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Trump: Iran Hit School That Killed 180-Plus People, Not U.S.; Trump: U.S. Troops Could "Possibly" Be Sent To Iran; Communist Regime Weighs Options As U.S. Increases Pressure; Trump Signals He Will Escalate Iran War, Hit New Targets; Lebanon: Nearly 300 Killed In Israeli Strikes Since Monday; U.S. Gas Prices Continue To Climb Amid War With Iran. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired March 07, 2026 - 22:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:00:12]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, everybody. I'm Polo Sandoval joining you live from New York. I'll be joining you for the next three hours as we continue to follow breaking news out of the Middle East and the developing situation in Iran. It is now morning there after heavy explosions rocked the Capitol overnight into Iran.

A source now telling CNN that Israel struck fuel storage sites into Iran. And this is a new phase of the war. U.S. President Donald Trump threatening even more than it's to come and that also that targets will likely --likely widen.

Iran now vowing that it will never surrender and will hunt for new U.S. assets to strike. It's military launching new missile and drone strikes on Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar even after Iran's president apologized for attacks on its Persian Gulf neighbors.

The U.S. president also now blaming Iran for deadly strike on an Iranian school. This despite analysis suggesting that the U.S. military was likely responsible.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did the United States bomb a girls' elementary school in southern Iran on the first day of the war and kill 175 people?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Based on what I've seen, that was done by Iran.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that true, Mr. Hegseth, it was Iran who did that?

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We're certainly investigating. But the only -- the only side that targets civilians is Iran. TRUMP: With regards to that, we think it was done by Iran. Because they're very inaccurate as you, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: Let's go live now to see the next Mike Valerio following the developments out of the Middle East there currently live in Beijing.

Mike, you heard some of those comments from President Trump aboard Air Force One. The president doesn't seem to be rolling out the possibility of -- of deploying conventional U.S. troops on the ground.

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. But I think we have to be careful, Polo, because when you listen to that whole, you know, impromptu news conference that was aboard Air Force One, he does seem very reluctant to have U.S. boots on the ground.

And it was interesting those comments that you just played. Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, is saying we're still investigating. The United States Department of War, Department of Defense, is still investigating what exactly happened with that tragic strike on the girls' school. So very much those were the two main headlines that we heard aboard Air Force One.

But I think that the president, you know, as you try to follow what he said to reporters over the past week now, he even started that statement saying that he did not want to answer the question about the potential of having boots on the ground.

And then he finished his answer saying that if that possibility, God forbid, were to happen, it would be in a scenario paraphrasing what he said here for the sake of our conversation, Polo, it would be in a situation where Iran could not fight back.

So certainly interesting comments as he was coming back from the dignified transfer at Dover Joint Air Base, but certainly something that we're paying attention to as we are now into the second week of this war that is engulfing the Middle East.

SANDOVAL: And then, of course, some of these latest strikes as well in Iran as well, Mike. I mean, any sense of what kind of targets that joint forces have been after?

VALERIO: Yes. So there's great reporting from our wonderful colleague, Nick Paton Walsh, who just signed off from Israel.

And, you know, what he's reporting in our sources throughout the region are saying is that this seems to be, Polo, a new phase of Israel and the United States beginning to attack targets, shifting away from military locations more towards infrastructure, more towards perhaps crippling the other means of survival of the regime.

So we have new visuals that CNN has geolocated and verified as we're approaching lunchtime here in this corner of the world of an oil refinery on fire in Iran. Nick Paton Walsh is reporting before he signed off of an oil depot being targeted. So that's certainly interesting.

And we also want to mention the missile strike, guided missile strike on a hotel very close to the center of Beirut. The IDF in Israel is saying that it was a strike meant to kill and did kill, according to the IDF, four members of Iran's Quds Force.

And what the Quds Force is for people who aren't exactly familiar with the dynamics of the region, that is essentially the overseas branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

So the guard corps extension of its arm outside of Iran's borders. IDF is now saying that they hit this hotel in Beirut as a means of trying to further diminish the capabilities of Israel -- of Iran, excuse me, of Iran's overseas capabilities.

[22:05:07]

So also furthermore, we're watching what is going to happen if there's going to be any kind of change with strikes that have hit Gulf nations because we had the extraordinary statement as we were heading towards lunchtime yesterday here over in East Asia of Masoud Pezeshkian (ph), saying essentially that the strikes against Gulf neighbors would be stopping. The president of Iran essentially calling these Gulf countries brothers, but very much a walk-back from his office a short time later, saying that if these Gulf countries still continue to take part in American and Israeli efforts, they would be attacked. We also had Ali Larijani, one of the top security officials in Iran, offering even harsher rhetoric.

So still, a quickly changing situation after that. Seeming apology was emanating from the airwaves of Iran. It seems as though the ground truth in the region has changed considerably, and the sentiment has changed considerably since that video statement was released. Polo.

SANDOVAL: Yes. Such an important reminder of the impact and the loss being felt beyond the situation of Iran.

Mike Valerio with that live update from Beijing. We're going to get some expertise now and head over to Andrew Loiselle. He's a retired rear admiral for the U.S. -- for the U.S. Navy. Admiral, thank you so much for taking the time to join us.

ANDREW LOISELLE, RETIRED U.S. NAVY REAR ADMIRAL: Thanks, Polo. Good evening.

SANDOVAL: So, good evening to you, sir. You may have heard some of that reporting just a short while ago, that despite reports and also a CNN analysis that seems to show that the U.S. is likely responsible for that strike on an Iranian school.

We heard from President Trump say on Saturday that it was actually done by Iran. What questions are you left with about the -- about the operation, Admiral? LOISELLE: Well, I -- I am not privy to any non-public information on any of the targets that -- that any of the coalition forces are going after, so I can't really speak to that.

Now, what I can speak to is the inaccuracy of an awful lot of Iran's weapons. And so they may have shot a weapon off to go do something. And then, you know, with the damage that's already been done to a lot of their weapons, there's no guarantee that the weapons are still functioning correctly.

And so there exists real possibility that something could have gone wrong with one of their weapons.

So bottom line is there will be a complete investigation of anything that happens like this. And we will get to the truth.

SANDOVAL: And that being said, can you just speak overall to the challenges in general when it comes to isolating enemy targets and at the same time also trying to -- to limit any risk to -- to civilians in the area?

LOISELLE: Yes. That is always a very, very difficult thing, especially once we get into these follow-on days from the initial conflict.

Over the first few days of a conflict, it's generally a fairly, you know, regimented set of targets that the intel community has had a lot of time to work on.

But then after the bomb stopped falling, then the enemy reacts and they tend to relocate things and you have to have intelligence of all manner from both space assets, sometimes on the ground assets, sometimes drones that are just monitoring the situation continuously that help you refine the targets as the enemy reacts to what you've been doing.

And so all of these targeting cells start out with a targeting deck from the intel community. And then they proceed down into what we call the Air Tasking Order.

And so there's a whole group of folks that spend their whole day doing this planning and they're looking at the target sets and then they look at the available ordinance to include, you know, ordinance that's low collateral damage or ordinance that can hit deeply buried targets.

And then they match up the targets to the correct ordinance and then they're able to put the weapons overhead.

And so we're at the point in the conflict now where instead of using these very expensive, very long range weapons, we have air superiority at this point in time.

And so it's OK if aircrew are spending more time over the target area and refining the intelligence and making sure that they've got the right thing in their sights before they go ahead and release ordinance. And it also gives the targeteers an opportunity to use far less expensive ordinance, you know, good old laser guided bombs or JDAMS, things that can go and hit those kind of targets at a far lower cost than some of the exquisite weapons that were used early in the conflict.

SANDOVAL: Admiral, I'm also curious if I could get some of your thoughts on something else that President Trump mentioned while he was flying back to -- to Washington and that is that he -- he was not rolling out the possibility, again, many different scenarios, but the -- the possibility that -- that about a possible conventional U.S. troop deployment in Iran, obviously this is purely speculating at this point. But what could that actually look like should we reach that point?

[22:10:20]

LOISELLE: Well, as you know, I'm a Navy man. And so I don't do a lot of boots on the ground. But the reality is his -- his goal is stated as unconditional surrender.

And so what you can kind of see right now from the regime is, you know, you had the president, as you just said in your last segment, that, hey, we're not going to strike our neighbors anymore. And then that clearly did not make it down to the -- the folks that are supposed to be under his control.

And so those weapons kept on going towards all of their neighbors. And so it tells me that they're really not in great command of what everyone underneath them is actually doing. And they are all continuing to work based on the initial set of guidance that was given before the conflict even started.

And so a lot of the communications nodes necessary for command and control have likely been severed. And so what you're seeing now is the -- the remnants of that.

So the question then becomes, how, when you've got a regime that is largely disconnected, and even if they wanted to stop fighting, we've got evidence now that says they wanted to stop and they couldn't.

And so how then do we get that word out to all of the subordinate units so that they can actually comply with that call if that is actually made and that's the order that's given? That's -- that's a conundrum right now.

SANDOVAL: Retired Admiral Andrew Loiselle, thank you so much for your time and for your perspective.

LOISELLE: You bet. Thanks for having me.

SANDOVAL: Well, CNN is the first U.S. network to start reporting from the ground in Iran since the conflict started. We're operating there only with the government's permission.

Our correspondent Fred Pleitgen and producer Claudia Otto are reporting on increased security presence in Tehran.

There are multiple checkpoints in the city according to the reporting and also heavily armed positions manned by Revolutionary Guards. And just hours ago, our team reported on the aftermath of a massive attack on the city. Here's Fred's report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There have been some massive airstrikes here on Tehran tonight. We know that in the south of the city, apparently one of the main refineries was hit.

But here from our vantage point, we can also see I would say that that is in the western part of the city. There's also a massive fire burning there with a huge gray plume of smoke and also still fire that is illuminating the night sky. So there was clearly a major hit over there.

I have to say from our position here, a couple of minutes ago, we did hear some massive thuds would seem to be a wave of airstrikes in that location, but in some other locations in Tehran as well.

So what we're seeing here tonight seems to be one of those sustained airwaves of planes flying overhead. We heard some jets as well and then some massive attacks happening in various parts of the cities. And you can see one of the results right over there with that massive plume of smoke here in the night sky.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: Our thanks to -- our thanks to Fred and his team for that report and the remains of six U.S. soldiers killed in Kuwait have now been returned home to their families.

The soldiers, they were part of an army reserve unit from Iowa. They died when an Iranian drone struck their makeshift operation center last Sunday.

The U.S. president, vice president and also other top cabinet officials, they attended the dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

During the somber and solemn event, President Trump wore a white hat with gold USA lettering on it.

Well, he called it a sad day, but he expects to attend more dignified transfers as, quote, a part of war.

And we'll be right back with more.

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[22:15:13]

SANDOVAL: Welcome back. President Donald Trump is once again suggesting that Cuba is next on his administration's agenda after he predicted a, quote, great change is coming to the island nation very soon.

President Trump made his prediction while speaking to a group of leaders at the Shield of America's Conference in Florida. He said that the U.S. will stand against hostile foreign influences like Cuba in the region.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: As we achieve a historic transformation event as well, we're also looking forward to the great change. It will soon be coming to Cuba. Cuba's at the end of the line. They're very much at the end of the line. They have no money. They have no oil.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: And for weeks now, the U.S. has been carrying out an intense pressure campaign against Cuba, and this includes an oil embargo which is plunging the island into a dire energy crisis resulting in hours long blackouts, nearly every day.

CNN's Patrick Oppmann with this subject from Havana as the Cuban government weighs its options.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Trump on Saturday once again taking aim at Cuba's government saying that the country is going to collapse. That the communist government here is in its final days and that there are behind the scenes negotiations going on led by Marco Rubio, but that he is involved in and that he thinks there will be a deal to open up this country economically and politically very soon.

It would seem like the kind of Cold War air bluster that so many U.S. administrations have engaged in very -- with very little effect over the years.

But President Trump has brought the economy here already beleaguered to a crashing hole by blocking any oil first from Venezuela and then from Cuba's ally, Mexico, to coming into this island.

[22:20:08]

That is caused the economy here to essentially grind to a halt. You see less cars on the road. The lights are off across Cuba more often than they are on these days. We are seeing blackouts that before lasted hours now lasting days.

People are increasingly upset at -- often at their government because life just cannot continue on under these circumstances. People's food is beginning to spoil. Many people have been sent home from the workplaces. Hotels are close -- closed down and tourism has dried up. So while the Cuban government has said they will not negotiate in a position where they're being pressured or they essentially have a gun to their head, obviously, at this point, time is running out. They may not have any choice but to make a deal, any deal they can get.

Patrick Oppmann, CNN, Havana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: All right. Let's bring in Brian Fonseca now. He's the director of the Institute for Public Policy at Florida International University. Brian, welcome to the program.

BRIAN FONSECA, DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY, FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY: Thanks for having me, Polo.

SANDOVAL: Of course. It's our pleasure. You know, you recently wrote that negotiating with Cuba, it would make for an uncomfortable reality as you put it for the U.S. I'm curious if you could expand on that.

BRIAN FONSECA, DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY, FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY: Yes. I mean, similar in the case of Venezuela where, you know, the United States conducted that incredible operation to remove Nicolas Maduro, but left much of the Venezuelan regime in power and is now negotiating directly through the Venezuelan regime, which is not necessarily the kind of change that, you know, Venezuelans in South Florida are looking for. Venezuelans in the broader diaspora.

I'm afraid that's probably going to be very similar in the case of Cuba in which the -- the United States is probably going to have to engage with. And through members of the Cuban regime, if they're looking for a long-term sort of sustainable change, and that may be uncomfortable for a lot of Cubans in South Florida.

They're looking for a complete break from the Cuban regime. That's unlikely to happen because much of the power is -- is very much consolidated among the -- the sort of Cuban elite institutions, much like the military institution in Cuba.

SANDOVAL: Yes. You know -- you know, the report that I'm sure you just heard right now in Patrick's report where he says that the lights are off more often than they're on. I think that that is just a remarkable just reporting there.

Give us a sense of the situation there on the ground right now for -- for Cuba, essentially in the brink of collapse.

And what's the worst-case scenario should a deal not be reached between the U.S. and -- and -- and Cuba?

FONSECA: Yes. I mean, you know, certainly Cuba's in a dire situation right now. You know, after Venezuela, the United States stopped the -- the ability of Venezuela to ship oil to Cuba. The United States -- the United States intervened when Mexico attempted to -- to ship oil. And so essentially, the United States was using economic coercion, essentially getting the lights to turn off in an effort to -- to economically squeeze Cuba to accepting some negotiated terms with the United States to look towards a trajectory that would ultimately move the country towards democracy away from sort of the -- the institutionalized regime that's been in power for -- for decades.

And I think that -- that that's where, you know, the United States is expecting the regime to sort of break down and engage with the United States as a -- as part of an off-ramp in order to -- to address some of the struggling that's certainly going on across the country.

I think worst-case scenario is that there is a collapse. And I think the United States is being very careful not to necessarily see a collapse where you have massive migration sort of exodus, leaving -- leaving the island, fleeing to places like the United States, places like Miami where I live.

And I think that's probably the worst-case scenario is that you have this implosion, and that implosion sort of leads to, you know, a managed or -- or at least a -- a very dire humanitarian crisis in which now the straits of Florida, for example, are flooded with people leaving the island.

There's, you know, massive instability across the island that could turn violent. I think that's a worst-case scenario for the United States.

So I suspect the United States isn't going to be looking for a negotiated settlement prior to that and hoping that -- that sort of the Cuban regime is going to -- to call or at least bluff first and engage the United States constructively in some type of transition event.

SANDOVAL: Yes. We've seen those migration rushes before.

And I'm curious, in terms of what Cubans living in the United States would want to see come out of any potential negotiations.

I mean, what do you think -- how do you think they feel about these potential conversations or what happened between the White House and the Cuban government? What do they want?

FONSECA: I mean, I -- I think so many Cubans just want to see Cuba free -- free from sort of the grips of -- of communism.

I mean, the Castros are -- are pretty much behind us. Raul Castro is still living, of course, and does have some, you know, degree of influence at the very strategic level.

But -- but I think that the -- the Cubans, certainly in my community, want to see Cuba free. They want to see democracy restored in Cuba. They want to see some degree of accountability to those that have run the -- the sort of Cuban state into the ground and, you know, pillage the -- the state's resources and corruption and -- and sort of, you know, engaging in -- in human rights violations. [22:25:10]

So that's -- you know, and that's probably going to be the more challenging part of this issue of transitional justice as we move away from, you know, the regime towards some -- some seeming, you know, democratic process, which again maybe a ways away.

I think right now, the most stable path forward is some negotiated pathway in which we -- we -- we move back towards, you know, some -- some elections, some ability for, you know, democratic institutions to be established.

Remember, it's -- it's a, you know, decade since there's been any seeming throughout the 80 years almost in which you've been absent democratic institutions.

All of that has to be completely, you know, built from the ground up. And so I think any transition is going to take some time.

And I think the Cubans in Miami are going to have to sort of reconcile with there is no major democratic opposition to inherit the government.

So again, that -- that sort of sense of taking time is certainly going to be unnerving and certainly uncomfortable for a lot of those in Miami that are going to watch the Trump administration engage with the regime as part of the process.

SANDOVAL: Yes, without a doubt. Cuban-Americans watching this extremely closely. It is very personal to them as you highlight.

Brian Fonseca, thank you so much for your perspective as always.

FONSECA: Thanks, Polo.

SANDOVAL: And still to come here on "CNN Newsroom." Iran's top security official says that the Trump administration is walking into a quagmire of a war. More on that after a moment.

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SANDOVAL: Welcome back to our breaking news coverage.

We want to get you some brand-new video that's just into CNN. It shows a high-rise building on fire in Kuwait City. You can see the flames there seeming to fully engulf the building and also appear to be leaping into the night sky.

[22:30:04]

It's still not clear exactly what causes fire. But this is all happening as Kuwait and other Gulf states are getting hit by a new wave of drone and missile attacks from Iran.

And the Kuwait news agency has reported that a government building that's about 22 stories tall was targeted in an attack. And the Trump administration is now one week into the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran. And Iran's top security official says that the U.S. is now stuck in a, quote, quagmire of its own miscalculations.

In an interview broadcasted on Iranian state T.V., Ali Larijani said that Donald Trump must, quote, pay the price and that his military goals have failed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALI LARIJANI, SECRETARY OF IRAN'S SUPREME NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: I must express, I think, the most important problem the Americans have is that their mentality is not one that understands the West Asia region, especially Iran.

Imagine, for example, in Venezuela they did something. Then thought, for example, they could repeat it here. Whereas here, there was another form of mentality that reigns.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: Bobby Ghosh is a geopolitics analyst and a columnist. He joins me from Warren, Connecticut. Bobby, thank you so much for coming back.

BOBBY GHOSH, GEOPOLITICS ANALYST AND A COLUMNIST: Hi, Polo. Thanks for having me.

SANDOVAL: So, of course, so a weekend, President Trump describing the war with Iran as a minor excursion, as he described it aboard Air Force One.

I'm curious, Bobby, what's your assessment of what the U.S.'s objective is at this point? And -- and was it basically a miscalculation on Trump's -- on Trump's part?

GHOSH: Well, we don't know the full extent of the -- the facts that went into the calculation, because we've heard so many different things from different members of the Trump administration, including from the president himself.

But it's very clearly not a minor excursion. We put out one of the largest military sort of gatherings, particularly the naval force that gathered in the Gulf ahead of this conflict. Two aircraft carrier groups, large number of ships. We sent planes in the vicinity. This was not a small excursion.

It's also a very expensive one. I've looked at -- I've seen some reports on that this -- that this is already costing the American taxpayer more than a billion dollars a day. Doesn't seem very minor.

And we can also see the video of the damage that has been done in Iran on the ground, as well as the -- the -- the sort of consequences of the Iranian counterattack.

None of these things seem minor at all. So, you know, the president does shoot from the hip when he says things like that. But they don't really -- the facts don't add up to his contention.

What his intentions are is not very clear. Very early on, he said his intention were to help the Iranian protesters. That no longer seems part of the calculus.

It's now very clear that they want regime change. It's not clear what kind of change they're looking for. Are they looking for a wholesale change in the type of regime? Do they want to change from a theocratic authoritarian state to a -- a democratic state? We don't know.

The president has sometimes said that he would be satisfied with a Venezuela-like solution, where you simply remove the top leadership, but you -- you keep the regime in place.

So, the bottom line, Polo, is that we've had so many different explanations for why we're in this war from the White House and from the administration in general. That is really hard to get a bead on what the real reason or the real reasons are.

SANDOVAL: What do you make of the Iranian president's apology to neighboring Gulf state? What does that tell you, Bobby?

GHOSH: Well, it was a -- it was a fascinating expression of regret from the -- the president. Now, we have to remember that the president of Iran, even in peacetime is not the -- despite the grand title, is not the main actor in Iranian politics, and a country that is in war, even less so.

The political leadership in the country matters less than the military leadership. And what we've seen since that so-called apology from the president is the military leaders, the leaders of the IRGC in Iran, come up and say that basically what the president said doesn't really hold. We'll continue to attack wherever we think deserves to be attacked.

And that -- that video clip you showed at the top of the segment of that building burning in Iran, that does not seem very much like an apology to me.

Now, the Trump administration is saying that the Iranian president apologized because the Trump -- the -- the U.S. military campaign is working, that this was a man frightened and responding to the -- the military strikes.

There is another possibility, the -- the -- the Gulf countries, especially the UAE, yesterday announced that they were going to freeze Iranian assets that are being held in those countries. Now, those assets belong to rich Iranian regime figures, people like the president and people around him.

[22:35:09]

So it's just as likely that he's responding to those threats as he was responding to the military strikes. But at the end of the day, whatever the reasons for the apology, they don't seem to matter very much to his military commanders who are the people really in charge. SANDOVAL: Yes. We're showing viewers around the world that video of that building that you mentioned a few moments ago going up in flames in Kuwait City.

And I'm also -- you know, I'm glad you mentioned Venezuela. And I've asked myself for the last seven days if the White House was perhaps, or at least President Trump was perhaps expecting the chain of events to play out similar to what we saw earlier this year, where they essentially decapitate the regime, and then that regime would basically fall into -- into order. That does not seem to be the case here.

So tell us about the power struggle that's happening inside of Iran right now when it comes to the regime. Is there any indication who's actually in charge?

GHOSH: Well, Iran is a very different system from Venezuela. Venezuela was much more like a conventional dictatorship. Iran is not a dictatorship in that way. It's not a matter of taking out the top guy and the rest of the House of Cards collapses.

Iran is a -- is a system built for this kind of pressure. They have all kinds of redundancies built into that system. There are multiple sources of power. You remove one of those sources, there are other sources that take the center stage.

In a time of war, and Iran is in a time of war, the military leadership matters more than the political leadership. There is already an effort on to replace Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who was -- who was killed on the first day of the attacks.

We have not yet seen signs of a leadership struggle. There's nothing yet to indicate that there are divisions in the leadership structure. The structure remains intact, even though individuals have been taken out. I think the Trump administration is hoping that there would be some elements of the leadership that are willing to do a deal that was sufficiently frightened by military strikes to break away from the rest of the group and say, we're willing to make a deal with the Americans. That has not happened yet.

And -- and from our previous understanding of a previous history of the Iranian regime, the likelihood of that taking place is not very great. This is a regime that survived an eight-year brutal bloody war with Iraq in the 1980s and did not -- back then, this was a much newer, younger system and -- and could have broken down if it was likely to do so, it did not.

Now, you have a much more mature system in place. It's been around for several decades. It's been expecting pressure. It has been resisting pressure for a long time.

There's nothing yet to indicate that there's any kind of cleavage within the leadership. I'm not seeing it. And the Trump administration seems to be hoping that that will take place. But if I were a betting man, I wouldn't put any money on that yet.

SANDOVAL: This is all such important context to keep in mind as we're just a week in to this conflict.

Bobby Ghosh, as always, thank you so much for your perspective and your expertise.

GHOSH: Thank you, Polo.

SANDOVAL: Well, coming up here on "CNN Newsroom," the details on the deadly Israeli raid that left a trail of destruction in this village in southern Lebanon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:40:34]

SANDOVAL: Lebanese authorities say that dozens of people have been killed in an Israeli raid in a border region between the two counties. Israeli commandos, they were hunting for the remains of an airman who had been missing for decades.

Their helicopters, they crashed -- they actually crossed into Lebanese airspace landing near village where they engaged in a firefight with Hezbollah militants. And that's according to the Lebanese military.

And you could see the aftermath there. One resident of the village describing it as a night of hell. The Israeli military has killed nearly 300 people in Lebanon since it started its bombing campaign on Monday. And that's according to the Lebanese health ministry.

CNN's Matthew Chance with this reporting from Beirut.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a city on edge, tensions quickly boiled over.

At this anti-Israel rally in Beirut, anger over airstrikes on Lebanon and Iran was soon directed at us.

CHANCE: Oh. We've -- we've just been told to get out because we're not welcome here. So we got to go.

Can we interview? We're going, we're going.

RAINA, PROTESTOR: I'm trying to tell them, no, we need to deliver our message.

CHANCE: Yes.

RAINA: So don't worry.

CHANCE: What message do you want to deliver here tonight?

RAINA: That Israel is -- is -- is all evil. We've been suffering from Israel since -- since before 1948. We support all forms of resistance.

CHANCE: For a week now, Lebanon has been pounded. Israel says it's targeting Iranian-backed Hezbollah after the militia launched missiles and drones to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader.

MAGUY CHEBIL, HOTEL OWNER: This is where it happened. It started from the roof.

CHANCE (voice-over): But the owner of one wrecked Beirut hotel in an upscale Christian neighborhood told CNN just ordinary families were her guests. No Iranian citizens and definitely no Hezbollah, who she blames for the spiraling violence.

CHEBIL: And we are not that stupid to -- to check them in. We are not that stupid. We live here. It's our home.

CHANCE: How angry are you --

CHEBIL: I am angry.

CHANCE: -- with -- with Hezbollah right now?

CHEBIL: I am angry with Hezbollah and Israel and Iran, but Hezbollah more. You know why?

CHANCE: Why?

CHEBIL: Because they are Lebanese. They should be Lebanese. They are not. They are hurting us. They are hurting our homes, our children.

CHANCE (voice-over): It's dragged ordinary Lebanese, many ordered by Israel to evacuate their homes into the Iran war. Aid workers say they're now struggling to shelter hundreds of thousands on the move.

CHANCE: We've come to this school in the center of Beirut. You can see the children's murals on the wall. But it's no longer a school, it is a camp for people who have been displaced by the fighting in south Beirut and southern Lebanon.

And in each of these classrooms, there are families who are escaping the fighting and they've come to -- to come here for safety.

"The children woke up screaming," says Ali Shams (ph), who fled the suburbs of south Beirut with his family. "We just ran, carrying them through the night," he told me. "Now, we're all homeless."

(EXPLOSION)

[22:45:12]

It's easy to see why they left.

CHANCE: We've come into what is the most dangerous part of the Lebanese capital, which is a very important stronghold of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia group. It's the place where Israel has been focusing.

(GUNSHOTS)

And you can hear the gunshots outside there. That Israel has been focusing its activity, its intensive campaign of airstrikes against the Hezbollah group.

CHANCE (voice-over): The destruction is massive and plain to see. And Israel's military campaign against Hezbollah, as we found out, is still far from over.

CHANCE: OK. We've got to go because they said there's been a warning from the Israelis that there could be a strike coming in. So we've got to get out of here, Alex.

CHANCE (voice-over): Matthew Chance, CNN, Beirut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: And we still have a lot more on the way in this hour of "CNN Newsroom," including the latest on the fallout from the Iran conflict.

Still ahead, how the fighting in the Middle East is impacting your gas prices here at home?

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[22:50:15]

SANDOVAL: The U.S. military campaign in Iran, it is taking a toll on Americans at the gas pump with some of the world's largest oil exporters under fire in the Middle East and also the crucial Strait of Hormuz effectively shut down. Gas prices are starting to surge across much of the country.

CNN's Rafael Romo has more on reactions from customers in Atlanta, Georgia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: People here in Atlanta and the entire state of Georgia are certainly feeling the pinch of the pump.

Only a week ago, the average price of regular gasoline at the state level was $2.79 according to AAA. That price has now climbed 15 percent to 3.22 per gallon. We've been talking to drivers here at this ARCO gas station in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood.

People have expressed concern about both the war and the impact it's having on gas prices in the metropolitan area and across the nation.

Nationally, the current average for regular gas is $3.41, according to AAA, up nine cents from Friday and 43 cents from a week ago.

People I spoke with here are wondering if the Iran war is going to push prices here in Georgia past the statewide record average of 4.49 a gallon set in June 2022 when high demand and tight supply due to Russia's war on Ukraine combined to spike prices.

TRACY SCOTT, ATLANTA RESIDENT: The people that may have started the war, they don't have a clue about the price because they don't drive cars. They have people that drive for them. So it's the middle class and the poor that sees it the most and suffering the most.

TAMIRA MONCUR, ATLANTA RESIDENT: The war, yes, the -- the -- the gas is because of the war and the oil and, you know, we're going to pay for this. We're going to pay for the choices of other people.

ROMO: And many people are wondering why the war is having such an impact on prices given that the United States is one of the top oil producers in the world.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the United States exports nearly a third of the oil it produces and it imports nearly a third of the oil it consumes. That's because the country produces a particular kind of crude that is good for making gasoline, but lousy for other petroleum products like diesel, kerosene, and other fuel oils.

Rafael Romo, CNN Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: All right. Rafael brought us some consumer voices. Let's get you some expert opinion now.

Joining me is Alex Jacquez, the chief of policy and advocacy at think tank Groundwork Collaborative. Alex, thank you so much for taking the time for us.

ALEX JACQUEZ, THE CHIEF OF POLICY AND ADVOCACY, GROUNDWORK COLLABORATIVE: Thanks for having me.

SANDOVAL: So Americans, you just heard from a few of them. They are clearly experiencing some pain at the pump with the highest gas prices since about August 20, 2024. Do you see more price hikes on the horizon as this conflict continues?

JACQUEZ: Absolutely. President Trump, at the State of the Union, applauded gas reaching under $3 a gallon. That is now up, as you just heard, to about 3.41 a gallon on average. And there is no ceiling as long as this conflict continues.

We've seen oil jump the quickest it has since the conflict in Ukraine when Russia invaded in 2022. And what I think you saw towards the end of this week was traders really waking up to the fact that this isn't going to be a one and done operation but is going to be an extended campaign that is going to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed for the foreseeable future. And in that situation, there really is no limit to how high oil and gasoline can go.

SANDOVAL: How intentional do you think that Iran strikes on oil- producing companies or countries, I should say? How intentional do you think that is? Is there any reason to doubt that the regime knows that gas prices here in the U.S. is a major political issue?

JACQUEZ: There's no doubt at all. And you could see it in the press release that the regime sent out this morning, warning President Trump about further escalation in Iran. Very specifically mentioned that on Monday, the markets were going to open up and prices at the pump were going to go up.

They know that this is their Trump card, so to speak. The Strait of Hormuz and the control over that vital shipping corridor as well as the abundant gas -- oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf region. Those are the targets right now. Iran feels like it is cornered and has reached its last resort. And so expect more attacks on those oil fields, oil infrastructure and tankers going forward.

SANDOVAL: Yes. Something I -- I also expect is to hear more of the stories of people working in perhaps certain specific sectors here in the United States are likely going to be hit particularly hard by this.

I mean, just consider the price of diesel. It's actually rising even faster than gas. The average cost, about 4.51 a gallon.

[22:55:09]

Do you see sectors like farmers, for example, maybe even going into the growing season, getting hit particularly hard because of what's happening essentially on the -- on the other side of the world?

JACQUEZ: That's exactly right. And that is why oil shocks and energy shocks are so dangerous for overall inflation. It's not just gasoline. It's diesel. It's jet fuel. It's shipping fuel. These are the prices that feed into basically every single good that we move across both globally and in the United States here.

So it is going to push up prices in sectors that we're not even quite aware of yet. And I think this is particularly true of the supply chain disruptions as well. Oil and gas are getting a lot of the attention right now, but the Strait of Hormuz transports one-third of global fertilizer. The Gulf States produce a tremendous amount of nitrogen fertilizer.

You could have -- wheat is already going up in price. A same replay of that 2022 incident where -- where fertilizer shortages impacted food worldwide.

SANDOVAL: Alex, I have just a couple of seconds left with you. As you know, joint forces, they stroke Iranian field depots this weekend for the first time. How does that have potential to backfire when it comes to -- to oil markets?

JACQUEZ: I think where the market is looking to offload right here is in de-escalation. If the market believes that this is going to come to a conclusion shortly, we will see prices headed back down. Everything I've seen this weekend points towards escalation. And I think we're going to see increasing highs in some of these markets commodity markets on Monday.

SANDOVAL: We have to leave it there. Alex Jacquez, thank you so much for your expertise as always. Have a good weekend.

JACQUEZ: Thanks for having me. SANDOVAL: I'm Polo Sandoval live in New York. I'll be right back with you with much more breaking news coverage on the developing situation in the Middle East. Don't go anywhere.

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