. She was, I think, near the end of her deployment. Another one, and again, I don't want to say the name, but I know another one of them, and it might have been Declan Cody, was, I think, just recommended for a promotion. So, life-changing experience is coming up for at least two of those four, and of course, their families are just devastating.

7:17Before I let you go, we are hearing reports of people trying to just get out of the regions who are foreign nationals. What does this mean? Trapped at the airport, trapped in the hotel, it will live there. It means it means trapped in various places. We've been reporting on this all night overnight, and getting information about this. There are thousands of Americans, Audi, who are stranded in airports and other places, in places like Doha Cutter, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and other places in the Middle East. They are really frustrated, not only over being stranded, but at the lack of information from the U.S. government. Basically, the State Department, even though Marco Rubio gave a number for them to call. If they need assistance, you call that number. You get a voice prompt. I call that number, and I got a live person. But basically, they are telling you there are no evacuation points at this point. They are trying to get planes there. They're trying to get military aircraft and charter flights there, but they haven't gotten there yet. And you compare this to the efforts of other nations, like the UK, France, Italy, and Czechia. They've gotten some planes in.

8:18They're scrambling also, but U.S. is really playing catch-up. And thousands of Americans are really voicing frustration, not only over being stranded, but they're just not getting communication from their government. Okay, thank you. Thank you for that update. We're going to be following with Brian later today. Now, our breaking news coverage continues. Next, the group chat is going to be coming, because President Trump has outlined his worst case scenario for Iran. Plus, election results rolling it overnight from Texas. Congressman Jasmine Crockett is out losing her primary. Hey, everyone, it's Audie. And I've got another special episode of The Assignment for You. I was at the podcast festival known as On Air Fest. That was in Brooklyn just last week. And for this, I knew I wanted to bring along a friend, because we're going to talk about work spouses and mine for a very long time was Ari Shapiro of NPR. You heard us on the radio being very serious. And during the eight-minute segment when our mics are off,

9:20we would cackle about the latest thing that we had found on Reddit or on Instagram or whatever was bubbling up in the culture. And we never really got to laugh like that with each other and finish each other's sentences on the radio in quite that way. No. Listen to The Assignment with me, Audie Cornish, streaming now on your favorite podcast app. Hey, I'm Anderson Cooper. On my podcast, all there is we explore grief and loss in all its complexities. You'll hear deeply moving and honest discussions with people who have faced and are living with life-altering losses. Gavin Newsom is the governor of California. He's written a book about his life called Young Man in a Hurry, a memoir of discovery. There's this thing, just this notion of this letting go. And just accepting things I can't control, just accepting them. Things I can taking account and responsibility to be better and more. Do you feel grief? I feel loss. I feel regret. I feel inadequate.

10:22I guess human. Talking grief, building community. That's what the podcast is all about. This is all there is. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts. So in just a few hours, the Senate takes a first step on a war power's resolution that could potentially reign in the Trump administration. So far, the operation in Iran has already hit more than 2,000 targets. It's according to US military officials. And hundreds have been killed according to the Iranian Red Pressant, including the Supreme Leader. Now, President Trump has been laying out his worst case scenario. I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who's as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don't want that to happen. It would probably be the worst you go through this. And then in five years, you realize you put somebody in. It was no better. Joining me now in the group chat,

11:22we're bringing in some experts, Peter Birken, CNN, National Security Analyst, Alexander Ward, National Security Reporter at the Wall Street Journal, and Jennifer Gravito, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iran, Iraq, and Public Policy Diplomacy, which is why I'm going to go to you first. Because they've talked a lot about how much of the Iranian leadership they have just decimated in this attack. But I keep hearing from other experts that Iran had built its deep state to avoid decapitation. I mean, absolutely correct. And not only did they build the deep state, they already had it. I mean, this is a well-defined bureaucracy, as we know it. This is not another Syria. This is not another Libya. Succession planning in the Iranian system goes for deep. And do you say for deep? For deep. Okay, so it's not for deep. Like they are moderate, moderate. I don't know what that means anymore. But like, what when you talk about the factions within,

12:22who are we even looking at in terms of who's left? So, I mean, we're looking at a continuation largely of the same regime. There are nuances certainly within the remaining framework, which, I mean, I say for deep. But that's specific to existing planning for a single position, right? I mean, the government is enormous. And it's not a centralized system. You've got regional governments, et cetera. And so, you have relative unanimity of views with some nuance within them. So, the people that you have remaining don't necessarily differ from the Supreme Leader. And for people listening, they're wondering when he says worst case scenario, based on history, is it actually just the most likely? And I do not say that lightly, wishing that on the Iranian people. But he's raising this for a reason. Yeah, I mean, history suggests, I mean, Joan mentioned Libya. Obviously, Libya didn't have this deep bench, but Libya went into a decade-long civil war

13:24after an air campaign authorised by President Obama, who said it was the worst decision of his presidency, not to plan for the day after. And the six countries got involved as proxy forces, including the United States, but also Russia, Turkey, the Emirates, Qatar, they all back different factions. There's still two competing governments today, and that's 15 years later. So, if history is a guide, it's not perfect. But history suggests that this will not be put, yeah. Actually, great thing about President Trump is he often tells the truth in public, which is that the definition of a gap in Washington, which is that it could be just the same people five years from now. He just said that. Which is meaningful because lawmakers who are getting ready to have this war powers vote. I don't know if people really feel like it's going to pass, that they'll sound how curb or tell him mid-strike, not to do it anymore. But I want to play for you some of the Democrats' reaction yesterday, senators, as they came out of a security briefing. They told us in there that this is an open-ended operation

14:29that hasn't even really started in earnest yet. There will be more Americans killed. They offered no clear end games to this conflict. They have not answered the most basic questions. Donald Trump still hasn't given a single clear reason for this war, and he seems to have no plan for how to end it either. I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground. Sure, there's lots of Democrats who have long memories from the Iraq war. The ones who did not end up standing up and speaking out against it. Can you talk about the context for this? Can they do anything at this point about the strike the president has said forth? No. I mean, it doesn't look like the war power resolution is going to pass neither the House or Senate, or if it did, certainly not with a veto-proof majority. But let's say, let's live in fantasy land for a moment and pretend that this is going to pass. Trump somehow is going to abide by it. Or he can't do anything about it. Is Trump really going to stop the war? Because Congress told him not to?

15:30Of course not. This thing is well-it-train. He's very open about that this could last many weeks. Congress over many decades has ceded its foreign policy authority to the president, and they're trying to close some of it back, but the genie is out of the balance. Still the money, Senator John Thune was saying, like, look, right now we feel he's within the bounds of his authority, but they always say this, power of the purse. I see your eyebrows went all the way up, but let me play for you, Senator Mark Kelly, who brought up what's called the math problem. My biggest concern right now, what's the math? What's the math on this? How many ballistic missiles do the Iranians still have? How many interceptors do we have in the region? Is this math still in our favor? I don't think so. What does he mean by that? Can he help me interpret? Sure. I mean, this is increasingly a war of attrition. There are a finite number of Iranian missiles. There are a finite number of American interceptors. And so each side is trying to game out how long the other can last.

16:35And then play the munitions and the defense that they have available in a way that allows them to to wait out the other party. And so you've seen, for example, in recent days, a real drop in long-range Iranian attacks. I think people are trying to figure out. Does that mean that they're running out or does that mean that they're trying to conserve to pull away some of the defenses that are available in order to reserve those first? We're going to talk more about this later, but I think one of the takeaways that we hear is a constant reference to the past. That Americans are against endless wars. Is it that Americans are against endless wars or they don't want to be misled about the wars that they're brought into? Well, they also don't want lots of body bags coming home if the war aims at all being achieved. And that was the problem in Iraq. They don't mind, I mean, I'm being very blunt here. They don't mind body bags coming home if the war is being won. That was that was Bush's problem in 2005. And so, does having a long list of objectives allow the president to, at any given time,

17:38claim a kind of victory since none of us fully may have a lock on what the top three benchmarks are? I think the military objectives will be achieved. Yes. The question is, are the political objectives going to be achieved? Will we have a sort of somewhat readily friendly Iranian regime in the future? Who the hell knows? Yeah. The civil president, Trump, or the Iranian people. I mean, yeah, we just don't know. Yeah, which, and by definition, they mean safer, right, for somehow for the US and the region. All right, you guys, we are still following breaking news here in the states, including out of Texas. So this is a political cliffhanger. You've got two Republican incumbents. They're now heading to a runoff to defend their seat. And then we're going to return live to Israel. News strikes overnight targeting Iranian command centers can have more on that.

18:52So CNN projects state representative James Heloriko will be Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett in the Texas Senate primary. Tonight our campaign is shocking the nation. We are still waiting for an official call, but we are confident in this movement we've built together. So Telleriko expected to become the Senate Democratic nominee in November. Now, on the Republican side, you've got two really tough races, longtime Senator John Cordenin and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Well, it looks like they're headed for runoff. And then we have the same projection for Congressman Tony Gonzalez and Brandon Herrera. So we're bringing in CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein to help us make sense of it. First, I want to start with the Republicans because the Democrats, there's a lot to say with this.

19:55With the Republicans, it's interesting. Once border security is off the table, once you have a president who is delivering on that, well, now it's all over, but the fighting, right? Like the shouting, like, what do these guys had to fight about? And why is this tough for these voters? Well, I mean, look, what they were fighting about really was who was more loyal to President Trump. And this was part of the ongoing process of squeezing out in the Republican Party, really to an extraordinary extent, anyone who was not identified as fully-maggot. John Cordenin, though, did better than expected, normally, if you're an incumbent, headed to a runoff, you would be a significant underdog. And probably, most people would suspect that Cordenin is an underdog, because usually the assumption is, if you don't vote for the incumbent in the first round, you're not going to vote for him in the second round. And then Wesley Hunt was making a strong showing, so he didn't know who he was going to pull from. But the fact that Cordenin, Paxton significantly underperformed here. He underperformed the polling. And the fact that Corden led him, while Talleriko won, setting up the possibility of what Republicans want the least,

20:56which is a Talleriko Paxton race, there might be enough here to persuade President Trump to come off the fence and kind of, you know, tap. Can I follow up on that one idea? Because the president did not come off the fence for the Krenshaw vote. Now, this is a vet. There's a whole world of people who are of that military generation, who are in Congress as a result. But in the end, even he was not considered... That's not all. He has not been up and down the line, loyal. I mean, Trump, loyalty is a one-way street for Donald Trump. Right? Unless your last name is Trump, and maybe not even then, you know, as I like to say. The fact that Krenshaw lost this primary, someone who was seen as a rising star is recently, is 2018 kind of a flamboyant figure. Again, I mean, there is just less and less room in the Republican coalition for voters who are not voters and elected officials who are not fully in line with Trump. And, you know, look, that is... The flip side of that is that's what give Democrats at least the outside hope of making Texas competitive, you know.

21:57Okay, well, let's talk about that. Making Texas competitive. I've got some TikToks for you, but that's usually helpful. There's Carlos Eduardo as Spina TikTok influencer. I think something like 14 million followers. Just give an example. Okay. Yeah, this voice. And all we have left to do is listen to the man himself, the next senator from the base state of Texas, James Tallarico, where he's at. I'm playing this because this guy was helpful. Yeah. Okay, we're talking... And you had Tallarico running a faith base, rural outreach, leaning into the Latino vote very hard. But what is the difference between what he was doing and what something like, what Crockett was doing, who had a really sort of, you know, history in the rural communities and who had national recognition? Well, look, first of all, I mean, Texas was a one-party Democratic state from the Civil War until roughly the 1970s.

22:57They were taking it way back from the 1970s. Okay. It was a competitive state, roughly from the late 70s to the late 90s. It has been a Republican state ever since Democrats have not won a Senate seat since 1988, not won a governor since 1990, and not won any statewide office since 1998. So, you know, the real question for Democrats in every primary is, well, how do we get back in the game? And they offered... One of the questions is always, Texas, Latinos, the Sleeping Giant vote, how can we get them? And is this a race they're now going to look at and go, hey, maybe that's way to get them? Well, look, I mean, the fight is always, how do you become competitive again? And you had... You had Crockett arguing that the way was to energize the base. Telleriko said that you had to build a broader coalition and kind of cut into those Republican suburbs. And he campaigned in some districts. And he did really well in the kind of white collar, Texas, Colin Denton outside of Dallas, Williamson and Hayes outside of Austin, Austin itself, and in Latino, Texas. That was the coalition he put together.

23:59The answer, of course, is that in Texas, the Hill is so big for Democrats, you have to do both. You have to mobilize a strong turnout among minority voters who are a bigger share of the electorate now than they were in 2018 when Beto got to 2.6 points of Ted Cruz, but you'll also have to win those suburban voters that tipped Georgia and Arizona. So let me ask the question. Everybody is going to look at that kerfuffle over the Telleriko interview that raised objections and raised his profile nationally. I mean, that had to be considered a turning point. And it brought a lot of money. It helped him raise a lot of money as well. Look, maybe, but like this followed, I do very closely, the 2020 primary, where you had a white liberal against a black sage senator. And I think that was 5248. This was like 5347, similar geographic profile, where in both cases, the African-American candidate did well in Dallas and East Texas, which had a larger black population. The white candidate did better in the kind of the white collar suburbs combined with the Latino vote. So there is kind of some history that, you know,

25:01the question is like against pasting, you can see a path for Telleriko to make this very competitive. You know, whether you can get over the top is another question. Better or more, the best recent showing got to win the 2.6 points of Ted Cruz in 2018. And since then, as I said, the state has grown more diverse. One political scientist said to me, if you get better share of the vote among all the different big groups, demographic groups, and you apply it to today's electorate, that would probably be a winning coalition. So can, you know, but that was almost two-thirds of the Latino voters, and they have moved a lot to a Trump sense. They will move back, will they move enough, and can they break past 45% among college-educated whites in the suburbs? That's what they have to do, easier to do against PACs than against corn. No, to ending on three great questions, thank you. That's what people are going to be thinking about going forward. That's Ron Brownstein. Love his writing. You can check it out at CNN.com. We're now going to continue with the breaking news coverage of the war in Iran. We're going to take a deeper dive into the president's confusing rationale

26:04and ask, with his recent comments, did that make it worse? Not the age of Churchill. That's another thing the president said. Why is he lashing out at the UK's Prime Minister? The relationship between the FBI Director and the president has always been complicated. Unravel the complex dynamic in the CNN original series. Standoff, the FBI, power and paranoia from here Sunday, March 22nd on CNN and next day on the CNN app. This is CNN Breaking News. Back to our coverage of the war with Iran, Israel intensifies its strikes on two fronts as U.S. assets come under fire in the Middle East. So a consulate in Dubai, a CIA station in Saudi Arabia and a U.S. base in Qatar all sustained hits. This is in less than two hours from now. We're also going to talk about the upcoming briefing from the Pentagon, Pete Hexf, is going to be talking with reporters.

27:04That's happening at 8 a.m. Eastern. So this comes as Israel orders residents in dozens of villages and towns to evacuate in southern Lebanon as it launches attacks on the Iran-backed militant group, Hezbollah. So the Israelis are also striking Iran's ballistic missile sites, as well as a compound where senior Iranian clerics gathered to elect a new Supreme Leader. It also shot down an Iranian fighter jet. And we've got CNNs or Enliperman live from Tel Aviv to give us an update. So let's talk about southern Lebanon. What are Israelis hoping to accomplish there? Israel has made clear, and this is from the Israeli military chief of staff just yesterday that Israel will not stop attacking Lebanon and targeting Hezbollah until the Iran-backed militant group is disarmed. And that's why we see a broadening campaign not only in Dahia, which is a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital of Beirut, where Lebanese state media reports that there have been residential buildings struck there.

28:04And several people killed. Israel says they're going after Hezbollah targets and infrastructure in Beirut. But also on top of that, Israel has now ordered or given an evacuation warning for not specific villages, but basically all of southern Lebanon's south of the Latani river. This is a major development over what had been evacuation warnings for individual sites, even though a large number of them. Now, the Israeli military's Arabic language spokesperson issuing an evacuation warning for basically all of southern Lebanon as the Israeli military ceases more positions just north of the border there. So that is very much an intensifying war on the side of Israel as we do see some Lebanese or a rather Hezbollah launches into northern Israel, many of which have been either intercepted or landed in open areas. Meanwhile, in Iran, Israel said just a short time ago, actually earlier this morning, that in Israeli F-35, I fighter jet had shot down in air, an Iranian fighter jet at Yak-130,

29:05which is an aging Soviet design or Russian design that the Iranians operated. The reason this is significant is two points here. First, it marks the first time that an F-35 fighter jet, the most advanced modern U.S. stealth fighter jet, has shot down a manned enemy aircraft in any theater by any country. And second, it's the first time the Israelis have shot down a fighter jet and air to air kill in some 40 years as Israel widens its strikes on Tehran and against the Iranian regime already. Okay, that's our enleberment in Tel Aviv, and I want to stay with this conversation now about what's happening politically. President Trump is furious with the U.K. He's claiming that Prime Minister Kier Starmer is being very uncooperative with the U.S.-Israeli mission against Iran. This is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with. Trump is angry with Starmer for only allowing the U.S. to use U.K. bases to launch a limited defensive strikes

30:06against the Iranians. This government does not believe in regime change from the skies, the lessons of history of taught us that it is important when we make decisions like this that we establish there is a lawful basis for what the United Kingdom is doing. We're bringing in now Selma Abdelaziz, alive from London, as we showed, President Trump kind of lashing out at Starmer. Can you talk about what's going on between the two of them? President Trump yet again, of course, berating and belittling European leaders that he believes are not on side and across the continent, to be honest, that the response has been fractured, uncoordinated and unclear. You have, of course, here in the U.K. Prime Minister Kier Starmer, who quickly addressed the nation over the weekend and said it would not be involved in initial strikes. He even brought up the lessons of Iraq and said he did not want those to be repeated. But then later went on to say that the United States could use two of the U.K.'s military bases abroad, as you mentioned, for those limited defensive actions

31:06that was not enough for President Trump, who has lashed out in those comments, that I have to say have to be about the most insulting comment. You could make towards a British leader, the beloved wartime leader, of course, Winston Churchill comparing and saying this is not what we are dealing with. Prime Minister Kier Starmer is going to face lawmakers in just 30 minutes over those embarrassing comments. But he's not the only one on the continent struggling to not alienate President Trump while also trying to maintain a balance for needs at home. You also have President Emmanuel Macron, who came out and essentially said, look, this is an intervention that is outside international law and calls on the United States to move away from conflict and back towards diplomacy. Take a listen. Together with Germany and the United Kingdom, we have clearly stated that an immediate halt to the strikes is desirable, and that lasting peace in the region will only be achieved through the resumption of diplomatic negotiations.

32:07But perhaps the person to face the greatest wrath has been the Spanish Prime Minister who went out to say one can be against a hateful regime and against intervention outside of international law. President Trump has responded by saying that he wants to cut off all trade to Spain. Okay, Salma Abdelizis in London, giving us that range of opinion out of Europe. And so we're bringing back into the group chat Gordon Sondland, former US ambassador to the EU under President Trump. So I think you understand all these relationships, right? And some of these responses. What I heard in it is the US and the US population, they're not the only people still thinking about Iraq, still thinking about the past. What are you here in the way they're responding? Well, let's go back to what the Europeans are doing and what Starmer and the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez and Macron are doing is despicable. It really is. We are taking the risks with Israel to finally once and for all fix this problem.

33:10Going back to negotiations, as Macron mentioned, means that Iran will have the time and the capability to build up long-range ballistic missiles, medium-range ballistic missiles, and threaten everyone. But they're also saying regime from the skies is not something that it, no, no, I wanted to address that because it's whether or not they're going to jump in on this particular approach and support this particular approach to doing it. And I don't, I want to make sure my Pentagon person has, I'm not the expert here, but I hear them also critiquing how this is played out. Yeah, I mean, I think that is absolutely right. There has never been a successful regime change operation from the air. Combined with questions, I think that we're facing here in the US too, understanding what exactly the objective is and how it's meant to be achieved. We don't know what's for dinner, but we have to set the table. Setting the table means eliminating Iran's ability to strike externally. What happens internally in Iran, President Trump was very forthcoming. He said, I don't know.

34:11I don't know who the new leader is going to be. I don't know whether there is going to be regime change. He doesn't know and he's telling the truth. What he does know is it's a completely different conversation. Once Iran's ability to strike externally has been eliminated or has been degraded so far that they really are impotent at that point. So right now, you talked about yesterday, the administration maybe has not done the best job with its explanations. Correct. Right now, I think looking back at some of the polling, a lot of Americans agree with you. Does Trump have a clear plan for handling Iran, 60% of adults pulled here saying, no. I want to play for you Marco Rubio over the last, let's say, 48 hours as he's tried to bring some connective tissue to the rationale. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks,

35:12we would suffer higher casualties. I told you this had to happen anyway. The President made a decision and the decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program. That Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ability to conduct these attacks. That decision had been made. The reason why I'm playing this is because he was telling reporters, like, look, why are you saying I said something different than what I said the day before? You laughed when I said connective tissue. Is that not the right description? I mean, I was listening to that live and I was like, this is completely notifiable on its face. The idea that Israel forced our hand. We have the largest amount of American history, pretty much in the Middle East. We have a deeply integrated operation with Israel. It is the idea that we went for, you know, if they went first, we would be attacked. It makes no sense. And so now they try to walk it back. But, you know, Philly Netanyahu was here in DC on February 11th had a three-hour conversation with the President, you know, this has been well integrated from the start and it just fails every common sense test that they would do something unilaterally.

36:13He also, one other thing, please bear with me. I'm going to play you a bit of Megan Kelly this week on her show talking about this war because there is that constituency out within Magalan with their concerns. Here she is. I've got serious doubts about what we're doing. I support the President. I voted for the President. I campaigned for the President, as you know. But that doesn't mean, and being a conservative or being a Trump supporter or being part of Maga does not mean you have to accept another Middle East war without questions. And anybody who tells you that can suck it. Suddle, as always, Ambassador. Well, again, I think we're conflating regime change with neutering their strike abilities. And I look at how difficult this would be if we waited another year or two and continued as President Macron suggested additional conversations.

37:14While they're sitting in Oman with Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner, they're building missiles at a prodigious rate. I mean, the Israeli Air Force is throwing everything at them that they have plus two carrier strike groups and this is not easy. I would hate to be the combatant commander 12 months from now if they continue to escalate their missile development. So this had to be done. It had to be done now. It's not about regime change initially. It's about changing the conversation with Iran once they have no ability to strike externally. Right, and we're not there yet. And that we're not there yet. And that messaging is not clear. Okay, Ambassador, thank you so much. It was a pleasure to have you here. Stay with us because next on CNN, with this breaking news coverage, we're gonna talk about the war powers vote in Congress. So we'll be effort, even get enough support to reign in the President. Plus, who will run Iran? The warning this morning is Iranian officials gather to choose a successor.

38:15I'm just talking about a major unknown as we move into this week. Who at this point is actually running Iran? Got three days of national mourning to begin today for the previous Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And as the ruling clerics of the country gather virtually to name a successor. So one name rising to the surface is a previous Supreme Leader's son. It's unclear if he or other front runners are still alive after U.S. and Israeli strikes. So Israel targeted the building where Iran's top clerics meet in a new air strike. Israel's defense minister has also said any new leader appointed would quote, be a target for elimination. So joining me now, Al-Ivaya's director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group. I've been reading a lot of your work, Ali, so I'm glad that you are here. You've talked about these strikes opening up Pandora's Box. But what I want to put to you is this clip of tape from Donald Trump,

39:17something he said about what he thinks a next scenario could be. I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who's as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don't want that to happen. It would probably be the worst you go through this. And then in five years you realize you put somebody and it was no better. He said five years could it be sooner than that? Thanks a lot for having me. Well, this clearly shows that the president is improvising. He has no plan for the day after, no strategy of what comes next. He's just hoping that the pieces would fall in a way that it would work for the US interests. But this is really a major gamble. Indeed, it is quite possible that the most powerful force in Iran, which is the revolutionary guards designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization, would be the one that would determine

40:18the fate of the country and the future direction of travel, regardless of whether they're doing it from behind the scenes or from behind the curse. Now, we have lawmakers who have been hearing from the administration and I want to show you this tweet from Congresswoman Yasemin and Zari. She said that after the bipartisan briefing, she said, quote, what was striking a democratic future for the Iranian people never came up as a priority? I specifically asked, empowering another faction of the barbaric regime will not bring freedom to the Iranian people. I wanted to bring this up with you because you have Israel and the US trying to do strikes against the police state, trying to do strikes against those agencies and armed parts of the government that turned on protesters. Will that work? It's very hard to imagine that it would work because the revolutionary guards has about 200,000 forces, more than a million men and arms with its militia

41:20and other security forces. And they mostly use small arms to repress the Iranian people and massacre them in January, not tanks and fighter jets or missiles. So in order to completely neutralize that kind of repressive capacity, you either have to have boots on the ground or you have to literally flatten huge parts of the country to make sure that these people no longer tend to repress. But even then, the Iranian people are unarmed, unorganized, leaderless, and it's really hard to imagine that they will be able to take over. So all of it sounds delusion. Ali Vyaiz, I hope to have you back because I want to talk about the names that are emerging in the meantime. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. OK, we're bringing back Ron Brown's scene because we've got a few minutes left and Pete Hexeth is going to hold this Pentagon press conference at 8 a.m. I want to start with you guys on the side of the table. What do you want to hear from him? And maybe this is in the context of what you saw from him

42:23earlier this week. Well, I mean, what is the end game? I mean, I don't expect that there'll be a good answer. Is it too soon for that answer? I know we're talking about it. Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, do they have any scenarios for what the day after looks like? I mean, when we overthrew the Taliban, we appointed Hamid Khazah. He was actually elected by a bunch of Afghan leaders. He led the country for quite some period of time. There were three elections. We've just heard about the lack of discussion of elections. So it's not impossible to have a plan. Yeah, whether it works, especially if the Taliban is now in power. He seemed to be staggering toward the rationale or likely to stick with, which is about degrading their military capability, not transforming the country. I would just say that he starts this war. President is on an extraordinarily narrow ledge in public opinion. Republican voters are with him. So Republican legislators are with him. But there is very little tolerance for any cost of this, whether it's casualties or simply higher costs at the pump.

43:24Yeah, which we didn't even talk about today, global oil market surging. And we do have a breakdown, some of this polling of Democrats' independence versus Republicans on this question is long-term military conflict between the US and Iran likely. I like to look at independence. We've also been looking at this number of Republicans split 44 or 44, which means even within the coalition, people aren't sure. Look, this is wartime jazz. The administration is absolutely improvising in real time. And War is hell, even when you have best late plans and when things are going even remotely well. I've never heard that term, but it's terrifying. So wartime jazz, you can say. This is not an area. That's a good phrase. I mean, right, this is, and so they have no plan. There's no strategy. They're saying that openly. They're quite literally admitting that this is all being done in real time. And if you're the American public, you want to know what the government's doing in your name. And you want to know that if you're going to war and you're risking the lives of American sons and daughters

44:24and it's been six or six, then that you actually know what you're aiming to achieve. And in this case, they are literally saying, we'll figure it out as we go along. We have just a few seconds left. Give me your take away here for a second. I completely agree with Ron and Gordon before him that they do seem to be assembling to this justification of degrading the capabilities. But at the same time overnight, these reports about arming the Kurdish factions in Iraq also suggest that they're dabbling at the same time in the potential for trying to foment regime change. Just to give people some context here, you do have ethnic minorities, sectarians who want their own state. You do have people who are ex-monarchists who want to bring back the son of Isha. You do have people who are ex-terror groups who are saying, look, now we are ready to have a democratic leadership. There's a lot of names on the table. I think what you're likely to get out of that scenario is chaos. And the backdrop for all this, you're eight months from a midterm election with a president who is starting at his lowest approval rating, really at any point. Did you just say starting? Start starting the war at his lowest point

45:26in public approval. Only eight months from an election undertaking a totally volitional war of choice that most Americans oppose. Yes, Republicans are in line now, but the clock is ticking toward November. Well, we're going to hear from Pete Hegsett today. He will take issue with the term war of choice. I think we're going to be hearing more backtalk to that this week. But thank you for waking up with us and stay with us. We've got more headlines next.