Return to Transcripts main page
Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Trump On Strait Of Hormuz: "At A Certain Point, It'll Open Itself"; Officials: Thousands More Marines And Sailors Deploy To Middle East; Iran Warns Tourist Sites Worldwide No Longer Safe For Its Enemies; Iran Warns "Tourist Sites" Worldwide No Longer Safe For Its Enemies; Iran's Supreme Leader Releases New Purported Statement; Hegseth On $200B Request For War: "It Takes Money To Kill Bad Guys"; Sources: Pentagon Considering Ground Troops To Take Iran's Kharg Island. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired March 20, 2026 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's a family that can understand the anguish that the Guthries are experiencing at this moment. Now, almost seven weeks into this investigation. Investigators in Pima County tell us that the number of tips being phoned in is dropping, and that this force of officers that once had 400 investigators searching for Nancy Guthrie is now reduced to a task force of about 20 to 24 investigators, which includes Pima County Sheriff's Deputies as well as FBI agents -- Kate.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Ed, thank you so much for telling that family story, really appreciate it. Thank you all so much for joining us tonight, I'm Kate Bolduan. AC360 starts now.
[20:00:41]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": And good evening, thanks for joining us. Topping our CNN Global War coverage from our newsroom with thousands more ground forces heading to the Gulf. President Trump signals the fighting could soon be over. Quoting from his social media post from late today, "We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the terrorist regime of Iran. The Hormuz Strait", he adds, "will have to be guarded and policed as necessary by other nations who use it. The United States does not".
He finishes by saying, "if asked, we will help these countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn't be necessary once Iran's threat is eradicated. Importantly, it will be an easy military operation for them".
In short, getting out and leaving American allies to fend for themselves. As for the declaring victory part, he did that as well today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think we've won. We've knocked out their Navy, their Air Force, we've knocked out their anti-aircraft, we've knocked out everything. We're roaming free from a military standpoint; all they're doing is clogging up the Strait. But from a military standpoint, they're finished.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Keeping them honest, sources in the intelligence community and the administration tell us that unclogging the strait is a problem without a clear solution, one that a recent intelligence assessment determined could drag on for as long as six months.
Now, a Pentagon spokesman dismissed that notion, though, telling CNN, "One assessment does not mean the assessment is plausible and its dangerous for the media to cherry pick the worst-case scenario to scare the American people".
Still, it is hard to find anyone with any experience in the region saying that safeguarding the strait will be, as the President just put it, an easy military operation, or that it will open itself, which he also said today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It's a simple military maneuver. It's relatively safe. But you need a lot of help in the sense of you need ships, you need volume, and NATO could help us, but they so far haven't had the courage to do so and others could help us. But, you know, we don't use it. You know, at a certain point it will open itself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, as the President's other claim, American and Israeli air forces have certainly had remarkable success destroying targets. This is new imagery of an Iranian drone factory before and after American strikes on it. CENTCOM also released this video today, demonstrating, they say the ability now to hit targets deep inside Iran. No details, though, on exactly what you are seeing being destroyed there. Still, Iran does seem able to fire off some missiles.
That's an Iranian missile strike today on the old city in Jerusalem, not far from the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
COOPER: I saw it happen, one of the men in that video saying. The other replies, an impact in the Jewish quarter, wow.
At least one person was hurt in the strike and taken to the hospital with shrapnel wounds. It was just one of a number of missile attacks. This is new video from Iranian media claiming to show a missile launch today. We cannot independently verify this. It's important to point out when or where this is.
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
COOPER: Those are air raid sirens sounding tonight in Tel Aviv as interceptors engage incoming targets over the West Bank. And Iranian drones also hit a Kuwaiti oil refinery overnight. This is video from a drone strike yesterday. Between the two, no one was hurt. Several units in the facility were forced to shut down.
Here at home, gas prices rose again, closing in on the $4.00 gallon mark, nearly a dollar a gallon higher than when the war began. And there's a bit of breaking news on that score, which is likely to cause some controversy. The Treasury tonight greenlighting the delivery and sale of 140 million barrels of Iranian oil already on tankers at sea, which might very temporarily lower oil prices, but also sends millions of dollars to Iran, right now, the enemy of the United States and for a long time.
And with all that on the table and the President now talking as if it all could soon be over and easy for others to deal with, thousands more American Marines and sailors heading to the region, namely the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and Boxer Amphibious Ready Group. They'll be joining two other Marine and Naval units already on the way. So, a lot to talk to you about in the hour ahead.
We begin tonight at the White House with Alayna Treene and more on the mixed messages coming from the President, who sounds like he is ready to abandon the Strait of Hormuz, and CNN reporting that his officials off camera, who are trying to scramble to secure it. So, just how concerned are administration officials behind the scenes about the strait?
[20:05:26]
ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: They're incredibly concerned, Anderson. We spoke with my colleagues and I for this story. Multiple Trump administration officials and many across the intelligence community and essentially what we were told over and over again is that the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is a problem that has no easy solution.
And really, they framed it as something that it really depends on the lengths that the President is willing to go in order to force the Iranian's hands. And I do want to reference you. You referenced it a bit at the top, but this recent internal intelligence assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency, which essentially says that Iran has the capabilities to keep the strait closed for at least another month, but potentially as long as six months. Now, again, that is something that senior white house officials and people at the Pentagon say is a worst-case scenario. They're not actively considering that at this time.
But it does reflect a lot of the anxiety that I've been hearing in my conversations with people in the intelligence community. And one thing that was really interesting was what one of these intelligence officials pointed out to me. They essentially said that people totally underestimate just how long the strait is, it's some 100 miles. And the Iranians, yes, their weapons capabilities have been severely damaged by the ongoing military operations from the U.S. And Israel, but they still do have stockpiles and military capabilities. And given the length of the strait, it makes it very difficult, they said, for the administration to go in and try to neuter the Iranians capabilities to target some of these ships that would be passing through.
So that's part of this as well. And I think another interesting thing is, despite what we did hear from President Trump today, this idea that perhaps, you know, he's going to be winding down military operations, that doesn't exactly align with other reporting we have that they are seriously considering potential ground troops to go into Iran. And specifically, this idea of trying to capture or wipe out the oil infrastructure on Kharg Island, which is referred to as Iran's oil lifeline. It's, you know, responsible for 90 percent of the oil that Iran puts out. And it is something that they are seriously considering, I'm told by high officials here at the White House and throughout the administration, and many people say that would likely require ground troops.
Not a decision the President has made, obviously, one that many people in the White House and many allies outside of the White House are saying they are very wary of and something that would really cause them to lose support for this war. But it's still going to be very, very messy, Anderson, for a very long time.
COOPER: Alayna Treene, thanks so much, appreciate it.
Joining me now is former JAG officer and U.S. Army combat veteran Margaret Donovan, also retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Robert Harward, who's served as a SEAL Officer and is a former deputy commander of U.S. Central Command. He's also a member of the Iran policy project at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. Margaret, you heard the President saying that the war could end right now, but that further airstrikes would mean Iran could never rebuild militarily. Where do you see things right now today?
MARGARET DONOVAN, U.S. ARMY COMBAT VETERAN, SERVED IN IRAQ AND SYRIA: Sure, well, first, I would want to say that the very early mission accomplished, we could end the war. That sounds quite familiar to a lot of Americans right now. I think, I hate to say it, but I think that we have gotten ourselves into a scenario where we may need boots on the ground. And the reason I say that is because you can't launch an all-air campaign with just airstrikes without actually having a presence in country. So, think about what we did --
COOPER: Even if you're not trying to go for regime change?
DONOVAN: Correct, even if you're not trying, I don't think you can do it at all. I think that it's very disruptive to the country in general, because think about this, from the perspective of the civilian populace in country, they are just seeing buildings getting destroyed. And I have no doubt that CENTCOM is getting really good targets. And it looks like we are hitting the targets that we want, but were also hitting targets that are creating serious civilian casualties. And so, if you don't have boots on the ground actually monitoring what's going on in country that can spiral out of control very quickly.
And if you want to compare it to Iraq in 2003 where we saw an insurgency emerge, the scenario there is not even comparable to what we're dealing with here. Iraq is about half the size of Iran. And in 2003, Iraq, and later in 2014, when we went back to try to weed out the Islamic State, we had a multi country coalition in country with us, fighting alongside us and actual boots on the ground. We also had State Department resources, USAID, NGO's, we had groups there doing building, doing reconstruction.
By contrast, right now, on the ground in Iran, all there is destruction and there is no functional government. We are making sure that there is no functional government to help people rebuild. And so that leaves civilians with a question of who is helping us, who are the good guys here?
[20:10:14]
COOPER: Admiral, what do you think of that? I mean, there's the report that thousands more Marines and sailors are expected to deploy to the Middle East. How do you expect that they would be used?
ROBERT HARWARD, RETIRED U.S. NAVY VICE ADMIRAL: I got a little different slant on this, Anderson, but it's good to be here with you and Margaret. Let me first off, recognize the Iranian people tonight. We've just kicked off Nowruz, which is their New Years. That's just starting today in Iran and this is that day of the year where everyone comes together to celebrate. It's one of those special days and as we all know, no one's coming out and celebrating today because they're worried they're going to be murdered. And so, that's part of what this is all about and back to the point.
With the introduction of those forces, it doesn't just mean they have to go to shore. It's another indicator of how committed the President to this and the additional options put on the table. And as you're right, you're seeing a lot of strikes on missile facilities, mines, infrastructure, and that you're also seeing a lot of strikes against the leadership, the IRGC. And the more that goes on, there's another symbol of how fragile this is to the government and their strategy to outlast Trump, which I don't think is going to happen.
So, back to the forces, the Marines. They don't necessarily have to go to shore. They have lots of options that the President can use to crank up the heat. They can conduct MIO operation Maritime Interception Operations, just like you said, those tankers that are being sold, just like the Venezuelan tankers, we can take them. We can sell that on the market, make sure that oil money goes somewhere else. We can blockade and ensure none of their oil flows. Maybe we do want to put a beachhead on Kharg Island or some of the other islands to indicate the Iranian people, we're here and willing to come ashore, and then maybe even bond or boss.
So, I disagree with Margaret a little bit. I think as more and especially, you're seeing the Israeli strategy, not just the infrastructure, go after the leadership, there becomes a tipping point where the leadership, the Basij and particularly the Artesh decides, hey, this isn't going to work out well for us because I'm seeing a lot of people around me get killed. I want to be a part of the future of Iran. So, I'm hoping that tipping point comes before we have to put heavy land forces or the option of heavy land forces ashore. So again, the President's definitely not showing his hand. I think he's part of the deception plan, but he's keeping all options open and he's demonstrating his commitment to the Iranian people.
COOPER: Margaret, the idea of regime change, though, which the admiral is, is talking about, about the government essentially falling or the new people who are filling the slots of the people who have been assassinated thinking, well, look, the future is not with the old regime, it's with something new. That requires the fact that, I mean, there are hundreds of thousands of Revolutionary Guard Corps members who are armed. Theres the Basij Militia Members who are armed, all of whom have families to support, all of whom are invested in the corrupt regime, which owns businesses. They have tentacles and a lot of commercial operations. It's not as, it's not just like, you know, people who might just change sides, they are deeply ingrained and committed to this regime.
DONOVAN: Yes, I think that there are --
COOPER: And by the way, things won't go well when their arms are taken away and their neighbors come to kill them, as many people would want to in Iran.
DONOVAN: Yes, absolutely. I think that there's some real, sort of like societal and structural protections against, you know, a smooth regime change. My concern and my perspective on this is that we're not really thinking long-term enough. If we really are just going to wipe out every regime that comes in there. You're putting a lot of money on thinking that there's going to be some type of organic, peaceful, maybe Democratic, maybe not replacement of that regime.
And I'm just not sure that we can see that's going to happen if the only thing were doing is, you know, launching missiles from 10,000 feet in the air, I think that we have to have something more integrated there. And so, that's why I think, you know, I don't think anybody wants boots on the ground anywhere, but I think it's kind of unavoidable here.
COOPER: Well, admiral, have you ever seen a situation where bombing alone creates regime change?
HARWARD: No, but I don't think were just bombing alone. I think there's a lot more going on with that, especially if you look at the Israelis, their capabilities and their strategy. It's been very focused on what's going on in Iran. And if you've watched this has gone on for decades, remember, a couple of years ago--
COOPER: But they don't have boots on the ground. I mean, they have boots in Southern Lebanon, maybe they'll even go to Beirut as they have in the past. But I mean, there's and there may be operatives in, you know, obviously operating clearly, they have operatives operating in Iran, but there's not like, if there's never been in the history of warfare, a case of regime change from an aerial campaign alone doesn't require a large footprint on the ground?
[20:15:26] HARWARD: You have a large footprint on the ground. You got 60 million Iranians who want these, son of a guns gone. And so those networks you just talked about are part of that effort. And there comes a tipping point. You're watching the greatest hide and seek gig going on in the world. They're hiding their missiles, they're hiding their minds, they're hiding from us, trying to kill them and the Israelis trying to kill them.
The Iranian people hiding in their homes because they don't want to come out and be killed. can strikes, can empowering those networks, can eradicating much of the leadership contribute to that? And more importantly, are those networks working with those outliers? And don't forget, I watched this in 1979. That regime changed without a bombing campaign because the Artesh, based on U.S. policy, by the way, I was there when Jimmy Carter sent out envoys and envoys to tell the Shah that if he used his army to put down the rebellion, we will pullout. It was a human rights violation. That's part of what lost the country. So, if we can use those networks to undermine that confidence in the regime, with the Artesh, with the police and others that they turn, then yes, you can achieve this with a bombing campaign linked to those other elements of targeting the leadership, supplying and enabling the opposition and driving those elements to effect change.
But your greatest enabler here is the Iranian people. And again, why, this is not a good Nowruz. It could be their most historic Nowruz ever because it's the last one where this regime is in power.
COOPER: Yes, Margaret, I want you to have the last word.
DONOVAN: Look, I just, I don't know how you, you know, I don't share that perspective because I think when you look at what happened in Iraq, when we had such a presence there and we still had an insurgency, and when we left, you saw the Islamic State take hold, and maybe that --
COOPER: You had you had, there was a de-baathification campaign in Iraq, which to a lot of people, seemed clearly to a lot of U.S. officials seem like a good idea at the time. And then it basically all, these people with military training and access to weapons suddenly lost access to power and formed the insurgency.
DONOVAN: Yes, and, you know, the other thing that I would say is, look, before we started this campaign, the Iranian government was doing horrific things to protesters and to civilians. We had reports of thousands of civilians just completely, brutally murdered by the regime.
COOPER: Could be tens of thousands, we have no idea.
DONOVAN: Yes, absolutely. But you might get there in civilian casualties if you do enough airstrikes for a long enough time. And so, my concern is that if the civilian populace looks and says, well, actually there's a lot of civilians dying right now and, you know, they're going to, I guess, wonder who what the worst of two evils was.
COOPER: We'll see. Admiral Harward, I really appreciate your time tonight. Margaret Donovan as well, thanks. Margaret, is going to stay with us.
I want to talk next about a new warning from Iran's military threatening Americans and Israelis in tourist spots around the world.
Also, what to make of a new purported message today from Iran's Supreme Leader perspective, from a former prisoner of the regime. As our CNN Global War coverage continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:23:00]
COOPER: Welcome back to our coverage from the newsroom. Today's missile strike on Jerusalem's old city signaled, if nothing else, that Iran's ability to strike in the region militarily may not yet be, as the President said today, finished. It also comes alongside a new warning to American and Israeli officials from Iran's military and I'm quoting from that statement now, "even tourist sites," they said, "recreational areas and leisure centers around the world will not be safe for you".
Margaret Donovan is back joining us, as well as CNN chief law enforcement intelligence analyst John Miller. How much, John, does that overt threat from Iran? Does it change the calculus in any way from U.S. law enforcement? Just I mean.
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, you have to look at it two ways. Yesterday, the U.S. Justice Department seized four websites and charged them with psychological operations on behalf of Iranian agents. They were publishing the home addresses of employees of the Israeli government and the IDF. They were threatening Iranian journalists and dissidents in the United States. They were claiming on these different websites, all posing under different guises other than the Iranian government, that, you know, their phones were being tracked and they could be touched at any time. So, this latest threat, overt as it is, could be more psychological operations.
The problem with that is, and I want to go to a bunch of wanted posters that represent the cases that the New York FBI, ATF, and NYPD intelligence bureau did over recent years. These involve Iranian operators both overseas and on the ground in the United States who were plotting assassinations, who were doing surveillance of targets, infrastructure, tourist locations, government locations, and sending planning books back for --
COOPER: And this is no joke, I mean, there have been assassination attempts on Iranian dissidents in the United States and Canada and elsewhere. And plots to kill U.S. government officials, President Trump, when he was a candidate. So, even though these people have been identified, some of them are in jail here having been convicted, some of them are still being sought, but their compromised. We would be naive, given this threat, to believe that the Iranian government, over the time since we made those arrests, have not replaced them with others. So, you have to take it as serious.
[20:25:10]
COOPER: Margaret, you represent former FBI and Department of Justice counterterrorism experts who were fired because of links to past investigations of President Trump. Those people, those agents, those intelligence experts who may have been working on Iran or other things in the region, what would they normally be doing in a time of war? I mean, what is the U.S. government loss because they have been fired?
DONOVAN: Yes, absolutely. So, I represent a lot of former agents and pretty much any agent. So not specific to the ones that were most recently fired, but my other clients. Any agent is going to be working counterterrorism and they're going to have an expertise in sort of preventing terrorist threats at home. And so, at any moment, you want the FBI and you want these domestic law enforcement agencies to be on some level of high alert for this type of thing.
And as you just discussed, that usually is quite successful. And we've had a really robust practice over these past few decades since 9/11. But when you go to war with another country, you want to be on as high alert as you possibly can be. And so, when you have FBI agents that are doing counterterrorism operations, they may have, for example, sources that they're talking to. So, they may be monitoring sleeper cells that are actually in the United States, or they may be may be monitoring threats that could be coming in from foreign countries. The problem is that when you fire agents summarily and you don't allow them any time to transition those cases, those cases just sort of disappear, right?
So, if you had an agent who was talking to, let's say, a source that had information about a sleeper cell that was in the U.S., and that agent is fired without any time to transition his or her cases. You lose that really valuable source of intelligence, and nobody's any the wiser for it.
COOPER: Well, John, there were also stories of, you know, in an effort to get 3,000 people, you know, deported every single day of taking FBI field officers, agents off their, their casework in some cases, I guess, counterterrorism work and get them out on the street going after, you know, to, to get the numbers for deportations. And Stephen Miller reportedly wanted, do you know if that's had an impact at all?
MILLER: It has, you know, in the New York office, they were, they were contributing 100 agents per week away from casework to chasing mostly civil immigration matters. Some criminals.
COOPER: Not like major criminal syndicates that they needed FBI experts.
MILLER: They had to make the numbers and they had to go where the team from ICE that they were assigned to was going. But if you take a look at, if that's New York, take a look at smaller field offices where, you know, if you're donating five agents or 15 agents, that's a much larger impact in a place like Cleveland or, you know, Kansas City.
So yeah, it has an effect. And to just piggyback on what Margaret was saying, it's not just that you're summarily firing agents and they're out there. You know, they learn on Thursday that they're out the door on Friday. But you're also firing experience depth, context, even if they hand over the case, nobody else is going to know what they learned over 15 or 27 years on that subject. And when you look at all of those wanted posters that we just showed, right, all of those agents, 99 percent of those cases were from the Washington field office, Foreign Counterintelligence Squad, which was basically wiped out because they had also worked on Mar-a-Lago and other cases that involved.
COOPER: Really, the Washington -- that was basically wiped out, that office.
MILLER: Right, you look at these suspects, the people who developed these cases, the people who have those human sources that Margaret's talking about, those agents were basically told to pack up and go.
COOPER: And I mean, that's -- it's incredible that that occurred just before the President decides to go to war.
MILLER: And if you take that up to the executive level, not just the people who knew those cases the best, but the most experienced FBI executives who had run major counterterrorism cases from 9/11 forward, the kind of experience you need right now were also pushed out because they had some involvement in some case that offended somebody in the White House.
COOPER: John Miller, Margaret Donovan, thanks so much, appreciate it.
Someone who's seen the Iranian regime's oppression and cruelty up close as a prisoner of it on the new leadership, which is now emerging from the war. Join me to talk about that ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:33:39]
COOPER: A new message today from Iran's newly appointed Supreme Leader. As with the one before it, it was just a statement, no audio or video. Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared in public in the nearly two weeks since he was named his father's successor. He's believed to have been hurt in the strike that killed the former Supreme Leader. We don't know the extent of any injuries he may have.
The latest statement claims that attacks on Oman and Turkey carried out by Iran were actually false flag tactics by the U.S. and Israel. As we mentioned, the Iranian military also issued a statement today warning that, quote, "tourist sites, recreational areas, and leisure centers worldwide are no longer safe for its enemies."
For perspective now, I'm joined by Kian Tajbakhsh, he was imprisoned in Iran because of his work as a democracy and human rights advocate. He's now a professor at New York University. Thank you so much for being with us.
You obviously have a unique vantage point on this current regime. How long were you in prison for -- how do you see the power of this regime?
KIAN TAJBAKHSH, VISITING PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, NYU: Well, first of all, thank you for inviting me on your show. I wanted to just say that I was one of the American citizens I think longest held by the Iranian regime in prison. I was arrested in 2009. I was held in Evin Prison for over a year.
[20:35:02]
COOPER: From a notorious prison in Tehran.
TAJBAKHSH: Yes, exactly. For -- including over eight months in solitary confinement under the IRGC high, you know, high protection wing for political prisoners. Then I was held for six years under house arrest, under constant surveillance until my release was negotiated under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. I was one of the Iranian Americans.
So, you know, my perspective is framed. My interpretation of what's going on is framed very much by that experience. My many, many hours of interrogation, months of interrogation, and years of under surveillance and being in contact with both middle level and senior level IRGC officers really gave me a view into their world.
What I saw was less cynicism than great conviction.
COOPER: Really?
TAJBAKHSH: Yes. Very great conviction. These are very, very ideological, very committed ideologues.
COOPER: True believers?
TAJBAKHSH: True believers.
COOPER: Because, you know, there are stories that in the old Soviet Union, you would run into people who didn't -- knew the system was corrupt from the inside, but were playing their part in -- as a cog in the wheel. You've met true believers there.
TAJBAKHSH: Yes, that's right. I mean, I would estimate that 5 to 10 percent of the population are true believers. I think it's important for viewers to understand when we talk about the Iranian people --
COOPER: Right.
TAJBAKHSH: -- we can separate --
COOPER: Right, there's 93 million Iranians.
TAJBAKHSH: Exactly. We can separate them into three basic groups. I'd say 10 to 15 percent are the ideological base of the regime. Half of them are true believers, half of them are beneficiaries. Their livelihoods depend on that. 30 percent of the population are just apolitical, and that leaves 50 percent of the population that wants to live under a different regime. COOPER: So what do you think the possibility of regime change actually is?
TAJBAKHSH: Well, right now, in the next, I'd say, few weeks, I don't see it as very high yet. It depends on two factors. One is if the decapitation and the degrading of the IRGC repressive apparatus, which Israeli strikes --
COOPER: Right.
TAJBAKHSH: -- by all accounts are really taking out --
COOPER: Even Basij militia checkpoints they've been hitting.
TAJBAKHSH: Yes, that's right. They've been hitting them, and they've been hitting their depots, their -- you know, where they have their motorcycles, their weapons, their logistics, their computer centers. So one thing is about -- you know, regime change in Iran will depend on the balance between fear and anger amongst that 50 percent.
Currently, fear is very high, and the reason is because on January 8th and 9th, as you reported yourself, I mean, the network's reported, the deceased Supreme Leader ordered a massacre of unprecedented scale by reports between 10,000 to 15,000 people were killed in two days. These were unarmed protesters.
COOPER: They were just executions just in the last two days.
TAJBAKHSH: Right, right. But, I mean, if you think about people thinking about going out of their home --
COOPER: Right.
TAJBAKHSH: -- I mean, I speak with family every day in Tehran, they are hunkered in their homes. They're trying to stay safe. At the moment, the idea of regime change is, you know, relates to the weakening of the regime and the -- an opening for the people to go out into the street. But that's not going to happen --
COOPER: The Iranian revolution that brought this regime into power, I mean, didn't that go on for a year? I mean, it went on for a long time. I mean, it took a long time for the Shah's regime to fall. So even if you have large numbers of people, I mean, how much access to weaponry do people have?
TAJBAKHSH: No, well, that's, I mean, that's part of the equation. Currently, the asymmetry, the balance of power on those --
COOPER: If you have hundreds of thousands of Revolutionary Guard people --
TAJBAKHSH: Exactly.
COOPER: -- who are armed and militia members who are armed, that's significant. TAJBAKHSH: Yes. That's why the balance of power doesn't at the moment advantage the 50 percent of the population that wants to move and protest in the street and push for a new regime. But currently, I think we're seeing disarray in the leadership as the decapitation goes on.
We're seeing more and more mid-level IRGC officers having to scramble to try to, you know, coordinate with each other. And I think that slowly over time, we might reach a point where that balance of power on the street shifts towards the people. But it's not going to happen in the next few weeks.
COOPER: Right.
TAJBAKHSH: I think people are going to wait in their houses until the military operation winds down.
[20:40:02]
COOPER: Yes. Well, I know today is a holiday, and it's a difficult one for so many families. And obviously, I know your thoughts are with so many people in -- throughout Iran who are celebrating in sadness and doubt tonight.
Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.
TAJBAKHSH: Well, thank you very much, Anderson.
COOPER: Yes. Great to have you.
Up next, a U.S. congressman and Marine combat veteran on the President's victory claim today and how that squares with the Pentagon sending thousands more Marines and sailors into the region. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Another look at new video from Iranian media claiming to show a missile launch today, retaliation, they say, for the assassination of two senior leaders. Again, we can't independently verify where and when this may have taken place.
In just a few minutes, we'll be bringing you a scene on Town Hall, War with Iran, starts at the top of the hour with a live studio audience. Will be moderated by CNN's Dana Bash, who joins us now.
Who's joining you in the studio tonight, Dana?
[20:45:08]
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Anderson. Well, we are going to have the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Mike Waltz, who will be here. And the studio, as you probably see, is already filled with people who are going to have a chance to ask him, as a representative of the Trump administration, some of the questions that you've been talking about on your show tonight and really all week long.
So many unanswered questions from the military presence in the region, the sailors and Marines who, as you've been reporting, are now heading towards the region, new ones, and the gas prices here in the United States and the oil prices that are rising around the world. Those are just some of the questions that we know these very smart people in the audience are going to have.
And we're going to also be talking to some of our analysts afterwards to give a little bit more context to what we'll hear tonight, Anderson.
COOPER: All right. Dana Bash, thanks very much. We'll be watching. Again. The CNN Town Hall gets underway at the top of the hour, about 45 -- 15 minutes from now. It's about 45 past the hour.
You're looking at new video released today by CENTCOM with the caption, U.S. forces continue to degrade Iranian combat capabilities by striking military targets deep inside Iran. Now, it's unclear where these strikes are and what's being hit as the war with Iran is about to enter its fourth week.
The price tag continues to grow. Pentagon has asked the White House to approve a request to Congress for over $200 billion in additional military funding, according to two sources. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was asked about that request.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: As far as $200 billion, I think that number could move, obviously. It takes money to kill bad guys.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The war funding requests, along with growing frustration over the administration's inability to articulate a clear timeline for ending military operations, is exposing some cracks even among some of the President's most ardent supporters in Congress.
For more, I want to bring in Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss. He's also a Marine combat veteran who commanded infantry in Afghanistan. Congressman, the President said today, quote, "I think we've won from a military standpoint. They're finished," end quote. Yet there's the reporting that the Pentagon is sending thousands more Marines and sailors to the Middle East.
President also said the Strait of Hormuz will, quote, "at a certain point, open itself." He also complained allies have not sent military assets to help secure the Strait. How do you square that or figure out where things are headed?
REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): Anderson, good evening. No, the United States has not won the war. No, the Strait of Hormuz is not going to clear itself. And as is so often with this President, you can see that by his actions rather than by listening to his words. He's frantically dialing 911 right now. These Marine expeditionary units are oftentimes called the President's 911 because they are each of them integrated air ground task forces that can organically sustain themselves for up to 15 to 30 days at a time and really deliver war unto themselves. And the last time a president had to deploy two of these Marine expeditionary units to one conflict zone was at the beginning of Afghanistan and Iraq 25 years ago.
So the idea that this President is mobilizing this kind of war making capability at the same time as he's declaring hostilities are over should cause a lot of skepticism in the American public who are exhausted by forever wars in the Middle East.
COOPER: The President has claimed he wasn't briefed or suggested he wasn't briefed on the possibility that Iran would strike out at U.S. regional allies or strike, you know, shut down the Strait of Hormuz. Tonight, there's reporting that U.S. officials have considered sending in troops to capture Kharg Island, which, as you know, handles 90 percent of Iran's crude exports as a way to force Iran to back down.
You know, combat, you know what it's like to command Marines. How complicated would that kind of a mission be?
AUCHINCLOSS: Immensely complicated. First of all, if the President gives an order to these Marine expeditionary units to occupy Kharg Island, to occupy the other islands in the Strait of Hormuz on which Iran is housing drones or missiles, these boys are going to do it.
The Marines do not leave missions incomplete. They will take those islands. But as I said earlier, these expeditionary units have 15 to 30 days of organic sustainment for warfare. That means they're going to need to be resupplied, ultimately reinforced to actually hold those islands. That sounds like the beginning of a quagmire to me.
And the American public does not want sustained deployment of boots on the ground in the Middle East. And if this President comes to Congress and asks for money to appropriate for this kind of a warfare without asking for authorization, the resounding answer from Congress should be no.
[20:50:02]
We should stop treating ourselves like an ATM for this President and start treating ourselves like the embodiment of the voice of the American people who do not want this endless warfare without strategic purpose.
COOPER: Congressman Auchincloss, I appreciate you being with us tonight. Thanks so much.
Coming up, more on what Iran's Supreme Leader is purportedly saying to the world and what that might mean for the future of this war.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: We heard today from the President, as we heard from Iran's supreme leader in his purported new message. He claims to have ridden around the streets of Tehran anonymously in a taxi, but has yet to show his face or even release an audio message.
My next guest's thoughts on why and what that could mean for the future of this war, Karim Sadjadpour, is a CNN Global Affairs Analyst, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an expert on Iran.
Karim, just to be clear, is there any logical reason other than he's seriously injured or worse for the supreme leader not to have been seen on television or even heard an audio recording?
[20:55:10]
KARIM SADJADPOUR, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: It's unclear, Anderson. He's obviously someone who's hiding for his life because he has an Israeli bullseye on his back. And there are questions about whether he is alive. And if he's alive, what is the state of his health.
I was told by someone who's known him for many years that he's not really capable of delivering a speech. But the fact that now his second message on such an important occasion was read on state television and he hasn't been heard raises a lot more questions about his state.
COOPER: What you said, your friend said he's not capable of giving a speech, meaning he's not a good speaker or he's like physically not well enough right now to speak?
SADJADPOUR: He's someone, Mojtaba Khamenei, who's never really given a public speech. There's only one grainy video of him which exists. And now not only are 90 million Iranian eyes on him, but the world's eyes are on him.
And so, there are real questions about even if he is in a proper physical state, what his emotional state is and really what are his capabilities. It doesn't seem, Anderson, that he's going to be Iran's next strongman.
COOPER: What do you think the new regime, I mean, the new -- the replacement regimes -- regime, what is it -- it's -- how does it compare to the one -- the others who have been killed? I mean, there are some who I have talked to who said that they think this newer generation of Iranian leadership, this replacement leadership, that they no longer report to the assassinated Supreme Leader, Revolutionary Guard commanders who've been killed, that they'll be even more brutal to stay in power. Do you think that's true?
SADJADPOUR: It's a regime which has been decimated, but at the moment it looks like it's hardened. And indeed, brutality is really their only option to stay in power. The metaphor I think about is like a headless octopus. It has a lot of tentacles which are doing a lot of things, whether that's holding the straits of Hormuz or attacks on Gulf countries or internal brutality. But there isn't any more central leader, a supreme leader or central military commander ordering around those tentacles. COOPER: Do you think the nature of this war has changed for the United States, that the stakes are different than they were when the President decided to act?
SADJADPOUR: I do understand. I think this began as a war of choice for President Trump, and it's morphed into a war of necessity and that it's going to be very difficult for him to end this war as long as Iran is controlling such a critical corridor of the global economy, the Strait of Hormuz. But as your previous guest said, freeing that from Iran is not going to necessarily be an easy operation.
COOPER: The President has indicated today that essentially, you know, the U.S. doesn't really use the Strait, therefore, it's going to be up to American allies to police the Strait after all this. Do you see that as realistic?
SADJADPOUR: Much of that oil and gas and fertilizer is not bound for America or even American allies, it's bound for Asia. So I think the President's instincts to want to internationalize the problem is well intended. But it doesn't seem like our allies are really prepared to put skin in the game.
COOPER: Can you just remind people that the amount of power the Revolutionary Guard has had and continues to have -- can there be any change in Iran if they regard -- if the guard remains so central and has their tentacles in so many aspects of life?
SADJADPOUR: You know, the Revolutionary Guards are approximately 150,000 men, and they are the country's most powerful political and economic institution. And I don't want to give the impression that there are 150,000 men who think identically. Certainly at the top levels, those are men that were appointed by previous Supreme Leader and they share his ideology.
But among the rank and file, I think there's a diversity of views. And in many ways, the battle for Iran's future will be battles and debates within the Revolutionary Guards.
COOPER: You've compared the inner functioning of the Iranian regime to a black box. Can you explain what that means?
SADJADPOUR: This is a regime which is largely inaccessible to us, Anderson. Its current leaders are hiding underground. And I saw my friend Kian Tajbakhsh earlier on the program. He was someone who was a researcher in Iran. He was imprisoned.
So any independent journalists, academics, researchers don't have access to this country. And so it really is the inner workings of this regime are a black box. And it's a regime which really can't communicate amongst themselves because their communications are so penetrated. They're all really worried about, you know, living the next day.
COOPER: He was saying that he thinks -- we only have about 30 seconds left -- but he was saying he thinks about half the population is against the current system, against this regime, want desperately wants change. Do you think that's true?
SADJADPOUR: I do think an overwhelming majority, Anderson, want change. And, you know, today is the Persian New Year, Nowruz, which is a 3,000-year celebration of spring.
COOPER: Yes.
SADJADPOUR: And I say that, you know, this is a population which for five decades has been waiting for a political spring.
COOPER: Yes. Karim Sadjadpour, I appreciate your time.
Our CNN Town Hall War with Iran, moderated by Dana Bash, starts now.
