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Hegseth and Caine Answers Questions about Iran; Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) is Interviewed about the Iran Operation; U.S. Operation Not about Regime Change. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired March 02, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

DANIEL SHAPIRO, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL: With the president himself, in almost every conversation he has with a different reporter, saying something slightly different. It is regime change. No, it's only for nuclear. No, it's also for missiles. No, it's also to defend the people. It could go -- it could end tomorrow and he could declare victory, or it could go for several more weeks.

So, if the president can stay disciplined about a message to the American people, that would be helpful. This was clearly clarifying, but not sufficiently to know for sure the -- what the goals and certainly the where -- the why now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Ambassador, thanks so much for jumping on. I really appreciate it.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks to all of our guests right there analyzing what we just heard from the defense secretary and chair of the Joint Chiefs.

Brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the breaking news this morning, just moments ago, we just heard from the Pentagon for the first time on camera as the war with Iran enters a third day.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth beginning to try to lay out the Trump administration's justification for the joint attack on Iran in coordination with Israel. Hegseth saying, without providing much evidence, that Iran was building powerful missiles and drones to create, as he put it, a shield for their, quote, "nuclear blackmail exhibitions -- ambitions." President Trump has urged the Iranian people to take over their government, but Hegseth says that is not the ultimate goal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: This is not a so-called regime change war. But the regime sure did change. And the world is better off for it. We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing

it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: That briefing came as U.S. casualties are growing. U.S. Central Command says a fourth U.S. service member has died after Iran's initial retaliation. In Kuwait, CENTCOM says three fighter jets were shot down by friendly fire from Kuwaiti forces. CENTCOM also saying all six crew members aboard those jets were able to eject. And we've been seeing some video of that. They were safely recovered. And at this moment, you see there, are in stable condition.

CNN geolocated video that appears to be the F-15 falling from the sky and you can see the parachute coming out there, the pilot able to parachute out alive.

CNN is following the latest developments with our teams around the globe.

Let us start now with Kevin Liptak, who is at the White House.

We just heard from Defense Secretary Hegseth, who had a lot to say and answered some questions. But there are still questions remaining about why now and how long this will go.

Kevin.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, serious questions. And we have not heard directly from President Trump answering any of those on camera. You know, that press conference was quite remarkable. It was almost two separate press conferences. Pete Hegseth clearly trying to address some of the political questions surrounding why a president, who ran saying that the U.S. would get out of the business of regime change and get out of the business of starting wars, was now launching a new war in Iran and very forceful and very defensive in a lot of ways on that front.

General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, laying out in much more sober detail about how this operation began, about the resources in the region. He said that the U.S. has now gained air superiority over Iran, that more than 100 American planes were involved in the conflict.

He did lay out a timeline of how the president ordered this mission began. He said that the president gave the order on Friday at 3:38 p.m. That would actually put him on Air Force One at the time this order was delivered. He said President Trump said, quote, "Operation Epic Fury is approved. No aborts. Good luck. Close (ph)."

Now, when it came to Pete Hegseth, he really was trying to make the argument here that this was not going to become one of the endless wars that we have seen over the past decades. It would not resemble Iraq. It would not resemble Afghanistan. He said, this is not a so- called regime change war, but the regime sure did change. Now, what the difference between a regime change war and a war that

changes regime, it's not clear. The consequences seem like they would be the same. And certainly, as of this morning, it's not entirely clear at all what the end game in all of this is for President Trump, how he envisions that country being run going forward.

Pete Hegseth also growing defensive at questions about how long this would last, saying that they would not be in the business, in front of a press pool, of saying how long that may take, even though President Trump has said in phone calls over the weekend that it may last four to five weeks.

And so I think still a lot of questions, but certainly an appearance from the defense secretary that I think underscores a lot of the questions about why this president in particular ordered up this new conflict at this particular moment.

[09:05:12]

SIDNER: Yes. Thank you so much, Kevin Liptak, for your read on what we just heard from the defense secretary.

Let's go now to CNN national security correspondent Kylie Atwood.

What were your big takeaways from what you heard with -- you -- like you said, there were two distinctive differences between Dan Caine and Secretary Hegseth in how they were responding to questions and talking about this war. What did you take away from this?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. The tone from these two military leaders was definitely distinct. However, when it comes to the overall military objectives, they, in their own words, tried to explain to the American people, really for the first time since these U.S. strikes, along with Israel against Iran on Saturday morning began, what the U.S. military is trying to achieve here. And what we heard from Hegseth is that the U.S. wants to take out Iran's missile capabilities, their missile program, also adding later that would include their drones, also Iran's navy, and saying that they could have no nukes. Effectively that the United States doesn't want Iran to have a nuclear program anymore.

He spoke about Iran having the opportunity to engage in diplomacy. Said they did not do that. He noted multiple times that U.S. officials, for the Trump administration, tried to engage with Iran. Iran was not effectively engaging from his perspective.

As Kevin said, he explained that the green light was given from President Trump for these operations on Friday afternoon. It's worth noting that earlier in that day the Omani foreign minister, who was negotiating the talks between the U.S. and Iran to try and bring a diplomatic deal to the front, which would have headed off this military conflict, he was here in Washington in those early hours of Friday before President Trump signed off on this military action, trying to tell the Trump administration that he believed that there was momentum there when it comes to nuclear negotiations. When it comes to the question, Sara, of what this conflict is going to look like, how the U.S. military is going to engage over the course of the coming days, potentially weeks, we heard from Hegseth defensively not putting a specific timeline here on what this is going to look like, saying it could be two weeks, it could be four weeks, it could be six weeks. That timeframe will be up to the president.

He did say that there are no U.S. troops on the ground right now in Iran. But notably, he would not count out the possibility that that could actually happen in the future. He said that he's "not going to get into what we will or what we will not do."

I also want us to listen here to a piece of information that we learned from General Dan Caine during this press conference with the media for the first time.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GENERAL DAN CAINE, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: This is not a single, overnight operation. The military objectives that CENTCOM and the joint force have been tasked with will take some time to achieve and, in some cases, will be difficult and gritty work. We expect to take additional losses. And as always, we will work to minimize U.S. losses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ATWOOD: Now, work to minimize U.S. losses. But we should note that we have news this morning that there are four U.S. troops who have already been killed as a result of this ongoing war of these U.S. military operations. General Dan Caine said that his message is that the United States will never forget those fighters. But as you heard from him there, he's warning that there could be more U.S. military deaths to come.

Sara.

SIDNER: Yes, he called it difficult and gritty work, and they expect to take additional losses, that war is hell and they are spelling out some of what has already happened and what may happen going forward.

Kevin Liptak, Kylie Atwood, thank you so much for your reporting for us this morning.

John.

BERMAN: Yes, General Caine said that more than 1,000 targets have been hit in Iran, or that more than 1,000 were hit inside Iran in the first 24 hours of operations there. Each dot you can see there is one target that we know about, but obviously there are many more than that there.

With us now is Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire. She's the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Senator Shaheen, thank you very much for being with us this morning.

I want to play you what Secretary Hegseth had to say as for the strategic justification for this operation.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser focused, destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure and they will never have nuclear weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, Senator, destroy the missiles, destroy the Navy and no nukes. Does that explain to you this conflict?

[09:10:06]

SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN (D-NH): Well, like the taking out of Maduro in Venezuela, the strategy and the reasoning has shifted depending on the day. And I think no one regrets taking out the ayatollah. He has been a promoter of evil across the Middle East. Terrorism that has affected American lives. But there is no clear strategy at this point. And the president has not come to the American people. He just had a State of the Union. He didn't talk about the operations in Iran. He hasn't come to Congress to ask for a declaration of war. So, it's not at all clear what the end game is. He said, the secretary -- Secretary Hegseth said, well, it was not regime change, but regime change has resulted. Well, it's not clear that regime change has resulted. We took out the ayatollah, but we have a three-person council that's likely to have his successor be just as hardline, if not worse.

So, there isn't really a clear strategy. And we need to hear from the president what he wants.

This is an opportunity for a real inflection point in the Middle East. If we're successful. But it's not at all clear how that's going to play out.

BERMAN: What is success? When do you think this ends?

SHAHEEN: Well, it was interesting that the secretary was unwilling to answer, when does this end? The president campaigned last year saying no forever wars. And yet there is the potential to get into another endless war in the Middle East. So, hopefully we are going to get briefed later today or tomorrow in Congress about what the strategy is and what the plans are. But at this point, we don't know what that is.

BERMAN: Do you feel the United States is safer today, on Monday morning, than it was on, say, Friday before these strikes took place?

SHAHEEN: Well, we saw a self -radicalized terrorist attack in Austin, Texas, over the weekend. So, clearly there are -- or it appears there might be terror cells in the country that are being activated as a result of these actions. In the long term, if we are able to stop Iran's support for terrorist groups like Hezbollah, like Hamas, like the Houthis, then America will be safer. But again, we've not heard what the clear strategy is to make us safer.

Now, our men and women in the military have executed brilliantly, as they always do. And I know that Americans share condolences to the families of those who've been lost and are concerned about further losses. So, one of the concerns here is that this war escalates. We know that Iran is targeting Americans -- or sites across the Middle East where there might be Americans. Secretary Rubio, a couple of weeks ago, when he was before the Foreign Relations Committee, pointed out there are 40,000 Americans within missile striking range of Iran. So, we know what Iran is doing, and hopefully we are going to address that as they target Americans.

BERMAN: We learned overnight that three F-15 fighter jets were shot down by Kuwaiti air defense, friendly fire, apparently. Here is some video right now of one of those crashes apparently. Luckily, luckily, we are told, that none of the pilots, none of the people on board were killed. They all managed to eject safely.

But the F-15 here, by some estimates, I've seen estimates that they cost $30 million apiece, all the way up to $100 million apiece. It just gets to the issue of the cost of this conflict. What will Congress' role be, or should it be, do you think, in overseeing that aspect of it?

SHAHEEN: Well, there's a reason why our founding fathers, when they established the Constitution, gave Congress the ability to declare war, because they didn't want one individual in the leader of the country to have that authority. And so that's why Congress has this power. We're going to have a war powers resolution before the Senate this week. So, we'll see how Congress votes. But as you point out, one of the -- one thing that hasn't been explained yet to the American people is, what is the cost of this war going to be?

[09:15:00]

We already know that gas prices are going to go up. The American people are already concerned about cost of living and how the administration is addressing that. And what we've heard from the president is more wars, more conflicts, no effort to address the cost of living.

BERMAN: Senator Jeanne Shaheen from New Hampshire, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We do appreciate your time this morning. Thank you very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Officials in Austin, Texas, are looking into now whether a mass shooting early Sunday morning may have been motivated by the strikes in Iran. New video into CNN shows moments -- shows the moments that gunshots rang out. What we're learning now about the suspect this morning.

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[09:20:17]

BOLDUAN: This morning, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, said that the U.S. operation in Iran could take some time, saying this is not a single, overnight operation. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also tried to make the case that this is not about regime change.

But listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: This is not a so-called regime change war. But the regime sure did change. And the world is better off for it.

We didn't start this war. But under President Trump, we are finishing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me right now is CNN global affairs analyst Brett McGurk.

Brett, thank you for jumping on.

I know that you listened to that briefing as well. He -- Hegseth said there are no boots on the ground now, would not say that that won't happen in the future. Can they achieve regime change without U.S. boots on the ground?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Kate, what I -- what I took away from that briefing was actually particularly General Caine, who I've worked with quite a bit over the years, clarifying that the U.S. military objective here -- this is very important. You might remember, Kate, we talked last week when we were on air about if a -- if a president orders military action and it was not very clear in his own mind what he wants to achieve and how he wants to achieve it, that's how you get into mission creep and kind of endless war scenarios. And the president has made all sorts of statements since this started. What I saw that briefing do was that the U.S. military objectives is to degrade Iranian military capacity, particularly its missiles and drones, its navy, its ability to project power outside its borders. That is a classic military objective and more in the realm of an achievable objective.

Trying to orchestrate political outcomes through military power, particularly air power, getting to your point about boots on the ground, is just almost an impossible task for the military. And I -- so, that's what I really heard, particularly General Caine doing. Like, look, the military objective is focused on Iranian military capacity. That's what Admiral Cooper, the CENTCOM commander, is focused on. And this is going to go on probably for some period of weeks. But it is not a military campaign, you know, promising some political end state in Iran, which, again, air power really cannot deliver.

BOLDUAN: From your perspective then, and what we just -- and what we heard in this briefing, and your knowledge of what has happened in the last 48 hours, what does -- what has happened in the last 48, and what does it mean for the next 48?

MCGURK: I think in the last -- again, 48 hours, not a long time. So, it feels like a lot has happened, and it has. Extraordinary. I mean the entire military leadership, command structure, supreme leader on down has been eliminated and Iran has now -- is trying to demonstrate that its regime is resilient. It's appointed an interim council under his constitution, it's trying to reestablish some command and control. Very unclear exactly what is happening inside Iran.

I do think strategic initiative, air superiority, we have that over the skies, but Iran is also demonstrating, and it has medium range missiles to hit Israel, and it has short range missiles that can hit the gulf. And there, Kate, there's one inflection point here that will play out over the next day or so. Because of those attacks into the gulf, the gulf states are now talking about acting in self-defense against Iran's missiles, as are the U.K. and France. This has changed because this was just a U.S.-Israel military operation. The gulf states wanted to stay out of it. The Europeans were on the sidelines. And now, potentially, because Iran is launching these missiles just all over the place, including at civilian areas, including at U.K. facilities in Cyprus this morning from reports, you might now have a -- kind of a broader coalition again focused on that more narrow objective.

So, that -- that's something I'm watching. Because what Iran is trying to do is just wreck such mayhem in the gulf with energy supplies and everything else that the gulf states and others start calling Washington saying, hey, you have to stop this. So far, it's having the opposite effect and you see this coalition emerging.

But it's just too early to -- we have to all have some humility here of how this will unfold.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

MCGURK: You know, George Kennan, one of our great diplomats, said wars have a momentum of its own once they start. Events happen and transpire. And that's why staying focused on core objectives is so important. I hope the administration can do that because the president has stated a number of objectives here over the last couple of days since this started.

BOLDUAN: Secretary Hegseth seemed particularly sensitive to comparisons to the invasion of Iraq and the war that followed. You spent a lot of time working in Iraq in various posts that you held from the Bush administration and beyond. Let me play for you what Hegseth said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: This is not Iraq. [09:25:00]

This is not endless. I was there for both. Our generation knows better, and so does this president. He called the last 20 years of nation building wars dumb. And he's right. This is the opposite. This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission, destroy the missile threat, destroy the navy, no nukes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: What do you think of the comparison -- his comments on the comparison here?

MCGURK: I mean, there's some -- I remember landing in Iraq in January of 2004, about eight months into the war, and you realize very early on that we had gotten ourselves into something we didn't fully understand and we had a -- we had an objective to create a constitutional democracy, which was almost an infinite objective with very limited resources. And that -- that is how you get yourself into trouble. So, what they're trying to do here is at least what Hegseth and Caine were saying, particularly General Caine, more narrowly focused military objectives. I might compare that to the 1991 Gulf War. A very clear objective. We're going to get Iraq out of Kuwait. That's it.

So, if you can keep to those objectives, that's good. But again, this is so dynamic, Kate. You know, we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. Enemy always has the vote. Iran might have something up its sleeve. But we have to see. I just -- I would really appeal to the administration to focus on those military objectives, try to broaden the coalition. I think that would be very important. And just keep going after the missiles and the launchers that Iran needs to launch the missiles. You can have a number of missiles, but it's really the launchers that limit the capacity of how many they can get in the sky. And watching that very closely here over the next coming days.

BOLDUAN: Brett, thanks so much. It's great to have you on. Appreciate it.

MCGURK: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Sara.

SIDNER: All right, ahead, the fierce debate in Congress over whether President Trump had the authority to strike Iran as he goes to make his case to Congress tomorrow.

And watch the harrowing moments. A drone flew over the head of our correspondent Clarissa Ward and her team right at the Iran-Iraq border.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: OK, you can see that now, an Iranian drone literally just flew directly over our heads from Iran into Iraq. (END VIDEO CLIP)

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