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Israel Emergency Services: 7 Injured After Iranian Strike; U.S. Forces Helping Israel Intercept Attacks. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired June 13, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

COL. JONATHAN CONRICUS (RET.): ... Well, that's something of the past, and I think it's important that the Iranians understand that.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: All right, Jonathan Conricus, former spokesman for the IDF. Thank you so much.

We're going to squeeze in a quick break when we come back, we have much more breaking news from the region. Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel just delivered a message to the Iranian people. We'll tell you more about that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:35:00]

TAPPER: Welcome back to CNN's major breaking news coverage, Israel and Iran are at war. Both sides launching attacks at one another in the last few hours, some Iranian rockets appearing to breach Israeli defenses in both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Israel is reporting at least seven individuals who have been wounded. And Israel is also saying Iran has crossed the red line by targeting missiles at civilian centers.

We have seen evidence of residential buildings in Tel Aviv damaged in the attacks. In just the last few minutes, Israeli officials have told civilians that they can leave their bomb shelters for now. But the Israeli government is urging Israelis to stay close to those bomb shelters.

The prime minister of Israel also delivered an address not long ago. It was an address, interestingly enough, to the people of Iran. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Tonight, I wish to speak to you, the proud people of Iran. We're in the midst of one of the greatest military operations in history, Operation Rising Lion. The Islamic regime, which has oppressed you for nearly 50 years, threatens to destroy my country, the State of Israel.

The objective of Israel's military operation is to remove this threat, both the nuclear threat and the ballistic missile threat to Israel. And as we achieve our objectives, we're also clearing the path for you to achieve your objective, which is freedom. In the past 24 hours, we've taken out top military commanders, senior nuclear scientists, the Islamic regime's most significant enrichment facility, and a large portion of its ballistic missile arsenal.

More is on the way. The regime doesn't know what hit them. They don't know what will hit them.

The nation of Iran and the nation of Israel have been true friends since the days of Cyrus the Great. And the time has come for you to unite around your flag and your historic legacy by standing up for your freedom from an evil and oppressive regime. It has never been weaker.

This is your opportunity to stand up and let your voices be heard. Woman, life, freedom. Zan, Zendegi, Azadi.

As I said yesterday and many times before, Israel's fight is not with you. It's not with you, the brave people of Iran whom we respect and admire. Our fight is with our common enemy, a murderous regime that both oppresses you and impoverishes you.

Brave people of Iran, your light will defeat the darkness. I am with you. The people of Israel are with you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: A remarkable statement by the Israeli Prime Minister to the citizens of the country he is currently bombing. Let's turn to CNN's Jerusalem Bureau Chief Oren Liebermann who is in a bomb shelter in Jerusalem. Oren, obviously this fits in with the overall message of the West, that the Iranian people are a good people oppressed by the ayatollahs and the Iranian regime.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: It's an interesting wording that we see there from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And before I get going here, it's worth pointing out that we are still in the bomb shelter in which we've spent much of the past hour and a half. The order coming just a short time ago that we are allowed to leave the shelters and we will do so in just a moment.

But in terms of Netanyahu's message, it's not the first time we have seen, talked to or tried to talk directly to the Iranian people and his wording is very interesting. He talks about the targets that Israel went after, nuclear facilities, ballistic missile facilities, which Israel sees as an existential threat and then the top levels of the military command. He stops short of blatantly saying Israel's goal is regime change in Iran, to remove the Ayatollah Khamenei and have a different leadership.

Instead, he kind of just puts that on the Iranian people, saying now is your chance to go for new leadership and to be a free people with all of the rights and abilities of free peoples around the world. He shifts the burden of regime change essentially from the Israeli military and the operation we're seeing play out, as he says this will continue to play out over the course of the coming days and tries to speak directly to the Iranian people saying now we've done this part of it with the strikes you have seen so far and places the burden on them to take it from there. It was just an interesting framing on the wording there in the statement he put out after these sweeping strikes.

As we have been here in the bomb shelter, we have seen Israel warn of two rounds of incoming ballistic missile fire, dozens of ballistic missiles in the first warning and then a short time later, dozens more ballistic missiles. We saw the night sky above Tel Aviv light up from not only the incoming but also the interceptor missiles, the damage, the shrapnel that fell after those interceptions.

[15:40:00]

It is worth noting that it is not just in Tel Aviv where we have our live pictures where this happened, but there were red alerts all over the entire country and for our perspective. This is a country the size of New Jersey, so there were essentially red alerts covering something the size of New Jersey, forcing the population here into shelters for much of the past hour.

In terms of the effort to intercept those incoming ballistic missiles, Israel obviously has its own air defense system. David Sling is the medium range, Arrow 3 is the long range interceptor and those almost certainly used here.

But we have heard now from U.S. officials that the U.S. forces helped to intercept the Iranian attacks on Israel. Those could be in a number of different places.

The U.S. has what is known as THAAD batteries, Terminal High Altitude Air Defense, if I remember that correctly, that have also played a part in intercepting incoming Houthi missiles here in Israel, for example, over the course of recent months, but they also have THAAD batteries elsewhere throughout the Middle East.

So the U.S. playing a part actively in this missile defense, it is also a key effort of the United States that was led over the course of the past year to coordinate not only the interception of incoming missiles, but also the detection, spotting them as early as possible is critical, especially with the numbers of incoming missiles we're seeing.

Now, the question is, even as Israel lifts the order and says citizens can leave bomb shelters, is this the end of it or is this only the beginning?

Israel's operation clearly took months to plan. This Iranian response feels like the sort of first response. And now we wait to see if there's something much more comprehensive and larger in the near future.

TAPPER: Yes, we remember during the by the end of the Biden administration, when the U.S. also helped Israel with missile defense, when it was being fired upon by Iran.

Oren Liebermann, thanks to you. Go get some fresh air. Enjoy your time out of the bomb shelter.

Let's go to Jeremy Diamond in New York, who has some new reporting about an Israeli cabinet meeting -- Jeremy.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Jake. I'm told that the Israeli cabinet is currently meeting, according to an Israeli official. They are discussing the range of Israeli responses to this latest Iranian ballistic missile attack, which, of course, came in retaliation for Israel's attack on Iran last night.

And I'm told that there are a range of different options that are currently before the Israeli cabinet, but that the inclination as of now for the government is that Israel will escalate further in its next wave of attacks against Iran.

And of course, we have heard the Israeli prime minister, as well as Israeli officials we've been speaking to, making clear in the first hours of this operation yesterday that this was not going to be a one day attack against Iran, that this would be carried out over days, potentially even weeks. And the real question is whether Israel can actually achieve the goal that it has set out.

As Israeli officials have said, they have been telling me and others that the goal here is to eradicate the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon. And questions have been raised, of course, as to whether or not Israel can accomplish that alone from a military standpoint, without the United States, without the very powerful bunker busting bombs that would likely need to be used to collapse Iran's underground sites like Fordow, for example.

But ultimately, Israeli officials say that they plan to continue this wave of attacks and that the likely next steps here will not be proportional but rather will be escalatory and signaling very dangerous days ahead, Jake, for both the people in Iran, as well as the people in Israel.

TAPPER: All right, Jeremy Diamond, thank you so much.

Retired U.S. Army Major Mike Lyons joins us now. Major Lyons, good to see you.

I want to ask you about Prime Minister Netanyahu directly addressing the Iranian people. It's not the first time he's done this, but it's certainly something we don't normally see. He's suggesting to them that this is a moment where they can free themselves, although he did not directly call for regime change.

What did you make of that?

MAJ. MIKE LYONS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Yes, I mean, that usually doesn't work. The Iranian regime has got great control over what the people can hear. So that's not just a message to the Iranian regime. I think that's a message to the rest of the world, as there'll be some countries that'll come against Israel for what they're doing here.

But this conflict was inevitable. There was no question at some point in time Israel was going to take out the Iranian nuclear capability.

I think that the entire Middle East has been now reset because of this. This was going to happen, and now we can move forward with this. But there's great opportunity, I think, for the United States to come in and reset the playing field, help that playing field get reset.

Look at the situation in Lebanon, inside of Syria. You know the Saudis are ecstatic about what happened, and so are the Jordanians.

[15:45:00]

So let's be real. You also say all of warfare is deception. So what the United States did, from my perceptive, was exactly what we should have been doing. We've not spent a lot of money and really didn't have any blood lost from U.S. soldiers' perspectives. But look what we have right now. Look what this administration's been handed. It's been handed a very weakened Russian military and a neutered Iran in the Middle East.

So there's great opportunity for the next Henry Kissinger to come in and reset what the U.S. presence will be and what the Middle East will look like. And it really starts today. It started yesterday with that attack, and it's going to continue today.

TAPPER: Let's dive a little deeper into what you said about the Saudis and the Jordanians being ecstatic, because I know what you're saying, but not everybody listening might be familiar with the geopolitics at play in the Middle East. Obviously, Iran, in addition to being of the Shia Islam field -- the Shiite sect, they are a major power center that spreads a lot of terrorist groups and militia groups, whether Hezbollah or Hamas or the Houthis in Yemen or various groups in Syria and Iraq.

And so just explain why it is that the Saudis are putting out a statement condemning Israel for their attack, but in your view, in the view of many other experts, they're not actually upset about this.

LYONS: Yes, well, that's right. The gray zone conflict is over. The proxy war of the Iranians using Hezbollah, Hamas and all their other groups, the Houthis and everybody in between, brigades on the ground, those guys have been all stripped away.

There's no capability that they have to attack Israel. And this really, it goes back again to the original Iranian revolution and the war that took place between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s that lasted for eight years.

But it's a Shia-Sunni conflict. It's an internal conflict that exists within the religion. And it's who's going to be the hegemonic power, who's going to have the most control over the situation in the region. And the Iranians, because of their ballistic missile capability and because of what they've done militarily, their alliance with Russia, all of the other things put together.

And Iran is a sophisticated society with its roots in Persia, and it's an advanced society. It has great capability. They were on their way clearly to getting a nuclear weapon here if something didn't stop.

So that's what we're going to have here. I think one of the issues will be Iraq. Again, when you bring Iraq back into the question, because they're primarily Shia and aligned with Iran, that was once Saddam Hussein was taken out of power, that's when the Iranians really took control of the situation in the Middle East and had that dark cloud over it.

But deep down now, this is an opportunity for other countries to come in and try to get a much more stable solution. But we have to see what happens.

TAPPER: All right, Major Mike Lyons, thanks to you.

I'm going to squeeze in a quick break. We're going to be right back with more CNN special coverage of this war raging between Iran and Israel. Stay with us.

[15:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back. I'm Jake Tapper. We have breaking news for you now. Iran, of course, has fired several waves of missile attacks on Israel in the past hour. They say they're doing so in response to the Israeli strikes on Iran's nuclear program and military leaders last night.

Some of the hundreds of ballistic missiles that Iran fired at Israel have broken through Israel's defense systems, including the famous Iron Dome. Video from Tel Aviv shows damage and fires to some buildings and first responders on the scene. We're being told there are some injuries, with at least seven people reportedly suffering slight injuries.

There's also a report from Magen David Adom, the Israeli version of the Red Cross, of a couple in their 80s, very, very seriously wounded in the central Israeli area of Ramat Gan.

An Israeli official is telling CNN that Iran will pay a heavy price for firing on civilian areas that they crossed a red line.

We're also now being told by a U.S. official that the U.S. military is helping with defense of Israel, not with the offensive strikes, but with the defensive strikes to help intercept Iranian missiles and drones as they are launched against Israel from Iran.

Let's go to the Pentagon now, where Natasha Bertrand has this new reporting. Natasha, tell us more about this U.S. involvement. Is it similar to what the U.S. did last October when the Iranians attacked Israel with about 100 missiles and drones back then?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, that's really the extent of the information that we have right now from multiple U.S. officials now who tell us that the U.S. military in the region is indeed helping to intercept this barrage of Iranian missiles and drones that are hitting Israel as we speak. Many of them, of course, are being intercepted by Israel's air defense systems, and some of them have gotten through. But we are told that the U.S. military using its assets that are in the region, including its naval assets, air assets, there are also Patriot battery systems, as well as a terminal high-altitude air defense system in the region, all of those things can be used to help with the interception of these ballistic missiles and drones.

[15:55:00]

Ballistic missiles, of course, are very difficult to intercept, and so it may be that one or two get through. But by and large, given the massive scale and scope of this intervention by the Iranians, it does appear that the U.S. has been helping to shoot a lot of that down.

It was a big question, of course, given the fact that President Donald Trump had said previously that he did not support an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. But of course, it does now appear that the U.S. is coming very much to the aid of its key ally in the region -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Natasha, we're turning it to the Pentagon for us now. Thank you so much.

Back with me, CNN military analyst and retired Colonel Cedric Leighton. Also joining us is Jamil Jaffer. He's the founder and executive director of the National Security Institute at the George Mason University Scalia Law School. He also serves as counsel for the George W. Bush White House.

Jamil, one of the big question marks over all of this is whether President Trump was part of a deception campaign, publicly saying he did not want Israel to strike, but privately signing off on it so that they -- the Iranians would be lulled into a false sense of security, or whether, no, that was a sincere position, but right now Israel is giving him the opportunity to claim, oh, yes, I knew of all along and I was completely with it.

PROF. JAMIL JAFFER, NATIONAL SECURITY INSTITUTE, GMU SCALIA LAW SCHOOL: Yes, look, Jake, I think it's the latter. The reality is that if President Trump was fully supportive of this operation from the jump, he wouldn't have been talking about negotiating all this time. He wouldn't have been talking about negotiating just last night.

The idea that this is all a setup to allow the Iranian commanders to be still in place is ridiculous. And you know how you know? After strikes happen, why didn't the president come out with a statement right away?

Why didn't Secretary Rubio have that limited statement saying, well, you know, we were not involved, but, you know, but we knew it was going to happen, right?

TAPPER: He also did that statement also was notable for not saying we stand with Israel, Secretary Rubio -- JAFFER: Right.

TAPPER: -- who, first of all, is a stalwart supporter of Israel. And second of all, lots of other people, lots of other politicians were saying we stand with Israel, that Rubio's statement did not say that.

JAFFER: And you know that the White House is watching that statement very carefully. They were managing that statement and they were managing what the president was saying. Now, ultimately, the president did come out strong, but it took him, you know, 12, 16, 18 hours to do that.

That suggests there was an internal debate going on about how to handle this. And now this idea that I knew about the whole way, I was just doing it for top cover. I don't buy the story.

TAPPER: And there is a domestic political part of this too, Cedric, which is that there are a lot of people in the MAGA movement who think that this is Israel dragging the United States into a global conflict and that this is not what people who voted for Donald Trump voted for. Notably, Tucker Carlson, the commentator who spoke at the Republican convention in his newsletter this morning, was very critical of this war and of the United States playing whatever role it did.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, it's a really interesting juxtaposition of things here that we're dealing with, Jake, because you know, quite frankly, it's in the U.S. national interest to defend Israel. And so when you have a situation where Israel goes preemptively and does an attack, conducts an attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities and other aspects of the Iranian command and control structure, you really have in some ways something that the U.S. administration may not have supported at the beginning, but they can take advantage of it now. And that's one of the key things that I think is very interesting about this.

The other thing is, you know, since it gives us the strategic opening here from a diplomatic and military perspective, you can also look at some of the movements of military personnel involved in this. For example, the CENTCOM commander, General Carrillo, was supposed to testify in front of Congress. He was pulled from that testimony in order to deal with an issue, and that issue clearly was this.

TAPPER: We know now what that issue was. You used an interesting word there, preemptively. There is a debate about whether Israel did, is preemptive, which would imply that Israel -- that Iran was about to strike with nuclear weapons or with whatever, and Israel was just heading them off at the pass.

Some say this is not a preemptive strike. This is a preventive or preventative strike. What's your take?

JAFFER: Look, in my view, this is preemption. When you have a nation- state that has called for the destruction of Israel and the destruction of America for decades, and they're trying to build and trying to weaponize a nuclear weapons program, we knew they'd had for a long time this ability to increase their, the enrichment of uranium. Now they're talking about weaponization.

Prime Minister Netanyahu last night on TV said, we've seen evidence of weaponization. So he's saying things have gone further. At that point in the system, that is preemption.

If you think a regime committed sheer destruction, talks about it repeatedly, is going to get a nuclear weapon, going after that program before they get to that point, totally preemption, not just prevention.

TAPPER: Netanyahu said that he thought that they were maybe a year or even less, maybe a few months away from being able to put a nuclear weapon on a missile.

JAFFER: Right. I mean, look, that's a real problem. There are three elements you need to have when you have a nuclear weapons program.

[16:00:00]

The delivery capability, the ballistic missiles, right? The nuclear material, and then the weaponization, the ability to make explosive device. That's what he's worried about, is the latter part.

TAPPER: All right, Jamil and Colonel Leighton, thank you so much.

Our breaking news coverage continues right now on "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt. I'll see you at five.

END