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Trump Floats Iran Regime Change; Israel Hits Iran with New Wave of Strikes; Israel Strikes Heart of Tehran; Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) is Interviewed about Iran; Israel Strikes Access Routes Dave Deptula and Michale Allen are Interviewed about The Iran Strikes. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired June 23, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

SEAN LYNGAAS, CNN CYBERSECURITY REPORTER: Aggressive.

They've conducted ransomware attacks that lock computer systems in the health care sector here and have shown no signs over the last several years of having any kind of red lines when going after U.S. organizations, John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Sean Lyngaas, thank you so much for that report.

A lot of news this morning. A brand-new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, new this hour, Israel hits Tehran, the heart of Tehran, as they put it, while President Trump is floating regime change in Iran. Tehran vowing to make America pay for bombing three of the country's key nuclear facilities.

Also this morning, Israel bombing Iran, as we just mentioned, striking a notorious prison for political prisoners and the headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. The U.S. embassy and Qatar now warning Americans they must shelter in place as a precaution as tensions spiral.

And anger on Capitol Hill over President Trump's decision to strike Iran. Some members of Congress calling the bombings unconstitutional and insisting the president will need their approval if the conflict continues.

I'm Sara Sidner, with John Berman. Kate is out today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BERMAN: The breaking news this morning, Israel is launching new strikes on Iran as President Trump is floating the idea of regime change there, while the U.S. is still assessing the impact of its strikes on the country's nuclear facilities over the weekend. The world is watching and waiting and asking, how will Iran respond?

We've got new satellite images of Iran's Fordow nuclear facility. That's the one dug underground into a mountain. You see before and after the U.S. targeted with bunker busters. That previous image was the one you could really see with those craters. A series of three craters up and down. There, this image, you can really see it on the right, those three craters up top and then down below. The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog says the U.S. strikes likely caused very significant damage.

New images also appear to show significant damage to Iran's largest nuclear research complex. This is in Isfahan. One Iranian official reacted to the strikes, calling President Trump a gambler and warned, quote, "you can start this war, but we will be the ones who end it." So far, though, Iran's supreme leader has been silent. This even after President Trump posted this on social media, "if the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn't there be regime change."

It might come as a bit of a surprise to members of his own administration, including Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. They've all said regime change is not the goal here.

Let's get to the White House. CNN's Alayna Treene.

So, President Trump floating the idea of regime change. Is this a new strategy?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, John, I mean, this is really something I know in my conversations with White House officials that they had been trying to avoid, especially because they want to avoid, and the president is someone who believes this himself specifically, a prolonged war in the Middle East and having this really break out into a much bigger, fuller-scale conflict than it already is.

And so, you know, yesterday, we did see the president's top officials, the same ones who flanked him when he gave that address to the nation shortly after he had ordered the strikes -- or, excuse me, the strikes were completed on Saturday, people like the vice president, J.D. Vance, but also Marco Rubio, secretary of state, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, all of them yesterday going on the Sunday shows and reiterating that they were not looking at regime change.

Of course, that messaging held for a couple hours until the president shared that tweet that you just shared, really opening this possibility of regime change.

Now, the press secretary, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, was on Fox News this morning, and she was asked about this specifically. And I want you to listen carefully to her answer, and I'll explain why at the end of it.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president believes the Iranian people can control their own destiny. And what he said last night makes complete sense. If the Iranian regime refuses to come to a peaceful diplomatic solution, which the president is still interested in engaging in, by the way, why shouldn't the Iranian people take away the power of this incredibly violent regime that has been suppressing them for decades? And so, our posture has not changed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So, as you could hear Karoline Leavitt say there, she said, their posture has not changed. But when talking about regime change, she seemed to put the onus on the Iranian people, saying, why shouldn't the Iranian people look at regime change because of, you know, their disagreements perhaps with the leadership?

[09:05:00]

That's not exactly what people thought that the president's post meant yesterday when he essentially said, quote, "if the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn't there be a regime change?"

Now, me, myself, and some other reporters got to catch up with Karoline shortly after she made those comments. They -- we pressed her on whether or not she meant the Iranian people, the president himself, who would be the ones responsible for such a regime change. She didn't necessarily bite at that.

I also asked her specifically about what the communications with -- from the U.S. side with the Iranians have been. She reiterated what Pete Hegseth said yesterday, the defense secretary, that they have tried to back-channel with the Iranians, but she would not answer my question on whether or not the Iranians have responded.

All to say, it is clear in our conversations that the president does want to see if they can reach some sort of diplomatic solution now that these strikes are over. The question, of course, though, is if the Iranians are even open to that at this point after these U.S. strikes.

BERMAN: That's just one of the questions -- another one of the questions, if the president agrees with Karoline Leavitt on what regime change means there. We'll have to wait and see what he posts next on this.

Alayna Treene, at the White House this morning, thank you very much.

SIDNER: All right, our CNN team on the ground in Tehran, witnessing the strikes this morning Israeli forces launched across Tehran. On the target list, the headquarters of the Iran Revolutionary Guard and a facility holding political prisoners.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen and his team raced for shelter as the strikes began. Moments later, they emerged to show you this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, we've just witnessed a massive airstrike here on the area of sort of northern central Tehran. We actually went downstairs into a shelter once we heard planes overhead, and then we heard explosions.

You can see now, the sky over the northwest of Tehran is completely filled with smoke. It seemed to us as though it were several really, really strong impacts that took place. And if we look over to the left here, you can see the smoke seems to be emanating from that area. That's more towards the west of Iran, the sort of northwest of Tehran, of the Iranian capital.

This is the first time since we've been here that we've seen a heavy airstrike like this in the fairly central part of the city. So, we're only going to be able to be up here for not much longer. But this is definitely something that I wouldn't say is unprecedented, but it's definitely something that we haven't seen in the past couple of days coming, of course, exactly after the Trump administration struck those nuclear facilities, and the Iranians are vowing revenge for that. Of course, the Israelis also continuing their air campaign. And right now, as you can see, the skies over Tehran filled with thick black smoke.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Tehran.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: Remarkable pictures there from our crew.

For more on the attacks on Tehran, let's get to CNN's Nic Robertson, who is in Tel Aviv.

What are you experiencing there, and what are you learning from Israeli officials?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, I think experiencing here a change, a slight change in tactic from Iran, its missile barrages, fewer missiles coming in waves, which keeps people here in their bunkers for longer, disruptive in the middle of the morning, taking out, according to the electricity company, as some power supplies in the country. So, disruptive is -- seems to be the shift in direction for Iran's missile strikes.

We're also seeing an apparent shift or diversion in tactics, if you will, from Israel. They're still targeting the nuclear sites. Fordow being one of them today. Missile launch sites. But we've had a lot of detail from both the defense minister, the IDF, the foreign minister talking about these targets that they're hitting inside of Tehran. The defense minister saying -- using unprecedented force, targeting the Evin jail. This is where political prisoners of the regime are locked up. Targeting the Basij, a feared paramilitary force who often come out to stop the anti-regime protests.

The IDF listing a number of different headquarters of security forces that are involved, not in external security, but internal security inside of Iran, indicating a willingness, if you will, to enable people to feel freer against protesting against the government in Tehran. And it appears to be a way of opening a door of possibility towards regime change.

And on that point, the foreign minister, Gideon Sa'ar, posting, we told the Iranians to stop targeting civilians. They didn't. This morning was our answer. And next to that he had an image not of a strike on a nuclear facility or a weapons facility, but the strike blowing the doors off of Evin jail. This feared prison.

[09:10:01]

Very clearly indicating -- the foreign minister indicating there talking about Iranian civilians, telling the Iranian leadership to stop targeting their own civilians. The messaging seems to be quite clear from here. Regime change is shifting up in the order of things Israel is willing to target and potentially enable.

SIDNER: Nic Robertson, thank you so much for -- to you and your crew for being there. Stay safe this morning.

John.

BERMAN: With us now is Congressman Cory Mills, the Republican from Florida.

Congressman, thanks so much for being with us.

REP. CORY MILLS (R-FL): Thank you.

BERMAN: Overnight, the president did float the idea of regime change in Iran this morning. White House officials saying he was simply asking the questions. But very clearly yesterday, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said, regime change is not the goal here. And Vice President J.D. Vance said the same thing.

Which side are you on? Are you on sort of team regime change or team this is not regime change?

MILLS: Well, first, let me just go ahead and say that the president didn't necessarily advocate for regime change. And it's not something which is historically unprecedented. Since 2018 we've had tremendous amounts of opposition protests for a pro-Iranian democracy anti- regime. This is something that Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince has talked about en masse. And also, if you think about what our strikes were targeting, it's exactly what the president has said from the very beginning, to not allow Iran, the largest sponsor of terror, to actually have nuclear enrichment program capabilities to be able to create a nuclear bomb. This is an existential threat, not only to Israel, but to the stabilization within the Middle East, but also America.

So, the president's been very, very consistent in the idea that he wants to have a diplomatic channel, but he also has been consistent that Iran cannot possess a nuclear weapon. So, does the Iranian people, in the tens of millions, want to see a free, democratically elected? Yes, they do. You've seen this even after the execution, torture and murder of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian woman who refused to wear a hijab that was punished by the mullahs. So, I think that what you're seeing is decisive action, but it's strategic and it's very accurate on what they're trying to achieve here.

BERMAN: Do you, Congressman, support U.S. military action for the purpose of regime change?

MILLS: No, I don't think that the U.S. should be a nation building, like George W. Bush times. I don't think that we should continue to expand our soldiers' footprints, like we saw under the Obama administration. But I also don't think we should be weak on our adversaries, releasing tens of billions of dollars in fungible assets, like we saw under the Biden administration, or allowing oil exportation at a record level to China on a sanctioned nation that's allowed it to continue to sponsor terrorism.

BERMAN: OK. Again, I'm asking specifically about regime change. You say, no, you don't support U.S. military action for the purpose of regime change. Even airstrikes?

MILLS: That's correct.

BERMAN: So, you would not support airstrikes if the goal is now or becomes regime change?

MILLS: The goal for us has never been about regime change. And again, I'll just say it once more, the president's been asking for a diplomatic solution to this from the very beginning.

BERMAN: I know. I -- I -- the president has said -- the -- the -- the president has said before, up until this point, to go --

MILLS: I mean you can continue to interrupt or you can let me finish.

BERMAN: Oh, go ahead, Congressman.

MILLS: So, the idea is, is that we've made it very clear from the beginning that the IAEA, who's no friend to Israel or any of the actual people in the region, has said that the enrichment capabilities have exceeded what they've even thought was possible.

So, that really poses an existential threat. That's what the president has been trying to mitigate and limit from the very beginning. And so, this has never been about regime change, it's just been about stopping the regime from having nuclear weapon capabilities.

BERMAN: Yes. I was only interrupting because you weren't addressing what I was asking, which was, again, the future of possible military strikes.

MILLS: Oh, I was, you just didn't like the answer.

BERMAN: Well, then you just interrupted me. I'm asking about the comment -- about the president's new post last night where he did talk about regime change in a way that did seem different than what we heard. And then I was asking you if you supported U.S. military strikes for the purpose of regime change, but we've established that you do not, so let's move on to a new subject, and that's the role of Congress in this. I want to play some sound from your Republican colleague, Thomas Massie.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): We haven't been briefed. They should have called us all back. And, frankly, we should have debated this War Powers Resolution that Ro Khanna and I offered, instead of staying on vacation and doing fundraisers and saying, oh, well, the president's got this under control. We're going to seed our constitutional authority.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, what's your response to Congressman Massie about that?

MILLS: Well, it's pretty simple. The president, under Article Two, Section Two, has a limited executive power authority. And it was Congress, though I disagree with it, who abdicated our Article One, Section Eight, Clause 11 through 13, war powers with the AUMF. These AUMFs, these authorized use of military force, has gone on since 1957, 1991, '01 and '02 for the global war on terrorism.

[09:15:00]

So, if we consider Iran to be the largest state sponsor of terror, and we know that the '01, '02 AUMF was built on the idea of stopping terrorism around the globe, it does give the president the necessary war power authorities. And this is not in any way unconstitutional.

BERMAN: So, you actually think that Iran is covered with the post-9/11 AUMFs -- let me just ask that flat out, you believe Iran is covered in that?

MILLS: I think Article Two, Section Two, war power authorities. Yes, Article Two, Section Two, war power authorities of the executive branch covers this up to a 60 day period. And there was no declaration of war. This was a precision strike. And this was not for the intention of trying to -- to inflate or escalate a war with Iran. It was just to stop their nuclear weapon capabilities.

BERMAN: Vice President J.D. Vance may -- indicated that it's not clear what's happened to the enriched uranium that is in Iran now. What would you support in terms of ensuring the destruction of that enriched uranium?

MILLS: Well, again, I think that you have to do battlefield assessment to ensure, what was the actual damage that had been impacted. You have to be able to go ahead and assess, how far did our bunker bombs and how far did our actual precision strikes actually achieve its overall intended goal? I think very clearly when you look at Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow that it has done its job.

So, I think that, you know, until we get further intel and assessments, I think it's difficult to be able to just kind of armchair quarterback this at this time.

BERMAN: Do you think that the nuclear capability of Iran has been obliterated?

MILLS: I do, I think that it's been a dire strike for the Iranian who spent over $2 trillion in these capabilities. And you're seeing now where it was limited to dust after a couple of strikes by our amazing warriors and under our great secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, to be able to go ahead and do these types of strikes that has really put Iran into a difficult position to try and advance and go forward.

BERMAN: Again, although, as you also said, need to wait for the battlefield assessment before the armchair quarterbacking.

Congressman Cory Mills from Florida, thank you for your time.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you, John.

Coming up, the U.S. piecing together just how much damage as they were just discussing the strikes did to Iran's nuclear facilities. Were they actually obliterated as President Trump claims? We will check into that.

Plus, Iran vows a response, warning that the U.S. crossed a very big red line, as Iran put it. What could retaliation from Iran look like? We'll break that down for you, next.

And lawmakers returning to Capitol Hill this morning as we're learning how some key Democrats were left in the dark ahead of the president's strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, and what they plan to do about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:22:15]

BERMAN: This morning, a new strike on Iran's Fordow nuclear site. Israel says it targeted access routes to the facility a few hours ago after this weekend's bombing by the United States. The International Atomic Energy Agency says the U.S. strikes caused, quote, "very significant damage." The focus now turns to the Isfahan facility, where much of Iran's stockpile of already enriched nuclear material is believed to be stored underground. Of course, a lot more of it could have been moved.

Let's get to CNN's Zach Cohen with the very latest on all this.

What are you learning this morning, Zach?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, John, the status of that stockpile of already enriched uranium really remains unclear in this early stage, despite the White House claiming just this morning that they are highly confident that the stockpile of already enriched uranium was located at the sites that were struck during that weekend's military operation ordered by President Donald Trump.

But still, we're told that -- that it -- the answer to that is still not clear. There's still lingering questions as to whether or not the already enriched uranium was potentially moved prior to the strikes, moved by the Iranians. And there's also this question of Isfahan and whether or not the -- where it was stored underground was actually penetrated by the American strike, which is interesting because Isfahan is the one facility that the U.S. military did not use those bunker buster bombs to target during the strike. Again, raising questions because they are believed to have stored that uranium deep underground. Why not use the weapon intended to reach those depths?

But still, Vice President J.D. Vance offering a little bit more of a tempered assessment of the state of Iran's stockpile. Listen to what he said on ABC yesterday when asked if the Trump administration accomplished its objectives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to work in the coming weeks to ensure that we do something with that fuel, and that's one of the things that we're going to have conversations with the Iranians about. But what we know, John, is they no longer have the capacity to turn that stockpile of highly enriched uranium to weapons grade uranium. And that was really the goal here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So, Vance offering a little bit more of a nuanced view of the results of the strike than, say, the president of the United States and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who have claimed that the strikes resulted in complete obliteration of Iran's nuclear capabilities. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, though, saying it's far too early to tell exactly what the results of this strike were and to know what is still there and what is not.

So, a lot of questions. We're going to have to wait a few weeks to see what details come out in this battlefield assessment. But again, the question of this stockpile of already enriched uranium and where -- and its whereabouts is an open one.

BERMAN: All right, Zach Cohen, thank you for sharing your reporting on this. Obviously, a lot of people trying to get the answers to those questions this morning.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, joining me now is retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Dave Deptula, and Michael Allen. He is the managing director of Beacon Global Strategies and the former majority staff director of House Intel Committee.

[09:25:10]

All right, first to you, Lieutenant General. You were the principal attack planner for Desert Storm air campaign,

commander of no-fly zone operations over Iraq, and you orchestrated air attacks over Afghanistan in 2001 in response to 9/11. What is your assessment of this operation at this point?

LT. GEN. DAVE DEPTULA, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): Well, Sara, what I'd tell you is the air attacks on Saturday really deserve an A plus in terms of performance. It was a spectacular demonstration of an extraordinarily well-done set of air and space operations.

Now, that said, that operation was successful in accomplishing its designated tasks, which is something that Israel could not do on its own, and that's used those massive ordnance penetrators to get down and funnel -- fundamentally eliminate the processing capability that Fordow and the facilities at Natanz. So, I think that was very successful.

You've heard the president say that was a one and done in providing that particular element of capability. And as we've seen today already, Israel has resumed their air operations against Iran.

SIDNER: Michael, are you concerned that Democrats, who we've now had on the air, several of them, said, look, they were not consulted on this. They were not told about it before it happened. One of the Democrats said they learned about it on Twitter.

What is your concern there? Is this becoming very bipartisan? And what damage might that do?

MICHAEL ALLEN, MANAGING DIRECTOR, BEACON GLOBAL STRATEGIES: Well, there's a mechanism for the executive branch to inform a subset of the Congress. It's called the Gang of Eight. It was reserved at one time just for CIA covert action, but it's become a forum for the administration to get together the top leadership of the Congress. Each White House handles these types of relations differently. Having worked at the Bush NSC and also up on The Hill, I think it's prudent for White Houses to be able to, if they can't give someone a heads up because of an element of surprise type issue, they need to get up and offer a briefing very soon after a major military action. I think that's just part of the comity between the branches of government, and that it would be wise to do so.

SIDNER: All right, Lieutenant General, there is this -- and we just heard this earlier, reported. Dan Caine, that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that Iran did not fire a shot at the B-2 bombers or the fighter jet escorts, nor did his forces fire any surface to air missiles at the warplanes. What does that tell you about Iran's capabilities now?

DEPTULA: Well, what it really indicates is the performance that Israel has accomplished in achieving air superiority over Iran. And what that provides to them is the ability to operate wherever they need to. And that, obviously, contributed as well to the success of the U.S. operation because it suppressed the enemy air defenses to the point that they didn't even know the B-2s were coming. They don't have an air interceptor fleet left that could intercept, even if they knew they were coming, and their surface to air missile systems, by the way, consisting primarily of advanced missiles provided by the Russians, were taken out by the Israeli F-35s.

So, why that's important is that Israel achieving air superiority enables a follow on strategy. If Iran's nuclear facilities are damaged, its leadership decapitated and its enrichment efforts repeatedly disruptive, that forces Tehran into a permanent state of caution. So, that is a degree of success through delay because it allows for a repeatable outcome sustained through intermittent precision attacks and continue to hammer home and prevent Iran the ability to produce a nuclear weapon.

SIDNER: I'm just curious, Michael, what you think the Congress should make of this latest missive on social media from President Trump talking about regime change? We know we heard from Prime Minister Netanyahu just a few days into the strikes that they were doing on Iran, calling on the Iranian people for regime change. Now we're hearing some language from the president talking about regime change. What is the issue and the concern there?

[09:30:01]

ALLEN: So, what I think the -- what we can do here is sort of parse to -- parse out these two different statements. I think the president is.