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Top U.S. Diplomat At U.N. Defense Strikes On Iran; Iran Vows Response That Will Cause "Deep Regret" In The U.S.; Trump In New Post Suggests Iran Could Have Regime Change; Damage On Iran's Nuclear Capabilities Unclear; Interview With Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) On U.S. Strikes In Iran; Oil Market Futures Up After U.S. Strikes On Iran; Iran Launches Missile Attack On Israel After U.S. Strikes; DHS, FBI Watching For Potential Threats To U.S. By Iran. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired June 22, 2025 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:00]

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Julia Benbrook is following these developments.

And Julia, obviously this is happening here just these past few moments. What can you tell us?

JULIA BENBROOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The United Nations Security Council has wrapped an emergency meeting that they used to discuss the escalating situation in the Middle East. And a U.N. source tells CNN that Iran requested this meeting.

The Security Council has the stated goal of maintaining international peace and security and determining if there is a threat to that peace. The council consists of 15 members, five permanent members with veto power. That includes China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. There are also 10 members that are elected by the general assembly for two-year terms.

And today during that meeting, we heard from the top U.S. diplomat to the U.N., Dorothy Shea, who defended the actions that the United States took over the weekend and warned Iran not to escalate further.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOROTHY SHEA, ACTING U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS: Any Iranian attack, direct or indirect, against Americans or American bases will be met with devastating retaliation. To fulfill its core mission of maintaining international peace and security, this council must call upon the Iranian regime to end its 47-year effort to eradicate the state of Israel, to terminate its drive for nuclear weapons, to stop targeting American citizens and interests, and to negotiate peace in good faith for the prosperity and security of the Iranian people and all other states in the region.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BENBROOK: Now, the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who plays a complementary role to the Security Council, he spoke first today. And he said that since the onset of the crisis that he has repeatedly condemned military escalation in the Middle East.

And I want to pull up a recent statement from him as well, where he said that he was alarmed by the use of force by the United States against Iran. He went on to say, "There is a growing risk that this conflict could rapidly get out of control, with catastrophic consequences for civilians, the region and the world," Erin.

BURNETT: All right, Julia, thank you very much. Julia Benbrook here in New York.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

BURNETT: Hello, and thanks for joining me on this Sunday. I'm Erin Burnett here in New York covering the breaking news.

Grave concern, the latest words as world leaders are now responding to the growing tension and the escalation in Iran after the United States with a dramatic escalation bombed three of Iran's key nuclear facilities. President Trump declaring the "Operation Midnight Hammer," and he says that it was a spectacular military success. Those are his exact words.

Tonight, though, obviously, the crucial question remains. What are the facts? Did the United States finish the job? Did it actually destroy the bulk of Iran's nuclear material? It comes as CNN is learning more about what led to Trump's consequential order for a strike. Allies of the president revealing that he made the decision on Thursday, even though, of course, Thursday was the day that he publicly seemed to try to take some heat off the situation. That was the day that he said Iran had two weeks to come to a deal.

And as U.S. bombers were about to be airborne, Trump reportedly showed little anxiety. He was at his New Jersey golf club on Friday night. That's when they took off of course long flight. Hours later in the basement of the situation room at the White House, as he was wearing his signature red hat, he, you know, of course, who had five minutes before they dropped those bombs to pull it back, to not do it. Obviously, he went ahead with it and watched it in real time, surrounded by his security team.

Now a top aide to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei warning that the, quote, "game is not over." The foreign minister is speaking out tonight accusing the United States of launching a dangerous war and crossing a very big red line by actually bombing Iran. Vice President JD Vance, though, seems to think that diplomacy can continue. He said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JD VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're not at war with Iran. We're at war with Iran's nuclear program. Well, the president has been very clear, Kristen. We have no interest in a protracted conflict. We have no interest in boots on the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNETT: But just moments ago, the Iranian envoy to the United Nations in New York gave a warning during the Security Council's emergency meeting. I'll play it for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMIR-SAEID IRAVANI, IRANIAN ENVOY TO THE UNITED NATIONS: America has once more recklessly chosen to sacrifice its own security merely to safeguard Netanyahu. The timing, nature and scale of Iran's proportionate response will be decided by its armed forces.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Decided by its armed forces. All right, let's get straight to our chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward. She is in Tel Aviv tonight.

So, Clarissa, you know, going through the options of what Iran could do, you know, maybe some of the answers to that depend on what the United States actually successfully did or did not do.

[18:05:07]

But when you look at possible retaliation, direct retaliation against the U.S., what does Iran have at its fingertips right now?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Erin, I would say that Iran has a number of different options for striking back. And the expectation is that they will have to do something, at least to save face domestically. One option is to draw upon its considerable network of proxies in the region. You have obviously Hamas and Hezbollah, though they have been severely degraded by Israeli strikes and operations over the course of the last 20 months.

Then you have the Houthis in Yemen who have fired ballistic missiles in the past, who have hijacked ships in the Red Sea, who previously struck a deal with the U.S. but that now may be no longer on the table. You have Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq and a number of other militias in Iraq.

So that's one possibility to go with an indirect attack. Then if you listen to Iranian state media, they've talked about the vulnerability of U.S. forces in the region. Some 40,000 U.S. troops across the Middle East.

I've been talking to a number of former officials who have said that they're particularly focused on Iraq. You may remember after President Trump ordered the killing of IRGC head or then IRGC head Qasem Soleimani back in 2020, that Iran retaliated with ballistic missile strikes, particularly on the Al-Asad Air Force Base in Anbar Province in Iraq. So that's one possibility.

Then you have the specter of some kind of an asymmetric attack, be it cyber, be it terrorism, be it kidnaping. And then last but certainly not least, you also have the possibility of some kind of an economic hit. And that would mean or what everyone is looking at right now is the potential for Iran to try to close off the vital Strait of Hormuz.

Now, that would be a severe blow for Iran's economy as well. But it would send oil prices skyrocketing. The U.S. has already warned that that would be seen as a major escalation. And from the conversations I've had with sort of experts and former officials in the region, the sense here is that Iran is really walking quite a fine line, Erin. They need to do something to try to project strength or show that they can reestablish some form of deterrent. But many people think that they're likely to try to avoid a huge attack that would result in a lot of casualties because that would then, of course, bring about more retaliation.

So potentially looking for that kind of Goldilocks sweet spot sort of strike, but not clear yet what that might look like. And in the meantime, no one is taking any risks. The U.S. has pulled, or I should say the State Department has pulled 500 personnel from its various consulates and embassies across Iraq, out of the country. Thousands of Americans who are stranded here in Israel are being evacuated on flights out tomorrow.

And there's a definite sense that this is a dangerous moment, that all options are on the table, that vigilance is needed, and everybody waiting and watching to see what comes next -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right. Clarissa, thank you very much.

And let's go to the White House. Kristen Holmes is there.

And, Kristen, U.S. officials have been saying that the recent strikes were not about regime change, right, which sometimes was in contrast to what we heard from Israelis, both publicly and privately. But now President Trump is bringing up the words regime change in the most public way he possibly can, which is on social media.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Erin. That's right. And one of the things just to bring up here is not only how we've been hearing this from U.S. officials behind the scenes, we've heard this from U.S. officials in front of the camera saying on the record, this isn't about regime change.

Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, was asked about this on Thursday, is the Trump administration open to regime change? She sidestepped that question, saying that this was all about the nuclear weapon. We've heard Vice President JD Vance earlier today, as well as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, both saying that this wasn't about regime change. But now you have President Trump posting this, says, "It's not politically correct to use the term 'regime change,' but if the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn't there be a regime change?"

And then he says, "MIGA," obviously make Iran great again, a playoff of make America great again. This is something that many U.S. officials had been hoping to avoid, any kind of conversation around regime change. Now President Trump has inserted the United States into that conversation. As you said, it has been very clear, even if it's indirect, that part of the goals of Israel when it came to this war, these conflict with Iran, was a regime change.

[18:10:10]

However, now you're seeing that potentially the United States is getting involved in that as well.

BURNETT: All right, Kristen, thank you very much.

And now let's go to Matthew Chance, our chief global affairs correspondent.

And Matthew, this is a big question. You know, just talking to General McMaster, you know, who obviously formerly had been in the last Trump administration. You know, he said it's going to take several days to figure out exactly what they did and did not, you know, from a fact based as opposed to just, you know, your political announcement, perspective achieved. But we're already starting to get, you know, some expert groups who follow this to come out with a better sense of what the U.S. did and did not achieve.

What are we learning?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, look, I mean, obviously significant damage would have been done. I mean, the U.S. dropped, you know, an array of Tomahawk missiles against the Iranian nuclear sites, as well as about a dozen, you know, really big bunker buster munitions. And so the damage clearly going to be significant.

In terms of a full battle assessment, I mean, that takes some time to come about. It's going to be dependent on all sorts of factors. Computer modeling, you know, human intel, communication intercepts, and of course, satellite images. We've got some satellite images that have come through to us. There's probably going to be a lot more, but these are the sort of first ones, the first batch of them showing before and after pictures. And you can see the various nuclear sites.

There are, you know, instances of craters, the six craters that can be seen around the Fordow nuclear facility, which, as you may remember, is buried deep inside a mountain. And so it's very highly fortified. But those six craters are indicative of those bunker buster bombs. You see something similar at Natanz, where there are a couple of similar craters there. Again, an indication that bunker busters were used to hit the nuclear facilities that are deep underground.

At Isfahan, which is the biggest nuclear site inside Iran, there are a number of buildings on the surface, about 18 in fact, that are either destroyed or partially destroyed. Another sort of indication of how much damage was done to Iranian -- Iran's sorry, Iran's nuclear capabilities. President Trump said they were totally obliterated. He said that within, you know, minutes after the strikes took place.

It's not clear whether that's the case yet, but the point, I think, is important to make is that even if Iran's nuclear facilities have been utterly destroyed in the way that President Trump says they have been, and which the evidence indicates they may have been, it doesn't mean that the threat emanating from Iran has gone away. It's still got the knowledge, of course, about -- the technical knowledge about how to create a nuclear weapon, how to carry out uranium enrichment.

It may be that some of its nuclear material, that it's already enriched, has been taken away. Iranian state television said the facilities were evacuated before the United States struck with its bunker busters and its cruise missiles. And so, you know, there is still an Iranian capability that exists despite these U.S. strikes.

BURNETT: All right, Matthew Chance, thank you very much.

And I want to bring in Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California, sits on the Armed Services Committee.

Congressman, just a, you know, get a sense of where we are here. Obviously, Congress was not, Democratic members of Congress, at least for sure, you were not informed of this in advance. Here we are now. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, have you been briefed at all on any of this at this point?

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): We're told we're going to be briefed tomorrow. But the problem with these strikes are not just constitutional. I mean, he should have come to Congress before going to war with Iran. And every headline across the country says U.S. enters war with Iran. So that requires congressional authorization.

But the problem is, as your correspondent just pointed out, is that now Iran, which has the know-how, which has spare centrifuges, which may have saved some of the enriched uranium, is going to be incentivized to get out of the NPT, which they said they would, to kick out any of the inspectors, and like Pakistan and North Korea, to develop this program in a covert way.

So the question is, what did we achieve? We put a lot of our troops at risk. We're spending a lot of billions of dollars to send more troops to the Middle East. The president ran on ending endless wars. What did we achieve? And didn't he betray the promise that he made to the American people not to get us into more wars in the Middle East?

BURNETT: I'm curious, when you talk about, you know, that they would be incentivized to get out of the nonproliferation treaty and to, you know, covertly pursue a nuclear weapon. Dmitry Medvedev, obviously deputy head of the Putin Security Council, also former president, right. Now, often he says things that are I guess politely -- to be polite here, a bit half cocked. But sometimes what he says does reflect what the Kremlin is thinking.

[18:15:06]

And he is saying that there are other countries that would provide nuclear weapons and know-how to Iran, given what the United States has chosen to do, calling it a dangerous escalation has begun.

Now, look, you got to, like I said, perhaps take it with a grain of salt. But this is what we're getting coming out of the Kremlin. How seriously do you take that? And do you have a sense of where Russia stands right now as a crucial ally of Iran, it has depended on Iranian weapons to wage its war in Ukraine?

KHANNA: Well, Erin, obviously, we need to oppose that very, very strongly. And you know, that the Iranian foreign minister is meeting in Moscow, and they supply a lot of the drones that Russia has been using to attack Ukraine. But here's the tragedy of all of this. We had the JCPOA. That agreement was not just between the United States and Iran, we also had Russia's buy-in and China's buy-in. And under that agreement, Iran had committed not to enrich uranium by more than 3.67 percent and only at Natanz, no other place. And the IAEA never found a single violation of that agreement.

Now we could have strengthened it. It didn't apply to ballistic missiles, but instead of building on that agreement that had Russia and China's buy-in, Donald Trump ripped the agreement apart. Now he's bombed these sites, but there's no game plan. How are we going to prevent Iran from getting a bomb and how are we going to prevent more billions of dollars from going to the Middle East, more of our troops from going to the Middle East, and this being a drain on the American people?

BURNETT: So, Congressman Khanna, as a member of the Armed Services Committee, when you think about the 40,000 U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf, and of course, more have been being put in there in recent days with these carrier strike groups, how worried are you about their safety?

KHANNA: I'm worried, and I support the president now in terms of deploying to do everything we can to keep our troops safe. I mean, they are at risk. The problem is that this is the unintended consequences of striking Iran. It always seems triumphant when we do these things the day after. We talk about the damage we've done. Same thing we talked about deposing Saddam Hussein. The problem is all the unintended consequences that the American people bear for the months, years and sometimes decades afterwards.

And I am concerned not just about the security of the troops. I'm concerned about our foreign embassies. I'm concerned about possible counterterrorism in the region. I'm concerned that this is putting the Arab allies that could have been more aligned with Israel. Saudi, Egypt, Jordan now condemning the United States and Israel or the populations at least condemning them, and that we've created a mess.

BURNETT: So what do you think happens from here? Is there such a -- I mean, at this point, are we literally in a situation where it's just as the U.S. tries to assess what damage was really done to those sites, right? That's one thing. But essentially just waiting, the balls in Iran's court?

KHANNA: We need to de-escalate. We need to make it clear to Iran that the worst thing they can do is to hit any American asset or American troop. I mean, they will have unanimous condemnation by Congress if they dare to take that step. But we need to also pass Thomas Massie and my war powers resolution on Monday so that we make a clear signal that we don't want a war.

I mean, just while I've been waiting for your program, Donald Trump is tweeting out that he may -- he's joking around about regime change. That is not funny. That is a enormous, costly endeavor. And so we need to pass a war powers resolution in Congress preventing an escalation.

BURNETT: Congressman Khanna, I appreciate your time and thank you.

KHANNA: Thank you, Erin.

BURNETT: All right. We're going to go live to the Pentagon for the very latest as we are learning more here, moment by moment on the assessment of exactly what happened in this strike. And then, of course, here in just the next few moments, we're going to start to see the impact of all of this on prices for Americans, oil prices now that the Strait of Hormuz, the biggest passageway for oil in the world, the real question mark as to whether Iran could move to stop trade through that. Obviously prices would surge, prices likely to surge even without that. We'll discuss next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:24:10]

BURNETT: President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth now promising that the U.S. strikes in Iran were successful. They are saying that the nuclear enrichment facilities were completely and totally obliterated. That's a direct quote. However, we don't have any evidence of that yet. They have not put any of that out so that the world can definitively see and understand this.

The U.S. may have held back its most powerful bombs against one of the three facilities hit, which raises questions as to exactly why that decision was made, what the implications of it could be.

And so let's go to Natasha Bertrand. She is joining us from Washington, of course, covering State and Pentagon.

And Natasha, you know, when you hear complete and total success and, you know, obliteration, right? These words that they're using, do we know yet? Do they have or are they putting out the evidence of what exactly they accomplished?

[18:25:02]

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, not yet. And that's one of the things that we heard this morning from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is that it's going to take a little bit of time before they understand just how significantly they were able to set back Iran's nuclear program. But there is a really interesting detail here, which is that the U.S. did not use those massive bunker busting bombs against one of the facilities, and that's Isfahan, which has nearly 60 percent of Iran's stockpile of already enriched nuclear material.

And it's unclear why the U.S. didn't use the bomb there. However, U.S. officials have told my colleagues that the enriched material is so deep underground that there were questions even beyond the Fordow facility, which was deemed basically impenetrable, whether or not these bombs could actually impact Isfahan if they were used. And so it's unclear if that was the reason why they held back, but they did in fact use Tomahawk missiles to hit this facility.

But it's important because it holds a massive amount of this enriched material. And according to one expert that we spoke to, what we know is that the Iranians have the material. They still have the capacity to make centrifuges. They still have at least one giant underground centrifuge facility where they can install their centrifuges. So it's just not done.

Now, Vice President JD Vance, he did acknowledge earlier today on ABC that there is still some of this stockpile left. And he said that what we know is that they no longer have the capacity to turn that stockpile of highly enriched uranium to weapons grade uranium. And that was really the goal here, he said. He said, "Enriching uranium up to the point of a nuclear weapon, that was what the president put a stop to last night."

But again, experts really raising questions about that, saying, as long as you have this 60 percent of enriched uranium stored at this facility that is so deep underground and it hasn't been demolished, then there are going to be real questions here about how much longer Iran can actually keep its nuclear program going, which was really the whole point of this major operation, Erin.

BURNETT: Yes, absolutely. And of course, Natasha, the Israelis had said they had already succeeded in setting it back two to three years by their estimate, over what they'd done over the past week. So what does this do in addition to that, I guess, and as you point out, so many really serious questions about that.

All right, Natasha, thank you so much with all of that new information.

Much more on the breaking news ahead. We are going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:31:49]

BURNETT: All right. Just a few moments ago, we started to get a sense of what this is going to mean for all Americans immediately. And that has to do with gas prices and crude oil futures are basically an indication of what's going to happen to, you know, where crude oil prices are going. They just started trading for the first time after U.S. strikes on Iran. So that started just about 30 minutes ago.

So you can see the U.S. benchmark, that's West Texas. You can see the WTI already up nearly 4 percent. Brent Crude, the heavier worldwide crude, that is already up almost three points, 3.6 percent right now.

So let's go to Bob McNally, expert and president of the Rapidan Energy Group.

And Bob, I guess just the question for you right now, we're just looking at futures' immediate reaction to this, and that's immediate. You might not have the same volume we would ordinarily have in a regular setting, but what do you read into the fact that prices are up and they're jumping, but you're not seeing some, you know, massive 10 percent, 20 percent surge, which many would have said a week ago if this situation unfolded is what you would see?

BOB MCNALLY, PRESIDENT, RAPIDAN ENERGY GROUP: Hi, Erin. You're right. You know, the markets are hardly panicking as trading opened in Asia about 30 minutes ago. Up $2. We spiked briefly above $80 a barrel. But look, oil traders have seen a lot of false alarms in recent years. When Iran was attacked, the Saudi stabilization plant in Abqaiq in September 2019, we had a spike, it reversed. Russia invaded Ukraine, we had a spike, it reversed.

And when Israel and Iran came to blows last year, oil prices spiked, but there was no disruption. So the oil markets have been a bit -- become a bit inured to geopolitical risk. And while they take this seriously, we are up $10 a barrel since the start of the war with Israel, they are going to wait to see signs of a material disruption and energy production inflows from the Gulf before I think you start to see those types of price increase as you mentioned.

BURNETT: All right. Now, $10 a barrel, though, since the beginning of this war, obviously that is a big jump. And that's happened over just these past days. So what does that mean for gas prices, for actual energy prices, and how quickly are they going up at the pump?

MCNALLY: Yes. So a $10 barrel increase in crude oil prices translates more or less to about a 25 cent per gallon increase for prices at the pump. So -- if it sticks. Now this one seems to be sticking so I would expect across the country, you know, we are at $3.14 average across the country. I think we're going to be going higher by a couple dimes at least. And of course if this expands to involve an energy disruption, it would go much higher in a matter of days to weeks.

BURNETT: Yes. All right. So I think that's just so important saying already, you know, $0.25 a gallon, $3.14, could go up another $0.20, $0.25. But when you talk about a major disruption, I mean, what is the appetite? Is it, I mean, you know, is it sort of the DEFCON option, which would be closing the Straits of Hormuz, where 20 percent of the world's oil, you know, traverses through there every single day? Or is there something short of that?

I mean, obviously the Straits of Hormuz is an option. It is not impossible to imagine it happening. It, of course, has never happened before.

[18:35:03]

MCNALLY: That's right. And Iran will be very reluctant to take that step because that would trigger overwhelming military intervention by the United States and our allies. But Iran has other options. Again, in September of 2019, it attacked the Abqaiq facility onshore and damaged it, but not heavily. And that sent crude oil prices on the Sunday open that time up by the largest amount ever. So they could do harassment attacks. They could do lesser attacks than

a full on attempt to block the 18 to 20 million barrels a day that goes through the Strait of Hormuz. The point, though, would be for Iran to show President Trump that it can play this oil card. It can send oil prices much higher. But it's a step they will be reluctant to take because it's really the last card they could play.

BURNETT: Right. When your back is truly against a wall, which amazing to think about that even though we are where we are, that that may not yet be the situation.

Bob, thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

And after the break, we're going to go live to Tel Aviv to find out what Israelis are now saying about the U.S. strikes against Iran.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:45]

BURNETT: So the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says now that the U.S. strikes on Iran's Fordow nuclear facility specifically left it with, quote, "very significant damage." But unlike some of what we've heard out of the Trump administration, he's actually sounding a bit more cautious of a tone, warning that the extent of the damage is still to be determined.

Now, Jeremy Diamond is in Tel Aviv tonight.

And, Jeremy, interesting that you would hear, at least, you know, publicly, more caution coming out of Prime Minister Netanyahu than you're hearing out of the U.S. Defense secretary tonight.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly right, Erin. And, you know, the Israelis have been waiting since the beginning of launching this operation for the United States to deliver what many of them have called the final blow to Iran's nuclear program. And while they believe that that has happened last night, they are still being circumspect about the extent of the damage.

As the Israeli prime minister said that Fordow was, quote, "very badly damaged," but the Israeli military and the prime minister making clear that they still need to continue to assess what the extent of that damage actually was. What has become clear today, though, is the extent of the damage from Iranian ballistic missiles that were fired on Tel Aviv in retaliation.

Here's what we saw when we went to the site of one of those strikes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIAMOND: A few hours after those U.S. strikes in Iran, a barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles came raining down on Israel. And this right here is the destruction that was wrought by just one of those ballistic missiles here in Tel Aviv. (Voice-over): More than 20 people were injured in this strike, which

sheared off the side of this residential building, laying bare the lives of those who once lived here. As cleanup crews push piles of debris, survivors return to grab what they can. Many still shaken by what they have just survived, and all they have lost.

JEREMY ZETLAND, LOST CHILDHOOD HOME IN MISSILE ATTACK: Maybe I do need to take some of this, these things.

DIAMOND: Half a block away from where the missile struck, Jeremy Zetland has spent the day picking through the debris of his childhood home.

ZETLAND: We used to put the DJ up there, and we used to have parties here. Our friends.

DIAMOND: Moving from one destroyed room to the next, Jeremy has been trying to separate the things that matter from those that don't.

ZETLAND: It's just a things. It's -- it's nothing. This is not important, but it's just -- to, wait.

DIAMOND: And in that moment, he is reminded of what is.

ZETLAND: Who you are. The people. And so that's what's important. This is not important. But it's just a symbol of how we're holding ourselves. To be strong, it's hard.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DIAMOND (on-camera): And Erin, while there is very strong support here in Israel for this military campaign that is currently underway in Iran, you can see, of course, that the civilian toll will continue to rise. It certainly is rising in Iran and we are also seeing it rise here in Israel.

The Israeli prime minister tonight saying that while he doesn't want to get dragged into a war of attrition in Iran, he said that he will not end this campaign until Israel has achieved all of its goals.

The big question mark, of course, Erin, is, what are those goals? Is it simply the destruction of Iran's nuclear program, or is it also a goal of regime change -- Erin.

BURNETT: Jeremy Diamond, thank you very much for that new reporting from Tel Aviv.

And tonight, the Department of Homeland Security has a new warning. And this warning is about potential lone wolf terror attacks. Also, cyberattacks after the U.S. strikes in Iran. What it could mean for all of us, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:49:22] BURNETT: All right. Updating you on the major breaking news story out of Iran, where the U.S. military carried out air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. The Department of Homeland Security is now with a new warning, warning of potential cyber threats, lone wolf attacks following the U.S. airstrikes. A bulletin issued under the National Terrorism Advisory System says that pro-Iranian hacktivists are likely to attack U.S. networks and others affiliated with the Iranian government could issue similar attacks.

Let's go to our chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, John Miller.

So, John, you know, you have dealt with precarious and perilous moments of worries of terror threats and terror attacks before.

[18:50:02]

But we are in an unprecedented moment now with Iran. How big is the threat right now?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, the good news is that the command and control, the top ranking people in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the top people in Hezbollah have suffered greatly in the past number of months and in the past number of days. So from a command and control standpoint they're really damaged.

One thing we have to consider, though, is one of the things the elements of Iranian intelligence operations that has not been affected by these recent attacks are the pieces that are placed overseas. So you have Iranian operative throughout Eastern Europe, throughout Western Europe and throughout the United States.

How do we know this? We know this because in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, in the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, we took down a number of cases involving either Hezbollah operatives acting on behalf of Iran or straight up Iranian operatives working for the Ministry of Intelligence of Iran carrying out, gathering information on targets, infrastructure targets, tourist locations, government locations, or even planning assassinations of Iranian dissidents in New York, one case you're very familiar with, or government officials who were involved in the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani.

So it's not a loose network. It's something that's been operating here and abroad for a while, and that's one of the things you'd have to look out along with cyber.

BURNETT: Right. So let me ask. I mean, when you talk about, but I guess before cyber, but the physical threat of terror acts, what sorts of acts are the ones that come to mind? And are there things that people should do or should be aware of, or things that they should avoid perhaps, John?

MILLER: Well, one of the things, you know, that DHS, the FBI, the NYPD this weekend has really been engaging with law enforcement partners, not just in New York, but across the nation, private security partners, particularly Jewish organizations, Israeli installations to say, let's raise up their awareness, because what we found in every Iranian plot that we dealt with in New York City was each one came with extensive pre-operational surveillance.

So what you're looking for is who is that person who is assessing your security, who's hanging out by the back of the location? Who's looking at the cameras instead of other things to look at. That's one thing. The other thing is you've got to be minding your human intelligence sources and your signals intelligence sources to say, what are the -- what are we overhearing? What are people telling us?

BURNETT: And just to be clear, you know, especially in the context of what has been going on with Russia and this new administration, you know, I don't know, sometimes you talk to people like, you know, Christo Grozev, who's done such incredible reporting, right, on what has happened with Russia and Ukraine. But they talk about the fact that there could be more spies, more human spies right now in the United States than really at any time in history, even in the face of phones and social media and electronic surveillance.

MILLER: Well, that's true. And I mean, the remarkable thing about the Iran target in particular is that, you know, you saw things like the attack on Salman Rushdie, from everything we know about that, that appeared to be a classic lone wolf attack, but one that was generated by a series, a drumbeat of propaganda against that target in the attempt to assassinate the Iranian dissident in Brooklyn, Masih.

We saw first an attempt to kidnap her, working with people that were hired on the ground here, working for Iranian intelligence, and then a plot to skip the kidnap part and just kill her. When you look at the critical infrastructure, what did they look at? They looked at JFK Airport. They looked at Rockefeller Center, they looked at the Statue of Liberty. They looked at the federal building downtown.

They looked at all of the categories, develop these files, and then sent them back to Lebanon, where Hezbollah, you know, and its Iranian handlers kind of looked at these. And what were they looking for? Not just tell me about the location, but find the vulnerabilities that we could exploit for an attack.

So if there's a time to make sure you're on guard from that kind of thing, and I'm not saying it's time to panic, I'm just saying if there's a time when tensions are high enough and that there are tools are low enough, that this may be some of the last things in their toolkit, this is the time for heightened awareness.

BURNETT: All right, John Miller, thank you very much. Thank you. So the sobering reality.

[18:55:05]

And next, President Trump now suggesting regime change is on the table in Iran after his strikes. Why he's now saying that he wants to, quote, "make Iran great again."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

BURNETT: Good evening and thanks for joining me on a Sunday. I'm Erin Burnett, live in New York.

The breaking news, regime change.