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Power of Trump's Endorsement; David Petraeus is Interviewed about Iran. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired March 05, 2026 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

TOMMY PIGOTT, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY SPOKESPERSON, STATE DEPARTMENT: People are actively overcoming in order to provide those security options where able.

But we have seen Americans be able to return to the United States since the beginning. We've been providing that direct security, that direct travel guidance from the very beginning. And we've also been assisting departure, whether through flights or through ground, from the very beginning as well.

So, we're seeing those charter flights underway. Again, we'll have more information in the days ahead.

Ultimately, we're focused on getting the specific travel options to specific individuals in the region. We have hundreds of people right now proactively reaching out to people with those options to make sure we bring every single American home who wants to come home.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Got it. But it is flights, plural with an "s," just to be clear at this point?

PIGOTT: Yes, flights plural. Again, for operational security reasons, I can't get into more details than that of course. We saw the announcement of that flight on the State Department's X account. But please go to state.gov and the X account will be continually updating throughout the day with those Americans assisted, with the Americans that have returned home, with other options. But we want to be mindful in our highest priority is allowing this to safely happen, allowing this to be safe.

BERMAN: OK. Are you seeing more commercial flights available at this point? Are you seeing more airspace open up? Is that an option that is increasing now?

PIGOTT: There are commercial options available. And again, that's why it's so important to get that personalized guidance.

BERMAN: Right.

PIGOTT: One of the things that we're doing, like I mentioned, is moving from areas where airspace is closed to where it's not closed, and then facilitating commercial options were available. So, there are commercial options open to people. That's also why we've been saying that 20,000 number in terms of

Americans being able to return home, to give people a sense of what's happening, of course, but also to make sure that people know that if there are commercial options available, that they can take those commercial options.

BERMAN: Tommy, while I have you --

PIGOTT: The bottom line is this, we are connecting, like I said, specific individuals with specific options.

BERMAN: All right. While I have you here, we do have one diplomatic question here. It has to do with Spain, which initially had not wanted to be involved or let the United States use any Spanish facilities or territory to stage any of these attacks.

Seung Min Kim, our friend at the "Associated Press," actually posted the two AP alerts that came out almost back to back. This is the first one. "White House says Spain has agreed to cooperate with U.S. operations in Mideast after Trump threatened financial penalties." And then, really just minutes later, an AP bulletin from Madrid, "Spain's government denies cooperation with U.S. operations in the Middle East, contradicting White House."

So, what is the reality right now? What is Spain doing or not doing?

PIGOTT: Well, military operations I will refer to DOW and the White House.

What I can say from the State Department's perspective is what we're doing to help the American people. We're focused 24/7 on that. Our highest priority being their safety and security.

BERMAN: Is Spain cooperating with the United States on a diplomatic level regarding the situation in Iran?

PIGOTT: We are seeing a whole host of diplomatic engagement. The secretary, of course, has spoken with allies about areas where, if we see Americans that need to leave via certain countries, making sure that's able to happen. So, we have seen that diplomatic outreach. We've seen diplomatic cooperation. That continues. That's part of that effort to help the American people who want to come home.

BERMAN: Tommy Pigott, from the State Department, we appreciate your time this morning. Thanks so much for being with us and that update, 20,000 Americans now, the State Department says, have departed the region.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, opening bell ringing just moments ago on Wall Street. Investors watching very closely, and understandably so, the widening conflict in the Middle East and are worried, tracking energy prices especially in the latest development coming from the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps now says that the key -- that key shipping channel will remain closed to ships from the U.S., Israel, Europe, other western allies, warning that if any ships from those countries are seen in the strait, they will be hit. With that threat hanging over all of -- over the strait and out there, the IRGC, though, is also trying to say that ships from other nations, like let's say Russia or China, will be allowed passage. But what is that going to mean for this shipping lane that's been effectively shut down now for days is a huge question mark.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most vital shipping lanes. At its most narrow point, it's about 21 miles wide. The war has brought traffic at that pinch point to a virtual halt. About one-fifth of daily global oil production passes through the strait every day. That's about 20 million barrels of oil, which is why everyone's keeping such a close watch on oil markets and the trickledown effect if supply drops.

Coming up still for us, the CIA may look to ethnic groups to fight in the next phase of the Iran war, but could arming Kurdish factions backfire?

And a CNN team has crossed the border and is now on the ground in Iran. The first U.S. network allowed in since the start of the war.

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[09:39:20]

BERMAN: So, we have a major development in the Texas senatorial runoff. These two guys, the incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn and the attorney general, Ken Paxton, they are set to face each other in a runoff to figure out who will be the Senate nominee. That's three months from now. Neither got above 50 percent in the primary the other day. The development is this, is that President Trump says he is going to endorse in this race. So, how decisive could that be?

With us now is CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten.

Good to see you, sir.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Nice to see you.

BERMAN: So, when President Trump endorses in a primary, how do things go generally?

ENTEN: You know, Trump, yesterday, on Truth Social, essentially said, when I endorse, it's a very big deal because my -- for the people that I endorse, the endorses, almost always win.

[09:40:05]

And as it turns out, the president is correct on this. He is a GOAT when it comes to Republican primaries. He's a Tom Brady. He is a Babe Ruth.

Because take a look here, times Trump endorsees won GOP primaries, congressional and gubernatorial races, 98 percent in 2020, 95 percent in 2022 and then 96 percent in 2024. Now I will note that oftentimes he endorses incumbents, and those folks don't necessarily have very hard challenges. But even when he endorses challengers against incumbents, the challengers win a majority of the time. His endorsement, President Trump's endorsement is as good as gold in Republican primaries.

BERMAN: You know, you comparing him to Tom Brady. He actually does better than Tom. Tom Brady lost a few Super Bowls.

ENTEN: He did.

BERMAN: Stunningly.

ENTEN: Yes.

BERMAN: Donald Trump almost never loses when he endorses in a primary because, why?

ENTEN: Why? Because Republicans love Donald Trump more than any president's own party supporters loved him at this particular point.

Just take a look here. OK, own party supporters. Twenty-first century presidents own party approval about it at this point in a second term. Bush was at 77 percent. Obama was at 77 percent. Look at this, 86 percent of Republicans approve of the job that Donald Trump is doing at this point. That is higher than either Obama or Bush had within their own party at this point. Trump's magic touch has not seemed to wore off yet when it comes to the Republican base.

BERMAN: And what kind of approval are we talking about here?

ENTEN: OK, so we're talking about overall approval here. How about the strongly approved? The strongly approved. Not just like, but love. Love. OK, we're going to look at these same presidents. Again, strong approval among your own party's base. What you see here is Trump is the only one who gets a majority at this point in their presidency. Obama was at 48 percent. Bush was at 47 percent. You see her, Trump at 53 percent. Not as high as his overall approval rating, but still getting a majority of the Republican base, at least in the average of polls, to say that they still really, really, really like him.

BERMAN: OK, so the president says he will endorse. He hasn't said who he will endorse yet. But I bet you the prediction markets have a sense.

ENTEN: Yes, there have been rumblings. The prediction markets are hearing rumblings. And they think that it is going to be this man, John Cornyn, who's the incumbent, who, of course, got more votes in the initial round just on Tuesday. On Tuesday, the chance, according to the Kalshi prediction market, that he would be the GOP nominee for Senate in Texas was 24 percent. Now, on the belief that Trump will endorse, look at that, up like a rocket, 85 percent. And that is because the markets believe what we saw on slide number one, which is Trump's endorsement is very, very important. He's a G-O-A-T.

BERMAN: And that increase really only because of the endorsement. Let's point that out.

ENTEN: You got that right.

BERMAN: Harold Enten, thank you very much.

ENTEN: Thank you, my friend.

BERMAN: A lot of news this morning. We'll be right back.

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[09:47:18]

BOLDUAN: The president of Azerbaijan is now calling suspected Iranian drone strikes on his country a, quote, "act of terror." That's after reports of strikes and new video coming in and out about that appears to show Iranian drones striking an airport in Azerbaijan. The foreign minister there says two people were injured and an airport terminal building was damaged.

There's also new images coming out of Qatar showing explosions after suspected Iranian missiles were intercepted over Doha.

I want to show you a map that helps illustrate all of what we're talking about in terms of Iran's retaliation, along with its proxies. They're shown in yellow. And showing that they have been hitting everywhere, from Cyprus, to Oman. Now we know Azerbaijan, which is not involved in this at all at the moment.

With that in mind, sources are telling CNN, at least one U.S. ally in the gulf is now running low on interceptor munitions. Iran has been successful in utilizing a low-cost drone that it has, a Shahed drone, to carry out many of its attacks. It's relatively -- its relatively low cost means that it can more effectively overwhelm targets and deplete adversaries' munitions supplies, as we're talking about right here.

The U.S., by contrast, has deployed sophisticated and expensive interceptors in the Middle East, including the THAAD systems you've probably heard about. Each one costs some $13 million.

President Trump is set to meet tomorrow with top U.S. defense contractors at the white House, as he is now pushing them to ramp up production of equipment just like this.

Joining me right now is retired Army General David Petraeus, the former commander of U.S. Central Command and, of course, former CIA director.

It's good to see you again, General.

Before the war began, the Joint Chiefs chairman, General Caine, had warned President Trump, our reporting was, that a protracted military campaign here could impact U.S. weapons stockpiles, particularly those that support Israel and support Ukraine. How real do you think this problem is or will become? GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS (RET.), FORMER COMMANDER, U.S. CENTCOM: I think

it's very real. And it's great to see the president bringing together the industrial leaders, who presumably are going to be asked to wrap this up very, very substantially.

To put some perspective here. Last year, reportedly, there were somewhere around 620 Patriot missile interceptors produced. There are about two million per copy. Smaller numbers were produced of the THAAD interceptors, the SM-6 and these others that are on ships and so forth. So, we're talking about a relatively finite number. And what you want to be sure that you don't have to do, but we have seen happen during this operation, is to use a $2 million interceptor against a $20,000 Iranian Shahed.

[09:50:01]

By the way, Ukraine experienced this. Remember, the Iranians provided Shaheds to Russia. Even the ability to manufacture them. The Russians have now done product improvement efforts there. And so, Ukraine realized they can't use sophisticated missile interceptors for this. And they developed a very comprehensive approach. There are guns, there's electronic warfare. There are even drones that run into the Iranian drones. Anything to prevent from having to use, again, a Patriot or similar interceptor.

So, this is a very important meeting. We need to ramp up very rapidly. Reportedly, the production of Patriot will go up to about 2,000 per year. That's still not a huge number when you look at the numbers of missiles that have been coming from Iran, much less the number of drones.

There are some outliers. The Emiratis have invested very substantially, not just in the interceptors, but also in the short- range air defense systems. And they have had quite a successful rate of interceptors of drones without having to use missiles. But you do not want to end up again with this cost effectiveness ratio of two million to 20,000.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely not. CNN has also reported that the CIA is working now to arm Kurdish forces with an aim of fomenting a popular uprising in Iran. And there seems to be a lot of debate across the border of Kurds in Iraq, and where the level of involvement and buy in is right now on this. But what would arming Iranian Kurds do, do you think? And would it contribute to reaching the now stated U.S. objectives in Iran, do you think?

PETRAEUS: Well, keep in mind that the U.S. objective in Iran is quite achievable militarily, but it is to set the conditions for possible political transition. It is not to bring about it ourselves. And of course, the other objectives, the missile and drone programs, any nuclear program remnants, the navy, the leadership of the regime forces, the regime forces themselves and so forth. And we are doing very impressively against each of those targets.

The question has always been, would there be an opposition force that could rise up, that would actually have enough guys with enough guns and good enough leadership that it could actually take down this regime, noting that the regime forces, even after all the damage and destruction, will still have well over 900,000 men under arms and are using those arms against their own people. They're quite brutal in that. Tens of thousands killed during the demonstration, tens of thousands more jailed.

Now, what could Kurds do? Well, there is a Kurdish minority in northern Iran. There are also Azeris, by the way. It's really foolish of the Iranians to attack Azerbaijan. They might start arming the minority there. There are Turkmen. There are Sunni also. Can any of these be enough to really take on the regime? We'd do the math here. Its' possible they could take control of the Kurdish areas of Iran. And, by the way, there is more attention by the regime forces on those areas. You can see it striking inside Iran as well.

So again, the real question is, would there be forces that break off from the regime forces, perhaps the regular army or others that are not the regime protection, the way the Revolutionary Guards Corps are?

So, I don't see this yet as being equivalent to the northern alliance in Afghanistan, where we provided the air power and they provided the ground force to topple the Taliban. And without knowing more about this, knowing more about the numbers and knowing also, are there other activities underway? Mossad has shown that it has penetrated Iran incredibly. It had the drone bases on Iranian soil from which they launched the strikes, the very precision strikes that took out over a dozen nuclear scientists during the 12-day air war, and a number of other senior leaders.

So, the question really is, can you reach critical mass? Can you get a force of the size capability and with the leadership necessary to galvanize the population and present a real threat to the regime? And that is not answered yet.

BOLDUAN: General David Petraeus, thank you for coming in. Appreciate it.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thank you, Kate.

On our radar for you this morning, a man in Yonkers is recovering this morning in New York after a retaining wall collapsed, crashing down on to his car -- you see it there -- and trapping him inside. Neighbors saw what happened and rushed to pull him out. Police say he only had minor injuries. It's unclear what caused that wall to collapse.

All right, the iconic "Brady Bunch" house in Los Angeles is now a historic cultural monument. The vote was unanimous by the L.A. city council in making this decision. The house was used for exterior shots in that beloved family show.

[09:55:03]

Not the inside, but the outside. The sitcom ran from 1969 to 1974. I remember it so well. That makes me very old. But it's lived on through reruns and several films. The home was open for tours last year. No word yet on if that part will continue.

And a fourth grader from California is making history as the youngest designer to debut a collection during Paris Fashion Week. Max, as he's known, his full name is Max Alexander, is used to being in the spotlight. He has an Instagram account with nearly six million followers -- I am one of them -- tuned in to his fashion exploits. But Paris Fashion Week is big.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAX ALEXANDER, TEN-YEAR-OLD FASHION DESIGNER: My collection consists of 15 dresses. Ninety percent of this -- my show is biodegradable, recyclable, sustainable, made from deadstock and surplus. Deadstock is leftover material that is not used from companies, or like a dress that either got stained and it would have been in the landfill unless I rescued it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: I love that kid. He's amazing. It makes --

BERMAN: No time for reaction.

SIDNER: He makes amazing dresses. I don't care. I have to say.

BOLDUAN: Smile.

BERMAN: No time for reaction. Show's over.

Thank you all for joining us. This has been CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "THE SITUATION ROOM" is up next.

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