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Business as Usual in Many Parts of Iran; Israel, Iran Trade Strikes as Trump Weighs U.S. Action; Tel Aviv Hospital Keeps Patient Safe Underground; Israel's Attacks Might Be Unifying Iran; Source: Trump Reviewed Iran Attack Plans, Holding Off for Now; Republicans Divided Over Israel-Iran Conflict; Karen Read Acquitted of Murder in 2022 Death of Boyfriend. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired June 19, 2025 - 00:00   ET

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

[00:00:00]

GEORGE: You know, how much exposure it got. But the situation of somebody facing unjust charges is not unique in this country, unfortunately. And, you know, I hope that it just sheds a light on these kinds of injustices.

COATES: David versus Goliath, in many ways.

Victoria Brophy George, thank you.

GEORGE: Thank you.

COATES: And I want to thank all of you for watching. Erica Hill picks up breaking news coverage in the Middle East, next.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ERICA HILL, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, and welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Erica Hill in New York. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.

As the conflict between Israel and Iran enters now a seventh day. U.S. President Donald Trump is mum on his plans for the potential involvement of American forces, while on the ground new strikes have been reported overnight in both countries. An Israeli official says Iran is firing fewer missiles at this point because the IDF it says has destroyed about 40 percent of Iran's launchers. Iranian attacks, though, are still being felt across Israel. Authorities say an Iranian missile struck a residential building in an Arab city north of Haifa killing four women.

As for U.S. role a source tells CNN President Trump has reviewed attack plans for Iran. But at this point, he is clear, no decision has been made.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have ideas as to what to do, but I haven't made it final. I like to make the final decision one second before it's due, you know, because things change. I mean, especially with war, things change with war. It can go from one extreme to the other. War is -- war is very bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Israel says it has struck more than 20 military targets in Tehran in the past day. Iranian state media is reporting several people were injured at the national police headquarters, and another strike hit near a Red Crescent facility in Tehran. Iran's supreme leader is vowing his country will never surrender.

AYATOLLAH ALI KHAMENEI, SUPREME LEADER OF IRAN (through translator): America's involvement in this matter will be 100 percent at their loss. The loss they receive will probably be much more than the damage Iran will bear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: CNN's senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen is the first Western journalist to enter Iran since the conflict began. He filed this report late Wednesday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We've been both hearing and seeing anti-aircraft fire in the skies over Tehran. Also, some pretty loud thuds could be heard as well. It's unclear whether or not those are possible airstrikes or maybe even interceptions by the air defense forces here.

But one thing that is clear going through the streets of Tehran is that they are pretty empty and most of the shops are also closed. As we were driving into the city, we did see a decent amount of traffic going in the other direction trying to get out of town, and we know that a lot of people have left town since the Israeli airstrikes began here. But at the same time, the traffic was still somewhat flowing.

One of the other things that we noticed as well, and we did drive through a substantial part of Iran to get to this place, is that in many other places, it appears to be almost business as usual. There were a lot of cars on the road. There were factories that appeared to be working. Also, a lot of trucks that were driving on the street as well. And folks that we spoke to on the ground were basically saying they were just trying to get by and continue the way that they had been before.

Nevertheless, of course, people here in Tehran understand that the situation for them could be dangerous and many have actually left the city. And this comes as the Iranians are vowing to fight on. The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he came out and said that Iran and the Iranian nation would never surrender. Of course, what the Iranians have been doing is in the face of the airstrikes that have been coming in have been lobbying their missiles towards Israeli territory.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Tehran. (END VIDEOTAPE)

HILL: Donald Trump says he believes that Iran was, in fact, just a few weeks away from having a nuclear weapon. That comment coming just a few months after the director of National Intelligence, of course, testified that the U.S. intelligence community assessed Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that the supreme leader had not authorized a nuclear weapons program.

Iran's deputy foreign minister spoke with CNN's Christiane Amanpour about that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Israel says that it believes you were on the verge of deciding to make a nuclear bomb. Now Trump is moving in that direction, even though his intelligence chief said that's not the case in terms of their assessments. But do you now think that this clear attack on all of your facilities and your conventional weapons, if you survive, will Iran decide to become a nuclear weapon state?

MAJID TAKHT-RAVANCHI, IRANIAN DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER: No. We will survive. That is for sure. This is -- this is the point that I need to emphasize. The other point is that we do not believe in nuclear weapons. There is no place in our, you know, defensive doctrine, nuclear weapons have no place in our defensive doctrine.

[00:05:07]

In fact, we believe that the world will be a better place, a better place without nuclear weapons. But who has the nuclear weapons in the Middle East? The Israeli regime. Who has the weapons, you know, the most sophisticated, sophisticated weapons? The Americans. So they are the ones who should be responsible for all the chaos that are going on in different parts of the world as a as a result of, you know, desire for achieving nuclear weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: My next guest is a nuclear expert. Mariana Budjeryn is a senior research associate at the Harvard Kennedy Schools Belfer Center.

It's good to have you with us. I mean, first, just your assessment of what we heard there from the deputy foreign minister saying to my colleague Christiane Amanpour, very clearly, quote, "We do not believe in nuclear weapons," talking about Iran. Is that accurate?

MARIANA BUDJERYN, SENIOR RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL BELFER CENTER: Well, it's very difficult to corroborate that or put it together with the fact that Iran has amassed about 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent. I mean, no civilian nuclear program requires that kind of amount of uranium enriched to this level. So certainly Iran does have nuclear weapons ambitions.

But equally the statements that Iran has just a couple of weeks away from the bomb could be very misleading. Iran might be able to develop enough fissile material, nuclear material, to enough for a nuclear weapon, but there's still a long process from that to actually having a deliverable nuclear weapon.

HILL: Well, and to your point, we are hearing, frankly, conflicting statements. Right? So you have, you know, you have the head of the IAEA saying that there's no proof there was a systemic effort, right, in the moment here to move into a nuclear weapon. You have President Trump saying he believes that they were perhaps weeks away. We have heard similar from Prime Minister Netanyahu, frankly, for a number of years at this point.

Given all of that coming in, how does one assess where we are in this moment? And I guess at the same time, also ensure that this doesn't become what we saw with going into Iraq, weapons of mass destruction. There is -- we're starting to hear more about that certainly in the United States. Some caution that this not turn into what we saw 20 plus years ago.

BUDJERYN: Right. I mean, these are strikingly, you know, worryingly similar situations. The short answer to how we assess is that it's very difficult to assess. We've had very little visibility into the Iranian nuclear program, especially since the Iranian nuclear deal collapsed in 2018 when President Trump withdrew from JCPOA from the Iranian nuclear deal, and then the IAEA inspectors were very much limited in what they could access in Iran.

Having said that, we do know that developing a deliverable nuclear weapon, a nuclear deterrent, is a process that does not stop with having enough nuclear material, which is the highly enriched uranium that everyone is talking about. You have to design a warhead, you have to test a warhead, you have to mate it with the delivery system, with, you know, missiles, which of course, Iran also has been developing quite actively.

So various estimates, well, they differ anywhere from, you know, one year to 18 months for Iran to have a deliverable nuclear weapon. But again, is it going to be one, two, three weapons? What can you achieve with this kind of arsenal? And also another question is, well, you know, God forbid Iran does manage to develop a nuclear weapon, would it not use it the way other nuclear weapon states use it, which is for deterrence, not for fighting wars, but for preventing wars?

HILL: Yes. All important questions. When we look at where we are in this moment, how quickly things are moving, is there still room, in your view, to de-escalate? Do you see a diplomatic off ramp here?

BUDJERYN: There might be room to de-escalate should the parties choose to do so. The Israeli strikes damaged badly one of the enrichment facilities at Natanz, but they have left largely intact two other very important nuclear facilities, an enrichment facility at Fordow and nuclear research center at Isfahan. So possibly there's time for or that buys us time for negotiations. On Iranian side, the -- we know that the Iranian parliament is considering a move to withdraw from the treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. That could also be a move to build up leverage should negotiations restart. [00:10:04]

And we know that President Trump has not definitively taken talks off the table. So there are still some cautious room for optimism.

HILL: Yes. We'll hold on to that.

Mariana Budjeryn, good to have you here. Thank you.

As President Trump weighs U.S. involvement in strikes on Iran, experts say it's those massive bunker buster bombs that would likely be one of the only weapons capable of destroying that Fordow Iranian nuclear facility we've talked so much about in the past few days. Those bombs are 30,000 pounds. It's the GBU 57, which is known as the bunker buster. It contains some 6,000 pounds of high explosives.

The U.S. Air Force says it is designed for destroying weapons located in well-protected facilities. But some experts say even this bomb may not actually be able to penetrate Iran's Fordow fuel enrichment plant. We know it's carved into a mountain and extends deep underground. Just how deep? Well, that's part of the question.

Joining me now, attorney and retired Major General Mark MacCarley, who is joining us from Glendale, California, at this hour.

Sir, it's good to have you back tonight. When we look at where things stand, I was struck by some comments earlier from General Wesley Clark here on CNN talking about what we do and what we don't know and the risks going in. It's still not clear just how many of these bunker bombs, for example, may be needed to achieve that goal, which is destroying this site.

How important is it to have these very clear outlines and also a plan for what comes after those bombs are dropped before any decision is made?

MAJ. GEN. MARK MACCARLEY (RET.), U.S. ARMY: Certainly. So you have suggested that there are two answers. The first is, what sort of preliminary, what we call intelligence information is available. What intelligence information must we acquire before we commit U.S. forces into combat in Iran, albeit air attacks by missiles, cruise missiles and other systems, because we're operating in a void.

Now, I am confident that it's multiple layers in our government. There are those who have done significant work in outlining the disposition of the Iranian leadership and the -- at least superficial strength of the Iranian armed forces. But again, must have a plan, because there is always the day after. And that's what you're suggesting. And that's my response to what I call the second conversational line.

We just don't know. And in the last couple of engagements, all of us can remember whether it's Iraq or others. We went in, confident of success. Remember the statement mission accomplished after a couple of weeks of bombing and we were all happy. And in fact, we toppled Saddam Hussein. About a month later we had the Mujahedeen, excuse me, the -- the Iraqis and from -- from al Qaeda. And that became a horror story for the next almost 10 years.

HILL: Yes. And that is certainly -- I mean, I have, I have noticed it more and more, even in just the last 24 hours in terms of the conversations that are being had, concerns that are certainly being raised by lawmakers, which frankly informs my next question to you, which is, do you believe that this, even this idea, right, entertaining this idea, and again, our reporting is that the president has looked at the plans, hasn't authorized yet, but has looked at the plans that have been drawn up for a potential strike.

Is there any concern on your end that this is being rushed?

MACCARLEY: Well, any time you have a military operation, we use a term in the service, in the army, and it's what's called crisis action planning, meaning you have an event. The event surfaced, in this case, the Israelis pushed forward without the tacit consent of or approval of our government, went forward, bombed for the purpose, at least initially, of degrading Iranian nuclear capability.

So it -- by just a set of circumstances, an event starts and you've got a plan very, very quickly. So we call that crisis action planning, meaning that the work is done both in the Pentagon, certainly in CENTCOM, which the commanding general of CENTCOM has a significant role to play. The Air Force that would have the responsibility, Air Force, partly Army, but Air Force, in terms of launching the missile systems.

[00:15:08]

So is it rushed? Yes, it's definitely rushed. But under the circumstances would we have additional time in what we're looking at right now? Sure. I mean, we could basically say we're not going to do it for a month or two months until we figured out what the situation is on the ground. But then, as sort of suggested by President Netanyahu, the response would be, he saw this great opportunity that sort of opened up and so he seized it, and he committed his forces for this attack.

And if it wasn't then he felt maybe it would never happen. So time is very valuable and there isn't a lot of it to make the right decision.

HILL: Yes. General, I really appreciate your expertise and your perspective here. Thank you.

We are looking right now at live pictures. This is the sky over Tel Aviv. It's just about 7:15 a.m. there. And what you're seeing really here is the Iron Dome working. As we listen in, you can hear the sirens there mixed in with the birds of early morning.

And again, these live pictures here of the skies over Tel Aviv at this hour. Evidence we're told that the Iron Dome is in fact working. 7:15 in the morning there. It is 7:45 in Iran.

We are going to continue to follow those developments of course, as we see as the sun comes up, as this now enters its seventh day. We are also hearing from more world leaders, including French

President Emmanuel Macron, who is now pushing again for diplomacy to end the Israel-Iran conflict, calling, in fact for a return to negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. And in that call, he cited specifically concerns about what he referenced as Israel's wide- ranging strikes in Tehran and the growing number of civilian victims on both sides. In fact, he convened France's defense and national security council to discuss that issue Wednesday, and the French foreign minister is now working with European partners on a negotiated proposal to end that fighting. That, of course, according to a statement from the Elysee Palace.

Meantime, Israel's prime minister is urging Iranians to stand up against the current regime. So far, though, there also seems to be a fair amount of anger directed at Israel amid this conflict. We'll take a closer look at what is actually being said, what is happening on the ground inside Iran, just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:22:08]

HILL: You are looking at live pictures of Tel Aviv. We have heard air raid sirens sounding across Israel. The IDF saying a new wave of missiles has been coming in. They are urging residents there to head to their bomb shelters, to stay there until further notice.

Just a short time ago, probably in the last five minutes or so, when we were looking at some of these pictures again of the skies over Tel Aviv, we could see the Iron Dome effectively working as that new wave of missiles was coming in. We will continue, obviously, to follow these developments, to follow what is happening in both Israel and Iran throughout the coming hours with you here.

What we can tell you at this hour as well is that as these Iranian missile attacks do become the new norm in many ways, hospitals are looking for ways to keep patients and their staff, of course, safe.

Clarissa Ward reports now from Israel's largest acute care facility in Tel Aviv, where hundreds of patients have been moved out of reach of the bombs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANIEL TROTZKY, HEAD OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE, ICHILOV HOSPITAL: This is the emergency OA operation headquarters.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: OK.

TROTZKY: We are currently underground. Two levels below the ground. This area is missile protected. And this is where we're going to be located until an event happens, if happens.

Currently, in the underground hospital, we have 600 hospitalized patients.

WARD: Six hundred patients underground?

TROTZKY: Yes, we are probably the first or one of the first hospitals in the modern history that all the hospitalized patients are in an underground missile protected area. And this is crucial to understand because when we have an alert coming in, no one needs to run for shelter. Everybody is protected.

We actually transformed four underground floors from an active parking lot to a functioning hospital.

WARD: In how long?

TROTZKY: In seven hours.

WARD: In seven hours?

TROTZKY: So, yes, in seven hours with a lot of help from our amazing staff.

WARD: Is there anything you can't do down here that you can do up there in terms of procedures, operations, treatment?

TROTZKY: No. Everything we have. We have operation rooms, delivery rooms, different wards, intensive care, neonatal, ICU. Everything is functioning underground. It's busy. It's busy. But I think that our patients are quite happy because they feel safe.

WARD: Sirens have gone off. They're now closing that door that effectively makes this a shelter now. And as soon as they have a sense of where those strikes hit and who will be coming in, they'll start to receive the patients and any casualties that may be coming in.

[00:25:06]

So they've been given the all clear. The number of missiles being fired the last couple of nights by Iran is getting less and less with fewer impacts and no reported casualties. But still, Ichilov Hospital has to be prepared every time for the worst-case scenario.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HILL: And again, our thanks to Clarissa Ward reporting there.

Well, since Israel began its strikes on Iran, calls for regime change have grown louder among Israeli officials and some in the U.S. Congress. But is that the case inside Iran? Many believe the Israeli attacks are perhaps not the right path for political change.

Here's CNN's Nick Paton Walsh with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Iran has a dense history of protests, which brought to power the Islamic Revolution. And repression of it that's tightened slowly under the ayatollahs. The young face of Neda Agha-Soltan killed by security forces in 2009

lit years of anger. 2012 saw the crackdown and the expansion of the death penalty. And so by 2019, protests against fuel prices, repression and the economy sprawled for six months and killed hundreds. Violence, the norm.

None of it dislodged the theocracy. And none of it has yet reignited by the past week of Israeli air strikes. Instead, anger at Israel, already loathed by many for civilian deaths, the chaos and panic it has caused.

HAMID DABASHI, PROFESSOR OF IRANIAN STUDIES, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: No country will ever receive democracy through bombing. Political prisoners inside the Islamic Republic are publicly writing against this military invasion. So this military invasion will do precisely the opposite, will unite people.

PATON WALSH: The U.S. has backed regime change before helping the British in 1953 oust a democratically elected government. The Shah who followed was remarkable for his brutality, and opposition to him ushered in the ayatollahs, who sold themselves as purist Islamist reform.

DR. SANAM VAKIL, CHATHAM HOUSE: Frankly, Benjamin Netanyahu's call for regime change and sort of appeal to the Iranian people to come out and overthrow their government reeks of condescension and smacks of a misunderstanding of Iranians.

PATON WALSH: And President Donald Trump's half-failed non-threat to kill Iran's supreme leader is unprecedented.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: And it's not going to escalate the conflict. It's going to end the conflict.

PATON WALSH: But killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose rhetoric was defiant but not at its most fiery when he emerged Wednesday, does not decapitate the theocracy of which he's just the latest face.

DABASHI: If he is assassinated, in fact it will exacerbate the critical situation that we have. The ruling regime is fully capable of replacing him with another major figure, whether his son or another cleric. It will not have an effect on the military dimensions.

PATON WALSH: Any successor might be more hard line and reverse Khamenei's fatwa against building nuclear weapons. And so after him, the flood. Perhaps a hard liner with the bomb or even the collapse of Iran into warring ethnic factions. Another nightmare for the region.

As with regime change in the Middle East before, remember Iraq, where it was the unknown unknowns that won out.

DONALD RUMSFELD, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: But there are also unknown unknowns. The ones we don't know, we don't know.

PATON WALSH (on-camera): It's that unpredictability that surely must be weighing into the calculations of the Trump White House. This is a country run by an authoritarian government where the society has been deeply repressed, and the possibility of unpicking that quickly may be attractive to some Western powers, but could potentially yield consequences that could yet destabilize a region that's seen extraordinary turmoil over the previous decades.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HILL: The U.S. president has a message for Israel, keep going. More on Donald Trump's comments as he weighs whether or not to intervene in the Israeli-Iran conflict. Plus, how this latest crisis in the Middle East is exposing a divide among President Trump's Republican base.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: Welcome back. I'm Erica Hill. Let's take a look at today's top stories.

[00:34:15]

Israel is unleashing new strikes on targets in Iran as U.S. President Donald Trump still won't say whether American forces will ultimately get involved. A source telling CNN the president has reviewed Iran attack plans, but he's holding off on that decision to see whether Tehran steps back from its nuclear program.

Iran had a near-total Internet blackout on Wednesday, according to the cybersecurity watchdog Netblocks. The Iranian government said it was imposing temporary Internet restrictions nationwide, claiming Israel has been misusing Iran's communication network for military purposes.

The Federal Reserve holding interest rates steady again on Wednesday. The central bank left its benchmark lending rate unchanged at a rate of 4.25 to 4.5 percent. That's where it's been since January.

Officials still waiting for more data on the impact of President Trump's sweeping tariffs and trade policy changes. This, of course, as tensions in the Middle East are also adding to the economic uncertainty.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is thanking Donald Trump for, quote, "standing by Israel's side" amid the escalating conflict with Iran.

For his part, the U.S. president says he has encouraged Netanyahu to continue Israel's campaign, even as Trump himself weighs a potential U.S. involvement.

Here's my colleague, Jeff Zeleny, in Washington with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF U.S. NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: After one more meeting with his National Security Council, President Trump retired to the residence of the White House on Wednesday evening, we are told, still not resolved what his plans will be in terms of the U.S. lending a hand to Israel's attack on Iran.

Will the United States lend the firepower to decapitate and destabilize the Iran nuclear program? That's very much an open question.

Of course, President Trump began the day saying, I may do it. I may not do it. No one knows what I'm thinking. But he also, in the Oval Office on Wednesday, offered a window into his mindset heading into this major decision.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I have ideas as to what to do, but I haven't made a final. I like to make the final decision one second before it's due, you know, because things change. I mean, especially with war, things change. With war, it can go from one extreme to the other.

ZELENY: Going from one extreme to another. That certainly is an understatement. But the -- the weight of this decision clearly weighing on this president, who has long campaigned against American engagement --

ZELENY (voice-over): -- particularly in the Middle East. His whole "America first" agenda, of course, was about, you know, not intervening in other countries' affairs.

Of course, the president says keeping Iran from developing a nuclear bomb is very much in America's interests.

But going forward here, I am told, some key questions are: Can the U.S. authorize a strike? Can the president authorize a strike without entangling the -- the U.S. government into a long, drawn-out war? That is very much an open question.

Many advisers to the president believe he can, indeed, do that. But history is also on the other side of this.

I'm also told that the aftermath of a strike is part of the president's decision making, as well.

ZELENY: What would go into that, in terms of fortifying U.S. forces in the region? Some 40,000 forces in the region.

So, the question here, as the president weighs this big decision: Will he listen to supporters of his who are urging him to strike at this opportunity, or will he listen to some of his MAGA supporters who say, Do not do this? Or will he follow his own guidance?

There's no doubt it's the biggest decision facing President Trump.

Jeff Zeleny, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HILL: Well, this conflict and the possibility of U.S. involvement, as Jeff was just noting, is sharply dividing President Trump's Republican base. And if you need more proof, well, look no further than this heated

back and forth between conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson, who is against the U.S. joining the strikes on Iran, and GOP Senator Ted Cruz, who is all for it.

On Wednesday, the president dismissed the idea that there's any division in his party and downplayed the rift between Carlson and Cruz.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Tucker is a nice guy. He called and apologized the other day, because he thought he said things that were a little bit too strong, and I appreciated that. And Ted Cruz is a nice guy. I mean, he's been with me for a long time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Well, despite the president's soothing words, arguments about the conflict are taking place across conservative media as Republican hawks clash with MAGA isolationists. CNN senior correspondent Donie O'Sullivan has that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TUCKER CARLSON, JOURNALIST: How many people live in Iran, by the way?

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): I don't know the population.

CARLSON: At all?

CRUZ: No, I don't know the population.

CARLSON: You don't know the population of the country you seek to topple?

CRUZ: How many people live in Iran?

CARLSON: Ninety-two million.

CRUZ: OK. Yes.

CARLSON: How could you not know that?

CRUZ: I don't sit around memorizing population tables.

CARLSON: Well, it's kind of relevant, because you're calling for the overthrow of the government.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The world of MAGA is at war over going to war with Iran.

CARLSON: You don't know anything about Iran. So actually, the country --

CRUZ: OK, I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran -- CARLSON: You're a senator who's calling for the overthrow of the

government.

CRUZ: -- who says. You're the one who claims -- you're the one who claims --

CARLSON: And you don't know anything about the country!

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Some of the president's biggest supporters are at odds about whether the U.S. should attack Iran.

STEVE BANNON, PODCASTER/FORMER SENIOR TRUMP ADVISOR: Let's have the American people weigh in, because you're going to see the American people are 90 percent against forever wars.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): On one side are Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson, both of whom are frequent supporters of Israel but are against war with Iran and say it could divide Trump's base.

BANNON: And I'm telling people, hey, if we get sucked into this war, which inexorably looks like it's going to happen on the combat side, it's going to not just blow up the coalition, it's also going to thwart what we're doing with the most important thing, which is the deportation of -- of the illegal alien invaders that are here.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Other loyalists, like Charlie Kirk, are not ready to sound the alarm.

[00:40:01]

CHARLIE KIRK, HOST, "THE CHARLIE KIRK SHOW": It's superficially dividing some people into their corners.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

KIRK: But I think if President Trump navigates this with prudence, I don't think this is a permanent fracture. I think all of this can be remedied and healed, especially if we don't have U.S. troops on the ground, and we don't get into a prolonged conflict.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): The prospect of war has put much of the MAGA podcast world against Carlson's former employer, FOX News.

CARLSON: It does feel like FOX News is playing -- and I never criticize FOX, because they were so kind to me -- but they are playing a -- like a central role in the propaganda operation here.

MARK LEVIN, HOST, "LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN": They go on with their bumper stickers, forever wars, forever wars. Well, guess what? The Israelis are going to put an end to this forever war. And so will Donald Trump.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): On FOX News, a slew of guests hoping to get the attention of one very important viewer.

CLAY TRAVIS, FOUNDER OUTKICK: We have to do it. And I know President Trump probably watching. It takes a lot of bravery.

LEVIN: If this is not a reason to defend ourselves, then give me one. An Islamo-Nazi regime with a nuclear warhead, intercontinental missiles that have threatened to assassinate the president of the United States. Gee.

And we have morons, fools running around the country. This isn't magna [SIC]. This isn't MAGA. This isn't what I voted for. Donald Trump is a forever war president.

How so? He's going to do what every president before him. Since Carter didn't have the guts to do. He's going to put an end to this thing.

O'SULLIVAN: And CNN's Kaitlan Collins asked the president on Wednesday about this rift in the world of MAGA. The president said that Tucker Carlson actually called him to apologize in recent days about some of the comments that he had made in this very heated debate on U.S. involvement in Iran.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HILL: Donie O'Sullivan, appreciate it.

Well, after allegations of a police cover-up and a dramatic retrial, the verdict in the case of Karen Read, who was accused of killing her police officer boyfriend in 2022.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:46:45]

HILL: We have some live pictures to show you now. We had just told you a short time ago, about a half an hour ago, we were showing you live pictures of Tel Aviv. These also live pictures. As you can see, just about quarter of eight there in the morning. The aftermath of some of these strikes. A building clearly quite damaged there. We saw some cars on the ground, as well.

Again, these are live pictures, so bear with us as the camera's moving here. But the aftermath, again, of strikes overnight as we are now in the seventh day of this conflict between Israel and Iran.

You can see in those buildings there, of course, a number of windows, it looks, like, blown out. Entire portions of that building, obviously, as well.

We are waiting for further information from the ground in terms of whether there are injuries or casualties.

But of course, a short time ago, about a half an hour ago, as I mentioned, as we were showing you some of those live pictures of the skies over Tel Aviv, the Iron Dome intercepting some of those new waves of missiles that were coming from Iran, according to the IDF. Of course, Israel had also at that point said to all citizens, they need to get into those bomb shelters to stay there until they are told that it is safe to come out.

So, we'll continue to follow those developments for you on the ground, as well.

When we look at the conflict and where things stand, tensions with Iran a key topic during a Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing on Wednesday.

Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin grilled the U.S. defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, about a potential U.S. strike on Iran and the preparations undertaken by the Pentagon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): Have you commissioned any day-after planning? So, any force protection, any use of ground troops in Iran, any cost assessments?

Because I don't think we doubt what we can do as a country in the attack. It's the day after with Iraq and Afghanistan, that so many of us have learned to be so deeply concerned about.

Have you authorized day-after planning?

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: As I've said, we have plans for everything, Senator.

They should have made a deal. President Trump's word means something. The world understands that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Hegseth repeatedly declined to get into specifics regarding his conversations about a potential U.S. strike and -- on Iran, saying he would not disclose information in that open forum.

Hegseth also noting that Iran had 60 days to accept a deal.

For a closer look at where things may stand in this moment, we're joined now by Alex Plitsas, a senior nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council and a board member at the Special Operations Association of America.

It's good to have you here, Alex. So, when -- when all of this is being worked out right, the moment that -- where we're at, there has been so much talk about the day after, as Senator Slotkin was bringing up there.

What are you seeing as this is sort of being played out in real time, frankly, in terms of what the options are for the United States and what those look like the day after?

ALEX PLITSAS, SENIOR NONRESIDENT FELLOW, ATLANTIC Sure. So, the options for the United States in terms of a military strike, are fairly limited, because there's really only one weapons system that can deliver the final blow to the Fordow facility, which is one of the few that haven't been struck, which is a B-2 bomber delivering a bunker-busting bomb.

And the Israelis know that, as well. You know, they haven't hit the facility yet. And it tells me that they see whatever option they have -- because they clearly have something planned -- as either being, you know, much more high-risk or less effective than if the U.S. had struck.

[00:50:07]

You know, for the day afterwards, there's a couple scenarios that folks have talked about. So, the, you know, worst-case scenario, transnational terrorism, if they have sleeper cells abroad, that type of thing.

Most, you know, realistically, it would probably be attacks against U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria and potentially in the region. The U.S. military has recognized that, you know, ships have left ports in the region. Aircraft that are not in bunkers have been moved out of the -- out of the area.

So, the U.S. seems to be preparing for the potential day after scenario.

You know, but Senator Slotkin, she was talking -- and actually just for transparency, I knew her when she was an acting assistant secretary of defense before she entered politics. You know, she was worried about a potential, you know, ground war or something else that would follow. That would be a pretty drastic situation that I don't really foresee unfolding.

HILL: And when you talk about, you know, the preparations that are currently underway in terms of, as we've seen, moving -- moving some of these aircraft carriers, for example.

But the other bases that are in the region, are you seeing further evidence of preparation in those areas for a potential retaliatory strike?

PLITSAS: Yes, that's actually -- that's a great point. Most of the movements that we've seen to date are actually not for offensive capabilities. They're for defensive to protect forces in the region.

So, we saw F-22s arrive today in the U.K. that were moved in. A third carrier battle group is on the way in. But that was previously scheduled to replace a carrier group that's already there. It would provide an additional option, but it's not due to arrive, you know, for a little bit: at least another week or so.

So, other than that, we've seen, again, the ships leaving ports and aircraft that are moving, and then missile system -- missile defense systems moving into theater, as well. So, protect forces from -- from drones or from missiles, should they be able to come in. And that's, again, what the fighter aircraft are there for, as well.

HILL: I was struck by a comment that General Wesley Clark, of course, former NATO supreme allied commander for Europe, made on our air just a short time ago, in talking about the timing here.

And he was noting that Israeli officials have now said they've destroyed, I believe, it's 40 percent of ballistic missile launchers in Iran.

General Clark was making the point of before, potentially, going in with U.S. strikes, why not take a moment to perhaps focus on some of the capabilities that still exist for Iran that could be used in a retaliatory strike?

Are you surprised that there does not seem to have been as much of a focus on those areas, at least to this point?

PLITSAS: I mean, there's been a pretty significant focus. I mean, well, we're hearing 40 percent. You know, Iran also has a lot of the missiles hidden in different places.

In the opening salvos of the war that came out, the Israelis had 200 aircraft involved. They actually had a covert paramilitary operation on the ground, as well as intelligence collection that we now know about, where they had remote capabilities that were destroying missiles there and missile systems, as well as air defense systems on the ground.

So, this has clearly been planned for quite some time.

And now, as you can see with the missile salvos, well, you were just talking about the ones that just struck. It seems to be one of the most effective. It was still a small number of missiles, relatively speaking, compared to previous, you know, iterations.

So, they're continuing to strike and reduce the ability to strike back.

But to your point, you know, will we actually get all of the missile launchers to prevent them from launching more, prior to the U.S. initiating some sort of action? You know, the trigger could be, you know, an attempt to move things out of facilities. So, that way they're dispersed across the country, et cetera.

But Fordow, which is again, the main focus right now, but if the U.S. is going to be involved, is a fixed underground, hardened facility, specifically designed to, you know, withstand a conventional, you know, attack and really requires that large caliber munition.

But in the same point, it's not going anywhere. So, you know, that is a possibility.

HILL: Yes. Alex Plitsas, really great to have you with us tonight. Thank you.

PLITSAS: Thank you. HILL: In some other U.S. domestic news, Karen Read, who's the

Massachusetts woman accused of killing her police officer boyfriend in 2022, found not guilty of second-degree murder.

She was convicted on a separate drunk driving charge.

CNN's Jean Casarez, who's been following these developments, reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In a murder trial that lasted almost two months, with a combined witness list of 49 people --

CASAREZ (voice-over): -- the jury has found Karen Read not guilty of all major charges.

CASAREZ: The prosecution, in their most serious count, second-degree murder, alleged that Karen Read intended to put that accelerator down of her Lexus SUV, put that car in reverse, and go 90 feet backwards after letting John O'Keefe out of the car on a snowy winter night in January 2022; that her car clipped him; that he fell backwards, sustaining multiple skull fractures, and he lay dying in the snow on what witnesses said was the snowiest and most serious storm in history in this area.

CASAREZ (voice-over): The prosecution [SIC]: not guilty.

[00:55:04]

On count two, which was manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter under the influence of alcohol, not guilty.

Count three, leaving the scene of an accident causing death, not guilty. The major lesser includeds, not guilty.

What was she guilty on? Drunk driving, and the penalty will be one year of probation.

When her supporters heard that news outside of this courthouse, they erupted in joy.

(CHEERING)

CASAREZ: But there is a pivotal question left to be answered.

CASAREZ (voice-over): Will John O'Keefe, the victim in this case who lost his life, who was raising by himself, as a Boston police officer, his niece's children because of her unexpected death --

CASAREZ: -- will he and their family get justice? Only time will tell.

Jean Casarez, CNN, Dedham, Massachusetts.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HILL: Thanks so much for joining me this hour. I'm Erica Hill. Stay tuned. CNN NEWSROOM continues on the other side of this short break.

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