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Americans Fleeing War Zone; Interview With Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA). Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 05, 2026 - 13:00   ET

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

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Breaking news on the war with Iran. The race to evacuate stranded Americans is ramping up as the conflict widens, the State Department just a short time ago saying multiple U.S. evacuation flights are now under way. But, this hour, it's unclear how many Americans still need to get out.

An administration official tells CNN that some 20,000 Americans so far have returned to the United States since the war began. There are still concerns, though, about how safe the air in the area is. How safe is it to fly in the region?

This video from Azerbaijan shows a drone striking an airport this morning. Iran has denied any involvement, but it shows their radius, the radius of the conflict continues to grow. We're also learning more about air defense systems responding to missiles and drones over Abu Dhabi, Qatari fighter jets shooting down Iranian bombers near a key U.S. military site.

A lot of intense action spread over a broad area, Brianna, as we're learning that the U.S. and Israel are also pushing deeper into Iran itself.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Yes, that's right. The U.S. is vowing to strike deeper inside of Iran, Boris. And the president is now telling Axios that he must have a role in selecting the next leader there.

The regime has reportedly been mulling the assassinated supreme leader's son as a successor to his father. But, according to Axios, the president finds him unacceptable, the president saying -- quote -- "They're wasting their time. Khamenei's son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment like with Delcy," meaning Rodriguez, "in Venezuela."

Meantime, on the ground, Israel says it has been targeting missile sites in Iran. More large explosions have been seen there. A human rights group says the death toll in the region has now surpassed 1,100 people.

CNN anchor Erin Burnett is live in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Erin, tell us what the latest is there.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: All right. Well, you have been going through some of the key headlines.

There also, we understand, have been an Iranian missile striking a Bahrain oil refinery, continuing to go ahead with refining, but yet another strike that we understand. Where we're sitting here, it has been more active over the past 12 hours than it had the day before. So we have seen a bit of a pickup here.

This is just obviously anecdotally what we're able to observe. And Israel has also been launching new strikes in Iran, as you mentioned, Brianna, but in Lebanon. In fact, for the first time since the war began, they're now striking all the way in Northern Lebanon. There's also a ground offensive, we understand, going on there.

The IDF has ordered partial evacuations in Southern Lebanon. You talk about the flights. I was just talking to one person trying to leave Dubai, finally got out, going to Chicago. We know the lines on the border when people are trying to get out through Muscat in nearby Oman are up to 12-plus hours just to actually cross the border.

So, unclear exactly what the situation in terms of how many people are getting out. Here, they're trying to operate some flights, smaller planes, maybe one an hour. Unclear exactly what they're doing just to try to get people, some people out. A lot of people that we have seen around who are waiting to get out, though, are still really just desperately trying to get on lists and figure out ways to get out.

So, our Jerusalem correspondent, Jeremy Diamond, is here with me now.

And, Jeremy, what are you learning today? Obviously, we know there has been an incredible number of strikes in Tehran, more active here today than yesterday. And, obviously, there's really no way of knowing why as to whether that's strategic or episodic. We don't know.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think one thing to keep in mind is that, although we did see more sirens today, more warnings of incoming Iranian ballistic missiles, we haven't seen any incidents where there's been direct strikes that have caused casualties. And that is notable.

BURNETT: Right. They haven't broken through, yes.

DIAMOND: And that's notable because it suggests, as the military officials that I have been speaking to have indicated, that the barrages are small, right, or they're even single missiles sometimes, which are going to be more easily intercepted by Israel's air defenses.

BURNETT: Yes. DIAMOND: But what I'm really keeping an eye on right now is what's happening north of us in Lebanon, because the scale of the evacuation order that has been issued for the southern suburbs of Beirut known as the Dahiyeh is unprecedented.

Israel didn't even do this back in September of 2024, October of 2024, when they began intensely striking Hezbollah in Beirut, when they began a ground operation in Southern Lebanon. We have not seen them issue such a broad evacuation order.

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We are seeing pictures out of Beirut where tens of thousands of people are now fleeing their homes, leaving that southern suburbs ahead of what we can only imagine will be very intense Israeli airstrikes. So that's very important to keep an eye on.

BURNETT: Yes.

DIAMOND: We have also continued to see Hezbollah carrying out both anti-tank missile fire attacks towards Northern Israel, as well as drone attacks. So that front is really starting to heat up here.

BURNETT: Yes.

DIAMOND: And it is, of course, what Iran wanted to see. They wanted Israel to also be busy with another front here. Obviously, as we talked about, Israel was waiting for an opportunity to go after Hezbollah in Lebanon as well. So they were certainly prepared for this scenario.

But it does seem like we are seeing the beginnings of a pretty broad operation by the Israeli military in Lebanon, where we know yesterday they already issued this evacuation warning for every area south of the Litani River, so a big swathe of Southern Lebanon. So there's a lot to keep an eye on there.

BURNETT: Yes, absolutely.

And, Boris and Brianna, I will say to you, as we're also trying to get a better sense of what's really going on in Iran, our Fred Pleitgen is now there. And he's saying just what he's seeing on his way to Tehran, obviously, he's coming in by land, all right?

What he's seen, though, is he hasn't seen a line at gas stations. He's seen produce available at shops they have been to and shops have been open. So that's just what he's seeing with his own eyes right now, as we're trying to get a better view on what exactly is happening on the ground there -- back to you.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it's a fascinating look at what's happening on the ground.

Erin, thank you so much.

As Erin just noted, our senior international correspondent, Fred Pleitgen, and his producer, photojournalist Claudia Otto, have crossed the border into Iran. And CNN is the first U.S. network being allowed into the country since the start of the war.

KEILAR: That's right. We need to point out that CNN operates in Iran only with government permission.

Here is Fred's report.

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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're making fairly good progress towards Tehran. It is a very, very long drive, though.

Some things that we are seeing, we already went past one place where apparently there had just been an airstrike. There was thick black smoke billowing over one place, so it seemed like a fairly fresh airstrike, also some destroyed buildings that we saw from our vantage point as we were driving past.

The other thing that I would also say is that there are definitely more checkpoints than usual. We did see checkpoints with fairly heavily armed security personnel. Other than that, though, it seems as though things are going on, and we certainly don't see any sign of order collapsing here.

Taking a quick break for a coffee along the way. We have been driving for several hours. There's a couple of things that we have noticed. Number one is that, first of all, all the shops are open. All the shops are really well stocked even with fresh things, like, for instance, fruits and vegetables, coffee obviously also available as well.

And then also the gas stations, there's no long lines as gas stations. Fuel seems readily available. And you just don't see any sort of degree of panic anywhere.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Really interesting.

Fred Pleitgen, thank you so much. He will continue with his reporting.

Right now, countries around the world are ramping up efforts to evacuate citizens from the Middle East. Earlier, a U.S. State Department official told CNN multiple charter flights are under way to get Americans out of the region.

SANCHEZ: CNN national security correspondent Kylie Atwood joins us now.

What's the latest on these evacuation efforts, Kylie?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we found out overnight is that yesterday the U.S. government carried out its first evacuation flight that we know of from the Middle East for Americans who are departing there.

That -- we don't know where that flight took place from. We don't know how many Americans were on board. But Tommy Pigott, the State Department deputy spokesperson, said on CNN earlier today that multiple evacuation flights are in the works now.

They're not giving us hourly-by-hourly updates. They're citing the situation on the ground, security concerns for that. We will watch and see if we get updates after those flights take out of the region. But I do think it's worth to note -- noting that they continue to tell Americans to go to the intake form that they have posted on X, on their Web site, to get information about these evacuation flights the U.S. government is trying to stand up.

The big picture here, they say, according -- this morning, that 20,000 Americans have gotten out of the Middle East since this conflict began and 10,000 of those have received direct assistance from the United States. But the demand when it comes to these Americans trying to get out is likely to go up.

And I just want to give us an example here. When there was the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, obviously, a very different situation, but it was a U.S. government action that led to a crisis in that country. This was U.S. government action in Iran that led to crisis in the whole entire region.

In the first two weeks after that, there were 6,000 Americans who were evacuated by the U.S. government from one country, from Afghanistan, where you don't have these multinational companies, major organizations that Americans are working for. So, presumably, the pressure on the U.S. government is only going to go up here, so long as we see this conflict persist.

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We don't know the intensity of what the conflict is going to look like, but this is all going to get more complicated potentially, as you guys have talked about, the airspace closures remain in place in much of these countries, making the logistics really complicated here.

KEILAR: They have commercial options, right, some of these...

ATWOOD: In some countries, yes.

KEILAR: Some of these folks in some countries.

ATWOOD: Yes.

KEILAR: So, they're moving. They're going to Oman. They're going to Saudi Arabia to get them. That may be a little bit of a difference from Afghanistan.

ATWOOD: Yes.

KEILAR: I think what's confusing to me is, if they're under way or they're in the works, have any of them really taken off? And when they're talking about 10,000 getting direct assistance, what does that even mean?

ATWOOD: They haven't described what direct assistance means. And I think it's a good point.

Presumably, it means that the U.S. government has helped them get over land routes where they can get to another country where the airspace is open, they can get on commercial flights.

Presumably, it means that they have potentially got them on that charter, the U.S. government charter yesterday, but the State Department not being specific into what direct assistance actually looks like here. And I do think, on those commercial flights that are going out, the U.S. government is trying to get Americans on any of those flights going out, but there are also so many other countries that are trying to get their nationals on those commercial flights as well.

So there's a lot of demand, just not from the U.S. to get Americans out, but also from other countries who are watching us all unfold.

KEILAR: Kylie, thank you so much for that.

And still to come: the White House facing criticism after mixing real war footage with clips from the game "Call of Duty" to promote its operation in Iran.

SANCHEZ: Plus, stocks falling, oil prices surging, the war reportedly completely stopping the flow of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz -- the economic impact of this conflict when we come back.

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KEILAR: This just in.

According to a new analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the first 100 hours of the U.S. military campaign against Iran is estimated to have cost $3.7 billion, a big price tag so far for this war. At the same time, the House is set to vote today on a resolution to curb the president's war powers.

Yesterday, the Senate rejected a similar call requiring congressional approval for military action.

I'm joined now by California Democratic Congressman John Garamendi. He is a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

And, Congressman, I want to ask you. The president just told Axios that he needs to be personally involved in selecting Iran's next leader, a la Venezuela. Are conditions such that he has the leverage to make that demand?

REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): Probably not, not at this moment anyway. And that's a very big question. Who's going to be the next leader? What will be the policies of that leadership team? Right now, it's pretty clear that there is a leadership team being

developed in Iran to replace the ayatollah. We don't know what that is, but, in all probability, it's going to be one nasty continuation of the nasty ayatollah regime. So we will see what happens here.

Bottom line of it is, the president does some really strange things. He thinks he is the commander of the world. He also thinks he's a dictator here in the United States and he can do anything he wants to do. And the Congress and the courts are basically, catch me if you can.

Well, we're going to try to catch them this afternoon. We believe that this war powers resolution, which basically pulls back to Congress the power to wage war -- the president doesn't have that power. He can take care of an emergency, but clearly this issue with Iran was a decision that he made that, I don't know, woke up one morning and said, OK, let's attack Iran.

The emergency that -- it doesn't exist.

KEILAR: We have already -- we've seen in the Senate Democrats don't have the votes, right? We're expecting that in the House.

GARAMENDI: Yes.

KEILAR: When you look, I know, obviously, Democrats and even Republicans, some of them, have issues with how the president is doing this when it comes to war powers. But are there any of the stated objectives of the White House here that you could support if they were congressionally authorized?

GARAMENDI: Well, the objectives change.

If you take just a listen to what the secretary of state said, the objective was to support Israel in its initiating attack on the...

KEILAR: OK, but -- and I hear you on that.

But I'm asking, for you, what you have heard some of the -- you have heard the objectives. And they have been all over the place, admittedly. Which ones could you support? And would you vote to fund this war?

GARAMENDI: Well, clearly, Iran is a terrible actor and causes all kinds of problems in the Middle East. There is no doubt about it, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, you go on and on. This is the work of Iran.

And Iran has to change. So would I support an effort to change the leadership of Iran into a more stable, open society? Absolutely. I don't think we're going to get there in what the president is doing.

Do I support the funding here? We have no choice but to support the funding. Our men and women are out there. They're in the airplanes. They're on the ships. And we need to support them. However, I do recognize that the president is asking for $500 billion

of additional money not related to this war just to pump up the -- I guess the expenditures. The military industrial complex is going to be really happy. Bottom line, we're going to have to deal with that. What's he going to use that money for?

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And we do know that we're looking at a few billion a day to run this operation. Bottom line here is, this president has to come to Congress if he's going to go to war. He has to explain, not just to us, but to the American public, what is this all about?

You look at the polls and the American public are going, what are you doing? Why are you doing it? Never really explained that to the American public, and certainly not to the members of Congress. We have the constitutional obligation. We haven't had the opportunity, but maybe this afternoon we will round up the votes and we will pass this thing.

There's a possibility we will get the votes.

KEILAR: We will be watching that.

I do want to ask you about this strike in Kuwait that killed six service members. The tactical operations center that Iran hit appears to be a triple-wide portable trailer with concrete barriers on the perimeter outside. And CNN has learned there were no sirens or warnings to alert the soldiers inside.

Here is how the defense secretary explained it.

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PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: You have air defenses, and the lots coming in and you hit most of it, and we absolutely do. We have incredible air defenders. Every once in a while, you might have one, unfortunately -- we call it a squirter -- that makes its way through, and in that particular case it happened to hit a tactical operations center that was fortified, but these are powerful weapons.

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KEILAR: It's actually called a leaker, not a squirter.

But, nonetheless, do you have questions about whether there were air defenses that were readied at that position or if that building was actually adequately fortified for something like this?

GARAMENDI: Well, you raised the two most important questions.

Obviously, the air defenses were inadequate, and we do know that force protection was not part of the forward up-front thinking here. The forces, in this case, these six, I guess, or more than six, personnel, most of them National Guard, one from Sacramento, near my district, that were unprotected, they may have had barricades, so maybe if somebody's going to try to drive a jeep into it.

But there was no way that they would be protected from any aerial assault. And that's part of the problem here. This thing just took off. I guess President Trump woke up in the morning and said, let's go to war. Let's attack Iran.

All of the preparations, the personnel that are out there unprotected -- and this is the horrible example of that situation. There are many, many other examples. We have military stretched throughout that entire region. Some of them were given a heads-up and they moved out of the area, but there's still thousands of American military and other military.

And, of course, you had a long segment here on the civilians that are out there. We know last Tuesday in a classified hearing that there was no prior thought about evacuation. Now, how that evacuation was going to be done and so forth, questions were asked of Hegseth and the secretary of state, and they hadn't thought about that.

And now, all these days later, five days later, they are doing these military flights. Good. That's helpful. But the reality is, they jumped into this war without the proper protection, force protection. The example there in Kuwait is a horrible one, dead soldiers, inadequately protected, and was it a squirt? Is that what the secretary said? No, it...

KEILAR: It's actually -- it's a leaker, not a squirter, just to be clear.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: I think I checked in with our military experts.

GARAMENDI: Either way.

KEILAR: Let me ask you this really quickly before I let you go.

GARAMENDI: Well, either way, you have got dead people. Yes. Yes. Sure, go ahead.

KEILAR: And it's very unfortunate, right? You have six families that are in mourning and a whole community there that's in mourning.

The defense secretary talked about these 500-pound, 1,000-pound, 200- pound precision gravity bombs, of which he said the U.S. has a nearly unlimited stockpile. Is it clear to you, if you can just tell me real quickly, because we're almost out of time here, how those weapons, is it clear to you how they're going to be used?

GARAMENDI: Not so much on those weapons, but we do know that the magazine for defensive, Patriots, THAAD, other kinds of air defenses, as well as the offensive, are being used in a very, very rapid pace.

And there is a question that has been raised by myself and my colleagues, what's the depth of that magazine? When do you run out of air defense missiles? When do you no longer have a Patriot missile to shoot down the next missile that's coming in from Iran?

The answer, unfortunately, is not forthcoming. However, if you take a look at the expenditures of these defensive weapons, as well as many of the offenses, one, including the one that you talked about, the reality is, the magazine is moving towards empty.

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And that's a very problem -- with regard to these gravity bombs, it may be that we don't have any more offensive missiles and these are just gravity bombs that are going to be dropped by our airplanes, B- 52s or whatever. And that puts them more directly in harm's way, because those are the kind of flights, airplane flights, that are likely to be more easily targeted by the Iranians.

KEILAR: Congressman John Garamendi, we thank you for being with us.

GARAMENDI: Thank you.

KEILAR: Next, we will have some more breaking news from the Hill, where Republican House leadership is now calling on Congressman Tony Gonzales to end his bid for reelection after he admitted to an affair with a former staffer who died by suicide.

Stay with us.

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