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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Trump Says, Heated Negotiations Underway Over Iran War; Iraqi Official Says, Kidnapped U.S. Journalist Released; Now, Artemis II Heads Back Toward Earth After Making History; Trump Agrees To Two-Week Ceasefire With Iran, Subject To Strait Of Hormuz Opening. Aired 6-7p ET
Aired April 07, 2026 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.
Breaking news in the World Lead, intense talks are underway, we're told, by the White House to find a path to peace ahead of President Trump's 8:00 P.M. deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, or he will destroy the Iranian civilization.
[18:00:09]
A source inside the region now tells CNN that good news is expected from both sides soon after President Trump said the U.S. was still embroiled and heated negotiations. The White House is preparing a response, we're told, to the Pakistani prime minister's proposal that both the U.S. and Iran begin a two week ceasefire, adding that Iran would open -- reopen the Strait of Hormuz during that time. This offer comes, as I noted, that after President Trump threatened Iran this morning on Truth Social that, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again, unquote.
It's a shocking threat of obliteration and, frankly, mass murder from American president to a country with a population of 93 million people coming after days of similarly violent threats from this not safe for work Truth Social post on Easter Sunday where he promised today would be, quote, power plants day and bridge day, all wrapped up into one, unquote, if Iran didn't, quote, open the fucking strait, unquote,to this moment in his nationally televised address last week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We're going to bring them back to the stone ages where they belong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Earlier today, foreign officials said Trump's genocidal musings, combined with the strikes overnight on Iran's Kharg Island, key to the nation's oil exports, were impacting, harming the diplomatic pathways toward an end to the war.
Let's go live to Jeremy Diamond in Tel Aviv and Matthew Chance Doha, Qatar. Jeremy, an Israeli security source tells CNN that the Israeli military is waiting on a green light from President Trump to launch strikes on Iran as the deadline approaches.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly right. Jake. The Israeli security cabinet has approved a new list of targets, infrastructure energy targets that the Israeli military would strike should President Trump give the green light for these massive strikes on infrastructure targets inside of Iran?
And we've already seen the Israeli military today beginning to conduct a limited range of strikes on infrastructure targets, everything from bridges to railways, highways inside of Iran, which the Israeli military says Iran is using to move ammunition and ballistic missile launchers. And we've seen other signs of potential regional escalation, everything from multiple countries in the Gulf warning residents to shelter in place, the U.S. embassy in Bahrain doing the same thing.
But at the same time, what we are witnessing now over the course of the last couple of hours appears to be some last-ditch efforts at diplomacy, at trying to seek an 11th hour resolution to all of this with the Pakistani prime minister tweeting this proposal for a two- week ceasefire, Iran reopening the Srait of Hormuz and effectively forestalling the president's deadline here of massive strikes inside of Iran.
We understand that the Pakistani prime minister -- the Pakistani foreign minister, I should say, is having calls with regional leaders right now, so there's some real momentum for a potential breakthrough in this diplomacy. We will learn the truth of that, of course, in the coming hours.
TAPPER: And, Matthew, you spoke with a Qatari official earlier today who warned that he's afraid that the war could, quote, spiral out of control. What else did he tell you?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, well, they're very concerned about, you know, the impact this is going to have. And, in fact, within the last couple of hours, there have been multiple missile strikes inside Qatar for the first time, you know, in a couple of weeks. And alarms went off, you know, telling people to take shelter inside, we understand, from Qatari authorities, at least four people have been injured as a result of those missiles being fired into Qatari airspace.
We don't know what they struck it or what they were trying to target, but, I mean, it underlines just how much jeopardy this entire region sees itself in because the Trump threats to attack Iran and to escalate the war there, you know, also has consequences for the broader region because Iran has vowed to retaliate in kind and to really step up its retaliation attacks and its missile and drone strikes against energy infrastructure in the entire region.
Earlier, I spoke to the Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman, and, you know, we addressed exactly that issue. Take a listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHANCE: Given that we're now approaching President Trump's latest deadline, I think it's his fifth deadline, do you have any reason to be confident that this crisis can be diffused before it's too late?
MAJED AL-ANSARI, QATAR FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESMAN: We have been warning since 2023 that escalation left unchecked will get us into a situation where it cannot be controlled, and we are very close to that point.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHANCE: Yes, a concern there from the Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman that the situation cannot be controlled if it goes any further.
[18:05:07]
So, I expect there be a lot of, you know, relief if that Pakistani initiative, which the Qatari say their support actually comes off.
TAPPER: All right. Jeremy Diamond, Matthew Chance, thanks so much.
Let's bring in Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton from Massachusetts. He's on the House Armed Services Committee and is a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq. Congressman, good to see you.
The White House is now saying that President Trump has received a two- week ceasefire proposal from Pakistan when it comes to the war with Iran. As a veteran, what do you make of the president's threat from earlier today and how all of this is unfolding?
REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): The president is totally unhinged, but this is deadly serious because when the commander-in-chief threatens war crimes executed by our troops, but in the name, not just of himself, but of all Americans, we all have to be concerned. We have to be concerned for the safety of our troops, for the safety of our nation, for the moral reputation that we have in the world.
And at the end of the day, the bottom line is he does not have a way out of this mess. He does not have a strategy to end this war. He does not have an endgame. And that should be concerning, not just to our troops, but to all of us who do not support the war in Iran.
TAPPER: So, what would you say, and this is not my view, but what would you say to a supporter of the president who says, look, obviously he's not going to destroy the Iranian civilization, he's not going to kill 93 million Iranians, but this is just a negotiating tactic to end the war? What would your response to that be?
MOULTON: My response would be, what is his strategy to end the war? Because he's only made it more difficult as time has gone on for the Iranians to come to the negotiating table in the first place.
To begin with, in his first term, he ripped up the agreement that prevented them from having a nuclear weapon and that his own administration had certified Iran was following. Now, in his second administration, he's bombed the Iranians every time they've come to the negotiating table.
And yet at the end of the day, unless he wants to take over Iran, literally occupy the country and change the regime the way we did in Iraq, then the only endgame here is to have a negotiated agreement. He should be doing everything he can to get to the negotiating table before Iran gets more cards on its side.
Right now, let's be clear, Iran has more leverage by closing the strait, by causing a lot of damage to our GCC allies by doubling oil prices, Iran has more leverage than they did when Trump started his war.
TAPPER: You're among more than a dozen Democrats now calling for President Trump to be removed or impeached over his threat to Iran. Here's just a sampling. You posted that this is not just Trump being Trump. Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari says that Trump has crossed every line. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar calls him an unhinged lunatic. Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury says, it's time for Republicans to do the right thing. Are you hearing anything from your Republican colleagues, in the House or the Senate, about President Trump's threat?
MOULTON: Behind closed doors, yes. Now we haven't been in Washington in the last week. One of the things I'm calling for is for Congress to be called back into session because some of the most candid and honest conversations I have in Congress are behind closed doors in classified sessions of the Armed Services Committee.
And in the last classified session that we had, a lot of Republicans asked tough questions of the administration officials just as Democrats were. But that seems to be the only place Republicans are willing to have honest conversations because they're so scared of doing so on T.V. or before the American public where they might get attacked by their own president.
TAPPER: You said earlier that Iran is in a better situation, a stronger situation than it was at the beginning of the war. I'm sure there are plenty of people in the Pentagon who would take issue without assertion given how many of the military assets that Iran have been destroyed by the U.S.
MOULTON: They're making a tactical argument. And I would just say to them, well, that's great, and I'd rather have 95 percent of their ballistic missiles destroyed than 90 percent. But either way, they're going to rebuild them. And what really matters in the long run is what is their plan for rebuilding them and how will they use them in the future.
I think we've made a pretty powerful case to Iran that they should rush to a nuclear weapon. And we've actually succeeded in installing a new leader of the regime, the ayatollah's son, who, by all reports, is more hardline and seems more interested in developing a nuclear weapon. So, those tactical successes do not mean strategic victory.
And at the strategic level, Iran has doubled oil prices, so they're making more money off their oil. [18:10:01]
They have closed the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before we started this war. They have decimated the economies of our allies in the Middle East. They've forced Donald Trump to beg China and Iran itself for help reopening the strait, our biggest adversaries. They've actually succeeded in even removing the sanctions on their own oil. It's hard to believe that this has happened, Jake, but, yes, Donald Trump released the sanctions on Iranian oil.
So, it's very hard to look at this and not say from a strategic level, Iran is winning, even if at a tactical level, we've had some victories in dismantling some of their military capabilities.
TAPPER: Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton from Massachusetts, thank you, sir. I appreciate it.
MOULTON: Good to see you, Jake.
TAPPER: Much more in our breaking news. In moments, President Trump says that heated negotiations are going on right now ahead of his 8:00 P.M. deadline for Iran to acquiesce to his demands or else he will destroy their civilization.
Plus, Iraqi officials say an American journalist detained by a pro- Iran militia group, they say she has been released from captivity. When could we get independent confirmation of her freedom? Another rare bit of good news.
Stick with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:15:00]
TAPPER: We are back with the breaking news in our World Lead, President Trump saying that heated negotiations are underway as the White House weighs a peace proposal, or at least a ceasefire proposal, from the Pakistani prime minister that the U.S. and Iran agree to a two-week ceasefire. It's a deal that the prime minister says would give time for peace talks.
Joining us now to discuss the CNN National Security Analyst Alex Plitsas, who's also the director of the Atlantic Council's Counterterrorism Program.
Alex, much more on Iran and the President's thread in a second, but we have this breaking news because a senior Iraqi official says that American journalist Shelly Kittleson, who's a friend of yours, she's now in the Iraq government's custody after she was kidnapped by an Iranian proxy group, a terrorist group, Kata'ib Hezbollah. You were her point of contact while she was reporting in Iraq. What can you say about her status right now? Is there confirmation that she is in the hands of the Iraqi government and no longer in the hands of the militia? ALEX PLITSAS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So, we don't have confirmation that she's been handed over to the U.S. Embassy. And speaking to U.S. government officials who are waiting on that that official transfer, we've been in touch, you know, throughout the duration of her of her detention. You know, there were initial reports that she'd been handed over to the Iraqi government. But we are waiting for confirmation, and so is the United States government. So, we are waiting for that that call, which hopefully should come shortly.
TAPPER: All right, Alex, keep us posted on that and obviously anything we can do to bring attention to her and help her out because I hope she gets -- let's just say I hope she gets to safety soon.
Let's talk about Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to wipe out an entire civilization. That's the latest escalation in the rhetoric of this war. You speak to people inside the White House, inside the Trump administration. What are they saying? Do they think that this is, there's a method to this madness?
PLITSAS: Yes. The president's known to use bombastic language that doesn't necessarily always translate to action in that sense. You know, I do think that the threat of increased military action is incredibly real and the last word that I got in speaking to administration officials is that the negotiations are, in fact, ongoing, as the president described, heated and quite intense. They are not at an agreement yet, but things are trending in the right direction is what I was told. It was about as far as they would go, so not a done deal by any means. The next couple of hours will be very telling and everybody is sitting on pins and needles waiting.
TAPPER: So, it does seem quite obvious that the president is looking for an off-ramp to this war. The Pakistani prime minister is asking President Trump to extend his deadline for Iran by two weeks. Earlier today, the Iranian government said Trump's threats are not going to open the door to dialogue. Where do you see diplomacy standing right now?
PLITSAS: So, up until today, the Pakistani process hadn't really yielded any results. And what we were hearing from a lot of folks is that the Turks were actually going to try to step into a more primary mediating role because the Gulf countries who normally do that, that being, you know, Qatar or Oman, had sort of taken a step back and the Qataris after had been asked by the Iranians at one point if they would at least, you know, consider it. And they said, no, not until the Iranians stopped their attacks on all Gulf countries, not just, you know, Qatar or one or two. And since that hasn't happened, it left the number of interlocutors at a small number.
I'm also told that the Iranian foreign minister's been speaking regularly with the Chinese foreign minister, and it also sort of signaled that they were open to discussions. But the Pakistani president and the Turkish president or prime minister sort of stepped in, and that's because the new circle inside of Iran, which is Mojtaba Khamenei's inner circle, as well as the IRGC intelligence folks, have a very good relationship with both Turkish and Pakistani intelligence. And so, therefore, there was a natural relationship there. And that sort of lent itself towards negotiations.
TAPPER: The Israeli military struck eight Iranian bridges that they say are used to transport weapons and military equipment. These strikes happened today after the U.S. hit Kharg Island overnight, Kharg Island, obviously, a major thoroughfare for Iranian fuel to the rest of the world, their lucrative oil process. So, Trump is now threatening to strike bridges used by civilians, energy infrastructure used by civilians. What do you make of the latest strikes amid Trump's threats?
PLITSAS: So, the latest strikes, particularly along the rail lines, you know, if they are actually, in fact, being used for weapons as the Israelis had alleged, then those would be valid military targets. Those would have to undergo legal review, and it'll be the same thing for the other infrastructure you just mentioned. They have to have a, you know, military connection part of a strategy to defeat that in order for it to pass a legal litmus test for targeting purposes.
If you'll recall a couple weeks ago, there were two, you know, major oil storage containers that were hit south of Tehran, you know, that sort of upset the U.S. But when I spoke to the Israelis about that the last time, they said, look, we only hit two of about 30 that were in the area because those two were being used to fuel missiles. We really do not want to see the Iranian people suffer because we want to be able to see them become independent and rise up at some point.
[18:20:03]
So, the U.S. and the Israelis have been avoiding, I've been told, infrastructure targets for the last few weeks to try to avoid any impact to the Iranian people. But it's getting to the point where those additional targets may need to be hit, and that's the narrative that I'm hearing from both Israel and the U.S. separately.
TAPPER: Thank you so much, Alex Plitsas, is our national security adviser, commentator and analyst. Thank you. I really appreciate it.
We just got an update from NASA as the crew from Artemis two travels back toward the Earth, what we're expecting in the coming days, and when they splash down at the end of the week. That's next.
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TAPPER: In our Out of This World Lead, you're looking right now at live images from inside the Orion spacecraft as the Artemis II astronauts are on their way back home to here on Earth after their record-setting trip further into space than any man or woman has ever gone before.
[18:25:15]
Today, NASA shared some images of exactly what the crew saw during those 40 minutes on the far side of the moon, during which there was a communications blackout yesterday, stunning, stunning photos of the far side of the moon. CNN's Ed Lavandera is live for us at Johnson Space Center in Houston, where Mission Control is located. And, Ed, we just got an update on the mission. What'd they have to say?
ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they are kind of updating us on it as we continue to see all of the images that are coming through, all of the scientific data. They have an enormous amount of data to work with. So far, they've gotten more than 50 megs of data that they're continuing to pore through, so all of that work continues. And there's just so much that they need to, that they need to process and they will continue sharing.
Remember, there's also hours of audio files that we haven't even heard yet that the astronauts were making of their observations as they were flying around the moon. But this crew now is on its way back home and they, you know, have now since passed the lunar sphere of influence. So, they're back being pulled toward the earth because of the Earth's gravitational pull.
And over the course of the next several days, that crew inside will continue working various tests and reconfiguring the cabin working on some of the radiation shelters and testing some of that out that is being used because, when you travel into deep space, there's obviously a lot of exposure to radiation. So, they're testing out some of the protective systems involved with that. And then they need to reconfigure the cabin for reentry, which means moving all of the stuff inside that small capsule so they can recreate the four seats that the astronauts will need to reenter the Earth's atmosphere.
TAPPER: And, Ed, what are we learning about the big plans for Friday, the reentry and splash down?
LAVANDERA: Well, that's a huge moment. And, obviously, this is the most critical part and the most dangerous part of this mission is going to be that reentry. And the -- how exactly this space capsule is going to handle the extreme conditions of reentry, you know, temperatures of more than 5,000 degrees, but all of the parts are already moving into place.
There's a navy ship off the coast of California that departed out today, getting into place for where this capsule is expected to land. The landing zone is several hundred miles wide. Obviously, there's a great deal of coordination that will take place. The process of getting the astronauts out of the capsule onto a ship and back onto dry land is a process that could take two to three hours.
So, this is expected to happen this Friday evening, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time, around 5:00 Pacific Time. It will be daylight hours, so, hopefully, everything goes smoothly and you'll see the spectacular images of this crew returning home.
TAPPER: All right. Ed Lavandera at Johnson Space Center, thanks so much.
Check this out, a few minutes ago from NASA, they reposted this tweet nine years ago. This is from Astronaut Reid Weisman, who's the commander on the Artemis II lunar mission right now. Wiseman snapped a picture in 2017 of his fortune cookie. Check out the caption, quote, I choose to believe this fortune I received tonight, perhaps the moon or a, hashtag, journey to Mars. I guess now probably a good time to take down his lucky numbers there, 47, 31, 22, 9, 19, and 35. It says, a visit to a strange place will bring you renewed perspective, on that fortune cookie fortune, a strange place.
Investigative journalist Ronan Farrow spent the last 18 months digging into Sam Altman, who leads one of the biggest A.I. companies in the world. What Ronan Farrow found is raising some serious concerns about Mr. Altman and he's going to join us live to explain, next.
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[18:30:00]
TAPPER: In our Tech Lead, the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, is a household name. He's probably the most powerful person in a field that is transforming the world and our future.
Investigative Journalist Ronan Farrow of the New Yorker and his colleague, Andrew Marantz, conducted hundreds of interviews for an article entitled Sam Altman May Control Our Future. Can He Be Trusted? And yes, that is A.I. being used in that illustration on the right, which is freaking me out.
Ronan Farrow joins us now. Ronan, you worked on this story for more than a year-and-a-half. You talked to all these people. I guess the main question I had after I read the story, because it's the fundamental thrust of the pieces, do you trust Sam Altman?
RONAN FARROW, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Well, we offer a range of answers to that question from people who have worked closely with him for years. You know, more than a hundred interviews gives you a wide swath of views. And the piece is very forensic, it's very fair, but what emerges is that there are people who say Sam Altman lies to a degree that is dysfunctional for any chief executive of a company that's significant.
And there are people who say that lying is so significant that against this particular backdrop that you mentioned of a technology that has truly transformative stakes and about which Sam Altman was one of the initial alarmists said that it really could wipe us all out, that this becomes not just dysfunctional but dangerous.
Silicon Valley is built on hype and promises before deliverable products. We all know this. So, the fact that this trait, which is kind of amorphous, right, someone is untrustworthy, is so pervasive that it transcends even that expectation and becomes something noteworthy, it is really something, Jake.
[18:35:03]
TAPPER: So, Altman's response is, as I can best sum up, and if you disagree, please correct me, is basically the people who don't trust me are wrong and they're bitter and et cetera, and also that there's a misunderstanding. He's just a pleaser, so he tells people things, but he is not trying to lie. He's just trying to make people feel good, because, inherently, he's a pleaser. Is that fair, do you think that?
FARROW: That's really the crux of it. You know, the piece is very, very careful about actually filtering for the very thing you just mentioned. It acknowledges how cutthroat the race to dominate A.I. is. There is so much money, there are so many vested interests, and we really separate out, okay, what's coming from competitors, what should we cast a skeptical eye on, and try to be as generous as possible to Sam, to be frank.
It's interesting to note that it's not just competitors and rivals. Even amongst his most ardent defenders, there is some acknowledgement that this is a trait. Opinions differ on how much we should care about that trait. Sam's explanation is, as you described, he talks about having grappled with this, it having custom problems. And he says, look, I have an issue with avoiding conflict. I'm a people pleaser, especially earlier in his career, he says. That created these issues. And, you know, he describes it as something that he is working to move past, essentially.
TAPPER: Ronan Farrow, congratulations on the piece. Everyone should read it. It's at thenewyorker.com. Thank you so much for being with us.
We have some breaking news for you right now.
And President Trump has just posted that he has agreed to that two- week ceasefire in the war in Iran.
Let's bring in CNN's Kristen Holmes at the White House. Kristen, what's the news?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Just an hour and a half away from that deadline, President Trump, seconds ago, taking to Truth Social to say that he is talking to Pakistani officials, and based on that conversation, he will agree to stop bombing for two weeks. He also says that Iran has agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz for that time period.
So, I'm going to read part of this to you. It says, subject they -- and he says, subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran, agreeing to the complete, immediate, and safe opening of the Strait of Hormuz, so they still have to agree. I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double-sided ceasefire. The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all military objectives and are very far along with the definitive agreement concerning long-term peace with Iran and peace in the Middle East.
We received a ten-point proposal from Iran and believe it to be -- believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. That's also news, Jake.
Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two-week period will allow the agreement to be finalized and consummated on behalf of the United States of America as president and also representing the countries of the Middle East. It is an honor to have this long-term problem close to a resolution.
So, a couple of things that we're going to still be asking questions about. What is in that ten-point proposal, what has actually been agreed to? And I will go back through that language because I said that Iran had agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz. It does sound as though he's still leaving it there as that he's only agreeing if that is, in fact, the case that they will fully open the Strait of Hormuz.
This, of course, again, coming as President Trump has been threatening to wipe out an entire civilization, saying that he was going to bomb bridges, to bomb civilian infrastructure, saying at one point that the Iranian people wanted him to continue bombing. And we knew behind the scenes that there were ongoing conversations negotiations between the two parties between Pakistan, was serving as an intermediary between the two countries at various times.
Now, there is going to be a big question here as to what happens with the J.D. Vance, the vice president, who's currently in Hungary. There have been a lot of talk two weeks ago about him going to Pakistan to sit for these conversations. That would be the first face-to-face conversations between U.S. officials and Iranian officials.
Now, of course, it's going to be a question as to whether or not he's going to actually go there after his trip to Hungary. We are asking about that as well. Are they actually going to have these in-person conversations, which they have not had yet.
But right now, evading that deadline evading potential war crimes because, of course, that is what we were hearing from the United Nations, from various countries, saying that his actions, if he was to take them to bomb the civilian infrastructure, would be considered war crimes in international law, avoiding all of that and saying that he's going to give this two-week grace period of a double ceasefire, of course, as long as Iran continues to leave the Strait of Hormuz open or reopens the Strait of Hormuz and allows ships to pass safely.
[18:40:02]
TAPPER: It's interesting, Kristen, because I'm reading the statement from President Trump as well, and there are a couple things. First of all, it's been very obvious for the last few days that the president was looking for an off-ramp.
HOLMES: Yes.
TAPPER: Also he is casting this peace proposal or ceasefire proposal from the Pakistanis in light -- in the shadow of his, rather, stark threat this morning where he threatened to wipe the Iranian civilization off the face of the Earth, President Trump saying, wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran. We don't know how seriously the Iranians actually took his tweet, but he's trying to cast it in that light. And we should also just note that it has been very obvious to people that President Trump is looking for a way out of this war.
Let's go live to the region right now. Jeremy Diamond is in Tel Aviv. Jeremy?
DIAMOND: Yes, Jake, this is huge news. Obviously, we have been watching today as there were a number of indicators pointing to the very real possibility of escalation tonight, not only in terms of U.S. and Israeli strikes in Iran, but also in terms of what Iran might be able to do in retaliation in terms of oil facilities, desalination plants in the Gulf, and also here in Israel where the Israeli military even sent out a message to citizens warning them of a potential, significant uptick in Iranian ballistic missile fire towards Israel.
But it seems like that has all now been averted with one social media post from the president following hours and days really of diplomacy led by the Pakistanis as the intermediaries in this case with the United States and Iran on either side of that.
Now, one of the critical questions to see, as we are now, Jake, getting another early warning actually for ballistic missiles aimed at Israel, just coming in on my phone as I'm speaking to you, the other question will be, is Israel also going to abide by this two-week ceasefire. You know, it was only a couple weeks ago when I asked the Israeli prime minister this very question, should President Trump agree to a ceasefire with Iran, what will you do?
Will you continue to carry out strikes inside of Iran? The Israeli prime minister did not answer my question directly, but what he did say was that the United States and President Trump is the leader, and he positions himself as the ally, the secondary, suggesting, that Israel would go along with President Trump's direction here as to this war.
Whether that is escalation, as we thought we were seeing earlier today, or now as we are seeing heading towards a ceasefire, but obviously I'm asking Israeli officials right now and we'll bring you that reaction as soon as we get it.
TAPPER: Matthew Chance is in Doha, Qatar. Matthew, tell us more.
CHANCE: Yes. Well, Jake, I mean, look, I mean, President Trump has already set five deadlines on his threat to, you know, destruction on civilian infrastructure inside Iran. And so I guess it's not that outrageous that he's done it for another time. Certainly, it will be a massive relief to this region because, you know, I've been in conversations with various officials from across the region over the course of the past couple of days. As this deadline, the latest deadline set starting to loom, and people are genuinely fearful about word -- genuinely fearful about the economic impact the escalation of that kind would have in the region.
Already, Qatar alone, I'm talking to you tonight from Doha, the capital of Qatar, has suffered billions of dollars a day in economic losses since the war began. You can replicate that all over the region. Of course, it's been a massive, catastrophic economic loss that the whole region has suffered, but that was only a taste of things to come if this war had escalated in the way that President Trump had vowed if civilian infrastructure, energy infrastructure in Iran had been targeted in the way that President Trump said he was going to target them.
The Iranians, of course, vowed to retaliate in kind. And this whole region of energy-rich states have a collection of very vulnerable oil and gas installations that are easily hit with ballistic missiles and drones and are very difficult to repair and take a long time to repair. So, that would have caused massive effects in the regional economy and, of course, knock-on effects to the global economy as well. So, a great sense of relief that President Trump has stepped back from the line tonight.
TAPPER: Certainly from the threat to destroy the entire Iranian civilization.
Kristen Holmes, back at the White House, Alex Plitsas let me -- Kristen, before I go to you, let me go to Alex Plitsas. Give us the analysis that you have of this breaking news.
PLITSAS: So, it's in line with comments from White House officials that I was talking to earlier today, as well as some foreign intelligence partners of the United States that they were expecting this to trend in the right direction.
[18:45:02]
No one was quite sure we'd reach a deal. But what's interesting in the president's statement there is he makes a contingent upon the Iranians agreeing to open up the straits. And so far, we haven't seen a comment, at least that I've seen until right before coming on. So we'll see what the Iranians have to say about this.
The impact overall, the strategy of the war effort, up until this point, U.S. Central Command had struck somewhere around 13,000 targets. They said they had about 3,000 left or about two weeks left of bombing. And this was all based on years long intelligence collection efforts to try to take out the drones, the missiles, the associated industrial base, the navy and the air force, et cetera., basically stopping Iran's war making capability.
So there's still some residual targeting that hasn't been achieved. You know what that actually means in terms of Iran's capabilities is unknown. I believe Central Command had been prioritizing the major the major targets first. So we'll expect a military update over the course of time. You know, there's still a lot to work out over the next two weeks, but, definitely a positive trend.
TAPPER: Kristen Holmes back at the White House, the deadline for Iran to agree to Trump -- President Trump has kind of been confusing about what he was demanding, actually, that they agreed to, whether it was just opening up the straits of Hormuz or a ceasefire plan or whatever. But it had to happen by -- in one hour and 15 minutes, that it's a rapidly approaching. And it looks like that deadline is going to be in fact extended for two weeks. KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. And I do
want to go back to something that Matthew Chance was just talking about, because I think it really goes to how we saw today unfold. And Matthew was talking about the fact that president Trump has extended this deadline over and over and over again, and gotten to a point where many Republicans, many of the people close to him that I was talking to, felt that he had boxed himself into a corner. Could he actually go out there and extend again? What would that look like, given the fact that he just has continually done this?
At the same time, he's saying that he's going to destroy an entire civilization. And then what we saw today was this kind of public plea from the prime minister of Pakistan, which gave a lot of people around President Trump that I was talking to, almost a sigh of relief, because they believe that president Trump now had a little bit of cover here when it came to doing another extension. It wasn't just him saying that diplomacy was happening. It was another official on the ground who we know has been hosting these kind of diplomatic discussions, saying that they needed more time.
And that allowed for President Trump to go with that two weeks, because, as you reported, we were speaking to so many people close to President Trump, and it did seem obvious from the president himself that he did not want to go through with this, that they are looking for an off ramp to this war overall, but also the bombing of the civilian infrastructure.
He was getting calls from the Gulf region, from allies in the Gulf region, saying, this is a huge escalation, that this could really change the trajectory of this war and of the entire region. There were a lot of people that were deeply concerned with this idea of hitting civilian infrastructure. This gave him a little bit of cover to actually have that extension, that ceasefire, because we saw this public plea from the Pakistani prime minister, and that was when we started hearing people within the administration, people close to President Trump signaling that they believe this was his way out of this.
Now, it was unclear if he was going to take it, because it is President Trump, and he can make any decision he wants at any time. And we've obviously seen him do that. But there was a lot of people who believe that this was an off ramp that was given to him.
TAPPER: And Kristen, just to -- just to reiterate the point that President Trump refers to this, quote, :10-point proposal from Iran," we don't know what is in those 10 points and we don't know -- or, we're going to go to Jeremy Diamond right now?
Jeremy, the word "Israel" does not appear in this Truth Social post from President Trump. And you're still getting sirens there.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. There were sirens that just went off east of Tel Aviv, near the Jerusalem area between here in Jerusalem. Basically, we just saw one of those ballistic missiles coming in, actually. And it did appear to be intercepted by one of Israel's air defense systems. It could not tell as it passed behind the cloud whether it was a cluster munition or whether it was one of those ballistic missiles carrying a single warhead.
But obviously, the timing of that does not appear to be coincidental. You know, sometimes we see this in the hours before a ceasefire goes into effect. Both sides tend to increase their fire. In this case, perhaps Iran sending one final message here.
It is important to note, of course, that we have not yet heard from the Iranians as to whether or not they have agreed to the terms of this ceasefire, whether they will hold up their end of the bargain, which is indeed to ensure that the Strait of Hormuz is completely and immediately reopened in order to allow for a ceasefire over the course of the next two weeks.
And then, of course, as you were just asking, we have also not yet heard from the Israeli side as to whether or not they will cease fire for the coming weeks, if indeed a ceasefire does go into effect. But all signs are trending in that direction, I don't think we'd be seeing this kind of a tweet from the president, unless it was clear that there was at least, you know, the contours of an agreement here that to to be fully announced.
[18:50:05]
TAPPER: Yeah. The president called this a double-sided ceasefire, not a triple-sided ceasefire. Doesn't mention anything about Israel.
Kristen, just to go back to the point I was making, the president claims we received a 10-point proposal from Iran, and we believe its a workable basis on which to negotiate. We do not know whats in those 10 points, and we do not know if there actually is anything new in these 10 points, or if it's just President Trump wanting to end this war, at least in the short term.
HOLMES: We don't. But, Jake, I do want to tell you, we have a bit of breaking news here. A senior White House official telling our Alayna Treene that Israel is part of this ceasefire, that they have agreed to suspend its bombing campaign while these negotiations continue.
Now, of course, we don't know where that ends. We don't know if that's for two weeks. It's not specific, but Israel is part of this starting point, which is this ceasefire. So all three sides are participating. At least that is according to a senior White House official.
Now back to what your point is about the 10-point plan. I mean, we've been hearing about a ten point plan from Iran for weeks now. The idea was that the United States presented a 15-point plan that several of the points on that plan are Iranians -- Iranian officials were saying were unrealistic. They were impossible to meet, and they came back with their own plan.
We are still at a loss as to what exactly was in that plan. What are the actual points? What exactly is the U.S. now saying that they are willing to work with?
President Trump had gone back and forth on the idea of reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Clearly, he has focused on that as a top priority after last week saying he didn't need to reopen the strait as part of a deal to end the war in Iran. So whatever it is, Iran is likely to have said long term, the free and fair passage through the Strait of Hormuz, because that is something President Trump, just two days ago or just yesterday, said was a top priority.
TAPPER: Kristen, Jeremy, Matthew, Alex, thanks to all of you for your insights.
Let's talk about this now with our panel in studio. We have in addition to Xochitl and Kevin, who you all know, Zach Cohen from our Pentagon team.
Give us your insights into this because right now, it just seems from the cheap seats, like President Trump wanted to end this war or at least have a ceasefire, and he's grabbing an opportunity to do that.
And look, I'm not criticizing it. Peace is good. Lack of killing people, good. But is there anything different today from yesterday?
ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Fundamentally, no. I think that this promise to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or the demand to do so, is really the most pressing challenge that Trump seems to finally have realized does impact the United States in terms of the global energy markets. You know, the price of oil continuing to increase, but also really on a shot clock of sorts. We've heard from shipping industry executives who have said, look, if this was remain closed for a few more weeks now, you could see prices increase to a crisis point.
But there's also this reality that you cant just snap your fingers and say, okay, the strait of is now reopened and reassure ship -- the shipping industry that they can now sail their tankers through that very narrow passage. It's going to take some time and there's going to be residual effects to the closure. And there's also the fundamental reality that if Iran agrees to reopen the strait, they could, in theory, reclose it again at a -- at a certain point.
So, there's still a lot of unanswered questions here from a diplomacy standpoint, from a posturing standpoint, does Donald Trump see this as an off ramp to the entire conflict? The terms of that 10-point plan, we still don't know. Could Iran still achieve a nuclear weapon based on the existence of that stockpile of highly enriched uranium? Feasibly, it could if the war ended today.
So, we'll have to see how the next two weeks play out. But again, to your point, peace is good, not fulfilling that promise to end Iranian civilization is --
TAPPER: Also good. Yeah, mass -- lack of mass murder, good.
Kevin, what's your take on this all?
KEVIN MADDEN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, I think the -- I think Zach brings up an important point, which is right now there seems to be a fundamental sort of canyon between the -- what the White House wants and what the president wants, which is he thought this would happen, be able to have a military engagement. That happened quickly. He wanted it to happen quickly.
But the reality is that this is going to be a much longer term engagement. And some of the conditions that are really needed to have a military engagement like this be successful public support on Capitol Hill, public support from political constituencies, public support from our Gulf allies. Those cant really be managed against hourly deadlines and two week increments.
And so, I think that's the challenge right now for the president is how do you build some of that support back up over the long term, because a military engagement like this is not going to be operating in short term timelines.
TAPPER: Xochitl, I want to come to you in a second, but I just want to show the missile exploding over Tel Aviv that Jeremy was just referring to, because we do have some video of that.
There it is --you can, you can see it in the -- in the distance. I don't think they had the sound on. And even if they did, the sound might have been first before -- that's just how the speed of sound versus the speed of light works.
[18:55:02]
Xochitl, your reaction?
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, I think that there are a lot of questions. Also, Trump's comment from this morning, I'm very interested to see whether any there is any Republican outcry going to the White House on whether or not they understood that, hey, this is a war crime, that what you committed. We are getting significant pressure on the 25th Amendment. We're also getting significant pressure to potentially take control of this and --
TAPPER: Explain to people what the 25th Amendment.
HINOJOSA: So, removing Trump from office.
TAPPER: Yeah.
HINOJOSA: There was a lot of talk about that when they when people believe that Joe Biden was not fit for his presidency. And I think there's a lot of questions about whether or not Trump is now fit based on his comments earlier today and his comments earlier today about, you know, wiping out, wiping out civilization was definitely a war crime. Even the threat of it.
And so, I think there was likely Republican pressure. Well see that actually happen. I think the other question here is what did Trump get out of that threat this morning? He didn't get -- the strait did not open. We actually don't have commitment from them that the straight will open in the future. He was obviously looking for an out. This 10- point plan could maybe not anything new.
So I think the big point, the big question for the White House is what was the point of that threat? What exactly happened and what did he get out of it? And I think it's absolutely nothing. And so, I think there's a big question for Congress, at what point do they take control here? Because this is starting to get out of hand.
TAPPER: Well, let me -- I wouldn't -- I'm not taking issue with the substance of what you're saying. But what did he get out of the thread? The threat that he issued. He claims in his Truth Social post that the Pakistanis, quote, requested that I hold off on the destructive, destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, unquote.
So he has at least a -- maybe it's real, maybe it's not. But he at least a -- he can claim that this happened because of that threat. I'm not saying it's true, but he can claim that.
MADDEN: Right. Well, I think there's also a lot of X factors here, which is how much of this is really true? How much of what was in the tweet is now going to be backed up with facts, figures, additional statements from the administration. So that's one of the tough parts of, again, of managing this thing in an hourly sort of news cycles is the facts on the ground catching up to whatever the president is actually saying? And so on social media.
TAPPER: One of the other things that you and your team at the Pentagon, I guess you're not at the Pentagon because of Hegseth's rules, but covering the Pentagon. One of the things you guys have constantly pointed out is how every time Hegseth speaks, he promised that tonight is going to be the toughest, biggest night ever. And it's not necessarily true, but he claims that every time he speaks.
COHEN: He does. And he also claims that this war is close to being over as well in the next breath. And so those two things don't usually line up. But to your point, what does this ceasefire, if it's agreed to mean for the U.S. military posture and the region? I mean, a two- week time frame. What does that mean for the two aircraft carriers that are currently there? Are they going to rotate new service members to replenish or replace the ones that are already in the region as well?
So a lot of unanswered questions as far as the U.S. military posture goes. And to the point about the threat and that's still out there and that still will impact potentially how the Iranians --
TAPPER: Trump's threat.
COHEN: Trump's threat, how that the Iranians perceive maybe an additional threat down the line when Donald Trump is trying to exert more pressure on them, too. So this -- this does -- is not happening in a vacuum. It will have an impact on talks as they progress.
TAPPER: And one of the other things that I think is a question that I had -- I have now that I didn't have a week ago, a week ago, President Trump was claiming complete air superiority. And the Pentagon was saying, yeah, we're going to put B-52s over Iran, which are a lot easier to hit than a lot of these jets. They are higher, but they're also bigger. And then all of a sudden, the Iranians had downed two jets. Thank God that the pilots, the service members are okay. But it made me question, I think anybody with eyes and ears question, do we really have air superiority?
HINOJOSA: Yeah. And also their capabilities. I think we have heard from the Trump administration, from Donald Trump over and over and over that he's obliterated their capabilities. And that has not been the case.
My other question about this cease fire is whether it holds. Do we trust Israel on a three-way ceasefire here? Do we trust that they're actually going to come through? What happens if they do not? So I think there are a lot of questions. And the way Israel is, has has acted before, I'm not sure that that will hold.
TAPPER: How much, Kevin, as the Republican at the table, how much do you think the Republican coalition was really threatening to tear apart over this war, because you had the MAGA folks who didn't want any war? You have people like John Bolton who are Iran hawks, but think that Trump was going about this war the entirely wrong way. A lot of people on Capitol Hill trying to be loyal, but I don't know how much longer they could have.
MADDEN: Well, I think amongst the MAGA sort of coalition, those are problematic, anytime you have any sort of folks coming out and you start to lose, if you lose 10, 15 percentage of your support, that's a problem.
But I think -- I keep going back to the congressional and public support that you need. I think this is one of the hard things is when you're trying to manage this in an hourly deadline increments against two-week news cycles, do you ever really have the momentum and do you have the sort of transparency and the information flow to these constituencies enough that you can really keep them strongly in your -- in your corner?
And I think that remains a challenge for this administration, because so much of this stuff is changing in real time.
TAPPER: Fascinating stuff. Xochitl and Zach and Kevin, thanks for being here.
We're going to have much more on our breaking news.
"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now. See you tomorrow.
