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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Warns Iran Of Bigger Strikes As War Expands; Death Toll Rises To Six U.S. Service Members Killed In War; U.S. Urges Citizens To Leave Middle East Countries Now; Trump Warns Of Big Wave Of Attacks On Iran; U.S. Prepares For Increasing Attacks From Iran. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired March 02, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, America at war. Why Donald Trump's attack on Iran puts the U.S. at the forefront of a world on fire.
Live at the table, Josh Rogin, Hagar Chemali, Max Boot, Scott Jennings and Cornel West.
This is CNN's special live coverage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Tonight, the United States president is warning of bigger strikes against Iran as the war widens around the world. President Trump says that the U.S. hasn't hit Iran hard yet, and that's after the joint attacks with Israel killed the country's supreme leader. The White House is preparing for a major attack and an uptake in strikes, with Trump telling CNN that a big wave is coming soon.
The cost of American lives is rising as six U.S. service members have been killed by Iranian retaliation, and they've launched a wide range of attacks across the Middle East, including Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates.
And we just learned that the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia was hit by two suspected Iranian drones. The State Department just put out this warning telling the U.S. -- Americans that in more than a dozen countries in the Middle East to depart those regions now.
Now, right now, Israel is bracing for a new wave missiles. Iran has fired on population centers and CNN crews have seen multiple attacks above Tel Aviv.
That's where CNN's Jeremy Diamond is right now, and he's joining us live. Jeremy, what is happening in Israel right now? And has the pace of counterattacks from Iran increased, or have they waned in the last few hours? JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Abby, it's been about four hours since the last barrage of Iranian missiles targeting Israel. During that barrage, our team witnessed multiple interceptions over the skies of Tel Aviv. There was falling shrapnel that caused some damage, but no injuries were reported as a result of that latest barrage.
A very different story, however, in Iran tonight, according to Israeli officials who I've been speaking with throughout the day, Israel is in the midst, alongside the United States, of carrying out a series of very intense airstrikes in Iran. One of the primary goals of these airstrikes is to degrade Iran's ballistic missile capabilities, those very same missiles that are being fired at Israel.
As of Monday, Israel and the United States had carried out strikes on approximately 1,200 targets, according to those Israeli officials. By sometime on Tuesday, we expect that number will have doubled, according to those Israeli officials. And the result of that is going to be that Iran is going to have a significant drop off in its ability to fire up those ballistic missiles at Israel by Tuesday night.
So, by tonight -- it is already Tuesday morning here in Israel. By tonight, we expect that Iran will have a far diminished capacity to fire those ballistic missiles in Israel, according to two Israeli officials.
United States and Israel are also currently targeting Iran's internal security forces, as well as the Revolutionary Guard Corps. And these Israeli officials tell me that the United States and Israel believe that, so far, the success and the pace of their targeting in Iran has exceeded the expectations that they had set out for this military operation.
[22:05:05]
As questions loom about exactly how long this operation will last, President Trump today indicating to our Jake Tapper that this could be an operation that he expected would last, you know, four to five weeks, but that it all could happen a lot quicker given again that pace that we are seeing so far. Abby?
PHILLIP: All right. Jeremy Diamond, continue to stay safe over there. Thank you for that reporting.
Now, the White House has had trouble hammering down exactly what their objectives are with this strike against Iran. President Trump tried to clear some of that up today, destroying Iran's missile capabilities and its navy, is it stopping any development of a nuclear weapon and preventing them from arming terrorists? And the question on everyone's minds, why now?
Well, here's how Marco Rubio tried to explain it. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: There absolutely was an imminent threat. And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us.
And we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded, because the Department of War assessed that if we did that, if we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked, and by someone else, Israel attacked them, they hit us first, and we waited for them to hit us, we would suffer more casualties and more deaths. We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, the logic here is that Iran would respond to an attack, not by us, but by someone else, Israel, and that we would proactively attack them to prevent them from attacking us? That explanation, needless to say, is not going over well, and certainly among Democrats. I just heard in the last hour a Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee saying, I'm not so sure that that's the explanation that will work for him.
MAX BOOT, COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes. I mean, this seems like a war in search of a justification, Abby, because, remember, the reason why the march to war actually started was because of the Iranian protest in early January that were brutally and bloodily put down by the Iranian regime. Trump was writing on social media help was on the way, come out, overthrow of government. He didn't help them. The protesters got slaughtered. And then, gradually, it took a month or two to build up U.S. forces in the region.
And that time, the rationale for the war shifted again from helping the protesters to doing something about the Iranian nuclear program. But the problem is the two justifications that the administration put forward, neither one of those constituted an eminent threat because we know that Iran was not enriching uranium. They basically stopped since the June attack when, remember, Trump said he had totally obliterated the Iranian nuclear program, he had certainly set it back a good deal, and there was no evidence that the Iranians were building missiles, ICBMs capable of hitting the United States. And so now they're really grasping for straws.
And so you had Secretary Rubio come up with this farfetched explanation that the imminent threat was Israel was going to attack Iran, and then we had to attack Iran because if Israel attacked Iran, Iran would attack the U.S., which is ridiculous because Israel had never before attacked Iran before Donald Trump became president. Are you telling me that President Trump could not prevent his close ally, Bibi Netanyahu, from attacking Iran? I mean, give me a break.
PHILLIP: Yes. Well, I mean, as we all know, Netanyahu has wanted to attack Iran for a long time, 40 years, he said so just this week. And as Ruben Gallego put it, he's a Democratic senator, so now Netanyahu decides when we go to war? What the F happened to America first.
JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST, WASHINGTON POST INTELLIGENCE: Right. I mean, it's kind of amazing that three days into the war, that's what they're going with. That's what they actually came up with, that Israel dragged Trump into the war, which is --
PHILLIP: And I will say, to be fair -- not even to be fair -- but just it seems based on the reporting that it is true that Netanyahu personally launched a campaign with President Trump over the last month and a half to convince him to go to war with --
ROGIN: Netanyahu's been launching that campaign for several decades. This is nothing new. This is what he's been watching for pretty much his entire professional life. And the fact that the Trump administration's official explanation is that Bibi dragged us into this work, I don't think that's going to play well. Not with just the left of the Ruben Gallegos of the world, but with his base too. He doesn't seem to care that they are very much against the idea of America going to war in the Middle East again, and especially on behalf of the Israelis, whether that's true or not, and we don't even know if that's really true.
So, what we're seeing it three days into this war is tactical brilliance, the U.S. military's amazing. They hit everything they wanted to hit. They killed more people than they thought they could kill. And strategic bankruptcy, because every single day, almost every single hour, the explanation changes. And if we don't know where we're going, then any road will take us there. And nothing about this was imminent, nothing about this is a justification that has any resemblance to international or U.S. law.
[22:10:00]
HAGAR CHEMALI, FORMER TREASURY SPOKESPERSON, TERRORISM AND FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE: So, I have -- you know, I haven't have a unique perspective on this, and the reason is because I work on Lebanon- Israel peace efforts. I work -- I'm close to several folks in the administration, and I heard since the beginning of last year that regime change was always an interest of this administration. So, I knew that. And after June, after the strikes of last June, there was always an expectation that there would be round two.
And so I view the urgency, if you will, if you can call it an urgency, that steeped in two issues. The first is that since June, after they were weakened with the strikes against the nuclear program, the Iranian regime reflected a desire to double down on their nefarious objectives. They continued to fund terrorist proxies across the region. Last year, they gave $1 billion to Hezbollah alone, and that's for a regime that has no economic leg to stand on. So, they continue to do that.
And we know that they were trying to retrieve elements of their nuclear program at least. I'm obviously not privy to classified information, so I can't say that I don't know more beyond that. But the point is, on one hand, you had a proof that nothing was deterring this regime from its objectionable behavior.
And then the second piece is that you have a regime now that has been a thorn in our side in national security. When I worked in counterterrorism in the Middle East, the majority of our resources time staff were focused on threats emanating from the Iranian regime and its proxies. And so, suddenly, you have it at the weakest point it has ever been in four decades. And on top of it, you see them trying to rebuild and double down on their efforts. And so I think the urgency came from an opportunity they wanted to seize, that this was the time to cut its legs off and see if they could push for a regime change.
ROGIN: None of that has anything close to an imminent threat in it. You're not even claiming that there was --
CHEMALI: Why would you say it's imminent?
ROGIN: Well, that's what the administration is claiming, because that's the only legal justification for attacking --
CHEMALI: Which is a legal justification.
ROGIN: Yes, a legal justification for going to war and pointing American blood and treasure at risk. And, yes, there should be some legal justification. And if we're just attacking every country that's a problem and that's weak, well, that's a long list of countries that you're now advocating that we should attack. Should we attack the North Koreans? They're pretty bad. They support terrorism. They're against us. Should we attack the Chinese? They're pretty bad. They support a lot of things that are against us.
CHEMALI: I think we're comparing apples to oranges now.
ROGIN: No, I'm making a very consistent point, which is that you're not even trying to provide a justification for the war. You're just saying that it might be a good idea if it works out okay, and that's not good enough. It's not good enough.
CHEMALI: That's not what I said is. If you have the people, I think, and I think we have to think of the long-term interest here, and I don't see those who are arguing against the war thinking of the long- term interest. You have -- October 7 proved that all of these groups, and I'm going to put the regime in there, as amateur, we viewed them as amateur. We're way ahead of them. But that world is changing very dramatically, A.I., technology. All of these groups are going to catch up with us. The regime --
ROGIN: You're going to start a regional war without a plan? What does that mean about the long-term?
CHEMALI: They have much more of a --
PHILLIP: What I don't know what is if bombs -- but hold on. If bombs dropping on the nuclear program and destroying them last year didn't help move forward those objectives of deterring the regime, why do we think that suddenly this is going to do the same thing?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Because the people who weren't deterred are now dead. That's number one.
PHILLIP: Yes. But let me --
JENNINGS: Number two --
PHILLIP: But let me -- but this is Iran. Those people are dead, but there are other people. They've got plenty of people, Scott.
JENNINGS: I agree with you on that.
PHILLIP: And there's no indication -- we are 72 hours into this.
JENNINGS: You're making a good case for it.
PHILLIP: There's no indication as we sit here tonight that there have been any political changes in Iran.
So, my question is, if bombs dropping a year ago didn't change it, what is the rationale for thinking that bombs dropping today are going to change the actual, political dynamics on the ground in Iran?
JENNINGS: Well, look, you're asking a broad question about justification and what we intend to do with these guys over the long- term. The justification is, A, we had a huge problem with the ballistic missiles, and we did believe that if Israel, according to the secretary of state, attacked and they intended to attack, that our bases were going to be targeted, they were not willing to absorb that attack, so we attack. That is what the secretary of state has said. You can agree with it, disagree with it, but that is the justification. That's number one.
Number two, if you think --
ROGIN: Do you think that makes sense? Do you think --
JENNINGS: Well, look, I think it's pretty obvious that the Iranians are not shy about firing ballistic missiles across the region. I was in Israel last summer and watched many of them in the sky above my head.
ROGIN: But where do you stand, Scott? Are you for this invasion or not? You seem to be dancing around the question.
JENNINGS: No, I'm --
ROGIN: Do you think this was a good idea?
JENNINGS: No, I'm quite for it.
ROGIN: And you think that was a --
JENNINGS: I think these butchers deserve to die not just because of the missiles, not just because of the nuclear program, but for 47 years, Josh, they have waged war against western civilization, against the United States. Their mantra is death to America. They have killed American soldiers, American personnel. They have maimed people, our people.
And so if you want to go back decades or you want to go back two weeks, there's plenty of reasons to believe that those people that we kill being gone is good for U.S. national security.
[22:15:01]
That's my view. I mourn, by the way, and we should say the loss of the U.S. service members --
(CROSSTALKS)
ROGIN: And if President Trump makes a deal with the next guy down in the IRGC and says, okay, just like Venezuela, we'll have the Chauvistas without Maduro, we'll have the IRGZ without the ayatollah, are you going to then switch and be like, oh, that's great, well, we're just going to do a deal with the ayatollah successors and the next ayatollah and the next IRGC? And you're just going to switch and be like, okay, that's -- we're fine with the regime because Trump said it's fine?
JENNINGS: The president said it. His objectives are, and I think these are worthy. They're not going to have the missiles, they're not going to have nuclear weapons. If whoever becomes the next leadership in Iran says, okay, we're tired of being punished for missiles and nuclear weapons, that would be a good outcome. But I think we would all be happy about it.
PHILLIP: Well, hold on, let me play this because on Fox tonight, J.D. Vance was just speaking and he talked about I guess how they see the objectives, and just listen carefully to what he's saying here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: He wanted to make sure that Iran could never have a nuclear weapon, and that would require fundamentally a change in mindset from the Iranian regime. So, he saw that the Iranian regime was weakened. He knew that they were committed to getting on that brink of a nuclear weapon, and he decided to take action because he felt that was necessary in order to protect the nation's security.
Whatever happens with the regime in one form or another, it's incidental to the president's primary objective here, which is to make sure the Iranian terrorist regime does not build a nuclear bomb.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, if you're listening carefully, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. He's saying on the one hand that they need the regime's, quote/unquote, mindset to change, but on the other hand, they don't care what happens to the regime. It can't be both of those things at the same time.
DR. CORNEL WEST, AUTHOR, TRUTH MATTERS: Not at all. And it is just so sad to see the worst of our humanity being manifest once again with all of this vicious, organized hatred, revenge, lies, crimes, cruelty, barbarity. And you get justifications from a variety of different camps, but at least we should try to aspire to some moral consistency and some ethical integrity. When I look at it, I mean, I just follow Martin King, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. So, I want to be in solidarity with anybody who's suffering. I come from a Christian tradition. We all made an image and likeness of a loving and living God, and therefore all have a dignity and a sanctity that the world can't take away and the world give us. That's true for Palestinians. It's true for Iranians. It's true for Ethiopians. It's true for Israelis. It's true for Nigerians across the board.
Now, when you look at it in that way, what do you see? What I see is I see the gangsterism coming out of the White House. They lying, they rationalize, they killing American citizens here and rationalizing it and telling lies.
When I look at Israel, I see a government that's lying and got to deal with genocide with the news around his neck. When I look at Iran, I see the gangsters who've been running that for 46 years, and I stand in very deep solidarity with the suffering and the heroic struggles of the Iranian people.
Now, what kind of implications does that have for such a view? It means in fact that we're going to have to reshape our framework and we got to get beyond these little partisan points we make, or tribal moves we make, or international relations discourse that's only about power and has little to say about moral power and moral integrity.
PHILLIP: All right. We're going to put pause on our conversation here. And following the breaking news out of the Middle East, Donald Trump says bigger attacks against Iran are coming in the hours ahead.
Stay right here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: And we may have casualties that often happens in war.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I don't know if this is technically a war.
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it.
SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): This isn't a war. He we haven't declared war.
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: The secretary of defense, who calls himself a secretary of war, said today this is a war.
HEGSETH: We set the terms of this war from start to finish.
REP. BRIAN MAST (R-FL): Nobody should classify this as war. It is combat operations. HEGSETH: War is hell and always will be.
REP. ANNA PAULINA LUNA (R-FL): Strategic strikes are not war.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I guess the Congress people that you saw in that clip are all convinced that it's not a war because that would mean that they would have had to have done their job beforehand to authorize this. But it does seem like we're in a war because we're talking four to five weeks and we took out the leader of a nation.
BOOT: Yes. And when you're dropping bombs on a country and killing their leader, you are at war, and, of course, Iran is hitting back. So, obviously, we are at war. I mean, there's just so many dumb talking points going around about what's going on there. Clearly, we're at war, and one of the troubling things about this conflict, I think, is the fact that President Trump made no effort to explain to Congress or the American people why we're going to war or to build a case for the war, which was supported by only 20 percent of the public to begin with. There is no Congressional authorization.
Now, you can argue there have been. Plenty of uses of force in the past where presidents have used force without Congressional authorization, but in this case, there was no time element. There is no imminent threat. As we've established this is a war of regime change. At least it's sold that way sometimes by the administration. If this is the kind of thing where clearly the American people and the American elected representatives should have had a chance to weigh in and they haven't.
[22:25:00]
Now, all that said, Abby, I would add that doesn't -- even though I think the war was unwarranted, I think it's unauthorized, that doesn't mean it's going to be a disaster. There could still be positive benefits that come out of it. At the very least, I think it will degrade the Iranian threat. At the very least, Iran will emerge much weaker, much less of a menace to its neighbors. That doesn't mean I believe it's going to become a Jeffersonian democracy. I'm not sure that you're going to find an Iranian Delcy Rodriguez, but the Iranian threat will probably be a good deal less after this conflict than before.
But nevertheless, I would say after Iraq, we should all be fairly wary of starting preventative wars based on nebulous intelligence with the goal of regime change.
PHILLIP: You bring up Iraq though, but even Iraq, the process was actually dramatically more transparent. President Bush went to the U.N. in 2002. Congress authorized Bush to use force in October 2002. The president addressed the nation in March 2003 and formed a coalition of the willing of dozens of countries before going into this. Right now, we are in this with Israel. The president has yet to speak to really address the nation on this topic since this war started. JENNINGS: Well, the Gulf states are with us and we have lots of allies with supportive statements. We are in it militarily with Israel. There are some indications that some of the Gulf states that Iran has been attacking may join in. And so we'll see what happens.
PHILLIP: Well, they're defending themselves right now.
JENNINGS: Yes, and they should.
PHILLIP: But in terms of the coalition --
JENNINGS: But they support what the United States is doing is the point. So, we're not just here with Israel without any other political support or rhetorical support. That's number one.
Number two, the president did release two statements over the weekend. Number three, the Congress, I think, is going to debate --
PHILLIP: On social media.
JENNINGS: -- and vote -- so, is that --
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean --
JENNINGS: Is that a problem?
PHILLIP: Look, I think it is a problem that the president hasn't gone -- you know, he hasn't given a press conference. He hasn't -- you know, he hasn't really laid out fully what the strategy is. He's given probably over a dozen interviews over the last two days and he's said contradictory things in almost every single interview. So, there is a what missing piece --
JENNINGS: What is contradictory?
PHILLIP: What is contradictory? Contradictory is saying one thing in one interview and another.
JENNINGS: No. What -- give me an example. I mean, look --
ROGIN: He said we want regime change, we don't want regime change. He said we know the people that were going to replace the ayatollah, then he said, we killed the people who are going to replace the ayatollah, so we don't know them. He said, we want the people of Iran to rise up and free themselves and fight the regime, and then he said, we're happy to work with the regime remnants, if somebody emerges from the --
PHILLIP: He said that this could be over in two days. Then the next day, he said it could be over --
ROGIN: He said it could be over in five weeks. He said it could be over in two days to four weeks. He literally said every single option on every single --
PHILLIP: Here's the point. Here's the point. There's been -- ROGIN: It's a total mess.
PHILLIP: There's been contradictory statements not just from the president but from the secretary of state, from the vice president, from the secretary of defense about what the objectives really were here and why the American people should support this. And I just would ask, if we are going to be in a four-week or longer conflict, even if it's four days, why not go to the American people and get the vote? If this is popular, if this is supported, get the vote.
JENNINGS: Well, look, presidents have to make national security decisions based on what they think is in the best interest of the nation in that moment, and that's what the president has done here. I agree with you that I think the president and the administration do need to lay out for the American people, continue to lay out, are we meeting our objectives? I feel like they're doing that.
Look, the clear objectives, and this has been consistent, we're not going to let them have the missiles, we're not going to let them have nuclear weapons. Those are the clear military objectives. We've also sunk their -- some of their navy, which has also been a trouble there, that they've given us trouble and other nations trouble. But the missiles and the nuclear weapons has been a consistent argument of this administration.
Now, if taking out this leadership gets to people eventually who would say, okay, we won't do the missiles and we won't do nuclear weapons, that is an amazing outcome, not just for us, but for the entire region. And that's why the region is supporting us.
PHILLIP: You know, I was looking -- I was reading some writings from I think it was the University of Chicago scholar who studies airstrikes. He teaches -- Robert Pape. He teaches to the Air Force about not only the history of airstrikes but also tactics. And he made a very simple point. There is zero precedent for airstrikes producing political change in the history of this country being a military force around the world. And on top of that, he argues that what it might actually produce instead, what it often produces instead, is actually a more hard-lined nationalist, you know, political force within the country.
[22:30:00]
So, as we talk about all of this, I think there are a lot of experts out there who study this stuff pretty closely and work with the United States military, who don't see any precedent for saying, oh, they're going to come out of this more moderate than they were before. They're going to abandon their ambitions to strike back against the countries that are attacking them. That seems relevant.
JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST, "WASHINGTON POST" INTELLIGENCE: Of course. And you don't have to be a military expert to understand what's going on here. If we couldn't influence the path of a country's regime change with hundreds of thousands of troops, we definitely can't do it with zero troops and zero partners on the ground. And we tried this several times in the last 30 or 40 years, and it
always failed with hundreds of thousands of people that we put in harm's way. And now, we're trying to do it on the cheap, with zero people on the ground and zero partners.
And of course, it's not going to work, you know? And so, we're basically breaking it and then, like, just hoping that everything goes well. And again, you don't have to be an expert to understand why that's a very high risk, very low reward type of proposition. And what you're doing is you're plunging this country into a disaster that you have no means and no intention of helping them out of. And all of those possibilities are bad.
They could have a civil war. There could be uprisings that get crushed. People talk about the 2002 invasion or 2003 invasion of Iraq. I think it's more to the 1991 invasion of Iraq where we encourage the curds in the shield to rise up and then we didn't give them any support and they got mowed down and they got crushed. And that's what we're sending the Iranian people up for and it's not okay. It's not okay for them. It's not okay for us.
MAX BOOT, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS SENIOR FELLOW: Yes, no, I mean, I completely agree. I don't think that there is much of a strategy and you can see President Trump and his senior officials basically throwing things at the wall and saying what sticks, both in terms of a justification for the war as well as an instate for the war.
And basically, I think this is the way that President Trump operates. He wants to keep all his options on the table. So whatever happens, he can claim this is the greatest victory of all time, that whatever happens, he'll claim was part of his plan all along. And it's very unclear right now what is going to happen. I think it's extremely nebulous. And I think, as Josh said earlier, if you don't know exactly what objective you're trying to achieve, how on are you going to achieve it?
HAGAR CHEMALI, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL, FORMER DIRECTOR FOR SYRIA AND LEBANON: There's -- can I add something here? The first is that on the communications point, I actually believe it's a deliberate effort to obfuscate on the part of the Trump administration. Yes, there are contradictory statements. That's because they're dealing with an adversary and they know that adversaries are listening very closely.
It doesn't work very well in a democracy. I understand that. There's a reason why we have the press holding our government and authority accountable and I understand that, as well. However, when this administration believes that they don't want us to know which way they're going, it doesn't mean that they don't have a plan on the inside, it doesn't mean that they don't know their goals. It means that they don't want you know where it's going.
PHILLIP: But can I ask you, I mean, what would be the point --
BOOT: I'm skeptical --
(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: But no, no, but hold on. I just want to understand what would be the -- but hold on. What would be the point--
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Let me just ask you a follow-up --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: What would be the point at this stage where in the middle of bombing them into smithereens, what would be the point of sending, you know, contradictory messages about the objectives of the strike? What are they trying to get out of the Iranians by doing that?
CHEMALI: Because for an adversary, if you know where the U.S. red line is, if you know the U.S. -- where they're moving next, then you're going to always be a step ahead and you're going to know, well, I could go this far.
PHILLIP: But I don't understand. I think the part I'm not understanding is that we are already bombing them. We are already destroying -- we're killing them. We are destroying their munitions. We are destroying their Navy. So, they're not worried about -- we've already crossed the red line threshold here. So, I just don't understand what -- are we trying to get them to -- what are we trying to get them to do, I guess is the question.
CHEMALI: Well, if you don't know, if they don't know what the U.S. is doing, how far the United States is willing to go, then they're going to be on their back heels, right? And you're already seeing it. Why is it that they targeted the Gulf first? It's because, on one hand, because they're terrorists, and that's a terrorist tactic, to pressure the Gulfese, thinking that the U.S. and Israel are going to stop it.
It's because they don't want to engage in a direct conflict with the United States and Israel. Because again, they're not sure how far are we going to go? Trump appears --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: You mean boots on the ground?
(CROSSTALK)
CHEMALI: Maybe Trump presses the nuclear button, right?
(CROSSTALK)
CHEMALI: And I think --
(CROSSTALK)
ROGIN: They sent thousands of missiles into Israel, so I think they did engage --
(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: Are you talking about boots on the ground?
CHEMALI: Well, we don't know that's -- for an example -- let me give you an example from my --
(CROSSTALK)
CHEMALI: Let me give you an example, Josh, from my time in government when I handled the Syria war, and things were getting worse, and we were getting a lot of pressure. And Obama wanted to go out there and say there is no way we were going to militarily intervene. And I was at the White House saying that was a terrible idea. Because Assad would hear that and view that as a carte blanche.
And what happened? He went out and said we would never militarily intervene. And it was literally the next day there was a marked increase in violence. This is how adversaries work. And I want to just add one quick point on precedent. Because one of the fascinating things I see here that the administration is grappling with is that they clearly want to see regime change in Iran, in Venezuela, or transitions of some kind.
[22:35:01]
And they're testing the waters. And there is precedent for transitions of -- to democracy from dictatorship that took a long period of time where you ousted a leader but worked with the regime. And that was what happened in Spain.
PHILLIP: As a result of airstrikes?
CHEMALI: Well, no, but --
PHILLIP: There's no precedent for that. There's no precedent for that.
CHEMALI: In Spain, the leader was ousted. Economic incentives were --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Yes, but there's no precedent --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: There's no precedent --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- military action producing that result.
(CROSSTALK)
CHEMALI: And seven -- it took seven years but you led this transition to democracy. And you see this happening in Venezuela.
(CROSSTALK)
BOOT: That was an internal process. That's solely different from the U.S. coming in and bombing a country.
CHEMALI: I understand. But they are studying it.
(CROSSTALK)
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: When you hope that there is an internal uprising in Iran where the people who you admit, everybody admits have been massacred and suppresses, and terrorized, and tortured --
PHILLIP: I mean --
JENNINGS: -- if they take back their country and it's not (inaudible) to the world --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: We're the ones with the guns and we're the ones with the airplanes.
(CROSSTALK)
ROGIN: The IRGC has the guns and they're arresting and torturing people who celebrate.
JENNINGS: And we're bombing the IRGC.
ROGIN: I know, but you can't tell people to rise up and then not support them because you're sending them to the slaughter and that's a terrible thing to do.
PHILLIP: We actually will have an opportunity to continue this conversation a little bit later. But next for us, he promised no new wars, no policing the world. So, how does the President reconcile his promises against his actions that he's taking right now? We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:41:02]
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Our President will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate.
We tried. They wanted to do it. They didn't want to do it. Again, they wanted to do it.
They said, he will start a war. I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars.
This was our last best chance to strike.
We more and more are not wanting to be the policeman of the world.
An Iranian regime armed with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat.
She would get us into World War three. They're drafting you to go and fight in some country that I've never heard.
We may have casualties that often happens in war. Sadly, there will likely be more.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Dr. West, this is a president who has used his opposition to past wars as a political tool, but here he is.
CORNEL WEST (I) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, I think, you know, again, it's just so sad because you see, Brother Trump, he is a gangster, and the gangster has a mentality that views himself as never accountable, never vincible, never answerable and therefore never responsible. So there's a sense in which we don't -- shouldn't focus just on him.
He's got enablers. He's got supporters. And it's a sign, I'm just thinking we're going to put brother Jesse in the grave next few days -- Jesse Jackson. And you know, Martin and Jesse talked about just how spiritually sick and morally decrepit and politically corrupt the country has become. And it's not a function of skin, limitation, or gender, or region. It is a spiritual crisis of tremendous depth where cruelty, manipulation, and transaction is the way to live.
And talking about truth and justice and integrity is pushed to the margins. And there's a sense in which when we see this, we have to keep track of that moral and spiritual dimension alongside all the political debate and partisanship and talking points and so forth and so on. But people know in the barbershops and beauty salons that the country is in deep spiritual crisis.
And if we don't talk about it and accent and especially to our young people, let them know Martin King and others, Rabbi Heschels and the Edward Saids in the Dorothy Days, they provide better examples. Justice Harlans provide better examples.
PHILLIP: Both sides of political aisle have been exhausted by the United States engaging in conflicts for a while now. And now we're hearing it coming from MAGA. Here is the Blackwater founder, Erik Prince, a major Trump supporter. He's no scary cat when it comes to wars. Here's what he's saying about this one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIK PRINCE, BLACKWATER FOUNDER AND FORMER NAVY SEAL: I'm not happy about the whole thing. I don't think this was in America's interest. It's going to uncork a significant can of worms and chaos and destruction in Iran now. I don't see how this is in keeping with the President's MAGA commitment. I'm disappointed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And he's not the only one. And, you know, so far, a majority of republicans support the president although it's less than support him on a lot of other issues. How long will that continue?
JENNINGS: Look, I think vast majority of Republicans support the President's judgment, particularly on Iran. He's always had good instincts on this. He's always been very consistent on this, that he would never allow them to get a nuclear weapon. In fact, while we're on the air, Steve Witkoff is over on Fox News saying the Iranians told him clearly, quote, "We have enough material for 11 nuclear bombs, and that is our starting point."
Now, if that's what the Iranian negotiators were telling Steve Witkoff, and he calls back to the President and says, they're saying our starting point is we have enough nuclear material for 11 nuclear bombs. Obviously, the President has consistently over the years said, that's not acceptable to me. So look, he never hit the ball on this.
[22:45:01]
And for the people who are criticizing him over it, honestly, were you not listening to him for years and years and years when he said repeatedly, no nuclear weapons?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I thought that the point was that we destroyed their capability to have nuclear weapons eight months ago. I mean, it's either one thing or the other.
JENNINGS: And they continue to enrich. I think the point is they kept going.
PHILLIP: Okay, but how is that -- but Scott, how is that possible?
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Time doesn't stop. People have ambitions.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We were told reliably by the President that their nuclear capabilities were obliterated. That's the word that he used.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: The Iranians said they have all this material.
(CROSSTALK)
BOOT: Look, it's obvious, Abby, that Trump says a lot of things which are contradictory because on the one hand, Scott is right. He has said Iran is not going to go nuclear. But the intro is also correct. It was showing him saying we're not going to start new wars, we're going to end wars, we're not going to engage in wars of regime change in the Middle East.
He said both things, they're contradictory, they don't add up. And basically, any attempt to try to make Trump conform to some doctrine or to impose some kind of consistency or ideology on him is going to fail. He has followers, MAGA followers, who are consistent in their ideology. They want to stay out of these wars.
Trump does not. He basically reserves the right to change his mind, you know, five times an hour. He says one thing, does one -- another thing. He changes his mind to something else. And in the case of military action, what I've seen happen is he seems to have become more and more enamored of military action.
He saw the success of the Soleimani strike. He saw the success of the June strike on Iran. He saw the success of the operation to seize Maduro in Venezuela. He's not overjoyed. He thinks that the U.S. military cannot be stopped, we're invincible, he can do anything he wants.
And my concern is this is leading to the same kind of hubris that led us into the Iraq war because the U.S. military, while it is very tactically proficient, cannot transform the Middle East. It doesn't have the capacity to transform Iran or any other country. That's what we've discovered over the last 20 years.
PHILLIP: All right, next for us, the President says that the war in Iran could last a month or longer. We'll head to the map to take a look at what happens next on the ground.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:51:46]
PHILLIP: The U.S. is preparing for a major uptick in attacks in Iran in the coming hours. CNN national security analyst Alex Plitsas is here with us at the magic wall to break it all down. So Alex, Iran has been firing back. What are their capabilities at this stage?
ALEX PLITSAS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So, they're really relying right now heavily on two things. They're relying on drones and they're relying on their ballistic missiles. So if we take a look at what they have, they've got at the beginning of the onset of this conflict, we're going back to earlier this weekend, they had about as we're looking at here, these range missiles.
The short range missiles here which would hit the Gulf states. We probably had something along the lines of 6000 -- 8000 of those, and probably two to three thousand medium-range ballistic missiles which are capable of striking Israel.
PHILLIP: Right. What about their decision to strike these neighboring states. I mean, we've seen attacks in Bahrain, UAE. These are major, you know, economic hubs in the region. Why did they decide to do that?
PLITSAS: It was a -- I believe a foolish strategy because it looks like it's backfiring. In the beginning, they were originally only targeting U.S. bases and strategic air bases, and a few countries as well as our naval headquarters in the area. But then they pivoted as you mentioned, to these civilian infrastructure targets, largely in the Gulf. So, if we're looking at it over here, so if we're looking at Bahrain,
Qatar, the UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, who's closed their airspace, they said we couldn't use the airspace, couldn't use the bases, and they were trying to put pressure on the U.S. government by asking, basically, pressuring the Gulf states through strikes that appears to be backfiring.
They now are potentially going to get involved in some form or another, and it also provided both legal and political cover and pretext for the Europeans who didn't want to be involved, as well, because they also took shots at the Royal Air Force Base in Cyprus at Akrotiri.
And now we saw the Greeks deployed two frigates, F-16 fighter jets to defend. The French are going to send an aircraft carrier. And the British said that they may open up their bases. So, this appears to be backfiring.
PHILLIP: So far it's been defensive, but it could change.
PLITSAS: Absolutely.
PHILLIP: So, President Trump has said that there's more to come and that, in fact, maybe more intense strikes to come.
PLITSAS: Yes.
PHILLIP: But we're also learning that the United States did not target Iran's nuclear facilities. Why not? And could those be next?
PLITSAS: Absolutely. They probably are. And that's because in the beginning, they took out leadership targets which were intelligence- driven human beings that could go underground. So, you hit those first and then they'd want to strike as many ballistic missiles and drones as they could to prevent counterattacks on U.S. forces, and then there were also a couple attacks on some of the affiliates, the militias in Iraq and then Israel has also been hammering Hezbollah who decided to open up some missiles.
Once you get those and you limit the ability to counterattack against U.S. forces, you take out the leadership, now you go to fixed targets. Mountains don't move, facilities don't move, so now the new targets are up next. But in addition to that, I also think they may get back to trying to hit more of these missiles because they've been tearing up the GCC countries.
PHILLIP: But how, I mean, how many military sites are left after last year's attack that we're supposed to have degraded their nuclear capabilities?
PLITSAS: So, there were three main nuclear facilities and there were different levels of degradation. There was about, you know, enough material for weapons had been increased from 60 percent to 90 percent uranium. That was still deep buried under one of the facilities. We actually never got to it.
PHILLIP: So, perhaps untouched last year.
PLITSAS: Precisely.
PHILLIP: All right, Alex Plitsas, thank you very much. And the war is already impacting tomorrow's voting in key Texas primaries. Hear what the candidates are saying tonight. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:59:12]
PHILLIP: The highly competitive Texas primary is tomorrow and the candidates are already reacting to the unfolding war in the Middle East.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES TALARICO (D) TEXAS STATE REPRESENTATIVE AND U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: We have seen American troops dying in the Middle East. We saw innocent school children bombed in Iran. It's enough to shatter our fragile hearts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: James Talarico is running against Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who called Trump's strikes illegal and unconstitutional.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JASMINE CROCKETT (D-TX): People are dying every single day and it's illegal. And we need Congress to do their job. Declaring war is exclusively within the power of the Congress, not the president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[23:00:05]
PHILLIP: And here's what Republican voters in the state had to say ahead of a primary today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LINDA JACKSON, REPUBLICAN VOTER FROM WACO, TEXAS: I think that Trump takes a real tough stance on a lot of things that people don't agree with, but I feel like it's necessary.
KURT KRAKOWIAN, REPUBLICAN VOTER FROM HEWITT, TEXAS: We need to make sure that the Iran war is taken care of. You know, that's right now at the top of the shelf. Plus, my thing is we cannot have this state turn blue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: All right, thank you for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
