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Several Top Iranian Commanders Killed in Israeli Strikes; Air India: British National Is Sole Survivor of Plane Crash; Trump and Netanyahu to Speak Today After Israeli Strikes on Iran. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired June 13, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: 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 into another war in the Middle East than it was yesterday? That is the fear of Senator Tim Kaine, who just spoke to John Berman.

[08:30:18]

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Yeah. Well, they've got a completely distorted view of the situation. There has been a war in the Middle East since October the 7th, 2023, and Israel has now simply opened a new front in that war.

I believe the United States should be helping Israel conduct these attacks. The Iran nuclear weapons program is not an Israeli problem, it's an American problem. It's a problem of global nuclear proliferation. We let it go on far too long. What the United States needs to do now, although I don't have any idea whether the Trump administration will do it, is provide all the intelligence we can on what Iran's response might be, get American forces into the region to defend Israel, to defend our deployed forces, to defend our Arab friends in the Gulf region.

And then also, we should be beginning to plan phase two of this. Given the destruction of the Israeli military facilities, it's now time to think of the campaign for regime change in Iran, because there will never be peace and security in the Middle East until that regime is gone. I think the Israeli attacks could well constitute a major destabilizing consequence inside Iran as the people look at what the Ayatollahs and their followers have brought to the country.

BOLDUAN: Marco Rubio was the first to issue the first formal statement on behalf of the United States after these attacks, talking about this was a unilateral attack by Israel. I know that you have said, you said just now and you've told me before, that you think the United States should be helping Israel in these strikes, even before today you had said help them in striking nuclear facilities. Do you think that Benjamin Netanyahu would have launched this attack without some sort of go ahead from President Trump?

BOLTON: Absolutely. I think it's clear that as of last night, maybe the administration had been informed or maybe they had simply heard from Netanyahu and the conversation he had with Trump on Monday that Israel was getting near the point of attacking. But I don't believe there was any implicit or explicit authorization, green light, yellow light or blinking of the eye.

But -- but that's -- that's not unprecedented for Israel to act alone and to act without American permission. They did it in 1981 when they destroyed Saddam Hussein's Osirak nuclear reactor outside of Baghdad. They did it in September of 2007 when they destroyed an Iranian reactor being built by North Korea in the Syrian desert. And I think they've done it again. And good for them.

BOLDUAN: Something else Tim Kaine said, Senator -- Senator Tim Kaine said, Ambassador, that I wanted to ask you, he said, why torch diplomacy before it's allowed to allowed to succeed? His point is that he said he was shocked and disappointed that Israel launched this attack just three days before the diplomatic efforts of the nuclear talks between U.S. -- the U.S. and Iran were set to take place again this weekend. Before this, in our last conversation, I recall you saying that you thought these -- these nuclear talks were going nowhere. What do you think now? Are you disappointed? I know that you are applauding this, but are you disappointed in the timing given that talks are going to happen this weekend?

BOLTON: There was never a chance. Let me say that again. Never a chance that Iran was going to agree to any kind of deal that we would find acceptable. And anybody who thinks otherwise just doesn't understand Iran.

Look, we've negotiated with Iran for over 20 years now. And when serious negotiations started in 2003, 2004 by the Europeans, Britain, France and Germany, it was an absolute precondition by the by the Europeans that they would support a civil nuclear program for Iran, but no uranium enrichment, no uranium enrichment.

And they stuck with that. And the Obama administration stuck with that up until his second term when they caved in and allowed uranium enrichment. That was the fatal flaw of the 2015 deal. And anybody who thinks that deal made America or Israel or the Gulf Arabs safer fundamentally doesn't understand the direction of the Iranian regime. So, it wasn't that we didn't give diplomacy as a chance. Diplomacy had no chance given Iran's objectives.

BOLDUAN: Even saying that, do you think these talks are -- are dead at this point?

BOLTON: Look, these talks are a waste of oxygen.

BOLDUAN: Ambassador, thank you for coming in, as always. I appreciate your time.

[08:35:02]

John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: He has very, very strong views and always had on this subject. All right, new this morning, a flight recorder has been recovered from

the Air India plane that crashed just moments after takeoff. Again, we're getting new information about this miraculous lone survivor.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning, officials say one flight recorder has been recovered from Thursday's horrific Air India plane crash that killed some 290 people. A new angle shows the moment that Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed. You see it taking off there from the runway.

And as you watch, you will watch that plane get lower and lower and lower until there is that terrible and enormous explosion. Remarkably, after all of this, one man managed to survive. Not only the explosion or the fact that it went into buildings. He's apparently a British national who was in seat 11A according to his boarding pass.

[08:40:09]

The "Hindustan Times" reporting that he told them he heard a loud noise just before the plane went down. Dozens of others on the ground were killed when the plane slammed into a hostel housing doctors and medical students.

With us now, CNN Transportation Analyst and former Inspector General at the Department of Transportation, Mary Schiavo.

Mary, thank you so much for being here. That black box, one of them recovered, where we will start getting some concrete answers. But you have two clues here. One that you pointed out yesterday that the flaps not being deployed may have been a problem. But another big clue from that sole survivor of the crash, saying that he heard a bang about 30 seconds after takeoff. And we know that this plane went down about a minute or a little less than a minute after takeoff. What might that indicate?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: Well, it could indicate a number of things. I mean, immediately when you hear of a big bang on takeoff, you think of what's called an uncontained engine failure. And that is the engine literally has a breakdown. It has a failure of various parts. And it can spew out literally metal flying pieces of the engine, et cetera. And the housing doesn't contain it. It would be extremely rare to have a dual uncontained engine failure. It could be a bird strike. It could be any number of things.

And he also reported, and I found this very interesting. He said the lights were flickering about the same time. And so he has a wealth of information. The doctors, I also saw the doctors put them on strict order and observation. So, it'll be a while before the investigators probably can talk to him officially. But those are important clues.

SIDNER: Yeah, I do want to ask you about Boeing. Boeing has faced such scrutiny with all of the things that have happened to some of their other planes, not Dreamliners, but some of their other planes with things like, you know, doors blowing out and tires falling off. At this point, what kind of pressure are they under in this particular crash?

SCHIAVO: Boeing is under tremendous amounts of pressure. And, you know, ordinarily you prove what went wrong. Boeing, because of all of the problems, you know, not just -- it's not the same plane, but not just the 737 MAX 8 crashes where Boeing's control systems and something called the MCAS, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, you know, it was a bad program. It did not, it overrode the pilot's commands to pull the nose up, et cetera. That's been resolved. But because of that, Boeing is going to be under intense scrutiny to prove it did not cause this accident rather than the other way around.

Usually you have to prove what did cause the accident. And also remember back in January of 2025, there was a curious incident, didn't get much coverage, CNN covered it. But there was a Dreamliner coming out of Lagos, Nigeria. It was a United flight headed to the U.S. During that flight, the plane itself disconnected the autopilot, disconnected the autothrottle. The plane did several uncommanded maneuvers. And the significance of that is the NTSB already has an investigation open on the Boeing Dreamliner and that incident.

So, the NTSB has already been invited in. They will be a huge benefit to these investigators because they already have working groups going on that investigation concerning Boeing and the Dreamliner. Honeywell, this one will include additional manufacturers.

So, they're starting with a lot of clues already. But as soon as they have both black boxes, it will be on the flight data recorder what happened. It's the most advanced black box in the world.

SIDNER: Yeah, very important to have those. We will have some answers once they get that data. Mary Schiavo, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: All right. Coming up for us, our breaking news coverage of Israel's strikes on Iran continues this morning in what's being described as a first wave. Israel strikes more than 100 targets across Iran, including nuclear facilities and taking out the country's top military leaders. Israeli officials saying people should prepare now for a, quote, "prolonged operation."

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:48:29]

SIDNER: A U.S. official now confirming that President Trump will speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today. A short time ago, the president told CNN that the Israeli strikes on Iran were very successful and that Iran should come to the negotiating table to make a deal before it's too late. Israel's military says it used 200 fighter jets to launch the unprecedented strikes on Iran. In retaliation, Iran launched over 100 drones towards Israeli territory, that according to the Israeli military.

Joining us now, CNN Military Analyst, retired Colonel Cedric Leighton. First to you, look, Secretary of State Rubio says that the U.S. was not involved in the attacks. Trump said publicly he opposed the attacks. But can you give us some sense of what this might mean? Because it doesn't necessarily mean they didn't know the attack was coming.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yeah, that's right, Sara. Good morning. I think the basic takeaway from this is that the Americans had an idea of what was going on. The Israelis probably kept them informed at least as far as some of their preparations were concerned. They probably didn't give them exact details because operational security was paramount for them as well. But this is something that strategically can benefit the Trump administration because it not only laid bare the weaknesses of the Iranian regime, but it also shows a possible opening for other things that the Trump administration may want to do vis-a-vis the Iranians or, frankly, in the Middle East.

SIDNER: Dana Bash just spoke with the president just a bit ago who said that the people that he was dealing with are dead, the hardliners. Israel has killed those people, in his words.

[08:50:10]

Colonel Leighton, what does that mean for the potential of talks at this point, when you see the number of people killed in this very powerful position, to start making decisions and to be able to negotiate? They're all gone.

LEIGHTON: Yeah, it's a significant decapitation strike. And that's really remarkable, you know, from an operational standpoint. Now, the key thing to remember, though, is even though the president told Dana that a lot of these people had been killed, which is true, a lot of the senior military and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps leadership is gone.

However, the political leadership is still there. And those are the ones, people like the foreign minister, people that are actually conducting the negotiations with the United States and with others. Those people, as far as we know, are still around.

So, there is a difference. The military capability has basically been hurt greatly by this. The diplomatic capabilities that the Iranians have are still there. And of course, the political leadership in the form of the supreme leader and the president, they are still around as well.

SIDNER: There are several nuclear sites in Iran, Isfahan, Natanz, Fordo. Fordo, particularly highly fortified. Does Israel have the capability to actually take out all of Iran's nuclear infrastructure without the help of the United States and its munitions?

LEIGHTON: So, this is a very interesting question that has plagued even intelligence professionals for quite a long time. The Israelis have said that during these last strikes, they have in fact damaged Natanz significantly. So far, I haven't seen any reports about Fordo, because as you mentioned, that's very highly fortified.

As far as the capability to take everything out, that's questionable. It is something that would rely on not only very specific munitions that the Israelis do not have in their inventory at present, but it would also rely on possibly using ground forces, such as special operations forces or intelligence operation forces, such as the Mossad. That is the kind of thing that would probably have to happen in conjunction with an aerial attack in order to take everything out, you know, in essence, render it useless. So, there is a significant damage to Natanz as far as we can tell. The rest of the sites, we don't know yet.

SIDNER: All right. Colonel Cedric Leighton, thank you so much for your expertise this morning. Appreciate it.

John?

BERMAN: All right. Breaking overnight, a federal judge says President Trump's deployment of the National Guard in California is illegal. That ruling now on pause by an appeals court. So, what happens next in this standoff?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:57:15]

BOLDUAN: New this morning, President Trump is celebrating a federal appeals court decision that temporarily put a pause on a lower court's order, requiring that he give back control of California's National Guards to the state. The president writing on social media in part, quote, "Thank you for the decision."

Another hearing is set for Tuesday, and this all stems over what you see on your screen right there from Trump's decision to federalize National Guard troops and send them in to respond to the L.A. protests over his immigration raids.

CNN's Harry Enten running the numbers on this one for you this morning. So, overall, how have what we've seen in the last days, but also the last few weeks, have ramped up immigration crackdowns, these raids that we've seen in California and beyond, and the protests in response? How's it impacting his approval?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yeah, I think the simple word here is hurt. It has hurt Donald Trump's popularity. You can see it right here. We have two new polls, Quinnipiac University, AP-NORC. I got the prior poll for you on the screen. I got the now. This is the net approval rating. You could see this in Quinnipiac, minus 12 to minus 16. How about AP-NORC? Minus 16 to minus 21. Awful, awful, awful for both of these pollsters. Where we are right now, both Quinnipiac and AP-NORC, the worst for Donald Trump in this term so far. He is very much way, way, way underwater, at least in these two polls.

BOLDUAN: And this is overall approval. How about specifically on immigration?

ENTEN: Yeah, so immigration has been a strength for Donald Trump. That was why in the beginning of the week, I said that Donald Trump wanted this fight. Maybe he shouldn't have wanted this fight. What are we talking about here? Let's take a look at the net approval rating for Donald Trump on immigration. You go back to June 1, he was at plus four points.

Look at where he is now. Minus two points in the aggregate. That is a drop of six points in only about two weeks' time. The only thing that's happened over the last two weeks is obviously Donald Trump's ramped up immigration hawkish agenda. And at least at this particular point, the American people are saying, no, we do not like that. And they have turned against the president on his core strength issue of immigration. He is now underwater on the issue that has been strongest for him.

BOLDUAN: A bit of a turn, but it is happening this weekend. This weekend is the big military parade that the president we know has been pushing for and is getting this time to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the U.S. Army. There's been a lot of back and forth about concerns over cost and simply how much the hardware and military tanks are going to weigh and could they damage even the roads. But still, it's moving ahead. But how are people feeling about it?

ENTEN: Yeah, you know, if immigration has not helped Donald Trump, maybe he wants to change the subject to this military parade. But take a look here. Government funds for the military parade. A good use of funds. Only 38% say, yes, it is a good use of funds.

[09:00:03]

How about not a good use? 60% say not a good use of funds. And get this, in the center of the electorate among independents, just 24% of independents say it is a good use of funds. This has simply been one of the worst polling weeks for Donald Trump that we've seen.