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CNN Crew Evacuating To Bomb Shelter In Tel Aviv; Trump In New Post Suggests Iran Could Have "Regime Change"; U.S. Assessing Damage To Iran's Nuclear Sites After Strikes; Thousands Take To The Streets Of Tehran To Protest U.S. Strikes. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired June 22, 2025 - 20:00   ET

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

[20:00:35]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Anderson Cooper in Tel Aviv.

We begin with breaking news here in the Middle East. Now, just over 24 hours after we first reported the U.S. attack on three Iranian nuclear sites, major questions remain. How effective were those strikes? Bomb damage assessments still being done. Did Iran move nuclear material prior to the attacks, and if so, where is it, and how will Iran choose to respond?

Let's drill down on all of that over this next hour. Tonight, U.S. officials are working to assess the extent of damage caused by yesterday's massive targeted strikes. They caution it is too early to determine whether the country retains some nuclear capabilities.

The B-2 bombers involved in what is being called "Operation Midnight Hammer" have now arrived back in the United States. The operation involved more than 125 aircraft, including some B-2 bombers, which acted as decoys, according to officials. Now, those bombers were reported to be moving west, possibly toward Guam.

A CNN analysis of satellite images found the attack on Fordow left behind at least six large craters, likely caused by those bunker buster bombs called Massive Ordnance Penetrators, which are designed to go deep underground before actually exploding.

In central Iran, the country's largest nuclear complex, known as Isfahan, was struck with more than a dozen Tomahawk missiles fired by U.S. submarine. At least 18 destroyed or partially destroyed structures above ground can be seen in those images. According to one senior U.S. lawmaker, the key question now is whether Iran had moved any of its highly enriched uranium stockpiles from those facilities.

Vice President JD Vance and other administration officials have tried to make clear today that regime change is not the objective of the Trump administration with this strike on Iran. But President Trump late today posted on social media saying, "If the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn't there be a regime change?"

I'm here with CNN Jerusalem correspondent Jeremy Diamond and CNN's chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward.

Clarissa, Iranians are at all levels of society trying to figure out what comes next. What are we seeing so far?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So we have a number of different possible scenarios that we could be looking at. The anticipation is that Iran will respond, as foreign minister has just said, that they will have to respond. But the question is how. One possibility is that it uses its proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq. We know that obviously Hamas and Hezbollah have been severely degraded.

I should just say that we're now hearing an alert, which is an indication that we --

COOPER: So these are, these are the alerts that go out on all of our phones when you're in Israel. It's a 10-minute warning of incoming missiles or something, incoming from Iran. So now the location we're in has a verbal alarm telling people to go down into bomb shelters. So we have about a 10-minute window to get down into a bomb shelter. And we'll continue to try to broadcast from that, that bomb shelter, and even if we can, on the way down. Do you guys want to --

WARD: Shall we go down or you want to finish this?

COOPER: Yes. Well, we should probably go down.

WARD: We should probably.

COOPER: Let's just make sure -- do we have -- are we able to do that? While they're just making sure that we can get down, let's talk about the Iranian response.

WARD: So you've got the proxies as one response. You've got a direct attack from Iran on U.S. troops. That's what we saw after the killing of Qasem Soleimani. They hit Al-Asad Airbase in Anbar Province. Nobody was killed because they kind of had signaled in advance that they were going to do it, but nonetheless, it was the biggest ballistic missile strike on a U.S. base outside of the country.

Then you have the possibility that they go for some kind of asymmetrical cyber terrorism, or that they go with an economic option, like trying to close the Strait of Hormuz. People I've been talking to in the region seem to feel that Iraq is the most vulnerable place by virtue of the fact that it's a weak state. You have a lot of paramilitary forces there. The State Department has evacuated roughly 500 U.S. personnel from there.

But also the broader consensus is that Iran wants to try to pick a move right now that will show strength or project strength to particularly its own people, while not trying to risk further retaliation, possibly trying to minimize casualties because Iran has been significantly weakened, as we've all been talking about and watching.

[20:05:02] JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: There are so many questions right now about Iran's capabilities, right? I mean, this siren that's just coming in now, it's been 20 hours since the last Iranian attack. We saw that barrage just after 7:30 this morning. We know that they still do have ballistic missile capabilities, despite having destroyed about half of their launchers, according to the Israeli military. And so we'll see, you know, what more firepower they have for here. But also critically, of course, for those U.S. bases in the region, which will be easier for the Iranians to target.

COOPER: All right. I think we're going to head down to the shelters.

Chuck, do we have capabilities as we go down?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just checking your microphones. Be ready in a second. OK, here we go.

COOPER: All right.

WARD: OK.

COOPER: So let's see if we can switch over. So is this actually working?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys can hear?

COOPER: OK? Oh, good. Here. OK. I think it's --

WARD: Watch your microphone.

COOPER: OK, I think it's --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bring your IFB box, bring your IFB box. Just unplug it right down there.

WARD: Shall we all go?

COOPER: Yes. I think we should all go down. So the -- again you can hear the sirens going off. This is from the hotel. They're warning all the hotel guests to go down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We expect an alarm in the next 10 minutes. Please prepare to stay.

COOPER: This is the first time today that we have had an alarm like this. It's obviously something that many here in Tel Aviv have gotten used to over the last 10 or 11 days since this began. We saw one, there was one alarm shortly after or several hours after the first strike, the strikes on Iran by the United States. This is the first one we've had this morning. Oh, hey. So I'm just going to go down here.

So, and I'm here with Jeremy Diamond. So the -- in terms of the, this is the first one today, isn't it?

WARD: It's the first -- not today, because 7:00 in the morning was the last one I think we're all a little bit upside down.

DIAMOND: Or about 3:00 a.m. Yes.

WARD: We're at 3:00 a.m. Yes. So it is the first one of the day, but what we've noticed I think is fewer barrages but quite high intensity, particularly this morning.

I mean, Jeremy, you were there on the scene. The damage was --

DIAMOND: Yes. I mean, there's also been reports that the Iranians have been using different types of ballistic missiles. Some reports of cluster munition use as well. And we've seen the kind of impact that that can have on the scene. Today I was at a site in the north of Tel Aviv, in Ramat Aviv, where you saw a residential block that was almost, you know, completely obliterated by the power of that blast.

COOPER: Guy, we got to press down in the basement.

DIAMOND: You know, the damage is enormous. More of these ballistic missiles that are indeed getting through those air defense systems. But, you know, quite incredibly we haven't seen any fatalities in, I believe, a week now, right?

WARD: A week. A week.

DIAMOND: Last Monday morning was the last time we saw fatality. That's, of course, a credit to the aerial defense systems. But more importantly perhaps to the early warnings that are getting us into bomb shelters and getting millions of other Israelis.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And I'm going to take over here from the White House, Kristen Holmes, senior White House correspondent, as they go into that shelter. We are losing service there, but we expect to get them back at any moment. Of course, hoping that they are safe as this is continuing.

Now I think we have our signal back. OK, great.

COOPER: It is a luxury to have a 10-minute warning obviously in a situation like this. In many cases, obviously, you know, rockets from Gaza generally there isn't that like a 10-minute window.

WARD: No. And -- but it's a different level of threat. Right? I mean, Israelis have been living with rockets from Hamas and Hezbollah for many years. I have never seen Israelis running to the shelter quite so quickly as they have with this because it's a totally different ball game. The damage and destruction that has been, you know, been done by these Iranian ballistic missiles is completely different to anything they've seen in many decades. I mean --

DIAMOND: And there's no question that without those warning sirens, without the bomb shelters, I mean, you would be seeing, you know, many people dying in each one of these strikes and the fact that the death toll is only 24 as of now in Israel is indeed a credit to all those systems that we've been talking about.

COOPER: So we are awaiting what will be the red alert, which is the final, like, minute and a half warning before any kind of an impact.

[20:10:07]

I don't have communication with the -- so I can't actually go to anybody else. So we're stuck talking with each other.

WARD: OK.

COOPER: That's OK.

WARD: We'll muddle through it.

COOPER: In terms of Iranian response, there's been a lot of questions about what is going to happen now. What will the Iranian response be? And obviously these missiles are one form of response. But what we don't know yet or what decision has been made by Iranian leaders, who's going to be making that decision? Is it utilizing proxy forces, militias in Iraq or what have you?

WARD: And Iran's foreign minister said today, basically, that it won't be the government who's making that decision. It will be the military that will make that decision. And they have a lot of different tools that they can draw upon, whether it's proxy forces, whether they go asymmetrical with a terror attack, for example, or kidnaping or some kind of a cyberattack.

But again, I mean, I mentioned it upstairs, but in the melee, I think it's worth like reiterating this idea that, you know, there's a concern for Iran right now, right? They are hurting. They have incurred a lot of damage. They want to try to find some kind of a retaliation that potentially restores deterrence or at least projects some image of strength, particularly for Iranians. But what they don't want to do is do something that is so escalatory that it risks, and we've heard President Trump said, listen, we're going to draw a line under this if you take it on the chin.

But if you keep going, you have a choice between I believe he said peace or tragedy. So I think for Iran, it's like that question of trying to find -- I know we can hear the sirens now.

DIAMOND: And here come the sirens right now.

WARD: So that indicates 90 seconds roughly until --

COOPER: Just listening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Red alert, red alert.

COOPER: So this is the minute and a half or so warning.

DIAMOND: And right now we're getting sirens all across the central part of Israel. This includes Tel Aviv and the surrounding suburbs. You have Petah Tikva, Ramat Gan, Rishon LeZion, Bat Yam. Those are some of the areas that have been hit over the course --

COOPER: There's an app, Home Front Command here, which is called Home Front Command actually has an app that people can see. Is this a nationwide alert? Is this just in Tel Aviv or where is it?

DIAMOND: That's right. And, you know, we have seen moments where the Iranians choose to fire missiles at the kind of major population centers, right? Haifa has been a big target in northern Israel. That is, of course, a strategic site as well, because there is a port, there is a naval base there, commercial shipping, all of that. Of course, we have seen these missiles very often striking residential areas, missing the port as it did the other day, for example.

Then we've seen hits, of course, here in Tel Aviv and the surrounding area as well. There are several military bases we should note in the area additionally, and then in Ber Sheva in the southern part of Israel, we saw that hospital, of course, in the last week. Soroka Medical Center, which was hit by an Iranian missile. And I also think that's one thing that's important to note. The destructive power of these missiles is enormous.

And we've also seen so is their inability to pinpoint target, what they are actually going after. That would be acknowledging that they are not trying to intentionally hit residential areas, which, you know, we don't have total visibility into that. But certainly we know that they -- their missiles are not as accurate as they had initially claimed. And that has been proven over the course of these various strikes in the last week.

COOPER: By the way, I can hear the programing so in the control room, if you guys could talk to me, if we could also talk to -- bring in some of our other guests that we had planned to talk to. We had Kristen Holmes of the White House and others. So let's -- please somebody talk to my ear, let me know when we can do that.

WARD: I think it's also important, just in line with what Jeremy was saying, to acknowledge that we're not really aware of all of the targets here, right? I mean, we go out, we see the targets that fall in residential areas. We can assume that there are some military targets that the Iranians have managed to hit as well. But understandably, there is censorship around that. We don't necessarily find out about it or hear about it.

And so it's very difficult. For example, with Soroka Hospital, strike on a hospital, fifth floor, the urology department, the Iranians said that they were hitting some kind of an intelligence military command center nearby and that the damage to the hospital was simply a secondary effect of the blast. Very difficult for us as reporters without full visibility on everything going on to know whether that is, you know, indeed the case or whether the actual target was the hospital, or whether the target was something totally different and it just missed.

DIAMOND: Absolutely. And we also know that in those previous Iranian ballistic missile barrages that preceded this current conflict in -- last year, we know that there were a lot of videos of strikes on the Netzarim Airbase, for example, in southern Israel, you saw multiple impacts to those bases.

COOPER: I think we have Kristen Holmes at the White House. I do want to go to Kristen.

Kristen, I'm not sure I'll be able to hear you, but just talk about what we have heard from the administration today.

[20:15:03]

JD Vance and others were out saying that regime change is not what the U.S. policy is. President Trump sent out that social media post late this afternoon talking about or mentioning in a light way about regime change -- Kristen.

HOLMES: Yes, Anderson, that's right. And one of the things to point out here, I mean, this moment that you guys are going through in Tel Aviv is something that the White House is watching very carefully. They are very concerned across the administration of any kind of retaliation from Iran.

We have heard a number of officials out there, one using kind of language, saying if you come back at us or any of our allies and any kind of way that we're going to come back with even more strength than what you saw in the strikes from last night. We've also heard economic threats, essentially, we saw Marco Rubio, the secretary of State, as well as Vice President JD Vance, saying that it was suicide for Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz because it would kill them economically as well as China, as well as the United States.

But there's a lot of messaging going on about what retaliation looks like. And you can kind of read through the tea leaves where they think that retaliation might be. Now, when it comes to a regime change, as you just mentioned, this happened even before these strikes. We've been asking the Trump administration over and over again, do you support a regime change in Iran? And that question has been shrugged off a number of times, including on Thursday when Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked that question and she said, that's not the focus right now. The focus is on making sure Iran does not have a nuclear weapon.

Then you heard Vice President JD Vance get out there today, as well as the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, saying this is not about regime change. Well, all of that seems to have changed this evening, and I'm looking for it right now to pull it up. When Trump posted on social media that he was maybe OK with a regime change, this is what he said. He said, "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 added "MIGA," which a play on make America great again, make Iran great again. This is a surprise to a number of officials who have tried to downplay what we were told by other officials and Israeli officials was kind of a goal, if not a direct goal, but an indirect goal of the Israeli portion of the conflict with Iran was to get a regime change. We've heard the U.S. downplay that. And now you have President Trump getting out there on social media and saying this.

And just a quick note, Anderson. You know, we talked a lot last night about all of the steps that went into this decision that President Trump made. And I do want to bring up that we've now have a fuller picture or a whole picture of how this happened. And just the idea that really these talks about the United States joining Israel to attack Iran began early in the month, June 8th, when President Trump went to a last minute retreat at Camp David with his National Security Team.

Last minute to us, we were told about it right before he went, and then we were told at that point he was briefed on these possible plans, plans that had been drawn up for months. And it took some time to get President Trump there. He continued to ask questions about, as we know, could we get in and get out, destroy these nuclear sites, and then get out as fast as possible, but also does our involvement mean that we get tied up in a conflict long term in the Middle East?

So right now, obviously, though, none of that is not really on their minds. What's on their minds is what is the retaliation from Iran going to look like -- Anderson.

COOPER: Yes. Kristen, thanks very much. Appreciate that.

I want to bring in Barak Ravid from Axios and CNN.

Barak, you've had some extraordinary reporting today about what was happening behind the scenes. What have you learned in the lead up to this attack?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Hi, Anderson. I hope you're safe over there. One of the interesting things I learned is that in the 24 to 48 hours before the U.S. strike in Iran, there was quite extraordinary, maybe unprecedented cooperation, military cooperation between Israel and the U.S. when President Trump was talking to Prime Minister Netanyahu, I think it was on Wednesday, and basically told them that he made a decision in principle to go in and join this war.

Netanyahu asked, OK, how can I help? And one of the things Trump asked him is for Israeli help to clear the way for the B-2 bombers to strike Iranian air defense systems that were still in southern Iran and that were on the way to the nuclear facility in Fordow, and the U.S. gave Israel a list of those targets. And in the 24 hours ahead of the U.S. strike, the Israeli Air Force went in and conducted strikes against those targets, basically opening the way and clearing it to the B-2 bombers.

And this is why, by the way, you heard President Trump in his speech thanking the IDF for everything they've done.

[20:20:02]

COOPER: Barak, what are you hearing about bomb damage assessments? What is Israel or the U.S.'s belief about the extent of the damage? Obviously, President Trump, shortly after the attack when he -- when he spoke to the nation, said it's been obliterated. Do we know more details?

RAVID: To be honest, I don't think we know a lot because last I heard a few hours ago, those, you know, what's called the battle damage assessment, it's still been ongoing. But what I heard from one senior Israeli official was that the nuclear facility in Natanz, both the one above the ground that Israel conducted strikes against and the underground facility that the U.S. conducted a strike against was basically destroyed completely.

There are two other facilities, one in Isfahan and one in Fordow, the fortified facility inside the mountain, both of those, according to the senior Israeli official, were badly damaged. What is badly damaged? I think we'll need to figure that out and see in the next hours or days.

COOPER: For you, what are the biggest unanswered questions that you are looking for answers on?

RAVID: I think first and foremost, where is the enriched uranium? There are 400 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium, very close to weapons grade. Prime Minister Netanyahu was asked about it today, and he said that Israel has interesting intelligence about where this material is there is. There's other material of 20 percent enriched uranium. Also hundreds of kilograms. That's I think the main challenge at the moment because even though the uranium program has suffered a huge blow, still this material is -- could be a basis for a new and rehabilitated nuclear program. And the question is, where is it? And I don't think a lot of people know if any.

COOPER: Barak, if you can just stay with us for one second. Have you got any more information about this?

DIAMOND: A quick update on this latest barrage was in fact just one missile according to an Israeli official that I just spoke with. This is the initial assessment of the Israeli military, can change later on, but as of now, our understanding is that people across the central Israel, Tel Aviv area were sent into shelters because of one missile fired by Iran that was intercepted by the Israeli military at this stage.

COOPER: So do we have the all clear and can we go back up there?

DIAMOND: We don't yet have the all clear.

COOPER: OK.

DIAMOND: Officially at least. We'll be waiting for that from the Home Front Command. I can't personally give you that.

COOPER: OK. All right. We're going to take a short break. Well, actually, let's check in with Natasha.

Barak Ravid, thank you very much for joining us. I really appreciate your remarkable reporting as always.

Let's check in with Natasha Bertrand.

Natasha, what are you hearing? NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well,

look, I mean, this military operation was obviously a really big, you know, deception operation that the U.S. military carried out in really a lot of secrecy and something that is, frankly, pretty surprising these days from the U.S. military. Having covered the Pentagon for a couple of years now, I can tell you that usually we get some kind of heads up that something is going on.

But over the last couple of days or so, it had been total silence. And not only that, but also there was obviously this deception operation where you saw those B-2 bombers heading out west over the Pacific, while at the same -- while getting everyone to kind of look that way, while at the same time additional B-2 bombers were actually headed east toward the target in Iran that were not visible and not audible on air traffic control audio.

And so there was clearly a lot of moving parts to this operation. And the question now, of course, is, you know, given the scale of this, given the fact that over 125 aircraft were involved, these massive ordnance penetrator, these bunker buster bombs were involved. So much went into this operation to try to degrade these three nuclear facilities.

What kind of impact did that actually have? And we've gotten a few conflicting answers at this point from the secretary of Defense, from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and of course, from President Trump himself. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have said, look, all of these nuclear facilities were obliterated. Their nuclear program was devastated. But General Dan Caine, who's the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he was much more measured earlier today.

He said, look, it is still going to take some time until we know for sure just how much this operation degraded their nuclear capabilities. And we do not yet have a reliable battle damage assessment. And that is going to come in the coming days. And so I think one of the things, obviously, that the Pentagon is going to be looking at very closely here is just how much those massive bombs were able to penetrate deep enough to destroy that enriched uranium at these two sites.

[20:25:02]

Now, notably, we also have new reporting that the U.S. bombers, they didn't actually bomb every single nuclear facility. They actually left one to be attacked by Tomahawk missiles using U.S. submarines. And there are a lot of questions about why they did that. It is still unclear why they wouldn't use those bunker busters against such a heavily fortified facility such as Isfahan, which is in central Iran and one of the most sprawling, biggest nuclear facilities that Iran has.

We're still trying to get the answer to that, but experts say that because the U.S. didn't drop these massive bunker busters and because more than 60 percent of Iran's enriched material lies at that facility, there are still very serious questions here about just how intact Iran's nuclear program remains, not to mention the fact that the IAEA director just said recently that he believes that Iran managed to smuggle some of its enriched uranium out of the Fordow facility just before the U.S. carried out these strikes.

So a lot of questions still about just how impactful this operation was. But, you know, for by and large, the administration saying that they believe, at least for now, they managed to degrade this enough to hopefully get Iran to come to the table and get back into diplomatic talks -- Anderson.

COOPER: Thanks very much, Natasha.

We're going to take a short break. We just got the all clear. We're going to try to get back to our location. We'll be right back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:31:13]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

COOPER: And welcome back from Tel Aviv. I apologize for the interruption. We were able to get back up from the bomb shelter. The all-clear has been given. Jeremy Diamond was saying, based on what he -- the report he got over his phone, there was one missile. No more information than that. It was, though, a very wide alert, which is unusual for just one missile.

While the U.S. claims that Iran's nuclear facilities have been destroyed, there's a possibility the already enriched nuclear material could be someplace else as we've been talking about.

CNN's Matthew Chance takes a look at that possibility.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the distance, a plume of black smoke billows into the sky. The Iranian driver says it's above the Fordow nuclear site. This a first video from the aftermath of the U.S. attack, where latest satellite images show six large craters pointing to the use of powerful bunker busting bombs.

Same at Natanz, where two similar craters can be seen directly above parts of the underground uranium enrichment facility. While at Isfahan, Iran's biggest nuclear site, at least 18 destroyed or partially destroyed buildings are visible. Western military sources say it's still too early for a full assessment. But just minutes after the strikes, President Trump declared them a triumph.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.

CHANCE: Even if that's true, it may not end the Iranian nuclear threat. Hardliners in Iran have long called for a nuclear weapon as a deterrent. Those voices have now been bolstered. Iranian officials are already hinting at pulling out of a key nuclear treaty, the NPT, designed to prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons.

ABBAS ARAGHCHI, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: The NPT is not able to protect us. So why a country like Iran or other countries who are interested to have a peaceful nuclear energy should rely on NPT?

CHANCE: One concern is the whereabouts of the nuclear material already enriched, some of it to 60 percent purity, close to weapons grade. Iranian state media says its nuclear sites and potentially the uranium inside were evacuated before the U.S. struck. So for now, Iran's enrichment facilities are smoldering and battered, but its capacity to go nuclear if it chooses, may still be intact.

Matthew Chance, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Exactly how Iran may respond to the historic strikes by the U.S. military on its nuclear program remains to be seen. The Iranian envoy to the United Nations saying tonight that, quote, "The timing, nature and the scale of Iran's proportionate response will be decided by its armed forces."

Want to get perspective now from John Bolton, who served as National Security Adviser during the first Trump administration, ambassador to the U.N. under President George W. Bush.

Ambassador, appreciate you being with us. He's also the author of this op-ed in the "Washington Examiner," where the headline, "Trump Did the Right Thing in Iran."

If memory serves, Ambassador, you had disagreements with President Trump during the first term when you were National Security adviser over some of his comments about Iran or approaches to Iran. You're supportive of the president's decision to strike Iran here. What is the next step as far as you're concerned? Where do you think -- first of all, or how do you think Iran will respond?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I don't think we know, although I think there are a lot of alarmist predictions out there about how far they're going to go.

[20:35:05]

If they attack American forces, American civilian personnel, carry out terrorist operations, any American president, including Donald Trump, would have to respond very forcefully. And I think this is a question inside top Iranian decision-making circles. You know, they've had one military enemy since October 7th and the Hamas attacks on Israel. It's not going well for Iran. Do they really want to come after the United States and have not just two military enemies, but the biggest military enemy they're ever going to face? Maybe they will. We'll see.

Other things people have talked about, like closing the Strait of Hormuz and preventing oil and gas exports from the Gulf, it's possible that they would try that. There would be one country that would be really upset by closing off those exports, and that would be one of Iran's only friends in the world, China, which depends on oil and gas from the Middle East, critically. So I think Iran's got a tough decision.

I think the notion that they would come back and negotiate seriously is illusory. They have used negotiations for 30 plus years to beguile the West, to drag out their program. It's simply a ruse for them to buy more time. So, look, they didn't accomplish everything in one night. What a surprise. There's still a lot to do, but this is the right thing. And the next step, as you also asked about, is regime change. And I note that President Trump is moving apparently in the right direction on that, too, given his latest tweet.

COOPER: You support that?

BOLTON: Of course. Look, that ayatollah --

COOPER: Yes, in your opinion piece, you wrote -- sorry. Go ahead. I was just going to say in your opinion piece you wrote peace and security in the Middle East are impossible while the ayatollahs rule in Tehran, overthrowing the current regime is a necessary, even if not a sufficient condition to reach that goal. The sooner the better.

I mean, doesn't that -- isn't that mission creep? Isn't that what a lot of people saw in -- happened in Iraq, that you can't just eliminate a nuclear program from the air, you actually have to have boots on the ground to look at sites, you have to try to find out where this enriched uranium is? Isn't that a -- isn't that mission creep?

BOLTON: No, I don't think you need boots on the ground, but I think there is a critical element here. Many of the opponents of this bombing campaign have said, you know, you can destroy all of the facilities physically, but you can't destroy the knowledge that Iran's nuclear scientists and technicians have to recreate the program. That's absolutely correct.

And that was precisely what the Bush administration had in mind, given that Saddam Hussein had held together 3,000 nuclear scientists and technicians. He called his nuclear mujahideen, who once he was free of U.N. economic sanctions, once he was free of U.N. weapons inspectors, would have permitted him to go back to developing nuclear weapons, which he had been trying to do for well over 20, 25 years.

I think the Iranian situation is very different. I think the people of Iran are as dissatisfied with the current government as they've ever been since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and hopefully these strikes on the nuclear program, along with everything else that Israel has been doing for the past week, is sufficiently destabilizing that we'll see fragmentation at the top of the regime.

COOPER: Is fragmentation, though, the top of the regime, I mean, as, you know, as terrible and, you know, look, this regime has targeted Americans for decades, it's responsible for many Americans' deaths. There's no question about that. We've watched that. But is fragmentation, I mean, doesn't that come with a whole host of risks? I mean, Libya, you know, was -- there was fragmentation and we now see the chaos that's in Libya.

We've seen it, you know, time and time again, you know, there's a, what, a half a million people in the Iranian armed forces. Is that going to be like the de-Baathification campaign where you eliminate, try to weaken the Baath Party and suddenly now it's all these people who have military training who don't have jobs and are becoming insurgents? Aren't there a lot of unknowns in that?

BOLTON: Yes. Here's one known about Libya. No longer has a nuclear weapons program. Look, the level of dissatisfaction across Iran is really pretty incredible on many different levels. Since 2018 and 2019, when there were riots over economic conditions that were brutally put down, the economy has not materially improved since then, the dissatisfaction is still there. Young people, something like 60 percent of the population, is under 30, know they could have a different way of life. They can see it across the Gulf and Dubai and Abu Dhabi and Doha.

[20:40:01]

The ethnic groups, large ethnic groups, Azeris, Kurds, Baluchis, Arabs, comprising between 40 percent and 50 percent of the total population, depending on your estimates, don't like the ayatollahs. And two years ago the Mahsa Amini murder by the authorities, young Kurdish woman who wasn't conforming to the religious dress codes brought young people and women out all over the country against the regime.

A fundamental challenge to the regime's legitimacy, not just to complain about having to wear the hijab, but saying the ayatollahs do not speak the word of God, which threatens the regime.

COOPER: Yes.

BOLTON: All of that still exists. And now they see their terrorist proxies in ashes. The Assad regime in Syria has fallen. The nuclear and ballistic missile programs are being systematically destroyed. Uncounted billions of dollars spent over decades. What has that done for the people of Iran? That's why fragmentation at the top, if you break the control of the government, it may lead to a very, very difficult situation.

But I think the government could fall. Maybe it will have to wait until the Ayatollah Khomeini dies. He's only the second supreme leader in Iranian history. He's 85 plus years old, he's sick and he's been in power for 36 years. They have no clear succession mechanism. This is a very unstable, unpopular regime.

COOPER: Yes, I think he has named several possible successors. I think three that would then -- one would be chosen from.

But, Ambassador Bolton, I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you.

We'll be right back.

BOLTON: Thank you. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:46:11]

COOPER: Tonight we are learning more about the damage done by U.S. military strikes on Isfahan, Iran's largest nuclear research complex. Take a look at some satellite images taken before and after those strikes. A new assessment from the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington based nonprofit, says the site has been heavily damaged.

Joining us now for more insight is CNN military analyst, retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Colonel, I want to start with Tehran's most prized nuclear facility, Fordow. Based on the satellite data you've seen so far, what's the extent of the damage there so far? Because President Trump immediately said it had been obliterated.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, I think, Anderson, that might be overstating the case. So basically, what we're seeing here is a -- the image of the before and the after. This side right here is showing basically how things looked before the strike. Now if we move it backwards this way, we can see that all of the areas that were shown earlier have basically been damaged.

However, there's one building right here that appears to be relatively intact, and that's that supply building that may have generators and things like that in it. However, holes and other areas can be seen right in this area right here where the impact of the various bunker buster bombs that hit this area, the GBU 57s, they were in this general area and they of course closed those entrances. So that's actually a very big aspect of this.

A closer view of the supply building right here shows that there was at least some smoke damage to this. And they also hit these areas right here, which are entrances to the facility at Fordow.

COOPER: So, I mean, is most -- would most of the damage with these type of devices be I assume most of the damage? I mean, would be below ground. How -- I mean how much can one assess from, I mean, I don't know what the capabilities of the U.S. intelligence community is or of Israel, but is it just satellite imagery? Is it monitoring communications as well? How are they actually going to assess what's happened, you know, hundreds of meters below the ground?

LEIGHTON: Yes, that's really difficult. So of course, the first things, Anderson, that they'll see are satellite images that kind of look like this. And they'll have a basic idea of what happened above ground. But you're right, the key element here is what's below ground. So this is much, much more difficult to assess.

A lot of it is going to have to depend on some of the other ancillary things, such as, is there going to be extra radiation from any of these areas? There is no indication that there's extra radiation that's dangerous. There's no Chernobyl happening as a result of this, but there may be pockets of localized radiation that could be picked up that would indicate that there's damage to the centrifuges, and that would be the kind of thing that would indicate there is an issue there.

They would also be able to pick up chatter in signals intelligence and human intelligence that would give them an indication of what actually happened at this site. So you get both the above ground picture as well as the below ground picture from people that are in and around this area and people who are dealing with this will perhaps reveal some of what they're dealing with, what they've lost, what they've gained, or what was not damaged in their conversations. And that's the kind of thing that they'll be looking for.

COOPER: All right. Colonel Cedric Leighton, thanks very much.

Up next, Democratic lawmakers were kept out of the loop on Capitol Hill ahead of President Trump's decision to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. We'll talk to a key member of the House Armed Services Committee.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:54:16]

COOPER: Well, thousands of demonstrators took the streets of Tehran today in response to the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran's foreign minister says the White House will be, quote, "fully responsible," end quote, for the consequences of its actions.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen reports from Revolution Square in Tehran.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There still is a lot of public anger unloading here on the streets of Tehran. Thousands of people have come here to Revolution Square, first and foremost, to criticize U.S. President Trump and to vow revenge for those strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.

One of the interesting things that we're seeing on the ground now here is that it's not only conservatives and hardliners who are here, but also people who say they're normally quite critical of the Iranian government.

[20:55:04]

(Voice-over): "Even if missiles rained down on my head, I will stay here," she says. "And I will sacrifice my life and my blood for my country."

This member of parliament says a lot of those standing here chanting slogans against the United States may have been critics of the policies of the Islamic Republic, but today all of us are standing in one line behind the supreme leader.

People now chanting "death to America" here at Revolution Square, and you can really feel how angry a lot of them are towards President Trump. Of course, the Iranian government has said that it reserves the right to retaliate for those strikes on the nuclear facilities, saying that it is their right to have nuclear enrichment. It is their right to have a nuclear program, and it's not something that they're going to allow the Trump administration to take away from them. And that is certainly also the sentiment that we're seeing here on the streets of Tehran.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Tehran.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: That's Fred Pleitgen in Tehran.

Iran warns the consequences after President Trump orders the military strike against the nuclear facility. CNN special coverage continues from the region right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

COOPER: I'm Anderson Cooper in Tel Aviv. We are following breaking news here in the Middle East.

Tonight, just more than 24 hours after we first reported the U.S. attack on three Iranian nuclear sites, major questions remain. Among them how Iran will choose to respond. Last hour here in Tel Aviv, air raid sirens sounded while we were on the air.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARD: Severely degraded. I should just say that we're now hearing an alert.

COOPER: Right. So --

WARD: Which is an indication that we --

COOPER: Right. So these are the alerts that go out on all of our phones when you're in Israel. It's a 10-minute warning of incoming missiles or something incoming from Iran.