Transcription
CNN's Kaitlan Collins, who's in Canada with the president, got word that he's cutting his trip short there from the G7 and returning to Washington tonight, further amplifying the notion that the U.S. may be getting involved in the fight. We don't know for sure yet.
In addition to all of that, there was this today from Israel's prime minister saying he would not rule out a strike on Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. So are you going to target the Supreme Leader? Look, we're doing what we need to. I'm not going to get into the details. But we've targeted their top nuclear scientists. It's basically Hitler's nuclear program.
But U.S. officials tell us that the president flatly rejected a plan, an opportunity that the E.U., that the Israelis had to take out the supreme leader. Do you understand his concern? My my understanding is his concern was that this would escalate the conflict beyond where it is already. It's not going to escalate the conflict. It's going to end the conflict. That conflict so far has taken at least 24 lives in Israel, 224 in Iran, according to authorities in each country.
But it's that evacuation warning from the president tonight and what it could mean, which starts us off. CNN Chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins is in Canada, has some new reporting on it. She joins us from Calgary, Alberta.
What is the White House saying about President Trump's declaration that everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran? And then the word that he's coming back to the White House?
Yeah, Anderson, it's hard to see how those are not tied together, because the White House specifically cited what is happening in the Middle East for why President Trump is cutting his trip here in Canada. I flew with President Trump on Air Force One yesterday. He arrived late last night in Calgary to head to the summit with world leaders. He had an entire day of meetings scheduled for tomorrow, including a meeting, I should note, with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as well. And on that list of everything that these leaders were going to talk about. But the White House has decided to cut this trip short so the president can return to Washington tonight, citing exactly what is happening inside the Middle East.
We've talked to officials about the president's post on Truth Social earlier, that everyone who lives in Tehran should evacuate. Obviously, that is millions of people, Anderson. And a quite urgent warning from the president of the United States. One official said it just reflects the reality of the situation of trying to get Iran to the table as they were trying to sort this with the president still voicing confidence that some kind of deal with Iran could be made after obviously those talks kind of fell apart or entirely failed after Israel first struck Iran late last week. And so, Anderson, we're still talking to officials and trying to figure out what this means and why there is this newfound sense of urgency to the president returning to Washington to go and meet with his team. We did see several of his national security members who were there in Washington earlier. That includes the vice president, the joint chiefs chairmen who were meeting at the White House. In addition to announcements from the defense Secretary, Pete about some aircraft carrier movement, as they're basically posturing to make sure they're protecting forces who are in the region right now.
I will note one person who's here on the trip with President Trump is the secretary of state, Marco Rubio. I'm told he's been briefing him throughout the day on the latest and the updates that we've been getting, and the president has also had several conversations with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. And so everyone is watching, obviously, what is happening in the Middle East and also why the president's cutting his trip short. His trip here ending early short is making such a difference. And what that means about what's happening.
You know, Caitlin, we'll see you at the top of the hour on the show. Coming up next. Right now, CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward is in Israel. She's at Tel Aviv's largest hospital. Clarissa, how are Israel's defenses first of all, holding up against the latest Iranian retaliation?
Well, there have been the expectation that tonight was going to see some heavy activity because we had heard from Iranian state media that there were waves and waves of drones and missiles heading this way earlier. The alert did go off. The sirens went off very shortly afterwards. Everyone here at this hospital, where we are gathered in a secured shelter area inside, but those missiles did not really materialize. There were reports of potentially a couple of intercepts, but no impacts that we have heard so far, and it has actually been pretty quiet until this point. I will say, though, just based on the patterns that we've been observing over the last couple of nights, that the majority of the heavy strikes seem to happen around four, 4:30 in the morning, that's still a couple of hours away. But obviously right now a huge question mark over what is happening in Tehran, what may be happening shortly in Tehran based on President Trump's somewhat ominous post, we are hearing reports of thousands and thousands of people in that city of 10 million taking to the streets and trying to go in their cars and get out of the city. Reports of heavy traffic jams clogging up the streets, but very little clarity as to what exactly is going on, and all of that also being fueled, as you mentioned earlier in the show, by these comments from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where he really would not rule out the possibility that regime change, if not the stated objective, certainly the desired outcome of these attacks against Iran. I understand that is the, the, the, the situation that that Israel finds itself in. If there is not regime change, the knowledge of how to manufacture a nuclear, the, the, the nuclear material that they're working with, that, and unless the U.S. is involved, it's a real question whether or not they can actually both of these Iranian nuclear facilities.
And it's interesting, Anderson, you know, when you talk to people here about the possibility of, okay, it looks like Iran has made some signals that maybe they're ready to talk, that maybe they're ready to go back to the negotiating table. The attitude here is that there's no interest in that. There's no time for talking now. The objectives of this operation have to be achieved, but there's still a lot of ambiguity as to what exactly those objectives are. Is the objective simply to dismantle all or at least delay Iran's nuclear program again? Earlier on, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to indicate that significant process progress has already been made in that endeavor. But if the objective is to completely dismantle it to ensure that it can never be resurrected, that seems to indicate that regime change is really the desired outcome, he said. Not clear how that would transpire or what that would look like, but certainly that is raising a lot of anxiety, Anderson, across this entire region.
Yeah. Of course. Ward. Thanks very much. We're going to check back in with you later on in this hour. I want to get perspective now from Global Affairs analyst Brett McGurk, former Middle East and North Africa coordinator of the National Security Council. Also retired U.S. Army Colonel Peter Monsour, a senior fellow at the center for International Security Studies at Ohio State University. Colonel, first of all, what's your read on the president's social media post calling for the evacuation of Tehran? Do you think that is an indication that the United States is going to get directly involved in this?
It certainly seems that way. You know, I didn't really think the United States would get involved unless it was attacked in the region by Iran. But with the president returning a day early from the G-7, there's really no reason for him to do that. If he's just monitoring the situation, he can do that up in Calgary. So I think this may be tipping the hand that the United States might weigh in, in a military sense, to complete the job that the Israelis have started.
Bret, do you agree with that? That this seems to be an indication of something?
I think there's two things going on here, Anderson, and both are linked. I think we are moving our military into place to be able to do a strike into Iran, particularly to take out that Fordo facility deeply underground, something really only the U.S. can do. But secondly, there's still an off-ramp on diplomacy. This is coercive diplomacy. What you're seeing, basically, the White House believes they put a deal down to the Iranians about six weeks ago. That is a good, fair deal. The Iranians really never responded to that. In fact, they escalated their program in response to that. And basically, I think the view is, if Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister of Iran, calls Steve Wyckoff, who is President Trump's envoy, you know, what, I re-looked at the deal you put down, I'm ready to take it. That's the off-ramp. If Iran does not do that, I think we're actually, it seems the U.S. is putting everything in place to get directly involved militarily. One way or the other is very clear. I think Iran cannot be left at the end of this with that enrichment program in place at Fordo. Natanz is the other one. The Israelis have hit that. And then you have the conversion facility. This is part of the fuel cycle at S foreign, which has also been hit. But Fordo, Fordo, Fordo, that is the key. And if you don't dismantle Fordo at the end of this, as you said, Anderson, not only does Iran have the know-how, they have an underground facility with about ten cascades of very advanced centrifuges, and then you're kind of in an even worse position. So this is really coming to a head. It's unprecedented. If anybody says they know where this is going, they don't know what they're talking about. But I see putting military pieces in place that's smart as you have a diplomatic off-ramp. So, you know, let's hope Iran decides to take that off-ramp. Otherwise, I think we're looking for, looking to an American strike at Fordo.
Colonel, do you have a sense of how long it takes to get U.S. assets in place? I mean, we're talking about, you know, battleships and other, well, we're really talking B-2 bombers and, other, other aircraft like that can carry the kind of weapons that could penetrate the mountain at Fordow and destroy those centrifuges. You know, some of those systems are already in place. Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. They're closer, and, they can fly from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, for that matter. So we have the capability now to strike Fordow. It's just a matter of giving the order.