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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Fuel Supplies In Tehran Disrupted After Intense Strikes; Ali Khamenei's Son Mojtaba Chosen As Iran's New Supreme Leader; Improvised Devices Found Near NYC Mayor's Home; 7th U.S. Service Member Dies In War With Iran; Trump Says Iran At Fault For Strike On Girls School. Aired 9-10p ET

Aired March 08, 2026 - 21:00   ET

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

[21:00:00]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Scenes like these push crude futures today above the $100 barrel mark for the first time since 2022, which in turn moved the president away in a short time ago on social media quoting him now. Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over is a very small price to pay for USA and world safety and peace. Only fools would think differently.

Also tonight, the State Department warned all nonemergency diplomats to leave Saudi Arabia. CENTCOM announced a seventh American combat fatality and service -- a service member as yet unnamed who had been wounded in Saudi Arabia and Iran revealed a new supreme leader, the son of the old supreme leader. It is a very busy night in the war. CNN's Jeremy Diamond, as we said, is in Tel Aviv.

Julia Benbrook is in Doral, Florida where President Trump is this weekend.

So Jeremy, when we spoke earlier, you had moved inside to a shelter. What's the situation there now?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, we have seen some reports of either fallen shrapnel or those small bombs that were talking about that are, you know, assorted at the head of a ballistic missile in a kind of cluster formation. And there have been several reports of a few impacts in central Israel. No serious injuries as a result of that, but some damage to cars and buildings in the area as Iran is continuing to fire these missiles, although in smaller numbers.

But now with this kind of added impact of these cluster type munitions that they appear to be using on a daily basis at this point. Israel, for its part, continuing to carry out heavy airstrikes in Iran over the course of the last 24 hours.

And they are entering what one Israeli source described to me as a new phase in this war where they are not only going after the military targets in Iran, the political targets that we have seen, but really the foundations of some of what supports the regime, whether from a political perspective, but also from a financial one. And that is why we are seeing some of these strikes on Iran's oil

refineries and fuel depots intended to kind of hurt the regime financially in addition to everything else that they've been doing over the course of the last eight days.

COOPER: Julia, has there been any reaction from the White House to the selection of Iran's new supreme leader, the son of the former supreme leader?

JULIA BENBROOK, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Not at this point. We have reached out to the White House for a comment. We have also been of course tracking Trump's social media, his Truth Social, which is where he has made a lot of these announcements since the beginning of Operation Epic Fury.

But at this point he has not directly commented prior to, though, this announcement that Iran's late Supreme Leader, that his second eldest son had been selected to this role. Trump did make it clear how he felt about that pick. He called it unacceptable. And he said that he could not support someone whose policies still aligned there.

He also made it clear that he wanted to be involved in this process. He said he wanted to play a role in selecting Iran's new leader because if he didn't, he believed the United States would need to go in again every five to 10 years. So he wanted to play a role here, and at this point, there is no indication that he did in this election.

COOPER: Jeremy, we know that Israel has previously vowed to target any new Iranian leader who has a plan to destroy Israel. It is remarkable the, I mean, what Israel has been able to achieve in terms of locating and directly assassinating the, you know, the key officials in Iran so far.

DIAMOND: Yes. And I think there's very little question that Mojtaba Khamenei will now be a marked man in Iran. I mean, not only is he now the Supreme Leader, but even before he was among the officials who were targeted in that opening wave of strikes a week ago last Saturday, he was injured in that strike that killed his father, the Supreme Leader. His wife was also killed in that strike, according to reports.

And so that's important context not only for Israel's willingness and ability to go after the new Supreme Leader and other senior Iranian officials, but also to how that may influence the new Iranian Supreme Leader's views and policies vis-a-vis Israel, vis-a-vis the region and critically, this current war.

I did speak with one Israeli official tonight as this news was breaking, who told me, quote, I doubt the Iranian people want to replace one Ayatollah with another Ayatollah. And so Israel's ultimate goal of seeking regime change is going to continue to be Israel's policy.

And we've heard the Israeli prime Minister directly calling on the Iranian people to take advantage of this moment, to take to the streets and ultimately topple the regime. We've yet to see any evidence of that kind of coming to the surface in Iran amid this war.

[21:05:02]

You know, we haven't seen the kind of mass protests that ultimately sparked this moment that we are in over a month and a half ago. But certainly Israelis will continue to call for that and continue to carry out the kinds of strikes that will weaken the regime with the hope that it ultimately leads to some kind of a popular uprising on the streets of Tehran. Anderson.

COOPER: And Jeremy, what's the sort of public opinion in Israel about this war?

DIAMOND: Well, it's largely supported by the Israeli public. I mean, most Israelis agree with the government that Iran represents an existential threat to its existence. They have expressed a lot of solidarity with the Iranian people as they have taken to the streets in previous mass protests inside of Iran.

There is, however, a small but vocal minority advocating against this war. Last night in Tel Aviv, we saw a group of about 50 people who were coming out to protest against the war. They were very quickly silenced by Israeli police who detained multiple people at the scene.

But overwhelmingly, the Israeli public is behind this and has been warned even as recently as today by Israel's chief of the general staff, General Eyal Zamir, telling the Israeli public that, listen, they are going to have to continue to be in the state of emergency basically for as long as it takes for Israel to achieve its goals in this war.

COOPER: Jeremy Diamond, Julie Benbrook, appreciate it. Joining us now is senior global affairs analyst Brett McGurk, who's served in senior national security positions under the last four presidents, including President Trump during his first term.

So, Brett, what is the selection of Iran's new supreme leader signal to you for Iran, for Israel and the US?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, Anderson, I think it's confirmatory of what we've been covering really over the last week. This is not going to be a short campaign.

What you saw over the weekend, you know, there was maybe some hope with President Pezeshkian saying on Saturday morning we're going to stop attacks against our neighbors, appearing to apologize for those attacks. And then what you saw immediately was a consolidation of the hard line. The Revolutionary Guards immediately saying that's actually not our position. You saw more attacks against the Gulf. You saw Ali Larajani go out with a statement and now you have the naming of the new supreme leader today just showing that the system, the revolutionary system is very much intact. They're consolidating.

And I think if there was a hope that there might be some diplomatic off ramp, somebody rising up, which we always thought Anderson, was, it was a dubious proposition that's now foreclosed. Now it's possible that Mojtaba does not last very long. He's obviously probably on the most wanted list both for not only the U.S. and Israel, but attacks tonight in the Gulf. I think the Gulf leaders are also quite angry.

But look, I think the regime is consolidating. The military campaign, Anderson, on its own has a few more weeks to run just given the target deck and to really weaken that Iranian missile production, drone, nuclear targets. This is a very difficult military campaign. But to get from here to there, it's, you now have consolidation of the regime politically and economically.

What we talked about last week, Anderson, we're also running into very choppy waters, no pun intended, with the Strait of Hormuz still closed.

COOPER: So do you see that essential, I mean, is that ultimately you think how where this goes, it's -- whether it's a few more weeks just continuing to degrade their nuclear, ballistic, other, you know, drone capabilities and then declare OK, that's victory.

MCGURK: Yes. You know, there's some thought more on the Israeli side that if you target the Revolutionary Guards, everything that, you know, they control about 30 or 40 percent of the economy. That's what those strikes seem to be about. Those oil depot facilities last night, which I think, I'm not sure the wisdom of those strikes, that you can open up fissures within the system.

The national army in Iran, Anderson, the Artesh, this is like a conscript army. They have a 400,000 men under arms. Maybe the thought was you could have these more nationalist institutions rise. Again, I think that's a false assumption and now that's going to be even harder. But that was a hope.

So now what's kind of the best case if you look ahead to three weeks? I mean if I was looking at it, assuming we don't have a crack in the system, in the revolutionary system in Iran. Yes, you kind of put your thumb on it. It is a much weaker Iran and Iran that really cannot produce missiles, drones. The nuclear program is just set back so substantially and then you have a new normal of the U.S. and Israel kind of overhead containment in which it would look like Iraq, you know, in the 90s where we had no fly zones.

I mean you might ultimately get to something like that. But then there again Iran will still have -- they'll be able to get off some drones every now and then. So this is just -- my conclusion right now heading in here to week two. We're in week two, is that this will not be a short war.

[21:10:05]

I just don't see the end point right now or an off ramp. And we'll see. And I think it's going to be increasingly difficult on the economic side as we head into this coming week.

COOPER: But you would first, I mean, the only way to have more systemic change is to eliminate the Revolutionary Guard Corps, to eliminate the levers that they maintain their power.

MCGURK: Yes. You would say, look, let me articulate the best case. We have clear military objectives. We want the nuclear, the navy, the missiles, the drones and elements of the structure. And we're just going to militarily basically degrade them to a point where they cannot project power outward. And that's a militarily achievable objective.

On the political side, you would say whatever system comes out of this, we will retain sanctions, pressure and everything else until you agree as a government, and it is your policy as a new Iranian government not to reconstitute the missile program, the nuclear program.

So you just kind of really work to contain. I mean, if I had to present the best possible case of where this might go and articulate what the end game might be, it's that.

And so the new -- whoever the new government is, if they want out of sanctions pressure, if they want to kind of restore their state, they would then have to really change their policies, not regime change. It's more of an Iranian policy shift.

Look, who knows? Anything can happen here. We could have a very bad day tomorrow in terms of our forces because this is such a dynamic situation. You could have something crack inside Iran. You just never really know.

But given the current course of events and that reconsolidation of power over the weekend, I thought that was the most important thing that happened over the weekend. If we're trying to project ahead again, I see the military objectives. You can articulate them. Political objectives right now interesting. I just don't see them really coming to fruition.

COOPER: Brett McGurk, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Coming up next, perspective on Iran's new lure from CNN's Fareed Zakaria. And here in New York, how police say a protest and clash outside the home of New York's first Muslim mayor could have turned deadly after a homemade explosive was thrown. A second and then a third device were discovered. And two of the suspects, sources tell us, have admitted they were inspired by ISIS.

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[21:16:51]

COOPER: Other late breaking news. Iran has a new supreme leader. He is Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of the former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in U.S. and Israeli airstrikes in the of the war. His elevation is a sign that Iranian hardliners are cementing their grip on power despite the ongoing attacks by American and Israeli forces aimed at weakening the regime. Want to get some perspective from Fareed Zakaria, host of Fareed Zakaria GPS here on CNN. It was interesting to see the president of Iran coming out sort of

apologizing to neighbors saying we're not going to attack you anymore if you don't attack us. And then the hardliners essentially saying that's not the policy. And here's the new leader.

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, FAREED ZAKARIA GPS: Yes, the president of Iran is a, relatively speaking, a liberal, a moderate. He was a doctor. They didn't -- the hardlines didn't want him to run. So he comes from a very different part of the regime.

The sign here is, of course, that what happens is when you attack a country, when you bomb it, the hardliners get powerful. I mean, it would happen in almost any country in the world. And what's happened here is because I would say it's not despite the American attacks, is because of the American and Israeli attacks, the regime is closing ranks. And Khamenei Jr. has an aura around him now because his father was seen by a lot of people in Iran as martyred.

COOPER: And yet he's not certainly as well-known as his father. A lot of Sadjapur (ph) was saying a lot of Iranians have never even heard him speak before.

ZAKARIA: He is not charismatic. He's not well known. He doesn't have that kind of intrinsic clerical legitimacy. But I wouldn't discount the idea that his father, the supreme Leader, the Grand Ayatollah, was, you know, was killed in an Israeli airstrike like that, you know, that has created a certain amount of legitimacy, instant legitimacy for him.

It's a very bad sign for the war because this is -- these are the worst of the hardliners. These are the people who've run Iran into the ground, run it into isolationism, but they are now fully in charge. As I say, this was probably a predictable consequence.

You know, whenever you look at these kind of situations, somebody, you know, somebody attacks a country, foreign attacks, the regime coalesces around the toughest guys.

COOPER: The president Trump has said he wants to have a hand in who is who leads Iran. I mean, that's obviously, that is not the case here, that certainly this is sending a message that the president -- what they think of that idea.

Does it indicate to you how this changes the course of the war? Does it lengthen it, or is it still too soon to tell?

ZAKARIA: I think it lengthens it. It's hard to tell. This is a very fluid situation. But what it tells you is the Iranian regime is dug in. They're not going to do absolute surrender anytime soon. As, you know, presumably they will be able to survive. I mean, that is a question.

But if they survive, they're going to be, you know, pursuing the strategy they are pursuing now. They're not going to be moderating in line with where the president of Iran seemed to want to go. And, you know, look, you can see all indications suggesting that's what people are reading into it.

[21:20:04]

Oil has hit $100 a barrel. Futures markets are dropping very sharply. The Japanese market is down more than it's been in a year. It's a -- it's an extraordinary crisis that has been created by President Trump with no apparent provocation, without a, you know, I mean, that's the last we heard about Iran. Its nuclear program had been obliterated. And now here we are in a huge war with Iran.

COOPER: It's also interesting because President Trump could -- you could see just as easily him deciding to continue this for as long as he wants to continue it, or just suddenly saying, OK, well, we've achieved our objectives. You know, we've set them back. We'll revisit this a couple of years down the road if they rebuild.

ZAKARIA: So this is the one silver lining in Trump's constantly shifting objectives and goals and the kind of vagueness around them, which is that, yes, you're right, he could declare victory, claiming that one of those many goals that he had laid out in the course of the last four or five days has been achieved. And he does have that kind of practical temperament.

So that, to me, is, you know, honestly, still probably the most likely scenario, particularly if markets continue to go badly. Oil continues to climb and could easily go higher. Oil could easily get to 120.

COOPER: It certainly seems like the strategy of the Iranian regime, it would seem to be depending on that off ramp for President Trump. I mean, obviously, if they're continuing to target the Strait of Hormuz, target their allies, or try target neighboring countries.

ZAKARIA: You're exactly right, because they can't win. I mean, Iran is completely has no air defenses. The United States could continue to bomb Iran into the Stone Age if they wanted. So what the Iranians are hoping for is you create enough generalized chaos, tension in the region. Oil prices go up, stock prices go down, and at some point, Trump feels it's not worth the cost.

Because, I mean, this is, you know, an extraordinary power that the President of the United States has, right? He can wage these kind of wars from the air, and he could do it in any country in the world. And that's why I think there should be more thoughtful processes that lead to these kind of incredible weaponry being unleashed.

COOPER: Fareed Zakaria. Thanks very much. I want to go to breaking news here in New York. The New York Police Department says they have removed what they call a suspicious device from a vehicle not far from Gracie Mansion, which is where the New York mayor lives.

It would be the third so far in the wake of dueling demonstrations there yesterday, which saw one such device thrown, which authorities today called a potentially deadly IED. The other two are being analyzed and according to multiple law enforcement sources, two men suspected of throwing that IED and have admitted to being inspired by ISIS. CNN's Gloria Pazmino joins us now with more. So is it clear, Gloria,

if the NYPD believes there is a connection between that vehicle and the ID thrown yesterday near Gracie Mansion?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Anderson, we've confirmed that what the NYPD was looking at, that vehicle which was parked about four blocks from Gracie Mansion where I am now, was in fact related to the investigation they were carrying out after yesterday's protest.

The vehicle was found parked and inside that vehicle the police were able to recover another device. That device was safely removed by the NYPD bomb squad just a few hours ago and it is being sent for further testing.

Now that would be the third device that police have recovered after those protests began here yesterday afternoon. This all started when right-wing influencer and January 6 pardon rioter Jake Lang organized a demonstration here outside of Gracie Mansion, a so called anti- Muslim demonstration which drew about 25 people.

Now that demonstration drew another set of protesters, counter protesters. And while the two groups were separated during the entire time, there were several scuffles that broke out between the two groups.

At one point the anti-Muslim protesters pepper spraying the other group. And it was at that moment that one of the counter protesters threw one of these devices into the crowd, landing where people were, including police officers.

Now those devices did not go off, but there was smoke that was seen coming out of the devices when they were launched. And today we learned from NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch that the devices were found to have had nails, nuts and bolts and screws inside of them. They were about the size of a small football and they are believed to have been put together with some sort of explosive substance that's highly volatile and could ignite when it comes in contact with heat.

[21:25:05]

So that is all being investigated right now. We've also learned, as you mentioned, Anderson, that the two people that were arrested in relation to those devices admitted to have been inspired by ISIS. All of this still under investigation. I should mention that both Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the First Lady Rama Duwaji were safe. There were no injuries during this protest yesterday.

But of course, not only is it happening outside the mayor's house, the mayor being the first Muslim mayor elected here in the city of New York, but also during the holy month of Ramadan. We have heard from the mayor's spokesperson saying that he is thankful to the NYPD for their work and also condemning these protests that were held here yesterday. Anderson.

COOPER: Gloria Pazmino, I appreciate it. I joined now by CNN chief law enforcement intelligence analyst John Miller. This is kind of nuts. JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: This is

extraordinarily serious.

COOPER: Yeah, I mean, two IEDs thrown during this demonstration and then a third found in a vehicle nearby.

MILLER: Right. Now, the NYPD bomb squad brought these up to their range at Rodman's Neck. They were able to render at least one of them safe, which allowed them to take a sample for testing with the FBI. Their preliminary results is that this is TATP.

This is a particular favorite among terrorist groups because it can be homemade from readily available products at a Home Depot, but it's also extraordinarily powerful. But it's also extraordinarily unstable.

If you look at a close up picture of this bomb being thrown in the hand of the individual who threw it, you'll also see that there are two fuses coming out of the top of it, not just one. Which means whoever put this together must have dug deep into the instruction book to come up with this double primer idea that if one fuse fails, the other one should take.

The fact that --

COOPER: Is this the device you're talking about?

MILLER: That's the device. And the fact that the device didn't go off with the power that it would have had given the amount of high energy explosives in it and the shrapnel, which would have gone at somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 meters per second. Think of that force and speed is some kind of testimony to one critical mistake they made in their chemistry or just extraordinarily luck that people weren't torn apart or killed.

COOPER: And the man arrested in connection this device admitted, according to multiple law enforcement officials, that it was inspired by ISIS.

MILLER: Well, as Gloria reported, both of the men allegedly made statements saying that they did this for ISIS. Now, does that mean that this was a directed plot from ISIS headquarters? Possibly, but not likely. What is more likely is you've got an 18-year old and a 19- year old from Bucks County, Pennsylvania here who were probably indoctrinated on the internet, searched out these recipes, created these devices in time to go to this demonstration, and drove there, likely outside of the core protest group that showed up of, you know, made up of New Yorkers.

It's interesting because the organizer of this is one of your January 6th pardoners, you know, Jake Lang, who called it a demonstration against hate, but it was actually a hate demonstration for against Mayor Mamdani because, you know, New Yorkers had elected a candidate who happened to be Muslim.

COOPER: The difficulty as, I mean we haven't focused on this for a long time, but you know, we certainly did a long time ago and obviously remains a concern. The difficulty is unless these people on law enforcement radar have made some sort of public statement on some chat room, these kind of things are very hard to track these people.

MILLER: And I would suspect that this plot came together very quickly, likely spontaneously. Not that the individuals may or may not allegedly have been thinking about it for a while, but the event came up as an opportunity and, you know, they were only a couple of hours outside of New York.

Key thing here though, we look at this as, you know, this is an outgrowth of the war in Iran. ISIS is also at war with Iran. They're the terrorist group who attacked this -- the funeral for Qasem Soleimani. This was -- this was just an extension of the stirring we see in social media by various terrorist groups that can reach young people and drive them and.

COOPER: Obviously a lot to be investigated in terms of where the materials were bought. But again, these are things that can be purchased pretty readily.

MILLER: Yes, I mean TATP, which is basically triacetone triperoxide, is kind of self-explanatory. We've seen it in many plots targeted at New York which were prevented during my time with the NYPD, including the plot to blow up subways with backpack bombs.

[21:30:03]

And we saw the terrible effect of TATP in the London 77 bombings. Remember when they hit the main subway stations across London one day, killing a large number of people and injuring hundreds more.

COOPER: Now, John Miller, appreciate it. Thank you very much. Up next, seven American service members have died so far in this war with Iran. The war is costing close to $1 billion a day. The President faced pressure to wind it down. We'll talk about that with our political panel, next.

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[21:35:12]

COOPER: It's now more than a week since President Trump launched the war in Iran. Seven U.S. service members have died. Analysis by the center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, puts the cost of the war at more than $890 million per day, roughly $8 billion so far.

CNN's polling shows that 6 in 10Americans disapprove of the war. I want to discuss it with former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who served in the Air Force during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also with a senior political commentator, Scott Jennings, a former special Assistant President George W. Bush, and Chief political analyst David Axelrod, a former senior adviser of President Obama.

So, Congressman, have the American people been adequately prepared for both the human and economic toll of this war? You think? ADAM KINZINGER (R) FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE, ILLINOIS: No. This has

been like the most confusing part of this is every time, unless it's like a kind of last minute or extremely limited action, every time America has gone to war, or at least a prolonged military action, the President spends time expressing to the American people, explaining to them what the goal is, the reasons, because -- and this is going to make Donald Trump mad.

But the reality is it's not his military. This isn't his military. This is the American people's military. And it's essential to let them know why are you using it? And I think even crazier than the fact that no time was spent preparing, he had a State of the Union a couple days prior and I think it was like a one or two minutes or whatever on this issue and 48 hours later we're bombing.

So yes, and that's part of the reason the polls are so upside down, because people are like, we didn't even expect it. So, yes, I don't know what else to say except they certainly didn't do the groundwork they need to do at least to win the American people over.

COOPER: David. I mean, eventually the White House, the Pentagon are going to need more money appropriated for the war. Only Congress can do that. How do you expect that would go? Obviously, Democrats failed in their efforts to constrain the President's war powers.

DAVID AXELROD, FORMER SENIOR ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yes, I mean, they're talking about a $50 billion supplemental coming before Congress. Adam knows well the pressures that those members of Congress are going to feel on the Republican side to support the President. I think Democrats are going to think hard about it because you don't want to strand your service people over there we had that debate during the Iraq war.

But listen, I wonder how long this is going to go. I heard Brett McGurk a couple of minutes ago say he thought that they need to define a win and probably cut this short because the idea of regime change seems remote now. And what it would take to try and effectuate that is so dramatic that probably the president's going to have to find a way to cut his losses.

In addition to the things that you mention, Anderson, we also have seen this oil shock, the greatest since the 1970s. The Wall Street Journal said gas prices are up nearly half a dollar in a week. They're headed to $4 or more.

In a country where people are deeply, deeply concerned about costs, that was what most of what the president's cost State of the Union speech about. I think the pressures are going to mount to sort of since they haven't really defined what success here is to define success, claim it and bring this to a close.

COOPER: Scott, do you think do you see that happen? I mean, U.S. oil futures more than $109 a barrel a short time ago. Do you, I mean, the president has put himself in a position where he could very well next week declare victory as however he defines it and call it a day. SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I mean, I guess

I've been paying a little closer attention. It seems to me victory is very obvious. Iran is not going to have nuclear weapons or the capacity to make nuclear weapons, which they told our negotiators they said they had. So that's going away. They're not going to have a ballistic missile program. They're not going to threaten our bases and their neighbors with ballistic missiles. That's going away. They're not going to have a navy that harasses ships in the Gulf. That is also going away.

Those are the goals of the military action. We've been at it for a week. It seems to me our military has been operating with great precision. Everybody inside and outside who's analyzing this says it's going swimmingly. What happens to the Iranian regime, I don't know.

I wish the people of Iran would take the opportunity to take back their country. That would be great. But as it relates to the United States, we have three very clear goals. No nukes, no ballistic missiles, and no aggressive navy messing around with everybody's ships in the Gulf of over there. And that is the goal.

And so hopefully it gets done in under a month. I would love that. And it seems to me the degradation of the Iranian military right now is happening at such a rapid pace that we could get there.

COOPER: Congressman, I mean, the president has said he wants a hand in who leads the country, who's named the new leader.

[21:40:00]

Do you think that's a sticking point?

KINZINGER: Yes. I mean, look, good. I'm glad this is clear to Scott what the goal is, because I've not heard that from anybody in the administration. It was regime change, then it was nukes, and it was -- it was everything.

And look, and I think what Scott laid out is actually a -- not a terrible thing to put in front of the American people and say that we need to degrade this stuff. It's just not what they've said. And Donald Trump himself is the one, as you said, that's like, why want a hand? And who's going to lead the country?

Well, if you're going to do regime change, and look, I would love to see the regime change in Iran. I want to be very clear about that. But it's going to have to come from the inside.

But if you want to do regime change, it's obviously going to take more than just destroying their stuff. And if you don't, you need to prepare the American people for what that is. Again, it's not that this operation is flawed. It's not -- it's the what you're telling the American people, because again, if it's degrade these different things, we're going to do a good job of that.

But that needs to be laid out for Americans because the worst thing is if we go into this with that objective, we haven't told anybody, we achieve that objective and then leave and it's considered a loss because initially we said regime change, that does nothing but embolden our enemies when we should be walking away saying we achieved what we wanted to.

COOPER: David, I mean, I had this conversation with Fareed a little bit earlier, but the president has kind of laid the groundwork for, you know, for whatever he wants to -- whenever he wants to call it quits. I mean, to the congressman's point, he's said a lot of a couple of different things about what the objectives are. He could just say we've reached them.

AXELROD: Yes, well, as I said earlier, I think that he is going to gravitate to that because I think the political pressure for him to do it is going to mount and he's going to hear it a lot from these Republicans who are on the ballot in November and don't want this thing to draw on.

But I just say just picking up on where Adam left off, I mean, there's been a lot of confusion, much of it caused by the President himself, about what the goal was here. And I just remind you that it was only last June when the President said he had obliterated the nuclear program in Iran, we didn't even need negotiations because they had done such damage to the program. The Secretary of Defense said, we've defeated their nuclear ambitions.

And so if people are confused as to why we're back, they should because -- and a lot of this is of the President's own doing. He's so improvisational in his communications that he often over claims over promises, and we end up in a -- in this position of confusion and he has to move on.

But he treats each interaction and each interview and each conversation as if it lives in a world by itself and it's not connected to whatever he said before or after.

COOPER: Scott, I mean, there's been some talk about, you know, actually trying to seize nuclear material if, you know, whether that's something Israel might try or the U.S. with Special Forces. Is that something you would support?

JENNINGS: Well, look, I obviously don't have the benefit of seeing the intelligence about all of this. I only know what our negotiator Witkoff reported back to the president, which is that they told him they had enough nuclear material to make 11 nuclear bombs. That was their negotiating position they started with, which A, tells you they didn't want to make a deal about nuclear weapons, and B tells you that they have never given up on their nuclear ambitions.

I have no doubt we did great damage to their nuclear facilities last summer, but obviously these people are fanatics and they would like to bring about the end of the world using nuclear weapons. I don't think they're ever going to stop doing that. They communicated to us that they're not going to stop doing that. So we want them to stop doing that.

Israel wants them to stop doing that. And if it takes some kind of an operation to seize that material, you know, that's something that should be strongly considered. I'd hesitate to tell you whether I would order it or not order it because, you know, I don't have access to the classified stuff.

But I will tell you this. If the number one goal of this operation is to take away fully Iran's ability to make nuclear weapons, then you have to leave all options on the table to do that. You wouldn't want to walk away here saying, well, you know, we did great damage, but, you know, we left them with the material to make 11 nuclear bombs. You wouldn't want it to end that way.

So I think you got to consider everything to take that down to zero. That is one of the clear conditions of victory here, in my opinion.

COOPER: Scott, Jennings, Adam Kinzinger, David Axelrod. Guys, thanks very much. Have a good weekend.

Coming up, President Trump has said Iran is behind the strike that killed at least 168 girls at this school. CNN has done investigations suggest the U.S. might be the ones to blame. That is next. Details on that.

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[21:49:33]

COOPER: The day that the U.S. and Israel launched this war against Iran, an all girls elementary school in the Iranian town of Minab was hit by a strike, killing at least 168 children and 14 teachers. It is by far the highest casualty event since the beginning of the war.

As to who's responsible, the position of the Trump administration thus far had been it's under investigation. That is until the president was asked about it last night on Air Force One.

[21:50:03]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, did the United States bomb a girl's elementary school in southern Iran on the first day of the war kill 170?

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: No, in my opinion. And based on what I've seen, that was done by Iran.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that true, Mr. Hegseth? It was Iran who did that?

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Who did that? We're certainly investigating, still investigating, but the only side that targets civilians is Iran.

TRUMP: We think it was done by Iran. We think it was done by Iran because they're very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. Was done by Iran. (END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, CNN has done its own analysis, which suggests that President Trump's opinion, as he says, may not be borne out by the evidence. Isobel Yeung has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ISOBEL YEUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A week after a strike killed scores of students in Iran's Minab, it seems more and more likely that the U.S. was responsible. A new satellite image shows an Iranian Revolutionary Guards base and an elementary school in southern Iran. Here you see craters in several of the buildings, including the school. They were hit in their exact centers, suggesting precision strikes, experts say. A wall separates the school and the base.

Satellite images from December show dozens of people in what appears to be a handball court at the school. Reuters now reports that U.S. military investigators believe U.S. forces were responsible, though they haven't yet reached a final conclusion.

N.R. JENZEN-JONES, DIRECTOR, ARMAMENT RESEARCH SERVICES: It paints a picture of multiple simultaneous or near simultaneous strikes. It looks like these were delivered with explosive munitions, probably air delivered. I think the most likely scenario in this case is that it's a U.S. or Israeli airstrike gone awry. It's probably a targeting failure somewhere in the targeting cycle, an intelligence failure.

YEUNG (voice-over): The Israeli military say they weren't operating in the area.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To date, we've hit over 2,000 targets.

YEUNG (voice-over): American military officials say they carried out extensive strikes in this area and released this map showing strikes in southern Iran. The base and the school in Minab are located here.

HEGSETH: We, of course, never target civilian targets, but we're taking a look at investigating that.

JENZEN-JONES: The damage we've seen to the building is quite significant, and it's unlikely it was something like an air defense missile fired by the Iranians, for example.

YEUNG: When we try to assess who is responsible for airstrikes, we typically try to examine the weaponry fragments left behind. But in this instance, there's an Internet blackout in Iran. It's been really difficult to obtain that. And so this investigation is still not conclusive. Isobel Yeung, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: One additional note on this story, a newly emerged video appears to show a U.S. airstrike targeting a building at the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps base adjacent to the elementary school. I just want to play that. The video posted by a semi-official Iranian news agency is the first

to show missiles striking the area. A weapons expert told CNN the munition in the video is consistent with the U.S. Tomahawk. The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to questions about the use of a Tomahawk missile.

But we do know that the U.S. Navy employs Tomahawks, launching them from its surface ships and submarines.

All this is part of what has been quite a consequential night at the end of what appears to have been a punishing weekend for Iran in the war with parts of the capital Tehran in flames. And Iran has a new supreme leader. He's the son of the late supreme leader.

And in just a few minutes, I hope you'll join me for the whole story. For a look at how we got to this historic moment, CNN Sara Sidner will be diving into the decades of hostility between Iran and the U.S. and how it culminated in the decision to attack. Here's a quick look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Cries of grief and anger echo through the streets of Tehran as thousands of Iranians mourn the death of their supreme leader. Anti-U.S. chants are also being heard, according to Iranian state media,

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some of the chants was no submission, no surrender and war with America.

SIDNER (voice-over): But all is not what it seems.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN ANCHOR: Right now they're not all out into the streets. The power structure that still exists there has warned the people, don't come out and celebrate and protest because otherwise you will face, quote, the iron fist of our authority.

SIDNER (voice-over): A 2023 survey of those living inside Iran revealed that over 80 percent of Iranians did not want the Islamic Republic in power.

AMANPOUR: They still have a good 10, 15 percent who believe Khamenei is the voice of God on earth and who have come.

SIDNER (voice-over): So how do Iranians truly feel about the U.S. right now?

AMANPOUR: What many say, and these are people who I've actually been speaking to from Tehran. Yes, on the one hand, they're glad that their oppressor was killed, but on the other hand, they wish that they had been able to capture him and put him on trial.

[21:55:03]

SIDNER (voice-over): In other words, some against the regime yearned to hold their brutal dictatorship responsible on their own terms. When outside forces like the United States intervene, historically, chaos and anger ignite.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: America and Iran were for decades great friends and great partners.

ZAKARIA: Why Iran and the United States ended up from being closest friends to bitterest foes is a complicated story.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOOPER: More on that and The Whole Story. "War With Iran: The Attack And Fallout" starts in just a few minutes at the top of the hour right here after a short break.

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