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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

Trump Demands "Unconditional Surrender" In Warning To Iran; Just In: Situation Room Meeting On Middle East Has Ended; Lawmakers Get Security Briefing In Wake Of Minnesota Shooting. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired June 17, 2025 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:18]

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Breaking news this hour, President Trump convenes his national security team in the Situation Room.

Will he order the U.S. military to strike Iran?

Let's head into THE ARENA.

Right now, that meeting is just ending. As sources tell CNN, Trump is warming to the possibility of using military assets to strike Iranian nuclear facilities.

Plus, members of Congress demand more protection, claiming we're not safe following the assassination of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband. A lawmaker on the alleged gunman's hit list takes us inside today's emergency security briefing.

(MUSIC)

HUNT: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA.

It's wonderful to have you with us on this Tuesday.

Today, President Trump is faced with what could be the most important decision of his second term. Will he order the United States military to bomb Iran?

Just moments ago, the president wrapped a meeting with his national security team in the Situation Room as he weighs this very question. And although President Trump has so far been publicly pushing for a deal with Iran, two officials familiar with the situation tell CNN that he's increasingly warm to using the U.S. military in Iran.

And publicly, his tone seems to be changing very quickly.

So, this afternoon, he posted this, quote: We know exactly where the so-called supreme leader is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there. We are not going to take him out, kill, exclamation point, at least not for now. But the president added, our patience is wearing thin.

He then followed up that with this post: unconditional surrender, implying that that's the solution for Iran. That, of course, at this writing seems the very least unlikely.

Over five days of airstrikes, Iran has killed 24 Israelis, injured many more. And at the same time, Israel has devastated Iran's military and intelligence leadership and decimated their air defense capability. That leaves the country's nuclear facilities more vulnerable than they have ever been.

But Israel simply can't wipe out the entire program by themselves. So why is that? Experts say that the Fordow enrichment facility, which is built more than 250 feet underground, could only be destroyed by an enormous bunker busting bomb, is a bomb that only America has and that only America can drop. And that is the dilemma facing the president. He can't just hand Israel the bombs and let them drop them.

It weighs 30,000 pounds. The only plane that can carry that 30,000- pound bomb is an American B-2 bomber.

So, put simply, if President Trump wants to fully destroy Iran's nuclear program, American airmen will have to conduct air strikes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): If we don't take out their nuclear program now, we'll all regret it. We're very close. Be all in, Mr. President, and helping Israel finish the job. And let's see where we're at after we neutralize their nuclear program.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: There you have it from someone who, in that same interview, said he was on the phone with President Trump last night. And that message delivered just a few minutes ago, comes as there are real signs we're getting closer to the possibility that President Trump might order what Lindsey Graham was talking about right there. More than 30 American aerial refueling tankers have been moved into the region in recent days. Two sources telling CNN that that's being done in order to give the president options. Those options could include refueling Israeli jets or enabling joint strikes.

Now, of course, there is pressure from inside and outside the president's party to walk back from this brink.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Hoping the president will not get involved with the war.

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): I happen to believe that the U.S. being at war with Iran would be a colossal mistake. There is no national security imperative that suggests that we should.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Let's take a second to reflect on this moment. The decisions, like the one that President Trump is facing right now, can come to define entire presidencies. And of course, moments like these are filled with risk and uncertainty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN F. KENNEDY, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: This small band of gallant Cuban refugees must have known that they were chancing, determined as they were, against heavy odds.

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Late yesterday, I canceled a carefully planned operation which was underway in Iran to position our rescue team for a later withdrawal of American hostages.

[16:05:08]

GEORGE H.W. BUSH, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Just two hours ago, Allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait.

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda.

JOE BIDEN, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Our military mission in Afghanistan will conclude on August 31st.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Quite a bit there. And our panel is going to weigh in on what this moment means for President Trump.

But we're going to start with CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward. She's in Tel Aviv and CNN's senior White House correspondent, Kristen Holmes.

Kristen, let me start with you, because the president's Situation Room meeting with his national security team just wrapped up minutes ago.

Are we learning anything at this hour about what was said inside?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That they were going to discuss is what the U.S. posture was going to be? As you have said, Donald Trump has vacillated between saying he wants a diplomatic solution and now warming to this idea of a more aggressive approach. And I'm told in part, that's going to be about what the Iranians are doing as well.

So, all of this is for him to hear out his closest advisors and his cabinet officials. We've been watching Pete Hegseth leaving. Stephen Miller just walked out. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, he is surrounding himself by his closest and highest ranking officials as they enter into this period, which, as you say, could be and is likely to be one of the most consequential moments in his presidency.

Now, one of the things that Donald Trump had repeatedly said behind closed doors before was that he wanted a diplomatic solution. He was incredibly wary of getting the U.S. involved. But as the days have gone on, he has reached out to various sources asking them what they think. Do they think it is imperative that the U.S. get involved? One of the things that we are told that he is focused on, too, is what

would happen if the U.S. did get involved? What would that timeline look like? Because one of the things Donald Trump deeply cares about is that this is not some kind of extended war, regardless of whether or not the United States gets involved.

President Trump does not want this to be long and drawn out. He ran on this idea that there would be no wars under him. Obviously, we are seeing what is happening, happening in the Middle East. And there is now this perspective of the United States getting even more involved.

The other thing I am told that the White House is watching for is what exactly is Iran doing? You can hear Donald Trump asking people, saying that they're up to no good. And seeing actually in these various posts, a kind of loose threats when it comes to Iran, don't go after U.S. military assets, don't go after anything related to America. That's not what we're doing here.

And Donald Trump himself seems to be getting more and more invested in what's going on. I want to pull up one. You read one of these when he was talking about the supreme leader, but another post that he posted, he said, we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran. That's that second post there.

We there is the key operative term, essentially saying the United States is part of that. We don't have any answers on what exactly that means for the United States, what they're doing. But obviously we are very involved already, but not quite at the level that is now currently being discussed.

HUNT: All right. Very interesting on all.

Clarissa, bring us up to speed. You're in the region, obviously, a region that has been very much on edge. What is the latest there and what are residents and leaders in that region expecting?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I would say, you know, in terms of the near term, people are getting ready for another night. They're wondering whether it's going to bring more strikes. Last night was much quieter than the previous three days. No casualties overnight. There were a number of instances where sirens went off, but no major impacts.

And according to the IDF, there were about 30 missile or drone launches, which compared to 200 on the first night after Israel began its strikes in Iran, is a significant reduction.

At the same time, people are obviously in a state and height of alert. Everyone understands and is constantly reminded that when you do hear those sirens you have about 90 seconds to try to get to a proper safe room or a shelter.

In terms of the sort of anticipation of what President Trump might decide or announce, possibly in the coming hours, I would say that publicly, Israeli officials are being quite circumspect. They don't want to be seen to be forcing the president's hand or weighing in too strongly.

We heard, for example, Defense Minister Israel Katz today saying that, you know, America is playing a defensive role, and we're very grateful for that. But privately, I think there is an expectation and a very strong hope for many here in Israel that President Trump would join in with this, with this operation.

And for people in Israel, unlike people in the rest of the region, they really view this as an existential matter.

[16:10:01]

They -- the ambivalence around Iran's nuclear program and what it was intended for, and whether Iran was actually trying to create a nuclear weapon and how far away they were from that, that ambivalence and nuance does not exist in the dialogue here in Israeli society. They firmly believe that Iran is far too close or was far too close to being able to create a nuclear weapon. And as I said, they see it as an existential issue.

So, notwithstanding the casualties, 24 of them, as you mentioned, over the past 4 or 5 days now, the amount of damage that has been done in the disruption to daily life here, as well as the economic impact the vast majority of people here are very much in favor of this operation. And again, the defense minister today ruling out the possibility of any negotiations -- Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Clarissa Ward for us on the ground in Tel Aviv. Clarissa, always grateful to have you there for us. Thanks very much.

All right. Our panel is here in THE ARENA.

CNN contributor, "New York Times" journalist and podcast host, Lulu Garcia-Navarro; CNN political director, Washington bureau chief, David Chalian; CNN political commentator, former Biden White House communications director, Kate Bedingfield; former Republican Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson.

Thank you all very much for being here today.

Kate Bedingfield, I want to start with you because, you know, you've been inside a White House that is making decisions like the one that President Trump and his team are faced with today. And it's an incredibly consequential one. I know this is also something that President Biden dealt with. Presidents before him have dealt with in trying to grapple with Iran's nuclear capability.

And clearly, everyone was surprised by how far the Israelis were able to go here. How did that change this calculation? And what do you expect from this administration?

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think it's clear there was a lot of reporting this afternoon in "The New York Times" that actually dove, I think, very intensely into where Trump's head has been on this over the course of the weeks. And it seems very clear that the effectiveness of the Israeli operation moved him in a direction where he wanted to start to publicly align himself with it, first of all, and then, secondly, start to talk more openly about the possibility of military response.

I think, you know, there's some -- some should be some concern here about how effectively Netanyahu was able to kind of move Trump on this. I would argue he may have even outplayed Trump on this. And I think these decisions as they happen in the Situation Room, they are they are intense. These moments are incredibly heightened.

In my experience, you have a number of people who are -- are given free rein. At least I can tell you in the Biden administration are given free rein to give the president an incredibly candid view of what they believe. The best path forward is they can be emotional in those in those conversations, my expectation, I would imagine, given the significant potential military cost of kinetic action in Iran, my guess is that we're seeing a lot of tough talk from Trump and that ultimately, he continues to try to push for a deal, but we don't know.

HUNT: So let's dig into some of the tensions that can help us understand what is buffeting President Trump here. Let's start with hearing from Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, who, of course, have been on Trump's side from the MAGA wing of the party.

Let's watch what they said today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, CONSERVATIVE RADIO HOST: My interest is really simple. I don't want the United States enmeshed in another Middle Eastern war that doesn't serve our interests.

STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: It's going to not just blow up the coalition. It's also going to thwart what we're doing with the most important thing, which is the deportation of the illegal alien invaders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, there you have those two. Then you had J.D. Vance out on X today defending President Trump. Now, let's keep in mind that J.D. Vance, very much of the MAGA, especially foreign policy wing, we learned the real extent of that in that signal chat that was leaked.

So, here's what he wrote defending President Trump, "POTUS has been amazingly consistent over ten years that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. The president has shown remarkable restraint. He may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment.

That decision ultimately belongs to the president. People are right to be worried about foreign entanglement. After the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy, but I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue."

David Chalian, this was really fascinating when it came out.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Oh, man. When I saw that post, first of all, it was a really lengthy post. It was obviously a well thought through, but what was behind it? Why was he posting this?

And then you said J.D. Vance is from the MAGA wing, the foreign policy MAGA wing of the party. So is Donald Trump. But yet his vice president, given the position that Donald Trump is in right now, felt the need to be the one communicating to the MAGA base, trying to create space for Trump to make a potential decision, and also start fortifying some of the defenses if indeed action is taken.

I think it is clear that what Trump is engaged in right now, there's obviously a laudable goal from the American perspective of eradicating -- truly eradicating a nuclear threat from Iran that that that is one goal here. Of course, what Donald Trump wants to do, given his belief about not wanting to get entangled in another war again, which is not a bad thing, but he doesn't want his hands dirty. He would like to eradicate Iran completely as a nuclear threat without getting his hands dirty at all.

HUNT: It wouldn't --

CHALIAN: Exactly. And that is a -- to thread that needle is an extremely difficult task.

HUNT: Governor, how do you see this?

ASA HUTCHINSON (R), FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR: First of all, it's a dramatic change in the thinking of President Trump from embracing isolationism withdrawing from foreign engagements to actually considering what needs to be done in support of Israel toward Iran.

And I applaud him for his renewed thinking on this Situation Room. I've been in during the Bush White House, and I expect this to be slower developing. There's going to be some thought going into this. There's got to be some pre-staging. There's got to be options for the president.

But it's really important that whether it's Vice President Vance or President Trump or others make the case that this is the national security interest of the United States.

And there's three areas that are very important. First of all, that Iran not have a nuclear capability. That's a given. And that's in our national interest, because if they have that, we are at risk.

And then secondly, that we continue our support for Israel. And this is an existential threat to Israel.

And thirdly, that there not be a broader war in the Middle East. He can achieve those objectives. If he can thread that needle, then he's going to do it.

HUNT: Well, and, Lulu, clearly, that broader war in the Middle East and the potential --

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I was about to say, good luck with that. I mean, this is -- this has been the dream of Bibi Netanyahu since he

came into power in the '90s and has really tried to push the United States to get more heavily involved in a military operation in Iran, and has been warning repeatedly over the years that Iran is on the cusp of getting a nuclear weapon.

At the end of the day, Iran is no friend of the United States. It has caused innumerable harm around the region. But what happens on day two?

I mean, the question that the United States never seems to be able to answer properly is that you take an action. I was -- spent years based in Iraq. And I was there for the fall of Baghdad. And, boy, was everyone celebrating and nobody knew that this was going to be years and blood and treasure.

And so, it might sound like a simple idea right now to go in with a bunker buster, take over Fordow. We've heard Bibi Netanyahu saying that perhaps he wants regime change.

Well, what comes on the back of that? And is the United States just going to step back and go, you know, let it be Syria. Iran can't be Syria. Iran has a very, very, very important role in that region.

HUNT: Yeah. Well, and we -- unfortunately, we're out of time. But Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez retweeted Thomas Massie. Thomas Massie said, this isn't our war. If it were, if it were, Congress must decide, she says, signing on all the dynamics you laid out right there, help explain why those two people are on the same page here.

All right, coming up. We've got much more on this escalating conflict in the Middle East and the growing public disagreements inside the Republican Party on how the U.S. should respond. We'll go one on one with a member of the intelligence committee, Republican Senator James Lankford will be here, live, in THE ARENA.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): I trust the president on this.

PAUL: And I'm hoping the president will not get involved with the war.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not our war. This is Iran's war.

SEN. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-AL): Don't panic. And hope we all make the right decision when it comes down to it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:23:14]

HUNT: All right. Welcome back.

We're going to continue to cover this breaking news. Of course, as the president has just left the Situation Room where he was meeting with his national security team as they try to figure out how they're going to proceed as the conflict in the Middle East continues to escalate.

And, Lulu, let me pick up where we left off because we were talking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez retweeting Thomas Massie, right? So, someone on the progressive left of the Democratic Party, Thomas Massie, kind of a libertarian conservative, often on the right of his own conference, agreeing with each other on this.

We talk a lot about the political circle that is kind of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, and how they meet in the middle on this. How do you see this particular kind of pressure, and what do you think the reaction is going to be kind of across the board if, in fact, Donald Trump goes ahead and decides to use American military assets to strike Iran.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's a very vulnerable spot for Donald Trump. He has not been known to be aggressive on foreign policy. If you think about the kinds of actions that he has taken in his first term, there was the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, who was the head of the Quds force. This was in 2020.

It was a discrete action, you know, with a drone strike. There was limited fallout. This is the kind of operation he took. A lot of victory laps for it. This is the kind of operation that he likes.

This is not that. This is a very, very high stakes thing with a very important country.

And so, when you see Massie and Ocasio-Cortez agreeing on something politically here in this country, you're going to have a lot of pushback.

HUNT: All right. Well, let's ask someone who has an important voice in this conversation, Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma. He's a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

[16:25:01]

Senator, very grateful to have you on the show today. We've played quite a few clips of your colleagues and where they come down in terms of what they think President Trump should do. So let me just put it to you directly. Do you think President Trump should use the American military to shut down Iran's nuclear program with military force?

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R-OK): With a direct threat to the United States? Yes. That is the role of the president of the United States. That was the case in 2020 with Soleimani, that he was actively preparing to be able to attack American troops and forces. And so, we struck first to be able to defend Americans.

So, if America is directly involved in a direct threat towards us, yes, you act first to be able to protect American lives. If not, no, you do not. That is something that we have stayed out of.

HUNT: So, do you think that the current situation represents one where we are under direct threat? It clearly the Israelis have been moving to do this, to take on their program with military force instead of with diplomatic talks, but they can't finish the job without us. Is the threat sufficient right now, in your mind, to use those American bunker busting bombs to end this program?

LANKFORD: Yeah. So there's a couple of questions there. One is the bunker busting bombs. I hear a lot of conversation about that, say it's going to take Americans to be able to take on Natanz because its deeply buried in a mountain.

Everybody seems to forget that there's also enriched uranium, about 900 pounds, that's actually stored in that area. So, when you're talking about dropping a bunker busting bomb, you're talking about burying enriched uranium inside of a mountain tunnel system. That may not be the best thing for us to do, regardless of we're engaged or not.

So, I think we need to be careful in talking about let's just drop a bomb on it. It's all (AUDIO GAP) enriched uranium. That's not a good idea to be able to leave there. So there's got to be some other sources and ways to be able to deal with this issue.

Quite frankly, I go back again. If America is directly threatened, the president has a responsibility to be able to protect American lives. Right now, this is an issue between Israel and the United States, with one caveat on that. There are 700,000 Americans that live in Israel. So, what happens there does affect America, because 700,000 Americans are in Israel right now.

HUNT: It sounds to me like you're almost coming down on the side of restraint here, absent a direct threat to Americans living in Israel or American assets in the region. Am I reading you correctly there?

LANKFORD: Yeah, I think you should -- that is where I'm trying to come on this. We should never rush into a (AUDIO GAP) is for conflict. This is loss of life. This is all kinds of consequences that are unknown after the fact.

But when we are attacked, when we are threatened, we can't just sit back and pretend it's not going to happen. If 9/11 taught us anything, what people -- when people chant "death to America", thousands of miles away, that does have consequences. They can carry that out.

And the Iranians have been diligent to be able to attack our vessels through the Houthis in Yemen. They have forces in Iraq. They have definitely come at our ally Israel.

But remember, this is the same Iran and the same ayatollah who has led the "death to America, death to the Jews" chant and is also focused on trying to be able to assassinate former members of Trump's cabinet, President Trump himself.

So, this is not just a passive entity that's out there that just talk. They've been active in trying to be able to kill Americans in the past.

So, they are dancing on a threshold there, seeing how close they can get to attacking Americans without our response.

HUNT: So, speaking of the supreme leader, the president posted on his Truth Social platform that America knows where he is. That we could, it implied, assassinate him, but we will not for the moment. Do you think the United States should assassinate the supreme leader if they can?

LANKFORD: The assassination of individual and any foreign dignitary or leader on this. But we most certainly need to have regime change in Iran. This is the same regime that's threatened America and Americans. This is the same regime that oppresses their own people, that they use the money that they get from oil money to be able to put towards terrorism, to be able to kill us and our allies. They chant death to America in the streets.

We definitely need a new regime there. But that's not necessarily saying that we need to be able to assassinate the ayatollah as well, but we definitely need to have new leadership there.

HUNT: Senator, before I let you go, I do want to ask you about another major story that's been affecting us here at home. And that is, of course, the killing of the former state house of Minnesota and her husband, as well as the shooting of another lawmaker and his spouse, a hit list that seems to include a number of other members of Congress.

I'd like to ask you, do you feel safe doing your job every day with the level of security that you have, considering what we're seeing happen out there?

[16:30:04]

LANKFORD: Yeah. Let me say a couple of things on that, if I can. One is incredibly painful when the news that came out, I happened to be home with my wife and we both just sat there and watched the news, just grieved and thinking, how can this be America?

We watched the attempted assassination. In fact, two attempted assassinations on President Trump's life. We just watched the assassination there of political leaders, state leaders that are there in Minnesota.

So, this is awful. But I would tell you, all of us as members of Congress, face death threats on a regular basis. There have been just in the past year 9,000 threats against members of Congress.

This is accelerating in what's actually happening, flippant to not only put people online, but to move from yelling at people online to now saying, I'm going to come kill you, I'm going to kill your family, I'm going to threaten you, or I'm going to just tell people, I know where you live, and I could come kill you at any point.

This constant culture that is growing in the threats that are coming out online and through voice and through other ways, is destabilizing to a nation. So, we as a nation have to learn how to be able to speak to each other again, how to be able to disagree. But yes, we all face fears and threats that are coming at us constantly, but that cannot deter us from doing the job that we have been asked by our state and by our constituents to be able to do.

HUNT: Yeah, very briefly, sir, considering all that, and I take it, I take it to heart, your colleague, Senator Mike Lee, posted about this in the immediate aftermath, called it nightmare on Walz street, seeming to refer to the governor. Do you think that that was the right move in the aftermath of this tragedy?

LANKFORD: (AUDIO GAP) that this is a moment to be able to say, we grieve for those families. We hate all violence like this. This is not America. This is not who we are. We disagree strongly on political issues, and we protest in the streets peacefully.

I have to tell you, on my streets in Oklahoma, there were thousands of people in the No Kings rally that happened in Oklahoma. They went to the streets. They spoke out.

It was peaceful. There were no threats. There was no violence. There was no shattering of windows or anything like that. They came and spoke their mind.

And I said, good for you. That is your right to be able to do that. They got to speak their mind.

But when it moves to threats and challenges against people, that's a whole different issue on that. And we've got to be able to pull back and call it what it is that's wrong, and illegal and immoral.

HUNT: So, do you think this Senator Lee was wrong to put that up? He did delete it, I should note.

LANKFORD: (AUDIO GAP) seen a comment that he made about that past that point. I've not talked to him about it, but I would say that's not what I'm going to post. That's not what I'm going to do. I'm going to call it what it is. That's an awful, immoral, illegal act. And that we as Americans should be better than that.

HUNT: All right. Senator James Lankford, very grateful to have your voice on the show today, sir. Thanks very much for being here.

LANKFORD: Thanks. Good to see you again.

HUNT: You, too.

All right. Coming up next, we're going to talk with someone who's been in the White House Situation Room to advise presidents on national security matters. The former NATO supreme allied commander, James Stavridis, will be here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:37:31]

HUNT: All right. Welcome back.

President Trump emerging out of the White House Situation Room after over an hour of deliberations with his national security team as he's weighing how to respond to the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. Sources telling CNN that the president is warming to the idea of using American military assets to strike Iranian nuclear facilities.

So, joining me now is someone who has spent quite a bit of time in that very room with our president, CNN senior military analyst, Admiral James Stavridis, joins us now.

Admiral, I'm so -- Admiral, I'm so grateful to have you here. And this obviously is a foreign policy challenge that has been on the table for decades, really. What would you be advising the president to do, given the facts, as we as members of the public, not privy to classified information, understand them to be right now?

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Let's go back to the Situation Room itself. What the president deserves in the Situation Room is the best advice. Ultimately, he's going to make the decision we elected him to make those kind of truly hard calls, but he needs unfettered, unvarnished, take-the-bark-off kind of advice from his cabinet. I hope he's receiving that.

I think he's probably got three broad courses of action here, Kasie. One is, let the Israelis continue to pound away. Another one is put pressure on the Iranians by moving forces into the region, sort of set the table for strikes, but then use that leverage to get back to a negotiation. That would be option two. And then option three, of course, would be to conduct a strike.

Your reporting indicates he's leaning toward option three. I just hope he's getting all of the advice, both the pros and the cons of each of those three courses of action.

HUNT: What would you outline as the pros and cons of option three?

STAVRIDIS: The pro of option three is that the United States, because we have, as we've all learned, the term now, the bunker busting bombs, we have the ability with those to go after the really hard targets at Fordow outside of Tehran, which is where the centrifuge is, the heart, the beating heart of the Iranian nuclear program is located.

So, the big pro of that is you would take that off the table.

[16:40:04]

You'd probably knock the Iranian nuclear program back by at least two years, maybe a bit more. So that's the big pro.

The con of doing that obviously is that you are widening the conflict. You are inserting U.S. military into this. You are instantly making U.S. targets very attractive to the Iranians, because one of the reasons they're not striking us right now, Kasie, is because they don't want to see us get involved in the war.

If we launch with the Israelis, you are going to see Iran go after U.S. targets, I firmly believe.

HUNT: Just stand by me for me for a second. Admiral, I want to kind of bring this out to the panel.

And, Kate Bedingfield, just considering what the admiral said there -- I mean, how do you look at what the options are that are on the table?

BEDINGFIELD: Yeah. I mean, I suspect one of the things that the president is getting are certainly, in my experience, in the situation room, one of the things they get from their military leadership is also an assessment of potential casualty. What does the impact on American troops look like? Should the Iranians start targeting U.S. bases as the admiral was saying?

And so, I imagine that that is weighing in Trump's calculation. I think there's also, you know, the thing about the other thing about the situation room is its maybe the place in the White House most removed from politics, but it isn't entirely removed from politics. And so, I have to imagine that Trump and his team are thinking about how he campaigned to get into the White House, what he promised he would do, which was not get entangled in a foreign conflict like this. And so, that factors in as well.

CHALIAN: I just wonder also, maybe the admiral can speak to this, how we in the public could tell whether we are seeing Trump explore option two. But you know, the reporting saying that he's warming to this, could this be part of building pressure. And as you said, to sort of bring a negotiation about rather than actually leading to an actual kinetic action and a strike?

HUNT: Admiral, what say you?

STAVRIDIS: Say that would be my recommendation. And perhaps that's the course that's being followed in terms of what the public should watch.

I'll give you three things to watch. One has already moved into theater that's aerial refueling tankers, as they're called. A couple of dozen of those are flown in. This is widely being reported.

Number two is the aircraft carriers. There's one there already. Reportedly a second one is moving at speed to get there. And then third, and most obviously it's the B-2 Spirit Bombers. They'll have to operate from the small island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. I suspect when they start rumbling off the runways from their home bases in the U.S., that'll probably be reported as well.

The course of action to set the table to prepare for those strikes might have the effect of, shall we say, clarifying minds in Tehran moved them back to a negotiation. Cue up Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff and hope that we can avoid pulling into another major war in the Middle East.

HUNT: Remarkably high stakes.

Governor Hutchinson, do you think Republican voters would continue to stand behind President Trump if he were to expand a war in the Middle East?

HUTCHINSON: I do. Now, they're in favor of his objectives and what he's trying to accomplish, the means as to how to get there and to be cautionary is important to them. It's a last resort. They understand the consequences of it. But if he explains why the national security interest of the United States is at stake, he can make his case as effectively as anyone. And I think he would have the base support.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: One of the things that I think the admiral said that's really important is what the knock on effects might be. And the question here is, will this action make Americans safer or less safe?

And there are arguments to this on either side. I mean, I'm not saying it, but this is really at the heart of this. If you go into Iran and you -- you know, decapitate it, take away its nuclear capabilities, that might make Americans safer. But as he said, it could also mean that there will be attacks on U.S. interests, attacks on Americans far into the future.

Will that make Americans safer? This isn't easy stuff. This is big stuff.

HUNT: Admiral Stavridis, can I also ask you, while I have you, about this prospect of potentially assassinating the supreme leader, the ayatollah of Iran, because the president wrote about this on his Truth Social platform earlier today. There's been reporting around the Israelis wanting to do this, not doing it because of where we came down on it.

[16:45:01]

What impact would it have if the if the American government moved forward with something like that?

STAVRIDIS: The ayatollah, in my view, from an Israeli perspective, is a legitimate military target. He's the head of the armed forces overall. He's the head of the country overall, and he has an immense amount of Israeli blood on his hands. And he's got plenty of American blood on his hands as well.

The United States is not at the moment engaged in actual conflict. So, for us to roll in and take out the ayatollah, I think, is not in accordance with the laws of war.

Should the Israelis go after him? That's a question for Bibi Netanyahu. He is a legitimate military target. What's the knock-on effect of that, as Lulu said a moment ago? Hard to say. Here you get into domestic politics, not in the United States, but in Iran.

Oftentimes when external actors come in and bomb and kill your leaders, it galvanizes a population. Look at Ukraine today. Look at the British in World War II.

On the other hand, is that rotten theocracy shaking back and forth and at a moment where something like that could tilt it over. We don't know the answer, but down that path are some decisions ahead for President Trump.

HUNT: Indeed. All right. Admiral James Stavridis so grateful for your expertise today, sir. I hope you'll come back soon. I think we're going to be covering this for quite a while. Thank you very much.

STAVRIDIS: You bet.

HUNT: All right. Coming up next here, inside a security briefing today on the state of political violence. We're going to talk to someone who was in the room for that briefing. Congressman Greg Landsman of Ohio will be here next.

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[16:51:14]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out. I'm not calling. Why would I call him?

I could call him and say, hi, how are you doing? The guy doesn't have a clue. He's a mess. So, you know, I could be nice and cool, but why waste time?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right, that was President Trump, his message standing in contrast with the accounts of several members of Congress who emerged from briefings about this weekend's politically motivated shootings in Minnesota, warning that elected officials need more security in the wake of the attacks and that we should all tone down the heated political rhetoric.

Joining us now to discuss is Democratic Congressman Greg Landsman of Ohio, who recently revealed that he was named on the Minnesota suspect's target list.

Congressman, thank you so much for being here.

Can you take us into that moment? How did you learn that this, that your name was on this list, and what was you and your family's reaction?

REP. GREG LANDSMAN (D-OH): We got a call on Sunday from law enforcement and suggesting that we, you know, up our security that we were on this list. And, you know, you know, it's -- it was unnerving because they didn't know where he was. This guy was at large.

And, you know, you do the math. It's about ten hours from where he was to our house. So, it was -- it was a -- it was a long day. And, you know, ultimately, you know, he was apprehended. And I think, you know, there was a lot of relief and for a lot of us, because there were -- there were a lot of people who were included on that list. And it's, you know, why I was included on the list in the car is still unclear.

But, you know, my hope is that this is a turning point that people realize that this has gone too far. I wish the president would be like presidents in the past, and call the governor, and do everything in his power to make sure that folks have the resources they need, and then to provide that moral leadership that we all need in moments like this.

HUNT: Sir, there was a briefing from Capitol Police and other security officials this afternoon. I mean, did you get a sense of how other members are feeling considering what happened? Did they offer any real solutions here? Was it emotional?

LANDSMAN: Yeah, it was emotional. And I think it was similar to what I understand to be true about the Republican briefing. There should be a bipartisan briefing, and hopefully we get something to that effect in the next couple of days.

I mean, I think there, you know, members of Congress are on edge on both sides. And there's a frustration, there's been a frustration for a while. I love Capitol police. It is a -- it is a challenge though, you know, to protect all of us on Capitol Hill. There are security issues that I and others have talked about, not without -- not being, you know, specific. But there are -- there are certainly issues.

And there is a larger issue here that has to be addressed in addition to, you know, more security, the data and the personnel have to be better connected. So that information is flowing into one place and then getting disseminated and to the right people as quickly as possible.

So, I do think they're going to have to shift a little bit and start doing what cities and states do, which is put all the right people in one place, make sure all the data is going in one place so that you're keeping everybody as safe as humanly possible.

HUNT: Yeah. Congressman, are you afraid for your life on a regular basis?

LANDSMAN: I -- you know, no, not afraid for my life. I mean, I think about it, it's hard not to, you know, you keep your head on a swivel.

[16:55:03]

And there was an unnerving moment, you know, Sunday night where, you know, they had not got this guy. They had not gotten him. And, you know, and there's a cop outside the house and he says to me, he texts and just says, hey, can you turn your outside lights on and turn off your indoor lights?

And I started walking around the house thinking to myself, is this is this guy here? And appreciating just how, you know, plausible it was. And you know, it's so random, you know, because these people are unwell and they've been radicalized. So yeah, it's certainly possible.

HUNT: All right. Congressman Greg Landsman, I'm very grateful for your time today, sir. Thanks very much for being here.

LANDSMAN: Thank you.

HUNT: All right. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HUNT: All right. Thats going to do it for us today. Thanks so much to my panel. Thanks to you for being with us.

Don't go anywhere. "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts right now.