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Trump Calls Iran's Supreme Leader an "Easy Target"; Interview with Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Trump Considering U.S. Military Strikes on Iran. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired June 18, 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]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the breaking news. President Trump said to be increasingly warming to the idea of U.S. military strikes against Iran. And Iran's Supreme Leader just issued a brand new statement saying Iran will never surrender.

We have special coverage of this increasingly tense situation. Kate Bolduan is out. I'm John Berman with Sara Sidner.

This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news this morning. Iran's Supreme Leader ratcheting up its war of words with the U.S. this morning. The U.S. military now surging its troops in the region. And two sources, CNN says, President Trump is increasingly warming to the idea of the U.S. using its military to strike Iran's nuclear facilities.

Iran ramping up. Tough talk, as we mentioned just a short time ago. Iran's Supreme Leader warned that if the U.S. gets involved in the conflict, it will cause irreparable damage. That comes after President Trump said the Ayatollah would be an easy target and demanded Iran's unconditional surrender.

Already, the U.S. is mobilizing forces, sending another aircraft carrier to the Middle East. And sources telling CNN the U.S. is deploying more than 30 aerial refueling tankers to the region as well.

Overnight, Israel says it launched a new wave of strikes involving more than 50 jets on Iranian centrifuges and missile production sites. And new before and after satellite images obtained by CNN show the damage that the airstrikes have caused to Iran's military facilities.

CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour joining me now. Christiane, you know, you look at this situation and what we're facing. What do you see as you see all of these things moving into place, the military moving into place, Donald Trump warming to the idea of strikes?

Do you see this going forward, that the U.S. is indeed going to take part in this war?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Look, it's hard to tell. Donald Trump says certain things and is, you know, he's making decisions with his closest advisors. And we don't know, you know, sometimes from one day to the next what it will be.

But you're absolutely correct that all the signals point to Donald Trump deciding to take part. And apparently, according to what you've just reported, the actual physical preps for such a deployment, contingency plans, so to speak, pre-positioning aircraft and other such equipment that might be necessary appears to be going on from what you've just said.

The question, of course, is following reporting from our colleagues at The New York Times, Ronen Bergman, Maggie Haberman and the others, it is very clear that according to their reporting and according to all that we see and hear, Donald Trump is significantly influenced by Benjamin Netanyahu, who has wanted to do this for many, many decades, as we have been reporting.

Donald Trump, we hear and we know because he said it, is seeing the successful military operation by Israel and thinking that maybe this is something to also take part in. The question, though, of course, is what is the end strategy and what is the wide goal and does the United States and Israel share the same goal? Is Donald Trump also in the regime change or, more precisely, the regime destruction business as Israel is and as it keeps telegraphing?

For instance, when Donald Trump posted that Khamenei, the so-called supreme leader, would be an easy target if they decided to go ahead, that is telegraphing the desire for that political assassination, should they desire to do that.

Now, you've seen that Khamenei has responded and done the usual. Iran always says we will not surrender and we will, you know, maintain our dignity, our sovereignty.

The issue is with the Iranian people right now. There is a good deal of fear and panic. I have my own friends and family, not to mention others who I'm in touch with there, who are trying to follow instructions.

It is impossible to evacuate a city of 10 million people, just impossible. It's a completely irrational thing to say. So analysts are saying this is a sort of a psyops, if you like, to cause as much panic and chaos and damage to the regime's control right now by threatening, you know, that many people or subliminally threatening that many people by bombing in various areas that may or may not have military targets, but also have quite a lot of civilian targets, many, many residential neighborhoods.

And also by cutting and disrupting and hacking the financial system, where it's getting more and more difficult for Iranians to be able to get money out. They also don't have enough gasoline, even if they wanted to get into their cars, to actually escape en masse as they are being told to do.

So this is the situation on the ground and the real question is what is the strategy? What is America's end goal and what is Israel's end goal and do they align?

[08:05:02]

SIDNER: Yes, those are really good questions that need to be answered. There's also this question that I wanted to talk to you about because you are in touch with people in Iran and you've been covering this region for such a very long time, many, many decades. One of the stated goals we are now hearing from Netanyahu is that not only does he want to get rid of the nuclear facilities that Iran has and its nuclear capabilities, but he is calling for regime change.

What are you hearing from within Iran as Israel is also striking Iran and sending people into a panic?

AMANPOUR: Well, indeed, to follow up from what I was just saying, there is quite a lot of panic. Look, we've said it over and again. The majority of the Iran people, Iranian people, are fed up with this government, with this regime.

I have personally covered the Green Revolution, the so-called Green Revolution, back in 2009 when people actually came up to me as we were -- I was following them with cameras, you know, running through the streets with these protesters in 2009 and they said, Madame, Madame, this time it's going to happen. But no, it didn't, because the regime used its police, military and paramilitaries to crush that protest. I've been banned ever since for doing those reports on people's desires in Iran.

So the question is, will they be able to come out now under a hail of bombardment and under the panic that I've just described, because people don't know where the hits are going to happen, even if Israel says they're telegraphing.

Remember, Gaza the same, they said they were telegraphing, but many people just found themselves going in circles and not knowing exactly where to go, over and over again being told to evacuate under a hail of bombs and strikes.

The second issue is, even though many people would like to see an end to this, do they want to see it? And you're seeing it on their internal discussions and Telegram -- although even that is difficult to monitor right now because of the disruption of a lot of internet ability there -- that they're very concerned and not thrilled that this might come, you know, at the end of an Israeli F-15 jet.

It is very, very sensitive in that part of the world, especially given what that part of the world and many parts of the world view as, you know, the decimation of the Palestinian people by Israel right now in Gaza and in the West Bank as well. So they're all those complicated things.

Then the last most important thing is, who comes next? If regime destruction is the aim, who and what comes next? There's a whole load of scenarios increasing, you know, including balkanization and, you know, some say Syrianization of the country. In other words, dividing it into many different parts. So there's a lot of questions that are not yet being answered by any

of the principals involved -- Sara.

SIDNER: Thank you so much, Christiane Amanpour, for all your reporting on this. And I know we will be checking back with you and your expertise on the region and specifically on Iran and the furthering of this war. Thank you, appreciate it -- John.

BERMAN: All right. With us now, CNN military analyst, retired Colonel Cedric Leighton. Cedric, I'm going to go to your real house right now.

Talk about some of these air assets being surged into the region, specifically the refueling tankers, the KC-135s and the KC-46. What capabilities does this provide the United States? And does it tell you that action is imminent?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, it's certainly an indicator, John, that action might be imminent. And the reason I say that is every time we surge an air package into a combat zone or for an exercise, the refueling tankers are basically part of the package. That package includes other assets like intelligence and surveillance assets.

But for the KC-46 and the KC-135 aerial refueling tankers, they're the ones that are capable of refueling fighter jets. They can also refuel bombers and in some cases, other aircraft. And basically what they're able to do is they are able to extend the range of all of the aircraft that are engaged in these operations.

So they could be refueling Israeli aircraft, the Israeli F-15s, the F- 35s and the F-16s. And that will give the Israelis extended loiter time over Iranian targets.

They will probably not be flying over Iran. That would be a, you know, dangerous, could potentially be a dangerous thing to do. But they will be in the standoff areas, potentially over the Persian Gulf, over Iraq, over other countries. And we would provide that extended range to the Israelis and any American assets that would also potentially be engaged in combat or attack operations.

[08:10:00]

BERMAN: Let's talk about U.S. assets in the region right now, because this is the range of Iranian missiles in their short range missiles -- short range missiles of 1,000 kilometers, you can see there.

The U.S. has some 47,000 troops stationed in the region and a lot of them are grouped right around here from Kuwait, UAE, down to Oman, Bahrain, a lot of naval assets. How at risk do you think that these U.S. forces are right now from Iran?

LEIGHTON: Well, they're at some degree of risk. Now, the Iranians aren't going to mount an aerial attack against them, at least through not through standard aircraft, such as, you know, the Iranians have F- 14s, they have MiG-29s. They will not be using those assets because those assets have basically been rendered inoperable by the Israeli actions and also because of maintenance issues that they've had a long, long time coming to them.

But what, you know, what is at risk is unconventional attacks. They could be subject to drone attacks, like we had the case in Syria where drones killed American soldiers a few months ago. That's the kind of thing that could happen here.

We have to be very careful with that because our drone capabilities, our drone surveillance capabilities, you know, are ones that need to be beefed up in that. And that's a critical component there.

BERMAN: Yes, certainly a new area of warfare. One of the stated goals of Israel and the U.S. interest in being involved is Iran's nuclear sites, particularly right now concern over Fordow, which there's been so much talk about. It's this heavily fortified nuclear enrichment facility with the centrifuges you can see right here, buried deep inside this mountain.

It is said that the U.S. has the only weapon that can penetrate at the so-called bunker buster. You get a brief look at it here. My question to you, Cedric, is say the U.S. does use that weapon, use that bomb to go after those centrifuges. How guaranteed is it that it will work? How can the U.S. verify that it worked?

LEIGHTON: Yes, those are great questions. So there's no guarantee, John, that the GBU-57, which is what you showed there as the massive ordnance penetrator, will actually work. Now, it's designed to hit targets, you know, at a depth of about 60 or so feet.

The problem that we have here -- or 60 or so meters -- the problem that we have here is that the buried target is something that is actually deeper. It's, you know, potentially at almost 300 feet. So that is, you know, a basic problem that you have with that.

So you would need multiple hits, at least two, probably more than that, to get a better chance of actually knocking out the Fordow installation.

How would you know that it's been done? It depends. There's several ways of doing this. It's called bomb damage assessment or now battle damage assessment. And battle damage assessment involves a variety of things.

Basically, you could, you know, you could have satellite imagery of the site, you know, if the mountain on top is blown off, that would probably be an indicator that things are not very good down below. It could also be something where you actually see the Iranians themselves talking about what happened. And that is the kind of thing that, you know, that would be part of any assessment of the success or failure of that.

Plus, it also be measuring radiation levels. If the radiation levels in a localized area are higher than normal, that would probably be an indicator that the centrifuges and other instruments were disturbed.

BERMAN: Colonel Cedric Leighton, always great to have you on explaining things so clearly. Thank you very much. Obviously, a whole lot of breaking news this morning, including these

new comments just in from Iran's Supreme Leader saying that country will never surrender.

What that means, we're parsing what else he said for any sign. Is there any space now for diplomacy between the United States and Iran as President Trump is said to be warming to the idea of a military strike?

[08:15:00]

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BERMAN: All right, the breaking news this morning, just a short time ago, Iran's supreme leader says his country will not surrender and warns that any U.S. military intervention will bring irreparable harm. Those remarks come after a wave of new strikes from Israel overnight, more than 50 fighter jets hitting what Israeli officials say are military targets and a centrifuge production facility.

With us now is Congressman Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Congressman, always great to have you on the show. How involved would you like to see the U.S. here?

REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): Very little. We give Israel about $4 billion a year in other military assets. I think we should allow them to fight this thing.

I fear basically a three-front war. You know, we're involved with Ukraine, and then we pull out from around Taiwan, and that exposes them to China. That's something that China would love to see, and you know, we don't need another endless war in the Middle East.

I think Israel has the capabilities they've shown. They have the technology and the intelligence. You know, taking out three of their top people is a good thing.

And of course, those Ayatollahs are going to say that. They're hiding out in some cave somewhere, and they're going to -- you know old people make -- old men make decisions and young men die, and that's the history of war. I would warn folks, though, that we need to vote about, we need to do about what's right and not what our stock portfolios say, because a lot of this military assets is, a lot of people vote for these things because they have jobs in their districts, and that's just the cold, hard facts of warfare.

BERMAN: So you say you would like to see very little U.S. involvement.

[08:20:00]

There are Republicans, Lindsey Graham and others, who say that Iran nuclear capabilities are a threat to the United States, not just Israel, but to the U.S., and that the U.S. is the only country with the capability to take out the nuclear enrichment facility in Fordow. What do you say to that? BURCHETT: They can't get past Greece with their missiles. I think if they had, they would have already launched them. That's pretty evident.

And their last missile strike, I think they put two of their major missiles in the air. That tells me they're just about out. And your previous -- your previous expert talked about their apparatus was inoperable. That means that Israelis blew the hell out of it on the ground.

Again, I think we need to take a deep breath and slow down this thing and let the Israelis do their thing. And ultimately, that's what's going to bring them to the negotiating table.

Like I said, we do not need another endless war. The weapons of mass destruction, I'm pretty confident Iran has those capabilities of nuclear war, but they can't get to us. And I think the Israelis are doing a great job right now of eliminating any threat, and I think we should allow them to do that.

BERMAN: There is a bit of a divide in your own party on this. It seems like you're saying you don't want U.S. military involvement here. You're agreeing on that.

And we saw this new video, Tucker Carlson, who is someone who in the past has been very supportive of the president, had an interview with Senator Ted Cruz from Texas. I just want to play a little bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TUCKER CARLSON, CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: How many people live in Iran, by the way?

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): I don't know the population.

CARLSON: At all.

CRUZ: No, I don't know the population.

CARLSON: You don't know the population of the country you seek to topple? What's the ethnic mix of Iran?

CRUZ: They are Persians and predominantly Shia. OK --

CARLSON: This is -- no, it's not -- you don't know anything about Iran. So --

CRUZ: I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran.

CARLSON: You're a senator who's calling for the overthrow of the government --

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: -- and you don't know anything about the country.

CRUZ: No, you don't know anything about the country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Congressman, where do you come down on this? And Tucker Carlson has called some members of your own party warmongers.

BURCHETT: Yes, well, I call them war pimps. You know, Lindsey Graham's a friend of mine. Ted Cruz is a friend of mine.

I just -- like I got a I got a daughter just turned 18 last week on the same day as the president did and the United States Army. I don't want to see her go to war. My daddy fought in the Second World War.

Hell, my mama flew an airplane during the Second World War. She lost her brother to the day she died. Every time they unfurled that flag, she would tear up. And that was for a just cause. I just don't see American boys and girls going to a faraway land that many of us couldn't even find on a map.

Again, it's Israeli -- the Israelis can handle this thing. Let's let them handle it. We do not need a three front war in our lifetime right now.

I just don't think that's a -- that that's the route to go. There'll be room for debate, but I think we ought to let the president do his negotiating skills. That's what I elected him to do.

BERMAN: OK, before I lose this connection, which seems to be weakening right now. Congressman, I do want to ask you about the tax and spending bill, which the House passed a version of. It's now before the Senate. A new CBO analysis says the Senate version would add to the national debt $2.8 trillion. Your view of that.

Is this something you could vote yes on?

BURCHETT: Probably not. I don't I don't always agree with the CBO either way. I don't -- I do my own analysis. Basically, are we are we spending more money than we're taking in? And that's exactly what we're doing under the previous and the one we passed, you know, over the next 10 years, it would add $3 trillion to our debt under the Joe Biden administration.

We added a million, a trillion dollars every hundred days. So clearly, the House version slows that rate of growth down. I'd like to see us go more in that direction than the other direction.

The IRA spending the Medicaid, Medicare adjustments that they've made. Some of them are unacceptable to us. I just want to eliminate waste, abuse and fraud and stick to that and quit messing with all this other stuff.

I think it was a decent proposal the president put forward, and I think we ought to go forward with that and try to make that work.

BERMAN: All right, Congressman Tim Burchett from Tennessee, we appreciate your time this morning. Thank you very much -- Sara. SIDNER: All right, joining us now is the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon. Thank you so much for being here this morning to talk through these crucial moments as we're watching what is happening.

There are strikes that are being exchanged between Israel and Iran and also the U.S. military sort of ramping up in the region as well, with the president considering whether to take part. Why is Israel asking the U.S. to enter its war with Iran militarily?

[08:25:00]

DANNY DANON, ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: Good morning, Sara. So first, let's make it very clear the U.S. will decide for itself, according to the interest of the U.S., what to do, how to do, when to do it. We, in the five days, we were able to push back the Iranian regime for years back, you know, with their nuclear plans with the ballistic missile capabilities. We targeted the many, many high officials in the terror machine of the Iranian regime, and we are continuing to do that.

And we are very proud of the results, you know, our pilots flying, you know, long flights in order to get to those destinations. And they are very capable. And today we have a situation that we can actually with our intelligence, you know, target anyone in Tehran.

SIDNER: So why ask the U.S. to enter this war militarily? Why is there a push from the prime minister to get Donald Trump to move on this and to take part in this? What do you think is needed?

DANON: Well, so I told you, I don't think, you know, we are in a position to push or to tell the U.S. what to do. You know, we are not -- asking about telling you what to do.

SIDNER: I'm just asking why --

DANON: But I would tell you that, you know -- I would tell you that when you see that the scenes from Tehran, you know, the chants death to America and death to Israel, you know, they try to assassinate Prime Minister Netanyahu in his home. But they also try to assassinate President Trump, you know, with their proxies, they threaten Israel. But they also attack the U.S. soldiers all around the Middle East.

So they are against the U.S. No one can deny that. And now the U.S. should decide, you know, what's good for the U.S. and how to handle this threat for the U.S.

SIDNER: Iran says it will show no mercy to Israel. We heard from the Ayatollah this morning telling the U.S. it will never surrender. Does Israel have a good assessment of exactly what Iran's military capabilities are now after all of the strikes that Israel has managed to do on its nuclear facilities and elsewhere?

DANON: Well, I saw for decades we have heard those threats coming from Tehran and we believe them. We believe them when they say they want to destroy us. Regarding their capabilities, you know, it's painful. You know, those ballistic missiles, when they land in a population area and they target the population areas in Israel, not like us. We target the military facilities that do exactly the opposite. It's painful.

But, you know, overall, I think we can see that despite the size of Iran and the amount of billions of dollars invested in this terror machine, today, you know, we have a superiority. We are able to intercept most of the missiles coming from Iran. And then I think, you know, it's a it's a big -- it's a big achievement for our troops and our minds.

SIDNER: I want to mention this because it's been a lot talked about in many different places, including in Congress. When I lived and worked in in Israel in 2012, Prime Minister Netanyahu said Iran was just a few months, maybe even weeks away from being able to create a nuclear weapon. In 2015, Netanyahu argued Iran was less than a year away from nuclear weapon capabilities.

That was 10 years ago. And still no intelligence has said that Iran definitely has nuclear weapon capabilities now. Why should the United States believe Israel's assessment about Iran's very close to to nuclear capabilities now?

DANON: Well, no one should have to believe Israel. You should believe the IAEA, which, as you know, is an independent body, which said only recently that Iran breached all the agreements. They don't allow the inspectors to come in.

They are hiding their real plans to develop facilities that are not supervised. And moreover, you know, you look at the amount of enriched uranium they already have. That's not to build civil reactors. That is a military program.

And once we found out that they are actually racing to develop a nuclear bomb, we didn't take that chance. You know, after October 7th, we are not going to take more chances.

SIDNER: Ambassador Danny Danon, thank you so much for talking this very important time through with us. And we will check back in with you to -- to find out any new information that you have also learned as we go forward right now.

Coming up, how do Americans feel about the U.S. possibly taking military action on Iran? We are going to run the numbers for you.

And we are just moments away from testimony resuming in the Sean Combs trial. Combs' former assistant and alleged drug mule, as he's being called, expected to take the stand today.

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