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Mike Lyons is Interviewed about the Iran Response; Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) is Interviewed about Iran; John Bolton is Interviewed about the Strikes on Iran; Trump Speaks to CNN after Strikes. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired March 02, 2026 - 09:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:32:08]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, you are looking at live pictures. U.S. markets opened just moments ago. You can see they opened down, you know, a fairly sizable drop at the opening bell. This is as crude oil prices have risen. And there are concerns -- obviously you can see crude up seven percent. Brent crude up 6.9 percent there. There are concerns that oil prices will rise as the conflict with Iran continues.

Just to give you a sense of why that is. I can show you here on the map right now that the Strait of Hormuz right here, between, you can see, Iran and Oman right there, about 20 percent of the world's oil passes through there. Normally, it's only about a 20-mile stretch right there. Right now it's all but closed. So about 20 percent of the world's oil output cannot get through that area right now. That's why you're seeing this reaction to the stock markets right now and just overall concern with the situation on the ground.

With us now is retired Major Mike Lyons.

Major, thank you so much for being with us.

I actually want to start with some of the news that we got overnight. It was this. Three U.S. F-15s shot down by Kuwaiti air defense over Kuwait. You can see it right there. Luckily, all U.S. personnel, I believe there were six total, were able to get out and eject safely. But what does this tell you as this conflict goes on?

MAJOR MIKE LYONS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Well, you know, missile air defense is all tied in, onion layered. There's lots of different layers to it. But when you bring in other allies, it doesn't always -- the message (ph) doesn't always get through. They should have recognized that anything flying is probably not an enemy. You know, they're looking to take out some of the ballistic missiles. And so, on the Kuwaiti side, mistake -- likely made operator mistake made. They launched that missile and, unfortunately, it goes down.

BERMAN: So, Major, I am struck by the sheer scope of the Iranian response here, in the sense of the number of nations that they've hit. They've targeted Oman. A couple sites within the UAE, Doha, in Qatar, Bahrain. there were Saudi oil fields hit, although the Iranian deputy foreign minister denies Iran was behind that. In Kuwait there have been strikes. We've seen drone strikes over Iraq. You've seen Jordan hit. Obviously in Israel. And the Brits reporting that a base of theirs on Cyprus, there were drone shot down over Cyprus as well. So, you can see the full range of the Iranian response here.

Why do you think they're doing this, and how much do you think they'll push this?

LYONS: I think Iran has a clear strategy of a war of attrition to take place in the air. Something we've never seen historically before. So, look at these strikes, mostly here on the east side where the Abraham Llincoln is, where new air defense systems are tied in. Not really over here on the Gerald Ford side, where we've backed up Israel, and we have that much more layered air defense system.

Iran is forcing this theater missile defense system to attract all comers and to bring in all layers of it. And by that case, they're going to attrit all the different canisters, all the different air defense systems, the interceptors.

We've got to go on the offense very quickly. You heard him say about going after the archers and the arrows.

[09:35:00]

That is going to be so key right now, go after those missile launchers, because if not, Iran's going to continue to do this and attrit our systems.

BERMAN: And we just don't know how much longer Iran will be able to carry this out.

LYONS: Yes.

BERMAN: Particularly if the United States and Israel continues to hit the archers in that country.

LYONS: Yes.

BERMAN: Major Mike Lyons, thank you very much for being with us.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, joining me now is Democratic Congressman Adam Smith of Washington. He is the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Congressman Smith, thank you so much for being here.

I just want to remind you and our audience of what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said about why this war was necessary.

So, take a 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)

SIDNER: Are those good enough reasons to go to war with Iran?

REP. ADAM SMITH (D-WA): Well, they're not -- they're not legal reasons to go to war with Iran without congressional approval. There is no imminent threat in any of that. So, this is clearly a war of choice, and that violates international law, international laws that we've signed on to. But it also violates the Constitution.

I mean we've had conflicts before where presidents have argued that it wasn't a war, that somehow it didn't meet the definition in the Constitution. There's no argument this time. This is a war. This is a direct attack on a foreign nation. This should legally require congressional approval.

Now, none of that gets into the wisdom of doing this. But from a constitutional and legal standpoint, it's unconstitutional and illegal. And those reasons that Secretary Hegseth put out there don't meet the test of any sort of imminent threat to the United States.

SIDNER: So, what are you and Congress in general going to do about it? Because clearly we're in this now.

SMITH: Yes.

SIDNER: We are in a war. Both Hegseth and President Trump both called it a war.

SMITH: Yes. No, I mean it's both simple and frustrating. What Congress should do is what we proposed to do, gosh, several months ago now. We had a vote on a war powers resolution which would have required the president to get congressional approval before launching this war. We took that vote twice, actually. I voted for both of those resolutions. Excuse me. They did not pass because the overwhelming majority of Republicans in Congress gave President Trump a rubber stamp.

So, we're going to be back at it this week. We're going to put the war powers resolution back up there. And I want to make sure that your viewers understand, this is not necessarily a vote on whether or not to go to war with Iran. If you -- if you think it was a good idea as a member of Congress, you can certainly vote for it. But what this resolution says is, you have to go on record. The president can't just do this on its -- on his own. The resolution says you have to get approval from Congress, and then we can have the vote on whether or not to approve it.

But from a legal standpoint, and also just from a political standpoint, we members of Congress are representative of our constituents. If you think this is a good idea, I don't, but if you think it is, you ought to go on record as an elected representative of the people and vote to show people that you do think it's a good idea.

SIDNER: The American people also deserve to understand why we're in this, as we have already seen lives lost, innocent lives lost there and American lives lost, service members who have been killed.

I do want to ask you about something else Secretary Hegseth said. He made this claim about the situation in Iran after the strikes and the killing of the supreme leader.

Take a listen.

(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: So, he says the regime has changed. Certainly he is alluding to the fact that they have taken out so many high-level members of the Iranian regime, including the supreme leader. But do you see that this is clearly regime change now?

SMITH: Well, that's the interesting thing. And this is what one of the many things that the president, secretary of defense, nobody in the administration has been clear on in terms of saying, OK, what are we doing here? Are you trying to change the regime? Are you simply trying to, as Secretary Hegseth said earlier, you know, beat down their missiles and their nuclear programs. They've been incredibly vague about this.

I mean, reading the tea leaves here, which we shouldn't have to do as policymakers, as a country, I think that what they're saying is, they're not hung up on exactly who winds up running Iran when all of this is done, they just want to have used our military force to basically force that new regime to change policies in a direction that's more favorable to us.

[09:40:02]

Basically, the blunt force of our military attacks will force any future regime to change.

Now, that that's a guess at best. First of all, the hardline Iranian regime goes way beyond Khemani and the people who were killed in the initial hours of this strike. And second of all, the Iranian people are in a lot of different places. Blowing something up in the hope that something better will follow it, it's incredibly risky in terms of the outcome. And then as you point out, in the meantime, people are dying, the global economy is being disrupted, you know, governments are being -- we see Hezbollah back at war with Israel. I mean this is a full scale Middle East war on the hope that when were done blowing things up, some Iranian government will be better than the one we just deposed.

SIDNER: Congressman Adam Smith, putting it plainly. Thank you so much. I do appreciate it.

John.

BERMAN: All right, officials in Austin, Texas, looking into whether a mass shooting there may have been motivated by the recent strikes in Iran. We've got some new reporting on this coming in.

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[09:45:43]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: One of the most direct and immediate impacts of the U.S. war with Iran, the death of Iran's supreme leader. In the wake of that, Iran has formed a provisional leadership council to lead the country, it says. And the Iranian foreign minister also says that a new supreme leader could be chosen within days.

President Trump told "The Atlantic" in a new interview that Iran's new leadership wants to speak to him, and that he was willing to do so.

Let's talk about where things are now. Joining me right now is former national security adviser to Donald Trump in his first term, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton.

Ambassador, thanks for being here.

You are a longtime proponent of regime change in Iran. Hegseth just said that this isn't a regime change war. Do you believe him?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well maybe he should talk to the president, who has tweeted and called upon the people of Iran to take control of your institutions, the president's words. He said on Saturday, all I want is freedom for the people of Iran. And he's made it clear in multiple remarks that in order to address the threats to the United States, Iran's effort to get nuclear weapons, its support for international terrorism, you have to have regime change. That's what he is saying. So, maybe Pete Hegseth hasn't seen the latest press release.

BOLDUAN: Is there anything that makes you confident that regime change is going to actually be the end result here?

BOLTON: Well, it depends on a variety of factors. Hegseth also said in his remarks this morning that Trump has already changed the regime. That's simply not true. And the idea that Trump is willing to talk to the interim council or whomever is asking to speak with him, that doesn't constitute regime change either. You don't change the regime in Iran by eliminating Supreme Leader Khamenei and replacing him by anonymous ayatollah number one or anonymous ayatollah number two. You replace it when this structure of the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard is swept aside.

We still have a long way to go to do that. This is not a one and done kind of situation. And I think it requires much more coordination and work with the opposition than we've seen evidence of so far.

So, I'm wondered if just how well this idea has been thought through given particularly that the National Security Council decision making process has been essentially eliminated.

BOLDUAN: Hakeem Jeffries was just on saying that President Trump must get approval from Congress. Planning -- they're planning to hold a vote on a war powers resolution this week. Do you think Trump should make his case to the public and the Congress before further action is taken?

BOLTON: Well, I think there's a -- yes, sure. I think as a political matter, Trump needs to do a much better job of explaining the entirely legitimate and prudent reasons we have for undertaking this military action. I think the case is very solid. I don't think he's making it.

As to Congress' role, this comes up periodically that Congress thinks it has to ask -- it has to act first. That's simply not what the Constitution said, nor is it part of American history.

This morning, just out of curiosity, I looked up on Google's artificial intelligence how many wars the United States has been in, in its history. And depending on how you define it, artificial intelligence, which, of course, is always right, said 235 plus. Let's just round it down to an even 200. How many times has Congress declared war in American history? Five times. War of 1812, Mexican War, Spanish American War, World War I, World War II. That means the last time the United States declared war was on December the 8th, 1941. Congress must have been asleep for these last 85 years, I guess.

BOLDUAN: But, I mean, Congress did -- Bush did obtain congressional approval to invade Iraq. Like, there are -- you know, there's the place in between, I know you know well. Speaking --

BOLTON: Yes. Yes.

BOLDUAN: I know different than a war -- than a war declaration.

BOLTON: It's -- wait, it's perfectly -- yes, well, that's what the Constitution says. It doesn't say Congress may authorize the use of force. It says, declare war. That's an important phrase.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

BOLTON: It means Congress can declare that a state of war exists, which changes the legal relationship between combatants and with respect to other states.

[09:50:08]

The commander in chief authority, vested in the president, was written by people in the Constitutional Convention who had lived through George Washington's command of the continental army, dealing with a Congress that could barely get its act together. So, they knew they were creating a strong chief executive by vesting the commander in chief authority in him.

And if Congress is upset, they have their remedies. They can cut off appropriations for the war. Let's see if they can get a majority for that.

BOLDUAN: Ambassador, can you just stick with me real quick? We've got my colleague and anchor, Jake Tapper, on the line. He just spoke with President Trump.

Jake, what can you tell us?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey there.

So, I just got off the phone with President Trump. It was a nine- minute phone interview. And we talked just about the war in Iran. I'm going to share some of it with you right now.

The president said, quote, "we're knocking the crap out of them. I think it's going very well. It's very powerful. We've got the greatest military in the world, and we're using it."

I asked the president how long he thought this military operation or war might last. He said, quote, "I don't want to see it go on too long. I always thought it would be four weeks, and we're a little ahead of schedule."

I asked the president if the U.S. was doing more than these military strikes to help the Iranian people regain control of Iran against the regime, to seize the country from the Iranian regime. And he said, "yes," the president said. "Yes, we are indeed. But right now we want everyone staying inside. It's not safe out there."

And then the president said, it's about to get even less safe. He said, quote, "we haven't even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn't even happened. The big one is coming soon."

We asked him about a bunch of other stuff, too, that I'm writing up, and we'll share later on "THE LEAD" at 5:00 p.m.

BOLDUAN: Jake, in your many conversations with him, did you get a sense of mood, tone? I think I saw it described, you know, as -- he's been doing some interviews, especially over the phone. Kind of just how he sounds in this moment as this is playing out?

TAPPER: He sounded very pleased with how the operation is going. He sounded very resolute in terms of the Iranian threats to the region and the world. Very confident about how this was, even though they did try to negotiate with the Iranians, how this ultimately was the right decision and the right approach given all of the unrest, all of the terrorism, all of the menace that the Iranian regime had been offering ever since the revolution of 1979.

He didn't seem to be in doubt at all. Thought things were going really, really well and were going to continue. And, obviously, we're only on day, what, three of this operation. It started Saturday. And the president is projecting at least possibly that this military operation will last about a month, although, obviously, that's not a firm and set time period. So, there's a lot more to come.

BOLDUAN: Jake, thank you so much. I know you've got more you're going to be working up for your show and throughout the day from your conversation with the president, but thanks for jumping on right afterwards to give us some of the headlines. I really appreciate it.

Let me get back to Ambassador Bolton, who's been listening into this as well.

The big wave hasn't even happened yet, Jake says, is what the president told him. It's going to last for about a month. Do you -- what do you hear in that? Does that sound short term? Does that sound like Donald Trump has a -- has a true end goal here?

BOLTON: Well, I think -- I think it could be months, not four weeks. But I think it's important that the president, when Jake said, are you helping the opposition, said yes. So, again, Pete Hegseth needs to check with his boss on what the objective is. And by the way, if the big one is still to come, how does Hegseth explain that we've already changed the regime, which wasn't our objective? I mean I think the Pentagon's top leadership, civilian top leadership, needs some attitude adjustment. I think the military's doing fine, but I wonder about -- I wonder about the civilian leadership.

BOLDUAN: Ambassador, thanks for jumping on. I appreciate your time.

John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now is former Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, CNN's senior political and global affairs commentator.

Ambassador, thank you so much for being with us.

RAHM EMANUEL, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: Secretary Hegseth laid out the three strategic justifications for this conflict now, destroy Iran's missiles, destroy its navy, basically destroy its nuclear capabilities. How much does that explain to you, how much of an explanation to the American people do you feel that that is for the justification for this conflict?

[09:55:02]

EMANUEL: John, when I heard what -- the press conference today and the statements, one is, they're clearly walking back the president's eight minute video from the other day where he talked about regime change and the political pieces and try to narrow focus it on the military or strategic element, the nuclear capacity, the ballistic missiles, the launchers, et cetera and even the navy. The president started with a maximalist approach. This now is a shrinkage attempt. I do think, though, that the effort here got way offsides because you

cannot change a government from air war (ph). That's just been proven. We're over three from Lebanon, Libya and Iraq.

But that said, the second piece is, and I think people have missed this, after the January 12th day bombing effort and war, the center of gravity in Iran moved from a Mullah driven theocracy to an IRGC national security driven government. There was not a literal change of government, but there was a figurative. The center of gravity is different.

So, before we even launch this, you had, quote/unquote, the elements of a regime change. And I do think the United States here, in this effort, in my view, is trying to now have an idea of what is an accomplishable effort given the president, I think, way overshot the runway, and now everybody's trying to narrow it and bring it back into focus in a more kind of tangible and a discrete version.

BERMAN: Ambassador, we just learned that the president himself will address the nation, will speak at 11:00 a.m. about Iran, which is interesting because he's done phone interviews. He's talked to a lot of reporters on the phone, but -- and he's released two taped videos, but he hasn't spoken live, hasn't answered questions about this. How important is it for a president in times of war to communicate directly with the American people?

EMANUEL: Both beforehand he should have done this, during it he should have done this and, obviously, now it's a $1 late. He's actually, in my view, responding to all the pressure. You have put -- we've lost American lives. People are wounded. We've now lost three planes.

And I do think, you know, one of the things I said, because he was so maximalist, he divided America. Had this been narrowed, there was a chance of actually a united America is a much stronger America going into the effort. And I think it's long overdue and he's missed many opportunities, starting from the State of the Union, all the way to what will happen at 11:00 p.m., 11:00 a.m. rather East Coast Time.

And the president of the United States, when American lives are at stake, and not just in the theater of war, but clearly when you look at Austin, Texas, here at home, he has an obligation as a national leader to address the American people and explain why we are doing what we're doing, what are the resources taking, what are the expectations, and what is the strategic challenge or opportunity here? And he hasn't done that.

And the American people need a commander in chief. And he has been absent from that role. And that's -- you know, he basically -- look, the armed forces of the United States is not the instrument of his impulse. It's a -- it's a tool in our strategic toolbox. And he's been treating it as just the -- one of his toys for one of his efforts. He has a responsibility that comes with that office and comes to this country and to all the men and women and all the families who have loved ones gone. He has a response -- and may not have somebody come home, except for from Dover, Delaware. He has a responsibility to tell them, here is why I've done what I have done. And America will be stronger for it.

BERMAN: Ambassador, we've got just a minute left. China depends --

EMANUEL: Can I --

BERMAN: China depends on --

EMANUEL: Yes, go ahead.

BERMAN: China depends on Iran for fuel. Russia depends on Iran for drones. Is there an argument to be made that this puts the United States in a better strategic position against some of its adversaries?

EMANUEL: Look, there's -- even before you get to oil, you know, China tried to make a big play that they were bringing Saudi Arabia and Iran together. That was their big foreign policy. They have been looking feckless, and they have look -- been looking vulnerable. It will drive China and Russia closer together because China will need now Russia's guarantee on energy. So rather than dividing them, which is what the administration said 12 months ago was their goal, you're actually driving them closer together.

To the Russia piece, they have been kicked out of Syria. Their intelligence has been proven weak. They are feckless as it relates to the Middle East. I think the president of the United States has a war of choice and an area in which we were seen as literally from Rafah to Tehran, you had to go through Washington, D.C. He is putting that at risk.

One side note. Somebody's going to have to study in the United States why Iran is able to reproduce all their ballistic missiles since January to now and yet the United States is short on Thad and Patriot missiles, having worked on this as a U.S. ambassador. I really believe there should be no stock buybacks by our major defense industry until they fix the backlog that they've had on capital investments so the United States is not stealing from Peter to pay Paul in other theaters and putting our strategic interests at risk here.

BERMAN: Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, we do appreciate your time, raising a good question, if a conflict that lasts four or five weeks