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Israel Launches Unprecedented Strikes on Iran; Several Top Iranian Commanders Killed in Israeli Strikes; Interview with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA): Israeli Strikes on Iran and Sen. Padilla Forced Removal from DHS News Conference; Trump Tells CNN Israeli Strikes on Iran were Very Successful. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired June 13, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: No search and seizures. At most, they can go out there and support and protect federal assets.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, as far as the Marines go, no mention yet. Just come back to me if and when they do more than they're doing now, he seemed to be saying. Elie Honig, again, a major ruling on a night of major news. Thank you very much for all that.

A brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Our breaking news this morning. Israel says the attacks will keep going on Iran. Some of Iran's nuclear sites hit and several of the most powerful military leaders assassinated.

The U.S. saying it had nothing to do with this, no involvement. But President Trump chiming in this morning saying it had been warning Iran to make a nuclear deal, now pushing for that deal with the U.S. before it's too late.

Overnight, these are images from the massive explosions at the site of strikes in northwest Iran. Iran's state TV says the attacks killed several nuclear scientists. These are the major decision makers who would cooperate and coordinate retaliation against Israel, all of them dead this morning, including the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

Just into us now, extraordinary video from the Israeli spy agency Mossad showing Israeli operatives smuggling weapons into Iran ahead of the strikes.

Israel's military says Iran has responded by launching more than 100 drones and that it was working to intercept them.

Sources telling CNN the Trump administration is still hoping that the nuclear talks with Iran will take place on Sunday as previously scheduled. We have team coverage this morning, CNN chief international anchor

Christiane Amanpour joining us from London and CNN's Oren Liebermann who is in Jerusalem for us.

Let's begin with you, Oren. These are extraordinary images that we're seeing released very soon after these attacks of Mossad showing how they got some of those weapons into the country. Give us some sense of what you're learning this morning and whether or not this is yet over.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: We'll get to the Mossad images in just a second and I'll note how rare it is that the Mossad spy agency actually puts out video like this.

But first, we have been tracking these developments over the course of the last 12 hours or so when Israel first announced that it was carrying out what it called preemptive strikes in Iran and then we saw the explosions themselves from the Natanz enrichment facility in Iran to multiple neighborhoods within the city of Tehran itself and then strikes really across the country itself.

And Israel at this point is signaling that this isn't over yet. Its goals as part of this operation remain to either destroy or degrade Iran's nuclear capabilities so that remains an ongoing effort here and we'll see if and when there are more strikes. On top of that, they're also going after Iran's top military officials and their top nuclear officials.

At first, we had it as three top officials killed. That list is very quickly growing including, as you pointed out, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and crucially, as we just learned a few moments ago, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Air Force. And the reason that's significant is because he is in charge of Iran's ballistic missile program and that is the great fear of retaliation now.

Those have been launched in the hundreds against Israel and in fact it was that commander who was in charge of that launch back in April and that remains the concern for what Israel could be facing in the coming hours or days.

Let's get to that Mossad video here. This indicates how big of an operation this was and how much planning went into it, that there were Mossad agents, essentially spies, on the ground smuggling in weapons and smuggling in what they said was a facility for the launch of explosive drones to take out missile launchers and some of the surface-to-air missiles that would have been Iran's air defense against what Israel says is 200 fighter jets targeting more than 100 targets.

You see the planning that went into this. Israel fully aware, though, that a response may very well be coming and Home Front Command essentially put the country on an emergency footing, warn citizens, stay near shelters, don't go into crowded areas. A lot of outdoor activities have been curtailed.

The airspace is closed with no definite timeline on when it will reopen and frankly, on the ground here, I just went for a short walk through the city of Jerusalem on what should be a bustling Friday morning ahead of the Sabbath, and in the main market, it is, frankly, empty. People here are heeding these warnings. The government knows what may be coming.

Even if until this point it was only 100 drones, which is, frankly, an incredibly tepid response, Israel is well aware of the capabilities that Iran at least still has at its disposal, and even if some of the top military leaders have been eliminated, it's simply perhaps a question of time until Iran is able to better get its footing and better plan a response if they're looking for something much larger, frankly, than what we've seen so far, and that remains what Israel is preparing for.

SIDNER: All right, Oren, thank you for your reporting there.

Now to you, Christiane.

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You heard Oren talking about sort of this tepid response, and I guess the big question is with the attacks before this, after October 7th, where Israel hit military targets and now the attacks that you're hearing now with all these commanders being taken out, some of the nuclear scientists being taken out, and, of course, the strikes on some of the nuclear capabilities. Does Iran have the capability to have a massive response to Israel?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, as we've noted several times, and Oren just said, so far the response has been, you know, relatively muted, if you want to take it in relative terms, especially compared to how it responded over the last year with waves of missiles and drones, I mean hundreds and hundreds. This is much, much less so far.

And interestingly, just to note how things happened, you know, yesterday, Thursday, Iranian officials had said they were getting sort of words, intelligence, feelings that something was going to happen, and the head of the Revolutionary Guard had said that we will respond even harder than we did last year if such a thing happens to us.

And, of course, he was one of the ones who was assassinated, decapitated as the wave of top military officials were overnight in these strikes.

At the moment, or in the last hour, the president of Iran, known to be more of a moderate, more of a relative reformer, he, Masoud Pezeshkian, went on state television to address the people and very interestingly and importantly called on them to be united, more united and unified than ever before, and to, quote, trust the leadership. This is because, you can imagine, the leadership is incredibly concerned that this vast penetration, this intelligence coup, including the Mossad tapes that they've been sending out of spies inserted to, you know, take part in this military attack on Iran's facilities, they know that they are heavily penetrated, and they have been over years by Israel. They know that Israel's aim is to decapitate the entire regime in terms of causing the regime to fall. That has been an aim certainly of Prime Minister Netanyahu, and they believe that there's no controlling Iran's nuclear program with this current regime in place.

The question is, does the United States believe that? Will the United States support Israel? As Israel has said, this is going to be a long, in fact, the word was prolonged, military, you know, activity, operation over Iran.

The next question is, and if it matters, whether, in fact, Iran's nuclear program can, in fact, be destroyed, and whether Israel or with the United States can get to the very deeply and highly penetrated and hardened facilities underground, especially at Fordow.

And what does Donald Trump think about all of this? Remember, he pulled out of the only arms control agreement that had been struck when he was in office the first time. That caused Iran to continue enriching at pace and to higher degrees.

Iran has always said it does not want a nuclear weapon, and as yet the IAEA has not said that it has found any evidence that it is on the way to a nuclear weapon, and whether there is going to be an effort to try to resolve this diplomatically. President Trump has said that I gave Iran 60 days. Now it's day 61.

This is his latest post, and maybe it'll have a second chance. But whether there really will be negotiations on a new nuclear deal or to resolve the current situation is, it's hard to tell.

SIDNER: And we do now have an answer, Christiane, to the question of whether the president supported Israel in these strikes. The president telling CNN this just came in to us that U.S. supports Israel and called the strikes on Iran last night a very successful attack. So there is the answer to that.

We will see what more comes out --

AMANPOUR: Well, that was different --

SIDNER: -- of the White House.

AMANPOUR: Sorry, of course the U.S. supports Israel. The question is whether it's going to support it militarily to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. Sorry, that's what I was saying.

SIDNER: Yes, whether or not it is going to join in is a whole different question. Christiane Amanpour, thank you so much, and to you, Oren Lieberman from there in Jerusalem, appreciate it -- John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now is Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia. Senator, good morning to you. I know you are waking up to this like so many Americans this morning.

What is your reaction to the scale of this attack by Israel? SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): Well, John, I'm an armed services member and father of a member of the military and a Virginian, a very pro- military state. My thought, my sole focus now is I'm going to do everything I can to keep the United States from getting involved in another war in the Middle East, especially a prolonged forever war. Twenty years of two wars in the Middle East should have taught us something.

And so I was pleased when the statement of Secretary Rubio came out last night that the U.S. was not involved in this.

[08:10:00]

I was very surprised that Israel launched this strike three days before the U.S. was to have a diplomatic discussion with Iran about their nuclear program. That discussion might have gone well, might have gone bad, but to launch a military attack before a diplomatic discussion, I was surprised and disappointed in that.

But I'm not a Knesset member. I'm not a member of the Israeli government or the Iranian government. I'm a U.S. senator, and I'm going to do everything I can to keep the United States from getting involved in another war in the Middle East. That's my sole focus right now.

BERMAN: How much control do you think President Trump has over this situation?

KAINE: Sadly, little. I think he's trying to exercise control. He has been urging Prime Minister Netanyahu to find a ceasefire and hostage- release deal in Gaza. That makes American troops in the region safer. Thus far, the prime minister has not really been willing to listen to him.

The president has been urging Prime Minister Netanyahu to give diplomacy a chance, let the U.S. and Iran have these discussions. And I think the White House was taken aback and disappointed when the prime minister decided to go ahead and launch this massive attack a couple of days before a diplomatic discussion, all but guaranteeing that that discussion would be canceled. And we've heard from the Iranian side, at least so far, that they don't intend now to have the diplomatic discussion on Sunday.

If you make diplomacy impossible in a situation like this, you raise the risk of unnecessary war. And again, I'm not a member of the Israeli government. They're going to make the decision they think is best for their country.

But I know it's best for the United States. No more engagement of the U.S. military in endless wars in the Middle East. That would be a grievous, grievous mistake and would suggest that we didn't learn anything from 20 years of losing lives and losing our national treasure and reputation.

So that's going to be my goal going forward.

BERMAN: Do you think the risk of U.S. involvement in what you call a forever war is bigger this morning than it was yesterday?

KAINE: Absolutely, I'm very, very concerned about it. And my staff and I are talking about what we can do to make sure that there is not a kind of casual escalation of U.S. involvement. And we need to kind of explore how to do that. But I do believe the risk of U.S. deeper involvement in another war in the Middle East is dramatically higher today than it was yesterday.

BERMAN: Do you think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have launched this without some kind of green light, tacit or otherwise, from President Trump?

KAINE: Yes, yes. The president and the team, by every indication I have, the administration's team, was really begging the prime minister not to do this until the diplomatic discussions were done.

Again, diplomacy may not work. Discussions may not lead to a productive outcome. But why torch diplomacy before it's been allowed to succeed?

I think we learned at our peril. We had a diplomatic deal with Iran that was controlling their nuclear enrichment and that subjected them to the most searching inspection regime in the world. I think President Trump made a huge mistake in tearing that up and giving Iran the green light to more and more enrichment.

We're living through that now. But it's never too late to look for diplomatic options. And I praise the Trump administration for doing it.

Those discussions Sunday were going to be very high stakes. I'm frankly shocked that the Israeli prime minister would decide that he couldn't wait three or four days and he wanted to torch diplomacy before it occurred.

BERMAN: Very quickly, what's your assessment of Iran's capabilities this morning? Compared to what they were 24 hours ago.

KAINE: Weakened, certainly weakened. And that's (INAUDIBLE) have significant capacity. And I have friends in Israel and I'm praying for them. Friends in the region, praying for them. It is impossible to conceive that after an attack of this kind, Iran will not try to respond.

They will. The history demonstrates that they will at a time and manner of their choosing. And so I'm praying for my friends in the region that they're safe. But I especially want to make sure U.S. troops and U.S. citizens in the region are safe.

BERMAN: And before I let you go, Senator, your colleague, Senator Padilla from California, was detained and handcuffed at an event yesterday with Secretary Kristi Noem. Your reaction to that, what kind of message do you think that sends?

[08:15:00] KAINE: It was one of the most outrageous things I've ever seen in 67 years on the planet, John. L.A. city council member, he attended a meeting at the federal office building. He walked into a public press conference.

And when the secretary said something about she was there to liberate Los Angeles from its government, he tried to ask a question. And he was he was manhandled, forced out of the room, tackled and handcuffed.

The First Amendment guarantees the right to all Americans we can peacefully assemble and petition government for redress of grievances. That action yesterday and the Trump actions more generally in deploying the military into a situation where there's no need for them is an intent to suppress legitimate dissent against Trump policies.

On the eve of Flag Day, tomorrow's Flag Day, many of us are going to be involved in events for Flag Day. We got to commit ourselves to the notion that Americans can gather and express dissenting views to policies of this or any administration that they don't care for. So long as those gatherings are peaceful, as was Alex Padilla's presence, we're not only allowed to do them we're guaranteed the right to do them even if this administration wants to suppress dissent, we can't let that happen.

BERMAN: Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia, a lot going on an eventful moment in our history. Thank you so much for being with us this morning -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: And still ahead for us, we're keeping a close eye overseas, of course. How Iran is -- will respond to these attacks.

And also because it -- and also watching this. Oil prices surging after Israel's unprecedented strikes on Iran how global markets are reacting.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: All right, global markets are anxiously watching the developments out of the Middle East after Israel's unprecedented attack on Iran. Crude oil prices surging overnight, prompted by fears a conflict would disrupt energy production across the Middle East.

CNN's Matt Egan is joining us now. What are you seeing, Matt, as the result of these unprecedented attacks?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Sara, the market reaction to these unprecedented attacks was immediate, and it was significant. Within minutes of the first social media reports of this attack on Iran, we saw oil prices surge, at one point up by as much as 14 percent overnight. You can see on your screen both Brent and WTI up more than 7 percent right now.

U.S. oil prices on track for their biggest one-day increase in just over three years, really, since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And the market concern here is of an even wider escalation, a wider

conflict, something that disrupts the flow of oil from this critical region when it comes to energy supplies. The big fear is something that disrupts the Strait of Hormuz. That is the most critical choke point for oil on the planet. Every single day, 21 million barrels of oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz. Some context, that's about a fifth of what the world consumes every single day.

RBC analyst Helima Croft, she said oil has already spiked and its ultimate landing point will likely hinge on whether Iran revives the 2019 playbook and targets tankers, pipelines and key energy facilities across the region.

And look, this is really the last thing the world economy needs right now. We were already bracing for the full impact from these historically high tariffs that are expected to drive up prices.

We learned in 2022 just how much damage an oil shock can do to the world economy, what it can do to financial markets. You're looking at U.S. stock futures down about 1 percent across the board. I would note that losses were even more severe in the immediate minutes and hours after this attack.

Market futures have bounced off their worst levels of the day. I think the good news here is that we're entering this period at a time when oil prices and gasoline prices had been relatively muted. Right.

We look at the national average for U.S. gasoline prices. It's $3.13 a gallon. That's actually down 3 cents from a month ago. Even though we're entering peak summer driving season, gas prices are down 33 cents from a year ago. And this is one of the reasons why we've seen relatively tame inflation readings.

But Sara, clearly everything has changed in the last 12 hours or so. And we're going to see gas prices move higher, perhaps sharply higher. Back to you.

SIDNER: All right. Matt Egan, thank you so much for reporting there -- John.

BERMAN: All right, on the phone with us now, CNN's Dana Bash, who I understand, Dana, just had a chance to speak with President Trump. What did he tell you?

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Good morning, John. Yes. I mean, the question -- first question I had was about what his point of view is about the strike that Israel conducted, multiple strikes that Israel conducted last night.

I know we were reporting real time that his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, released a statement simply saying that Israel informed the Trump administration about these strikes beforehand, but didn't say explicitly that the U.S. supported what Israel was doing.

So that's how I started a very brief conversation. And he responded by saying, quote, We, of course, support Israel, obviously, and supported it like nobody has ever supported it.

[08:25:00]

And then he went on to say this -- Iran should have listened to me when I said, you know, I gave them I don't know if you know this, but I gave them a 60 day warning. And today is day 61.

And then he said, They -- meaning Iran -- should now come to the table to make a deal before it's too late.

And then he said something really noteworthy. He said, The people I was dealing with are dead, the hardliners, to which I just wanted to underscore.

So what you're saying is Israel has now killed the people who you were dealing with. And he said very sarcastically, they didn't die of the flu. They didn't die of COVID.

It was a brief conversation, but my takeaway was twofold. Number one, they are really hoping that instead of escalating the situation, which is what most people are terrific reporters and analysts you've been talking to all morning believe is possible, even probable. He's hoping that instead of that, this forces Iran to come to the table.

We'll see if that's if that's going to happen. He also you know, he made clear he understands that it could escalate. But he is hoping now that Israel has done what it's done, that it takes another turn and deescalate. We'll see.

BERMAN: It sounds like such an interesting conversation, though brief. And you hit on what seems to be emerging as one of the key questions here, especially based on what Secretary of State Marco Rubio said almost immediately after the attacks began, which was basically this was Israel acting unilaterally.

It's one thing if President Trump says this morning that he supports Israel. It's another if he signed off, as it were, on the attacks yesterday. And I and it's still hard to tell where that line is.

BASH: He definitely -- yes, I mean, it's such an important point, John.

He definitely did not say I signed off on this. He said, I support Israel. We support Israel. We, you know, we support Israel like no one has ever done before.

And, you know, obviously the whole sort of reason for this line of questioning, which you wouldn't normally ask of the Trump administration when it comes to the state of Israel, particularly that government, is because of that statement that Marco Rubio put out, but also because of the really important nuance here, which is the immediate concern for retaliation by Iran, not just against Israel, but against U.S. assets in and around the region.

And we didn't get, you know, deep into that conversation at all. We didn't have time, frankly. I didn't have time. But that is why I, you know, really wanted to push him on the notion of support for Israel. You know, again, I would not say just because he said he supports Israel that he is suggesting that he signed off on this, on this strike that Israel launched last night.

BERMAN: Yes, again, so important to get that conversation with the president this morning. Dana Bash, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us.

Obviously, you will have much more --

BASH: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: -- throughout the morning. And I know "INSIDE POLITICS" at noon as well. Thank you -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, so we're also just getting a reporting in that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to speak to President Trump later today. That's according to an Israeli official.

And also Netanyahu is expected to hold a situational assessment on Friday. That's the terminology that we were given from that official. The timing on both unclear. So a lot more to come today and a lot more to come in just moments.

Joining us right now is the former national security adviser to President Trump in his first term, John Bolton, who also served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. It's good to see you again, Ambassador.

I have a million questions. But first and foremost, what do you make of this first wave of strikes by Israel? How far they hit and who they took out?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, thank God for Bibi Netanyahu. He has cut through the fog and done, frankly, what should have been done as long as 20 years ago.

This is a very important step. It's far from over. But Iran is already close to being flat on its back after the pummeling. Its terrorist surrogates have taken the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.

Now the elimination of several of its top commanders, the elimination in October of its ballistic missile production facilities, and now direct attacks on the nuclear program. This regime should never be allowed to get to nuclear weapons. And Netanyahu has started it off.

We don't know if all of the coming days will be as good as this one. But this is a very good start.

BOLDUAN: The way that Brett McGurk just put it in speaking with us this morning, he said the people who would have met this morning to figure out how to respond are all dead, but that they will respond. Ambassador, do you think the United States is closer now to being pulled in?