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U.S. and Israel Escalate Attacks Against Iran; New Wave of heavy Strike Hit Tehran Overnight; GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales Ends Reelection Bid Amid Pressure from GOP; Trump Fires Kristi Noem, Taps Sen. Markwayne Mullin for DHS Secretary. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired March 06, 2026 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Beautiful inside.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely.

BERMAN: You just like the juicy meat.

BOLDUAN: End of the story. Turkey eventually did leave, but not before stalking other officers. We have lots of thoughts here.

But no, guys, we're going to another hour. A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

BERMAN: All right, the breaking news this morning. Gas prices soar to their highest level at any time in either of President Trump's terms. The cost of war as a new wave of attacks shakes Iran.

Kristi Noem is out as Homeland Security Secretary. We go inside the intrigue and the umbrage that lost her, her job.

And we are standing by for the new jobs report comes out very shortly at a time when the war is causing new economic concerns.

I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidner. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking this morning, explosions lighting up the sky over Tehran as the U.S. and Israel intensify attacks. Israel, announcing it has launched a broad scale wave of strikes. Residents there saying it was the worst night of bombardment on the capital.

We are also getting a clear idea of the scope of the destruction inside Iran. And there was this frightening moment playing out on live television. You can hear a loud explosion in Tehran sending that reporter running for cover.

State media reporting that a busy shopping district in the capital was hit. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the fight against Iran has only just begun. The Pentagon now vowing to dramatically surge firepower over Iran. The U.S. Central Command released this video of a strike on an Iranian drone carrier. Also new images of the Sri Lankan Navy rescuing dozens of Iranian soldiers who survived that attack from a U.S. torpedo in the Indian Ocean.

CNN is the first U.S. network inside Iran since the start of this war. We should note CNN operates in Iran only with government permission. Our Fred Pleitgen is there and has this report for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's certainly been quite a kinetic morning here in the Iranian capital Tehran. There were really heavy airstrikes, say a little bit before dawn. We heard jets flying around this area for an extended period of time.

There were also some massive airstrikes, and we saw thick black smoke billowing from one location which seemed to be in sort of the central maybe southern central part of the city as we were driving around. That also went on for an extended period of time as well. Clearly a very large airstrike that happened there with that plume of smoke hanging over almost the entire city.

This of course happens as the United States and Israel continue their air campaign not just here in Tehran but in various locations around the country. They say that they're going to continue to try and degrade the Iranian military infrastructure and then also take out as they put it key leaders as well. At the same time the Iranian government is vowing not to back down, not to negotiate with the United States. And Iran's military says that it is going to continue targeting not just U.S. assets here in this region like military bases in the Gulf states but of course continue to target Israel as well. The Iranians are saying that their missile stockpiles are still very much filled and that their missiles are very capable as well.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: Thank you to our Fred Pleitgen who has been there for years and years and years overtime.

BOLDUAN: I got it. Camera came to me so I'm just going to talk on over you. Thank you darling.

Joining me right now CNN political and global affairs analyst Barak Ravid of Axios. Let's get this thing together Barak. I want to focus on what we saw coming from Israel overnight.

Israel launched massive wave of attacks on the Iranian capital today and they're now also kind of unleashed a wave of attacks on Beirut, Lebanon. What are you hearing about these two fronts of this war right now?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Good morning, Kate. I think the most interesting thing that has happened over the last let's say hour or two is that the Israelis conducted a massive strike on former Iranian leader Ali Khamenei's compound in Tehran. Why now?

Why do you need to strike this compound again after he was already targeted on the first day of the war?

[08:05:00]

Because under the compound there was a massive bunker underground that the Israelis suspected was still being used by senior Iranian officials. And this strike was conducted several hours ago. I think it is still unclear whether any senior Iranian officials were there.

But I have no doubt that this was the reason the Israelis conducted that strike. You do not launch so many munitions at a place only because you want to destroy a bunker with nobody inside. So I think that's in the next few hours.

The main question is who was there inside that bunker.

BOLDUAN: Exactly. And given your great reporting, that's going to be exactly what I'm going to be listening for in the next coming hours of what they will be announcing. Also, I wanted to talk about your conversation with President Trump yesterday, Barak.

He told you that he needs to personally be involved in selecting Iran's next leader. John Bolton was on CNN yesterday. He called that kind of expression of power delusional.

Is Trump suggesting now that regime change is now a focus of his?

RAVID: I think it definitely raises questions about what exactly is the U.S. policy on -- I don't want to call it regime change because I think it's broader than that -- on how much the U.S. wants to go deep into what will happen in Iran politically in the day after the war. Regime change is you bring in your troops, you go to the presidential palace, you take out the flag, you arrest the leader. I don't think we're going to see anything like that, at least at the moment. It doesn't seem to be the case.

But are we going to see a U.S. involvement in trying to influence what government system will be in Iran the day after the war? No doubt. No doubt.

And I think that's what President Trump was aiming at. President Trump wants to see, as far as I understand from talking to him, a different system in Iran in the day after the war with different government policy.

Why? He explained it to me. Because he doesn't want to have a new government in Iran with the old policy that will rebuild the nuclear facilities, rebuild the missile capability, restock the proxies in the region, and then in five years there'll be another massive war that the U.S. will have to go to. So I think this is what the president is aiming at.

BOLDUAN: That might be his line of thinking, but as you're saying, day after, I'm thinking, day after in Gaza, the United States kind of took over ownership of that. The day after in Venezuela, the United States, clearly the president has ownership of that. And now the day after in Iran, I mean, there is a lot of what could be suggested here is a lot of long-term U.S. involvement in very sticky places throughout multiple regions of the world.

One other thing, and this kind of gets a little bit to also your interview, is something that the president said at an event yesterday, that Iran is trying to call him. Let me play this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They're calling, they're saying, how do we make a deal? I said, you're being a little bit late, and we want to fight now more than they do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Do you have any indication that that is true, that the United States is in touch with Iran here?

RAVID: I think Iran is trying to get in touch with the U.S., and the U.S. is not picking up. I think this is what we're seeing. I know from several sources that the Iranians have been trying to send messages to the Trump administration via several channels, including to very senior people inside the Trump administration.

And they were not, as far as I know, at least last time I checked was yesterday, the Trump administration is not picking up the phone, not answering the messages. The message from the Trump administration to whoever is asking questions about negotiations is that now we are conducting the military operation, and until we achieve the objectives, we're not going to go into any talks with the Iranians.

BOLDUAN: Barak, thanks for jumping on and for all of your reporting. Really appreciate it -- John.

BERMAN: Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales drops his bid for re- election after admitting to having an affair with a staffer who later took her own life, but he still has nine months left in office. Will he serve them all?

[08:10:00]

We're standing by for the release of the new jobs report, critical economic news as gas prices hit the highest level under Donald Trump's presidency.

And 25 countries and 30 states show up for the world championship cheese contest. Who walked away as the new king of cheese?

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BERMAN: All right, breaking overnight. Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales announced he is dropping his re-election bid.

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This late-night announcement came after Republican leaders pressured him to withdraw from the race after he admitted to having an affair with a former staffer who later died by suicide.

We're going to get right to CNN's Annie Grayer in Washington. And it's important to note here, Gonzales dropping his re-election bid, but still says he tends to serve the next nine months of his time in office.

ANNIE GRAYER, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: That's right, John. And there are a lot of dynamics at play here. But once Tony Gonzales came out publicly and admitted to having an affair with a former staffer, with his then- staffer, who has since passed away by suicide, the situation became untenable.

We're told that shortly after Gonzales came out and said that after he's been denying these allegations for months and saying he was going to stay in his re-election bid, that Gonzales had a phone call with the number three Republican in the House, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, where Emmer laid out how Gonzales had let the team down, essentially, by not coming clean sooner and having leadership stand by him for so long. And I'm told shortly after that call is when House leadership decided to put out a statement calling on Gonzales to not seek re- election.

And then shortly after that, Gonzales put out his own statement saying that he would not seek re-election. But what's notable here is leadership is not calling on Gonzales to step aside immediately and resign. And that's an open question as to why, if they see these allegations as damning enough that Gonzales should not run for re- election, why keep him in Congress up until the end of his term?

And some Republicans are saying that there's a calculation leadership is making about trying to keep its very slim House majority. Now, leadership denies that's its thinking, but that's certainly a dynamic here. But now that Gonzales is not going to seek re-election, he will not be running in that May runoff for his seat, so that sets up a glide path for his opponent there.

But as long as Gonzales remains in Congress, there's going to be a House ethics investigation into him about these allegations, and we're going to closely follow what happens with that. But major development overnight from Gonzales, who, again, for months had been denying these allegations -- John.

BERMAN: And look, we don't know what will come from that investigation, but you could see a scenario where the results of it make staying in office awfully hard, if not completely untenable, but we'll wait and see. Annie Grayer, great to see you. Nice reporting. Thank you -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right, just ahead. Kristi Noem is out as DHS secretary, the moment that led to the president's major cabinet shakeup.

And what's a Vegas without a hotel implosion? The hotel casino that was shut down during the COVID pandemic never reopened. Well, it's dust and rubble now.

[08:20:00]

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SIDNER: Kristi Noem has been fired. She is out as Homeland Security secretary after months of controversies. But there's one specific event that seems to have sealed her fate with President Trump.

Trump says he will nominate Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin to replace her. Noem has been on thin ice after multiple issues, including, of course, the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens during immigration crackdowns in Minneapolis. But sources say the final straw was her testimony this week on Capitol Hill.

Senator John Kennedy says the president was, quote, pissed after Noem testified that he approved a $220 million Homeland Security ad campaign that placed her front and center.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is following all the details from the White House. What are you learning about how the White House has seen her performance there and that one issue that really got them riled up, apparently?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, there was this one issue that seemed to sort of shove her into the abyss in a lot of ways. But in other ways, this had been building for months and months. You know, her demise was something of an open question at the White House.

They really viewed that situation in Minneapolis that ultimately led to the deaths of two American citizens on the streets as a leadership failure. There were power clashes with the heads of CBP and ICE. There were some serious questions about her spending, including on a luxury jet with a full bedroom that the DHS claimed was going to be used for deportations.

As one administration official put it yesterday, "Kristi's drama sadly overshadowed and distracted from the administration's extremely popular immigration agenda." Which I think is something of an understatement. There was a lot of anger and frustration at how she had handled so much of her job. You know, the catalyst was this sort of humiliating appearance on Capitol Hill when she was repeatedly questioned about that $200 million-plus ad campaign that put her at the very center.

She claimed that the president was aware and, in fact, had approved of these ads. The president said he had nothing to do with it or at least had no idea that they were spending the budget of a Marvel movie on these television advertisements. You know,

Kristi Noem is now the first Cabinet official to be dismissed in the president's second term. He had been making this concerted effort to try and avoid the drama that engulfed his first presidency, and he did find her a landing pad, which is this previously non-existent job as special envoy to the Southern Shield, which is this new security initiative for the Western Hemisphere.

The president seems aware that people he dismissed, and he has this experience from his first term, often go out and give interviews or write books that portray him in a negative light, so he does seem aware that finding a place for them to land is an imperative.

[08:25:00]

Now, the man he is replacing her with is the Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin. He's a top ally of President Trump. The president has praised his appearances on television. Mullin said yesterday that there would be the opportunity to build off her successes, but quote, also the opportunity to build off things that maybe didn't go as planned -- Sara.

SIDNER: That is one way of putting it. Kevin Liptak, thank you so much. I do appreciate it -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Breaking overnight, a new wave of strikes on Tehran. Just as we are getting a first look at how much the war is costing the U.S. government and thus American taxpayers so far.

And we're minutes away from the release of the jobs report. As we are seeing and talking much about and the focus is very much on gas prices surging to the highest levels that they've been in either of Donald Trump's presidencies.

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