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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

CENTCOM: U.S. Forces Have Hit 3,000 Plus Targets Across Iran; Sources: Russia Giving Iran Intel On U.S. Military Targets; Trump: War Won't End Until "Unconditional Surrender" By Iran; Kash Patel's Latest Firings Ousted Agents With Expertise In Iran; Trump Says No Deal With Iran Until Unconditional Surrender; January 6 Rioter Pardoned By Trump Sentenced To Life For Child Sex Abuse. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired March 06, 2026 - 20:00   ET

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

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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Everywhere we see greed and bigotry being celebrated and bullying and mockery masquerading as strength.

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ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Obama adding, "Every day you wake up to things you just didn't think were possible."

Well, thank you all so very much for joining us. As our special coverage continues here from the Middle East.

AC360 begins right now.

[20:00:31]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Good evening, thanks for joining us.

Starting off, our CNN global war coverage tonight, a new progress report from U.S. central command seven days into the fighting.

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COOPER: According to CENTCOM, American Forces have now hit more than 3,000 targets across Iran. This is new video of a strike on Tehran.

And this video also new to us, shows one of the capitals two airports on fire after the strikes. Iranian state media reporting explosions from one end of Tehran to the other, some of it likely from Israel, which says it launched a new wave of its own airstrikes on the city. And in the last couple hours there were new Iranian missiles for Israeli air defenses to deal with.

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COOPER: CENTCOM also said that 43 Iranian ships have been damaged or destroyed since the war began including this drone carrier in the Persian Gulf. Unclear though, exactly when it was hit, and though Iran's capacity to strike back has certainly been degraded it has not been eliminated.

New video from Basra in Southern Iraq, Security Forces there telling "Reuters" that Iranian drones hit an office and warehouse compound belonging to the American logistics and petroleum services company both Halliburton and KBR. No word yet if anyone was hurt, but Iranian attacks on the world's oil supply over the last seven days have pushed prices sharply higher, up more than 12 percent today alone. The steepest one-day gain since 2020.

Also today, CNN learned from multiple sources that Russia is providing Iran with intelligence, much of its satellite imagery about the locations and movements of American troops, ships and aircraft, which Iran is targeting with missiles like these.

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KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We don't comment on intelligence reports that are leaked to the press. Whether or not this happened, frankly, it does not really matter.

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COOPER: That is what White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said when asked about it today. So, there's a lot to get to into this hour.

As you might imagine, that last bit about it not mattering drew questions, including from CNN's Kristen Holmes.

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KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You just said on "Fox" that it doesn't really matter if Russia is giving Iran information about military assets. Why doesn't it matter if U.S. military is being put in danger by Russia, and is that what the President believes as well?

LEAVITT: What I meant, Kirsten, and thank you for giving me a chance to make it very clear is that it clearly is not making a difference with respect to the military operations in Iran, because we are completely decimating them.

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COOPER: A short time later, at a White House meeting on college sports, the President was asked directly about what he said he answered, "What a stupid question that is to be asking at this time. We're talking about something else".

Karoline Leavitt was also asked about this post from the President, quoting him now, "there will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LEAVITT: What the President means is that when he as Commander-in- Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States of America and the goals of Operation Epic Fury has been fully realized, then Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender, whether they say it themselves or not.

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COOPER: So, in addition to that there was more to try and make sense of from the President speaking with "Time" Magazine he appeared sanguine about potential Iranian reprisals in the form of terror attacks on American soil. Quoting now from "Time," "Asked whether Americans should be worried about retaliatory attacks at home, Trump acknowledges the possibility. I guess, he says, but I think they're worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time we plan for it. But yes, you know, we expect some things, like I said, some people will die when you go to war, some people will die".

The President also spoke by phone with CNN's Dana Bash today, telling her that he's involved in picking a new leader for Iran and saying, "It's going to work very easily. It's going to work like it did in Venezuela."

Dana will join us shortly. We've got CNN correspondents across the region tonight. Clarissa Ward is in Erbil, Iraq, where hotel was hit by drone debris. And for the first time since the war began, we have live reporting from Tehran, Fred Pleitgen is there for us. I want to go first to our Clarissa Ward.

Clarissa, we mentioned there was an incident at a hotel in Erbil. What happened?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, this was earlier on in the evening, Anderson. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued an alert warning people that effectively, they believed there was a high risk of attacks on hotels in the Kurdistan area, where high concentrations of foreigners are staying.

Literally, two hours after receiving this notification, four drones attacked Central Erbil. They were all intercepted, but one of them did explode next to a Rotana Hotel in the center of town.

This obviously is making a lot of people very nervous, Anderson, because here in Northern Iraq, this is the first time that we have seen a civilian target attacked in this way, and it's certainly the first time we have seen, groups and these are believed to be Iran- backed militias in Iraq explicitly saying that they are going to attack these hotels.

[20:05:56]

Now, the reason that they're giving for going after these hotels, Anderson, is that there is a large number of American contractors and other contractors as well who up until this war began, were working on bases around this area but who have subsequently been moved into hotels temporarily. COOPER: And we lost the feed there from Clarissa Ward.

We're joined now by retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt and retired Navy Rear Admiral John Kirby, who previously served as Pentagon press secretary under President Biden and spokesperson for the State Department under President Obama.

General Kimmitt, when the President says unconditional surrender, that's what he's looking for. What does that actually mean?

BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT (RET) U.S. ARMY: I think you read his book the art of the deal, that's a typical negotiating style of Donald Trump. Start off with a maximalist demand, then go to other somewhat tough positions. We haven't had unconditional surrender demanded since World War II and so I just think it's a rhetorical flourish on his part.

COOPER: You don't think there will be an unconditional surrender like what happened with the Japanese in World War II?

KIMMITT: No, not at all, they are very proud people. We can go into the religious aspect of their version of Shia, they're called Twelvers and they actually believe suicide or martyrdom is the highest form of religious duty. So, they're not going to surrender and candidly, nor should they.

COOPER: Admiral Kirby, do you take that phrase unconditional surrender as a military objective, a political statement, a bargaining position, or some combination of?

ADM. JOHN KIRBY (RET), FORMER COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS AT THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: Well, if it's something serious and not a bargaining position then it would connote an entirely different set of mission objectives for the U.S. military.

I mean, by design, unconditional surrender means that the vanquished has to submit to the victor in every regard politically, economically, comically, militarily, even socially.

So, if he's serious about that and we'll see what he says tomorrow then certainly you would expect that the military will be getting different guidance and different structures and different orders to conduct the operations that they're now conducting, because originally it was couched from Secretary Hegseth and the chairman as a limited set of objectives, you say unconditional surrender, if you're serious about it, then the military has to then adjust the way it is conducting operations.

COOPER: Because if in your in your estimation, if its unconditional surrender, I mean you're talking about hundreds of thousands of armed revolutionary Guard Corps members, militia members, all weapons would have to be laid down in that sort of a surrender.

KIRBY: Exactly, I mean, you're talking about the enemy literally laying down arms and stopping the fighting. It also means that you're going to take control of post-conflict governance. You're going to actually rehabilitate a government to your liking and that requires a whole lot more effort than just bombs dropping from the air. That requires perhaps boots on the ground. Certainly, it's going to require a diplomatic effort that's more extensive and more complete.

As General Kimmitt said, we haven't done this since World War II. This is a huge undertaking, if in fact, he's serious about it and its not some sort of negotiating tactic.

COOPER: Yes, General, as we said, sources are telling CNN that the Russians are giving intelligence information potential targeting information essentially on troop movements by the U.S. and positions. How serious is that?

KIMMITT: Well, it's pretty serious, but it's probably the least surprising thing I've heard in this war so far. We've been giving intelligence information to Ukraine since the beginning of the war why wouldn't Russia be doing the same thing with Iran?

By the way one other point, and John made it, occupations take a lot of troops. It would take hundreds of thousands of American troops on the ground to conduct a post surrender governance of that country.

COOPER: And certainly, I mean, there doesn't seem to be any, there's certainly not a lot of appetite for that in the country. It doesn't we haven't heard any appetite of that from this administration thus far.

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KIMMITT: No, in fact, quite the opposite from this administration. They said, we don't believe in forever wars, this would be a forever occupation

COOPER: Admiral, there has been a lot of focus on the Strait of Hormuz as oil prices have risen across the globe. President Trump has talked about military escorts by the U.S. Navy to ensure tankers, cargo ships can cross safely. How large an operation would that be given the hundreds of ships that are waiting to cross right now?

KIRBY: It's very resource intensive operation, as you know, we did this back in the late 80s under President Reagan during the Tanker War. I myself, my first deployment in the Navy was to escort tankers in and out of the Gulf.

It takes a lot of ships, a lot of time. I'm not saying the Navy couldn't do it but it wouldn't be cost free. It would it would extract Naval capabilities from elsewhere around the world and other missions to be able to do it. I would hope, if he's serious about doing this, that some of our allied and partner navies in the region and beyond would be willing to contribute some ships to that, to that effort. But it's not cost free. It's not risk free. It's potentially pretty dangerous.

COOPER: General, do you think this is essentially, I mean, the strategy as of now is essentially kind of another version of Venezuela? I mean leave, you know, do whatever military attacks, you know, deplete resources, deplete their capabilities of being offensive, conducting offensive operations, nuclear operations, whatever the administration wants, and then leave some sort of whoever was going to rule, rule?

KIMMITT: Possibly so, but what really is concerning to me is the military operations now. What is concerning me is not their operations, their doing brilliantly, but we're starting to do scorecards. You and I both remember body counts from Vietnam. That doesn't lead to victory.

COOPER: And body counts were famously faked in Vietnam -- at a certain point.

KIMMITT: Right, but I don't think we're faking the number of missiles that we're hitting the number of silkworms were hitting. But if we somehow think that the cumulative addition of broken stuff on the battlefield is going to lead to strategic victory, we're wrong. Plus, it's the wrong war to fight, that's attrition warfare.

Attrition warfare says, he who runs out of stuff first loses. This is a battle of wills not an attrition warfare in this case, it's more like Ukraine, where it's not really important what's happening on the battlefield. That war is not going to end until either Putin or Zelenskyy gives up. And we need to realize that this war isn't over until either President Trump or the leadership of Iran gives up, or we kill all the senior leaders.

COOPER: I'm rereading "Dispatches" by Michael Hare, one of the great books of, I think, the greatest war book ever written, certainly about the Vietnam War.

And admiral, I'm sure you know that book. I mean he talks a lot about body counts and you would go out and people, you know, you'd get captains saying, oh, you know, here's the body count for this operation, here's the body count and on paper, supposedly everybody had been decimated. And yet suddenly an entire division would rise up out of nowhere and attack a position.

KIRBY: Yes, look, the IRGC is an extensive military paramilitary force, in addition to the Iranian military, the state military and they're not a monolith, they don't all think the same, they don't all act the same and there's probably ongoing fights inside the IRGC about what this war means, what the end is going to be for them and who's going to lead it at the end of it but they are still very, very much in control.

And it's going, to the General's point, it's not just about breaking things and destroying things and we're doing a great job of that. It is about breaking the will of the resistance of the Iranian military and the IRGC and that's a whole other task altogether.

COOPER: And that, I mean, that's an incredibly complex task. I mean, it sounds almost impossible given the extremist positions of a lot of these Revolutionary Guard Corps members.

KIMMITT: Look, all of these Revolutionary Guard grew up, were born and grew up in the vast majority, and their first words were "Death to America, Death to Israel." They've been ideologically managed for so long, they're not going to give up. And there's one other thing we need to worry about, okay, so everybody surrenders. We now come in there. Who's in control? And what I'm most concerned about is who's in control of those 400 kilograms of enriched uranium. Some crackpot revolutionary group like the PJAK. There is virtue in having organic control in a country until something better happens and you and I both saw that in Iraq.

COOPER: General Kimmitt, I appreciate you being here. Thank you, Admiral Kirby as well.

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Coming up next, more on what the President said today about the war and to General Kimmitt's point, the aftermath. CNN's Dana Bash, who spoke with him, joins us as our CNN global coverage of the war continues.

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COOPER: Some of the latest wave of U.S. and Israeli strikes now hitting Iran, Tehran's Mehrabad Airport on fire. It appears to have been a punishing day-seven of the war in Iran.

Now, the day began with the President suggesting he's not worried about what this is doing about gasoline prices or whether or not Iran's next government is democratic. That's just some of what he told CNN's chief political correspondent, Dana Bash, who joins us now. So, what did the President say about the war, Dana?

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: True to form, Anderson, he was incredibly enthusiastic about the success so far. In fact, he said if you're grading on a scale of ten, he thinks it's a 12 to 15 so far. He said, "Iran is not the same country it was a week ago. A week ago, they were powerful, and now they've been indeed neutered."

You mentioned the whole question of who's going to run Iran, which is such a core question. When I asked him about it, as he has done within the past week, several times. He connected it and made an analogy to Venezuela, saying it will be like Venezuela where we have Delcy Rodriguez there, and she's doing a great job.

And I said, well, it's a different kind of thing. There is a religious government there. And would you be okay with that continuing? And he said, well I may, yes. I mean, it depends on who the person is. I don't mind religious leaders. I deal with a lot of religious leaders and they're fantastic.

And then I asked about whether or not that means that it doesn't have to be a democratic leader. And he said, I'm saying there has to be a leader that's going to be fair and just, do a great job, treat the United States and Israel well and treat other countries in the Middle East -- Anderson.

COOPER: So, gas prices are up $0.34 a gallon since the start of the war. Did the President sound concerned about that?

BASH: He didn't sound concerned. I pressed him on that. And we know that the President has been very fixated on gas prices when they are low as a part of his argument that the economy is doing better. He talked about it all the time. When I did tell him that they are up he said that maybe a little bit, but it's going to be just a short-term thing and they'll go back down, he insisted, that's going to happen and did not give any hint of concern, at least today when we talked.

COOPER: I also understand he brought up Cuba.

BASH: It was really interesting, Anderson. I didn't ask him about it. He did it unsolicited when he was talking about Iran. He kind of veered off and said, "By the way Cuba is going to fall pretty soon." That's a quote and then he said, they want to make a deal so badly, they want to make a deal and so I'm going to put Marco Rubio over there and we'll see how that works out. We're really focused on this one right now, meaning Iran. We've got plenty of time but Cuba's ready after 50 years.

We know that the United States government has been squeezing Cuba for a very long time, but particularly since the President arrested Maduro, brought him back to the U.S., put Delcy Rodrguez in, and has encouraged and pressed Venezuela, which has been up until now a very big source of energy, of oil, of economic help for Cuba to not do that. And, you know our Patrick Oppmann, who is there and others are saying that they are really feeling it there.

Who knows how far along this conversation with Cuba actually is but the fact that it was on his mind was noteworthy -- Anderson.

COOPER: Dana Bash, thanks so much, appreciate it.

More now in the tone and tenor of what the President is saying about the war and the message it sends to the American public. Joining us CNN chief political analyst a former senior adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod.

So, David, you here to talk about her conversations? Does the President seem overly confident to you, in terms of where the war is going and who's going to lead Iran?

DAVID AXELROD, CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, this is the second or third time, Anderson, first of all, that he said, well, its war, you know, we're going to lose people, even as some of his acolytes are arguing that it's not war for their own purposes, the Speaker of the House.

There's just so much confusion about what the mission is and what the end game is and so on. But, yes, I mean, the idea that people are just going to bend to his will I think is so overwrought and I've said to you many times, I've said many times elsewhere that the thing you learn when you're in the White House very quickly is the words the President speaks are deadly serious. They can send armies marching and markets tumbling and this President doesn't seem to think that way.

He throws these words out and they its almost without meaning. He's posturing in the moment but it's not really clear what the plan is the military discussion you had at the front end of your show speaks to that. You know, nobody in the military would hear what the President said to Dana and feel particularly comforted by that.

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COOPER: I want to read again what the President said to "Time Magazine" and asked whether Americans should be worried about retaliatory attacks at home. "Time" wrote: "Trump acknowledges the possibility. I guess, he says but I think they're worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time we plan for it but yes, you know, we expect some things. Like I said, some people will die when you go to war, some people will die". How do you read that tone?

AXELROD: Well, that's the reference that I made before. I find it shocking, you know, and I think everyone whose son and daughter is over manning this mission, fighting this war, you know, has to be shocked by that. And I think those who have lost loved ones to acts of terrorism have to have to feel shocked by that.

You know, you want a President to understand the sobriety of the decisions that he's making and the potential outcomes of them and have the empathy to understand that every life that is lost is a tragedy for the family involved.

So, you don't want to be offhanded about, you know, overnight, they merged a video game, video game scenes and cartoon scenes with battle scenes, as if this is all a game. It's not a game to young men and women whose lives are at stake. It wouldn't be a game for people who've lost, who lose lives to, lose the lives of their loved ones to terrorism.

I find it really, really disturbing. This is the most serious thing a President can do. And he's like speed dialing people and making comments like, speed dialing reporters and saying contradictory things and sending signals that can actually make the situation worse and not better.

COOPER: David Axelrod, thanks very much.

Coming up next beyond just the President's remarks on the subject, how prepared is the federal government right now to detect and prevent terror attacks at home and have recent changes to the FBI and DHS left Americans more vulnerable?

Well, look at that ahead.

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COOPER: As the U.S. continues to wage war in the Middle East, I want to read you again that quote from the president, which David Axelrod and I were talking about before the break. Here's how the magazine wrote about it.

Asked whether Americans should be worried about retaliatory attacks at home, Trump acknowledges the possibility. I guess, he says, but I think they're worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time. We plan for it. But yes, you know, we expect some things. Like I said, some people will die when you go to war. Some people will die.

Sources also tell CNN that FBI Director Kash Patel fired dozens of agents and staff members from a counterintelligence unit tasked with monitoring threats from Iran just days before the U.S. launched its major military operation there.

The reason they were fired, each was involved in the federal Trump classified documents case, which you may recall included allegations that the president retained a secret Pentagon document with plans to attack Iran.

Joining me now, CNN Chief Law Enforcement Intelligence Analyst John Miller. I want to ask you about the Iran and the FBI piece of this for a moment, but the president doesn't seem overly concerned about, given the comments of Time magazine, about increasing attacks in the U.S., the potential of that. Should we all be concerned about that?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFOCEMENT INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, we should always be concerned. And I say that in the context of behind the scenes secretly in ways most people don't know about it. Iranian operatives have been on the ground here plotting things for a long time.

COOPER: There are even now Iranian operatives in the United States.

MILLER: One would have to assume that given the number we have taken off the game field and the idea that Iran would have no motive not to replace them with some other covert operators. You have to operate on that assumption. But we also and I think what the president was saying is we're under constant threat from the remnants of ISIS and Al Qaeda.

We saw the Bourbon Street attacks in New Orleans on New Year's Day two years ago. We've seen the plots that have been interrupted and thwarted. This is a post 9/11 constant as long as that propaganda is out there.

The factor of Iran, though, is they do this very professionally and they are in a position where they've always done targeted violence, targeting particular people. This is the kind of environment where they could go to a mass casualty incident.

COOPER: I mean, people who have been caught in the past. What are they doing here? Are they working here? Do they have diplomatic immunity or what sort of infiltration is their life? MILLER: So you've had covert Iranian intelligence officers who have

come in and out of the United States under various covers and then recruited individuals associated with violence or criminal organizations to target particular people for them for a hit or for an assault or a kidnapping or a murder.

But we've also seen them use elements of Hezbollah that were planted in America, Anderson, for the specific purpose of cataloging targets, studying them, mapping them, developing target books and transmitting them back to their handlers in Iran. So this is something that Iran has been thinking about and planning for -- for 20 years or more.

COOPER: And this counterintelligence team that there are reports that Kash Patel fired a number of people.

[20:35:01]

How? What do you know about it?

MILLER: Well, this is a rolling set of firings where as people like Laura Loomer or Stephen Miller at the White House, you know, get more names of agents or analysts who are associated with the January 6th case or the Trump's classified document case from Mar-a-Lago. You know, those names are filtered down to the FBI director and told these people need to go.

And they are fired without due process, unceremoniously, pack up your things and go. Someday they'll all sue and they'll all get money or just come back. But what the relevant effect right now is not the injustice of it. It's the brain drain.

Some of the most experienced counterterrorism executives in the in the bureau, the people who would know how to run the cases to probe for the very threats you're talking about are now out. And people who are honest, hardworking people but less experienced have taken their places.

And the agents and analysts from the squads, the worker bees on that level, those are the people with the real knowledge and experience in their head and they're gone. And this is not the time for them to be gone for just doing their job.

COOPER: I mean, given the fact that the president of the United States, his family are likely now going to be under threat from Iran for the rest of their lives, given this, let alone just him being president of the United States.

And we've seen Iran having, you know, ill will and aims against President Trump in the past. It's incredible to me that he would decimate Iranian related intelligence officers.

MILLER: Well, once politics rubs up against law enforcement or intelligence, all logic seems to disappear from the game. It was President Trump, candidate President Trump before this last election, who was targeted by Iran for assassination on the very assumption, Anderson, that as a candidate, he'd have just that much less security that they might be able to pull it off. They recruited a team. They paid money. So this isn't theoretical.

COOPER: Yes. John Miller. Thank you. Appreciate it. Up next, the political dimension, Democratic congressman and Marine combat veteran Jake Auchincloss joins us.

And later, we'll tell you about the more of the January 6 pardon recipients. More of them who have been accused of new crimes, a patriot or so-called patriot update ahead.

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COOPER: We are monitoring the situation in Tehran after a new wave of airstrikes there tonight, including on one of the city's two big airports. Democratic congressman Jake Auchincloss joins us now. He's also a U.S. Marine veteran. Congressman, what do you make of President Trump's declaration today that there will be no deal with Iran Except unconditional surrender? What does that mean to you? And what would that look like if he actually means that?

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): Anderson, good evening. Thanks for having me on. I don't know what that means. I can't really -- I don't understand it. The regime is still in control of the ground. The United States has air dominance over Iran, along with Israel. And it seems to be maybe a third to a half way through its military objectives, meant to dismantle Iran's ability to project force outside of its borders.

But you can't bomb your way to regime change. And the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and their militia still seem to retain control of their apparatus of repression. So I don't know what it means to say unconditional surrender. It -- it looks like the assembly of experts is going to appoint a successor, and that individual may be a hardliner, and we may have just replaced one old dictator for one young dictator.

COOPER: President Trump also reiterated to CNN's Dana Bash his argument that he should be involved in picking Iran's new leader, saying he wants a situation comparable to what the U.S. has with Venezuela, a regime that i guess he believes is taking its marching orders now from Washington.

Is that even a remote possibility in -- in Iran? A, that the President would have a role in picking who the new leader is and that it would be so compliant that they would just -- I mean, the Venezuela situation, the other way of looking at it is all the old thugs are still there. They just took out one thug.

AUCHINCLOSS: Right. I think that what's achievable, and what I advocated for last week before the President declared this war of choice, would be that the core American strategic interest is that we retain air supremacy in the region. I do think that's vital for our security interests.

And two, that there's a policy of mutual non-interference with Iran, that Iran agrees not to be funding proxy terror groups in Syria and Iraq or funding rocket strikes from Hezbollah or Hamas. And the United States, in turn, agrees that overt and covert action against the Iranian regime would stop.

That potentially is achievable. But this idea that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is going to expressly take orders from the President of the United States, it strikes me as hard to fathom.

COOPER: As you know, both Secretary of Defense, Hegseth, and White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, criticized reporters this week for reporting on six U.S. service members who died in an attack by Iran on a U.S. outpost in Kuwait, saying the coverage was designed to make the President somehow look bad.

[20:45:04]

As a Marine combat veteran who served in Afghanistan, had friends and comrades who have made the ultimate sacrifice, I'm wondering what you thought of those comments.

AUCHINCLOSS: Despicable. I think it's a vital element of a free press to report upon the price of war, not just the material price, but the moral price as well. And as you know, Anderson, this Pentagon, even before this war started, has been the least transparent or responsive Pentagon in history. It ejected reporters who would not agree to its absurd demands more befitting a banana republic than the United States.

And I really -- I feel grateful, I will say, to reporters everywhere at outlets, including CNN, who are continuing to report and source on this war, despite the fact that, frankly, this Pentagon doesn't view itself as accountable to the American public.

And this really needs to be a reckoning on the imperative for Congress to rewrite the War Powers Act because it should be plain now to the American public and certainly it should be plain to Congress that this 70-year-old law, 50-year-old law, excuse me, is just not fit for purpose because we now have allowed presidents to unilaterally declare war, prosecute war, and make up their own strategies for ending war without any accountability to the people's representatives. And it is totally unacceptable.

COOPER: Congressman Jake Auchincloss, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Joining us now is CNN Global Affairs analyst Brett McGurk and CNN National Security analyst Alex Plitsas. Brett, let me start with you.

President Trump has compared this war multiple times to the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Maduro, how he wants Iran's new leadership, as we mentioned with the congressman just now, to resemble the post-Maduro leadership in Venezuela. Is there any similarity in the two situations?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: No, not at all. And I think the idea that someone's going to rise here and suddenly engage with the president of the United States and cut a deal as their first move while trying to restore what's left of the Islamic Republic, I think, is highly, highly unlikely.

Anderson, let me say two things. I think the military plan you've covered in the show, I think very much on plan. The commanders, I think, feel very confident about where things are going, looking at all the indicators. You do not hear, of course, from uniformed military the boastfulness that we're kind of hearing from the White House, which I think is totally inappropriate on any given day. As you and I have discussed, this is so high risk, and you can still have things go terribly wrong.

But the military plan is on plan. The bottleneck here in the strategy, I think, looking ahead to the next week, is an economic one, and that's the Straits of Hormuz. I think you can see the White House scrambling to try to address this problem. Really, no ships are going through, Anderson. They're self-deterred because insurance has gone up 700 percent, and Iran has threatened to strike any ship going through.

So you've seen the White House now take two measures, a new insurance facility for $20 billion. We'll see if that has an effect. Releasing the stranded Russian oil about 140 barrels to India. We'll see if that has an effect but I think you will start seeing some ships try to go through the straight over the coming week and if we're here a week from now and we still have the Strait of Hormuz shot, I think we really are heading for a significant crisis because those taps will have to shut off throughout the Gulf because there won't be anywhere to store the oil.

This is key. You had Admiral Kirby on. He talked about Operation Ernest Will back in the 80s. We actually did this a very different time, Anderson. I was involved in another strait in the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandeb, where Iranian missiles were targeting ships by the group, the Houthis in Yemen. It's a cat and mouse game, given the range of these missiles and drones and the ships are sitting duck.

So watch this very closely. That Strait of Hormuz over the next week. So bottom line, military is on plan. They actually do have, I think, clear objectives. They are not being swayed by, you know, everything the president says every day about a new political objective the military orders are written down, the military knows what it's doing uh is not getting off course.

COOPER: Yes.

MCGURK: But I think that economic piece is key here over the next the next week.

COOPER: Alex, how vulnerable are those ships in the straits of her moves I mean given the proximity to -- to Iran even, I mean, even if Iran's capabilities are severely degraded, they could still strike those ships pretty easily.

ALEX PLITSAS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes, I mean, that's part of the problem because the drones are still flying at this point. So the ballistic missiles, they're not really going to be targeting ships with those types of things. And those launches are down. And the Israelis mentioned about how many launchers they had hit. They think there's 100 to 200 left.

And everybody's been focused on that. But the drones are the more significant problem. And it's hard to quantify how many are left. And they only need to get one or two of those off to hit a ship before it becomes problematic.

You have private ship owners, and they're willing to undertake a certain amount of risk, but to a certain point, they're even holding back with what you're seeing right now. So those private ship owners, I was speaking to the ship traders a little earlier today.

Collectively, I think the Greeks and the Chinese could probably put together somewhere between 4 and 5 million barrels a day out of the 20 that need to go out. So it's not going to be a wholesale replacement. And to Brett's point, we're seeing oil at 100 that could spike somewhere between 100 and even 150 if this goes on.

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COOPER: So is Iran counting on that of just the threat of it, stopping the oil, prices go up, and that's pressure on the US?

PLITSAS: In speaking to some of the mediators and folks in the region who are aware of what Iran is doing and folks who are familiar with the strategy and the intelligence community at the Pentagon, it's part of their strategy. They want to drive up the oil prices, drive up the cost, maximize U.S. casualties, make this painful for the president. They want to elongate it because they think he can't hold out.

To Brett's point, we have a week or two before the straits become a crisis and then finally to try to exploit fissures within MAGA and within the base because there's a split in this cabinet about whether or not this war should continue for what length and whether it should be a ground component. So the Iranians are trying to exploit all of that because that's the best way how.

COOPER: Brett, I mean, to that point, how much does the economic pressure from rising oil prices, how much does that end up impacting a military operation?

MCGURK: Well, I said it's a literal and figurative bottleneck because I think it could shorten the clock. I think you've got to keep focus on trying to allow the military campaign to go to fruition. That's probably about another three weeks or so, given all the targets on the deck.

But this economic crisis could really come in and bite. So that's just what I'm looking at here over the next week. And I think we'll start to see ships going through the strait. And whether or not the Iranians actually target and are successful, I think that'll be a key indicator.

The key indicator this week, Anderson, was getting those missiles and drone launches down. We've really seen them go down quite significantly. But I think these economic indicators will be an increasing factor over the coming days.

COOPER: Alex, in terms of what Israel is doing against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, also around Beirut, in the areas of Beirut they control, how much of this is the culmination of, you know, obviously this long campaign Israel has had going back to the very visible pager bombing of Hezbollah operatives.

Do you think they see this as an opportunity to once and for all sort of try to destroy Hezbollah?

PLITSAS: Oh, absolutely. I mean, this is one of the four strategic objectives the White House laid out earlier this week in conjunction with the Israelis. So, it was to sink the Navy. And we have a surface warfare officer in charge of U.S. Central Command and Admiral Cooper. So you tell him to sink a Navy, he knows how 47 ships are gone.

You know, we talked about the launchers already down to 100 or 200 for missiles and hitting the missile stocks. Now they're moving to the third tier of targets, which appears to be the proxies in the region.

So, the Israelis are targeting Hezbollah and really hitting them hard. The U.S. has switched to hitting the umbrella group of Iranian militias in Iraq. They're known as part of the PMF is the acronym, but it stands for those groups. And then last will be the nuke sites. So the president wants to get rid of the proxies. The nuke sites will be next. That's actually a more difficult target.

And when those four target sets are exhausted, to Brett's point, the military mission will be complete. What happens afterwards is political.

COOPER: Yes. Alex Plitsas, thanks. Brett McGurk, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Up next, January 6th, insurrectionists were given a new lease on life by presidential pardons, yet a number of them have gone on to face new criminal charges. We have a few more to add to the list of our patriot so-called update. Next.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, we're on the Capitol steps.

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COOPER: Well, you'll recall one of President Trump's first orders of business on Inauguration Day 2025 was to pardon nearly all of January 6th's insurrectionists, more than 1,500 offenders who the president routinely calls patriots.

We've been keeping track of how many of those who stormed the Capitol have gone on to commit or be charged with committing new crimes. And we continue that.

There are a number of them just this week to let you know about. This is a far-right extremist, Jake Lang, holding a Capitol Police officer's shield and wearing a gas mask on January 6th, battling law enforcement in this photo. He's swinging a baseball bat at them.

Lang was charged with 11 counts, including assault with a dangerous weapon. After his pardon, he returned to the Capitol this past January 6th for a bit of a victory lap with a number of other so-called patriots.

He confronted one of the officers he faced off with during the insurrection, allegedly threatened him with death, saying public execution is the only solution for animals like you.

A few days ago, Lang was arrested in D.C. for threatening a police officer. And believe it or not, this is not the only charge he's dealing with this week.

Last month, he was in Minneapolis and posted this video of himself destroying a sculpture that read, Prosecute ICE. He was charged with felony damage to property. On Wednesday, he pleaded not guilty in court.

This is self-professed white supremacist Bryan Betancur on January 6th holding a Confederate flag. He was found guilty of storming the Capitol. These images were used as evidence against him along with the fact that he was wearing a court-mandated GPS monitor at the time for a prior burglary conviction.

Betancur was arrested Monday on assault and battery charges. He allegedly filmed himself touching several women inappropriately on a Maryland metro train and posted it to social media.

Also, one more so-called patriot to meet, Andrew Paul Johnson, circled in these photos here. He, too, was charged with storming the Capitol and then pardoned by the president.

Just six months later, he was arrested for multiple child sex abuse charges in Florida. According to authorities, he tried to buy the silence of his child victims by claiming that he stood to receive $10 million as restitution for, quote, being a Jan Sixer, unquote.

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A month ago, he was found guilty of five criminal charges including molestation, lewd and lascivious exhibition and transmission of material harmful to a minor. Yesterday, he was sentenced to life in prison. Unless, of course, the president decides to pardon him again.

That's it for us. The news continues. The Source with Kaitlan Collins starts now.