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SpaceX Rocket Has "Major Anomaly," Explodes At Texas Site; Israeli Defense Minister Urges Destabilization Of Iranian Regime; Source: Trump Reviewed Iran Attack Plans, Holding Off For Now. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired June 19, 2025 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

HASAN ALHASAN, SENIOR FELLOW FOR MIDDLE EAST POLICY, IISS: Let's remember that when Netanyahu went to Washington, he talked about redrawing the map of the Middle East. And I think if we take a look at Gaza and the West Bank I don't think we have any reason to believe that the outcome of that effort would be a net positive for anyone in the region but Israel.

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN ANCHOR: Hasan, it's really important to have you on this morning. I thank you very much indeed for your perspective from the region. Hasan Alhasan in Bahrain for you.

And in that -- in some of the CNN reporting that we've mentioned this morning an Egyptian resident in the region is quoted to -- "Everyone is stressed out and it's becoming very real," she said. "The situation is not something to be taken lightly and war feels nearby." Well worth a read on CNN Digital.

All right, we're going to get back to MJ Lee in Washington after this short break for some of the other stories that we are following for you, including the very latest on Hurricane Erick, now a category four storm in the eastern Pacific. More on that is coming.

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[05:35:35]

ANDERSON: Hello, and welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and around the world. I'm Becky Anderson in Abu Dhabi.

MJ LEE, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm MJ Lee in Washington. And here are some of the stories that we are watching today.

Israel's emergency services say at least 65 people have been wounded in the latest Iranian strikes. A ballistic missile hit a residential neighborhood in Tel Aviv causing major damage. Iran also struck a hospital in the southern Israeli city of Be'er Sheva.

After two trials, Karen Read has been found not guilty of the 2022 murder of her boyfriend John O'Keefe. Read's first trial ended in a mistrial but on Wednesday a jury acquitted her of second-degree murder. Read will serve one year of probation after the court convicted her of drunk driving but not jail time.

The longtime owners of the Los Angeles Lakers have agreed to sell their majority stake in the NBA team. This is according to a source familiar with the agreement. The Buss family, led by Jeanie Buss, will sell their stake to Mark Walter, the owner of the baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers. The deal is valued at about $10 billion, a record figure for a pro sports team.

Forecasters say Hurricane Erick is now an extremely dangerous category four storm in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It's expected to make landfall around Acapulco, Mexico in the coming hours. The potentially deadly storm has winds of 145 miles per hour, and it could bring rainfall of up to 16 inches. This could all end up triggering flash floods and mudslides across Mexico's southern coast. And besides hurricane warnings, tropical storm warnings are in effect in other coastal areas as well.

An explosion did much more than rattle the SpaceX Starbase facility in south Texas on Wednesday night. Check out this tremendous fiery blast when a Starship rocket was blown to smithereens. It created, as you can see there, a mushroom cloud. The company called this a major anomaly. That might be an understatement.

The rocket was on the stand for its 10th flight test and the cause of the explosion, and the extent of the damage are still unclear. All employees are accounted for and no injuries were reported, according to SpaceX. The facility is the main location for developing and testing the Starship rocket meant ultimately for a mission to Mars.

And ahead we'll dive deeper into our top story, the Israel-Iran conflict. We'll be joined by a senior fellow from the Middle East Institute in Washington. Stay with us.

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[05:42:55]

ANDERSON: We are continuing to monitor developments in what is it seems this deepening conflict between Israel and Iran.

Joining me now from Washington is Alex Vatanka. He's a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. It's good to get you on this morning. I'm really interested in your perspective on a number of issues.

Let's start with the statement from Israel's defense minister released earlier that has put the concept of regime change or regime collapse front and center.

Given that the defense minister -- and I'm talking about Israel's defense minister here -- has called on the IDF to target sites that would "destabilize" the regime, what do you think that will look like?

ALEX VATANKA, SENIOR FELLOW, MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE: Well, good morning from Washington to you, Becky.

Look, I -- I'm not sure -- ANDERSON: Good morning.

VATANKA: -- what that looks like in the short term. Clearly, the Israelis have, in the last six days, already engaged in a number of very senior high-profile assassinations. Do they have the capacity on the ground to continue so? Maybe not right now but maybe what they're trying to do is to prepare the ground if you will to do exactly that -- to continue those high-level assassinations. Maybe decapitation in the short term is a strong word. But certainly sort of continue down this path to destabilize the regime.

And Becky, we have to remember this is a highly unpopular regime with the Iranian people and I'm assuming a good part of the state machinery outside the Revolutionary Guards and outside Ali Khamenei's inner circle are also at this point thinking how do we get out of this mess.

So maybe here's more to it than some people believe is the case when someone like the Israeli defense minister says what he said. Maybe there's a plan behind it one can speculate.

ANDERSON: I do want to talk about Donald Trump weighing his options at this point and the ramifications of any U.S. involvement. And I know you're going to give me a really good perspective on that.

[05:45:00]

Before I do, I just want to look at another part of that Israel Katz statement. He says, and I quote, "The cowardly Iranian dictator sits deep inside his fortified bunker and launches deliberate attacks at hospitals and residential buildings in Israel. These are the gravest forms of war crimes and Khamenei will be held accountable for his crimes."

And he is, of course, speaking to ballistic missile strikes overnight which hit a hospital in Be'er Sheva in southern Israel and a district of Tel Aviv -- a suburb of Tel Aviv, which is a civilian area.

Look, many across the region are -- I'm in here in the Gulf -- and the wider Middle East are going to consider that statement and wording on war crimes and targeting hospitals and civilian areas -- they're going to consider that hypocritical given the strikes that we have seen, not least in Gaza, of course.

Your thoughts?

VATANKA: Yeah, I know. I mean, again, you are in the region. I'm following what the folks in the region are saying.

There's two things. The Islamic Republic has done itself no favors over the last few decades creating so much animosity in so much of the region. Certainly in the Gulf States many have had serious questions about Iran's regional policies, including what he was doing with his nuclear program.

But at the same time there are two things here that they worry about. State collapse in Iran, a country of 90 million. What does that mean

for the entire region? I mean, that is going to be something the Middle East has never experienced in modern times. So a big question mark. If you're sitting in the region what it means for your own security in your respective countries.

And look, the Israelis obviously are also seeing I think by the regional state as a potential threat for them at some point down the -- down the road. Like, if Israel gets to essentially bring the Islamic Republic down what does it mean for countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and others? Could they not necessarily be targeted the same way Iran has been targeted, but could Israeli pressure come on them at some point?

And that's why they have such big question marks about how the United States is handling what Israel is doing in Iran. Because if Israel can essentially do what it wishes without the U.S. being able to stop it what is the message, again, for the region -- the countries of the region.

ANDERSON: Sources tell CNN, at least for now, Trump is focused on avoiding a wider conflict, weighing his options about whether he gets the U.S. military involved here in striking Iran.

How do you read what is being said and what you're hearing behind the scenes?

VATANKA: So Becky, over the last few days we sort of believed that President Trump wanted diplomacy to work out. That the Iranians weren't given him what he was after. So he kind of signed off and gave the Israelis a green light to essentially attack the Iranian sites but with the aim of bringing Iran back to the diplomatic negotiations and get the sort of deal he was after initially.

But as things have moved on and we've learned about the calculations on the part of the Trump administration it becomes clear that Trump was sort of with Bibi Netanyahu from the get-go. That this thing wasn't something that Israel sort of surprised Trump with. That they have been together all along, which is basically also the talking point of the Iranian regime.

But going forward it's sort of hard to see how Trump is going to make a decision that might surprise Netanyahu. So ultimately what I think Trump will do is a decision that Netanyahu would agree with in terms of the next steps in this war.

ANDERSON: Alex, it's good to have you. The perspective from Washington by Alex Vatanka. Thank you.

When we come back CNN gets exclusive access to the Iranian television strike -- site struck by an Israeli missile as personnel there were broadcasting live. Stay with us.

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[05:53:20] ANDERSON: CNN's Fred Pleitgen and photojournalist Claudia Otto are the first Western journalists in Tehran since the conflict with Israel began on Friday. They just exclusive access to the Iranian TV network hit by an Israeli strike this week. Take a look.

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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're inside the Iranian state broadcasting company IRIB, which was hit by an Israeli airstrike a couple of days ago. And you can see the damage is absolutely massive. I'm standing in the atrium right now but if you look around, this whole area has been completely destroyed. All of the offices, all of the technology that they have inside here -- the broadcast technology -- everything has been rendered pretty much useless.

All right, so we're going to go inside the building now. They have told us that we need to be very careful because obviously there might still be unexploded parts of bombs in here or something like that.

What we see here is the actual studio where an Iranian state TV anchor was sitting and reading the news when the strike hit. You can see here that is an anchor desk right there. And, of course, when it happened the anchor was reading the news and then all of a sudden there was a thud. The studio went black. At the beginning she got up and left but then later apparently came back and finished the newscast and is now being hailed as a champion of Iranian media.

Some of the main bulk of the explosion must have been here because this place is absolutely charred. And if we look back over there that actually seems to be the main part of what was the newsroom with a lot of the desks, computers, printers, phones.

[05:55:00]

You can see how much heat must have been emitted by the impact and by the explosion. The phones that they had here are molten. Here also the keys molten. This screen and there's actually someone's lunch still at their desk standing here, which probably they would have been wanting to eat until they had to evacuate the building. You can see there's a spoon here that's also been melted away by this explosion.

All of this is playing very big here in Iran. There's a lot of public anger that the Israelis attacked this site. And certainly the Iranians are saying that they condemn this and that there is going to be revenge for this.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Tehran.

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ANDERSON: I'm Becky Anderson in Abu Dhabi. Thank you for watching. "CNN THIS MORNING" starts after this short break. Stay with us.

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