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U.S. Rescues Missing Airman; Trump Threatens Iran to Open Strait Of Hormuz; Artemis II Crew Now Two-Thirds Of The Way To The Moon. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired April 05, 2026 - 17:00   ET

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

[16:59:55]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: And you are in the "CNN Newsroom." Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean here in New York.

We're following breaking news out of the Middle East as President Trump announcing U.S. forces have successfully rescued that second airman from behind enemy lines in Iran. Two U.S. officials describing that risky operation to CNN. They said after the airman's fighter jet had been shot down, the officer evaded capture for more than a day, scaling rugged terrain, hiding out alone as the U.S. carried out a massive rescue effort. Trump going on to social media to share the news this morning and also reiterate threats against Iran, announcing Tehran has until Tuesday to reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz.

Let's bring in CNN's Julia Benbrook. She has more on the president's threats. She joins us now from the White House. What's the president saying, Julia?

JULIA BENBROOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jessica, President Donald Trump, he has repeatedly threatened to target Iranian power facilities if they do not fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, that critical waterway where 20 percent of the world's oil typically passes through. And he even, as recent as yesterday, said that time is running out for this deadline. But that deadline has moved multiple times. When he first said it late last month, it was a 48-hour deadline. And then he put that on pause for five days, extended it for another 10, had been saying it was for Monday. And now, it appears that he is potentially pushing that back again to Tuesday.

And Jessica, in this role covering the White House, several times in the past couple of weeks, I've looked directly at the president's words and thought. Am I going to say those words out loud on air? And today really highlighted that. In this post, it was full of profanity. I want to pull it up for you, exactly what he said. He said -- quote -- "Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped into one, in Iran. There

will be nothing like it! Open the," and then he used profanity that I'm not going to read directly, but it is there on your screen to see, "strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell -- just watch! Praise be to Allah." And then he signed that, like he usually does, Donald J. Trump.

Now, a senior Iranian official did respond to that ultimatum, saying that they're only going to reopen the strait if they are fully compensated for financial damages that have taken place during the conflict.

DEAN: And Julia, back to this incredible mission to rescue this downed airman. When will we learn more about that?

BENBROOK: Trump has said that he is going to speak to the press tomorrow, actually, in the Oval Office. That's expected to take place at 1 p.m. Eastern, and it is expected to focus in directly on the mission. I'm sure that he will comment more on Operation Epic Fury as a whole, but he said he's going to talk about the successful search and rescue mission.

And when he announced it overnight that this airman who was in the downed F-15 fighter jet had been rescued, he said we got him, he called it one of the most daring search and rescue operations in U.S. history, and then he also has said that he was monitoring this throughout the day with top officials, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as well as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

So, again, we do expect to get more information tomorrow at one. We've been learning more details. We do know that this involved dozens of aircraft as well as hundreds of military personnel and intelligence personnel.

DEAN: Incredible. Julia Benbrook at the White House, thank you so much. And we are joined now by former secretary of the Air Force during the Biden administration, Frank Kendall. He's also the author of the upcoming book, "Lethal Autonomy: The Future of Warfare." Secretary, thank you so much for your time tonight. We're glad to have you here with us.

We, as Julia was just saying, are learning some details about all of this. We do know that the injured American airman evaded capture in enemy territory for over 24 hours. He was armed with just a pistol, a communication device, and his tracking beacon. How much of his survival is a testament to his training, first of all?

FRANK KENDALL, FORMER SECRETARY OF U.S. AIR FORCE, AUTHOR: Oh, very much so, Jessica. The first thing to do is stay alive. Second thing to do is don't be captured and create an opportunity so you can be rescued. So, this airman apparently did exactly that.

He got to a place where he was able to conceal himself. He had the device, as you mentioned, had a way to let people know he was there and communicate without an intercept, hopefully, by the Iranians so they could find him. And then we brought the resources to bear that were necessary to get him out, and we were able to pull that off. It's a great testimony to the professionalism, the dedication, and the heroism of our people in the military.

DEAN: Yes. And what goes into training like that when you're in the position of that airman?

KENDALL: Some of the most stressful training that our Air Force people in particular go through is escape and evasion training, basically. You're dropped into a place where you're not well-oriented on where you are. You've got to survive off of the land, basically. You have very limited resources that you're carrying. And you have to avoid being captured while you're doing that. If you are picked up, then you have to go through some resistance training as well, to interrogation and so on.

[17:04:58]

It's considered one of the most severe, difficult aspects of training that we do, but it pays big dividends, as you saw in this case.

DEAN: Certainly. And a couple things stand out about this rescue mission. One, that it was put together and executed so quickly. But then two, also the scale and the amount of people it involved, the amounts of agencies and organizations it involved. Talk about the scale of an operation like this, not just the Air Force and the military, but also the CIA doing its part as well. How does this all work?

KENDALL: It's an all hands on deck. Very big effort to do this, particularly when it's as visible as it was in this case, right? A lot of public attention to this. It was well known that the airman had gone down. So, enormous resources were put into it. The Air Force obviously has a lead that has people dedicated to this.

That's what they do full time. We have aircraft that are dedicated to this mission. But in this case, we had to be worried about Iranian forces in the region who might be attracted to the area. My understanding from the press is that there was a deception effort to try to divert the Iranians to some other location so they wouldn't focus on where we were actually trying to recover the airman.

So, it was a large-scale exercise designed to get this individual out. But it sends a message to everybody who flies for the Air Force or supports, who's a member of our services, that we're not going to leave you behind. We're going to do everything we can to get you out if you're in a situation like this.

DEAN: Yes. And I think that is -- that is certainly the overwhelming message as it relates to this, is we're not leaving you behind. An American should be really proud of our armed forces and our CIA and everybody else that was involved in this. It's incredible.

The Iranian state media shared some images of apparent aircraft wreckage after that U.S. operation. We've geolocated the video and the images confirming that they are real and they were taken near the city of Esfahan. Is it -- my understanding is it can be practiced, to blow up the aircraft on the ground so they don't fall into enemy hands if that's kind of what you're left with, if they're damaged and you can't get them out of there. Do you -- is that what you think happened here?

KENDALL: There's no way to know. We may hear that from the president tomorrow when he's done. There is generally a tendency to try to limit the enemy's access to our systems if they go down, and one way to do that, of course, is to destroy them if we know where they are. I don't know what happened here. I don't entirely trust what the Iranians are putting out. So, it's really hard to say, but we don't try to let, you know, sensitive technology falls into adversary hands.

DEAN: Certainly. I am curious to what the shooting down of U.S. aircraft tells you about Iran's strategy in this war and kind of where we are right now.

KENDALL: Great question. Iran is playing their own game here. They're not playing by our rules. I don't think the administration understood that at all. I think if they had understood that, they would never have done this. The Iranian regime wants to stay in power. First and foremost, they're achieving that. They want to demonstrate their ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. They're achieving that.

And we're basically, I hate to say it, but we're flailing around, trying to find a way to extract ourselves from this right now. You know, the latest threats that President Trump put out on social media, you know, are the latest escalation in this. We've talked about using people on the ground to go in, which would put our people at risk on the ground. General Randy George, who was just relieved as chief of staff for the Army, was opposed, as I understand it, to those kinds of operations. That's one of the reasons he was relieved. So, forced to retire.

This is a terrible situation we've got ourselves into. It's strategic blunder to be here. It's a violation of laws of armed conflict. And I don't think there's any obvious way to get out of it. The Iranians have their own objectives. They're willing to pay a very high price to achieve them. And I think we seriously underestimated that when we started this operation.

DEAN: One expert I talked to was talking about -- he said that the Iranians are really playing with asymmetrical warfare here, and we're kind of doing something different. Is that tracking with what you're describing?

KENDALL: Oh, that's exactly right. We used our military at what it's good at, which is to go after a lot of, you know, significant military targets. We took out a lot of assets that the Iranians had. We've attacked one of their bases and so on. Now, we're dealing with, you know, individual vehicles that carry UAVs, drones or carry ballistic or cruise missiles. And they're very hard to find. They're hard to target. They're easily concealed. So, we're in very asymmetric situation right now.

It doesn't really matter to them that they don't have a navy or an air force anymore. They have the assets that they need to continue to fire what is largely harassing fires against both the U.S. assets and their neighbors in the region to make the point and most importantly to close the Strait of Hormuz. As long as the risk is substantial of moving shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, shipping companies are not going to do it, and that's going to have a very significant impact economically on the world.

[17:10:03]

It's having an impact here in the United States on gas prices. And the Iranians have understood this for a very long time. This is a scenario that isn't new. We've been looking at this for decades now. And the Iranian response was very predictable. So, again, it's hard for me to understand how we didn't end this. This is exactly what would have happened if we'd launched this air campaign.

DEAN: And just lastly, how much longer do you think this will go on? Can you know?

KENDALL: Well, look, what we need, I think, to get out of this is a way for both sides to declare some kind of victory. Donald Trump, I think, is desperate for that at this point. The Iranians want to demonstrate a -- they want to stay in power, which they're achieving. They want to demonstrate that they can close the Strait of Hormuz and they can keep them closed pretty much indefinitely. And we're pretty much at that point right now.

So, I think de-escalation is actually the path forward. Anything that looks like capitulation or unconditional surrender, as the president asked for at one time, isn't going to happen. There has to be a way out of this that both sides can accept for their own purposes. I don't think we're quite there yet. Hopefully, we're getting closer.

The amount of damage being done in Iran is significant and may go up dramatically this week later. And the cost of the U.S. is significant. We're talking about $200 billion, potentially. We have had a huge diversion of forces and a consumption of readiness and munitions in particular, high-end munitions, engage in this campaign. So, this needs to end. A lot of loss of life as well. So, it needs to stop.

And we need to get to a point where both sides can get there, hopefully, because we're talking, at least through intermediaries, some progress is being made. Very hard to understand the public, you know, pronouncements on that and how accurate they are. But it needs to end. And I think it's in everybody's interest to bring it to a close at this point.

DEAN: All right, Secretary Frank Kendall, thanks for your time. We appreciate it.

KENDALL: Thank you.

DEAN: Still ahead here in the "CNN Newsroom," how the American people feel about the war with Iran and its impacts here at home. Plus, they will soon travel further than any humans ever have. We are tracking the Artemis II crew as they get ever closer to the moon.

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DEAN: President Trump is escalating his threats against Iran in a social media post this morning. Trump saying -- quote -- "Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it." And this is the words of the president of the United States this morning. "Open the fucking strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah."

Joining us now is CNN political commentator and conservative columnist Scott Jennings along with former deputy and special assistant to President Biden and Democratic strategist Dan Koh. Good to have both of you on this Sunday. Thanks for being here. Scott, I want to start with you first. This post, there's the language of it, which a lot of people have focused on, rightly so. There's also be where he says praise be to Allah, which some have taken as kind of a swipe at Islam as well. What is the average American waking up on this Easter Sunday supposed to do with this?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, SALEM RADIO HOST: Great question. Before I answer, first, let me just say happy Easter to you and happy Easter to my friend, Dan, who I haven't seen in a while. But he's running in a congressional primary. I know he's busy. He doesn't have time to hang out with Republicans anymore. He has got to talk to Democrats in Massachusetts.

(LAUGHTER)

Here's -- you know, I think there's two things going on here. One, there's the public posturing that goes on which Trump is, you know, he postures about a lot of things. Iran also postures about things publicly. But then there's also the private conversations going on. So, what do the American people think of this? I mean, my assumption is if you love Trump, you think this is great. If you hate Trump, you think it's awful. And there's people in the middle going, you know, I'm not sure what to make of it

What I'm more focused on today is that, apparently, there's all sorts of backchannel negotiations going on. The president says, has told many reporters today that he thinks tomorrow could be a big day for deal making. And obviously, he set a deadline of 8 o'clock on Tuesday night. Beyond that, it's a little opaque to me, to be honest. But, you know, my hope on Easter is that we get an end to this or that we get at least some semblance of a path to an end of it so that Iran stops being a sponsor of terrorism and, you know, we made western civilization safer.

DEAN: Yes. He said to some reporters today that, to your point, he thinks there could be a deal made. But he said if not, maybe he'll just -- these are his words, paraphrasing, blow it all up. Dan, what's your response to all of these?

DAN KOH, FORMER WHITE HOUSE SENIOR AIDE TO PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Well, look, earth-shattering news. Scott Jennings and I actually agree on something, which is we hope there's an end in sight. Happy Easter to everyone, too. Look, nothing says calm steady leadership like dropping F bombs, mocking God, and skipping church on Easter Sunday. And look, he says that Iran is going to have hell.

I think there's a lot of Americans right now who feel like they're living in hell with the billions of tariffs, with the number one health official in the country telling them to drop vaccines, with gas prices being what they are. People see this president for who he is, which is someone who has no idea how to get out of this war. That's why his approval rating is the lowest of any president in modern history. Americans just aren't buying it.

DEAN: OK. So, Scott, let's kind of expand on that for a second because we're kind of -- I think you're on to this, which is like we could be at a tipping point here, right? Either this war is going to likely escalate or perhaps they get a deal. And so, while that is all happening, you know, the president is threatening to hit energy sites that could potentially impact directly the Iranian people, which have, you know, there's a big question about where they -- what about them in all of this.

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There's no question that the military campaign has been successful in hitting thousands of targets, and I think we've all talked about that a lot, but that strategically there are a lot of questions about what this war has actually achieved. Iran was managed to shoot down a fighter jet and another plane in their territory. How long can the president keep this going, especially when we do see the data of his approval ratings really taking a hit at this time?

JENNINGS: Well, my view is once you're in something like this, you cannot exit it without achieving the objectives that you've laid out. And I think they've laid out objectives that are worthy and noble. Number one, we're not going to have a nuclear-armed Iran. The president felt like he set a red line on that, and they were crossing it. So, that's number one.

Number two, you're not going to have them be an exporter of terrorism around the world. Number three, you're not going to leave them with a missile and drone program that's intact so they can harass our bases and other countries and people in the Middle East. And number four, you're going to take away an aggressive navy, which we've already done. We've sunk basically their entire Navy.

So, there were some objectives they laid out at the beginning of this. To me, it really starts with, you're not going to let these fanatics have a nuclear weapon. And so, however you wind up ending this, whatever deal there is, you have to be able to tell the American people they are not going to have a nuclear weapon.

One thing that we found out during this whole engagement is that they have missiles that go much farther than they've ever admitted to before. They used to say they only had short-range missiles, but they fired one at Diego Garcia, which is far enough away that if you shot it the other direction, it could hit just about anywhere in Europe.

So, you've got an Iranian regime with longer-range missiles than they've admitted to, with some kind of nuclear material. To me, the way you end this has to start with we've taken that away from them, and I think that's been one of the president's clearest objectives and that's what the American people will be expecting. Whenever that happens, whether that's tomorrow or whether that's six weeks from now, that's what you have to be able to do. DEAN: Yes. But they still have the uranium, and I don't think they can say that they can assure Americans that there's not going to be a nuclear program there today.

JENNINGS: Well, not today, and they haven't done that yet, but the president has said we've taken out, well, first of all, with Operation Midnight Hammer, we set their program back significantly. The real question is the material. And is the material going to stay buried under some rubble? Is it ever going to come out? Is that part of a deal where people go in and get it? You know, these are unanswered questions.

But to me, just as an American who thinks the Iranian regime is terrible and they had it coming for a long time, that's one of the first questions I want answered at the end of this. Did we absolutely, 100 percent, prevent them from ever getting a nuclear weapon that could strike Iran, from Iran to Europe, Middle East, even farther away than that? That's what I want to know.

DEAN: Dan, do you think that he's going to be able to truthfully tell the American people that when it's all over?

KOH: Well, first of all, nobody is -- nobody is questioned that the Iranian regime is terrible. But this is a president who claimed that he had taken care of Iran when he bombed them a year ago. And let's be honest here. We've already spent $40 billion in the war in Iran. The Iraq war with shifting objectives costs us $2 trillion.

To make this human and to make it local for what Scott would know, the entire budget of the state of Kentucky is $40 billion. We'd be able to feed every single hungry kid in Kentucky significant times over with that money. We were able to rebuild the Eastern Kentucky flooding 28 times over. You could go all the way down the list. The addiction program in Kentucky will be paid 1,300 times over with the money we've already spent. We know what happened in Iraq. We can't have it happen again in Iran.

DEAN: Scott, and that -- I think what Dan is getting at is for the average American. And I hear you when you say, look, at the end of this, we can tell Americans that -- hopefully, we can tell Americans that they are safer, that they are free from the threat of Iran. But to Dan's point, and what I'm curious your thoughts are, is they look at all of this and they do say this is really expensive, and I can't afford just to get my family through a day, and I elected this, I voted for this president because he promised to bring costs down, and now gas is more and groceries are still really expensive.

JENNINGS: Well, my answer to Dan is I don't think these things are mutually exclusive. You can have domestic priorities and you can have foreign policy priorities, national security priorities. And the president put down a red line a long time and for really his entire adult life. He has been a hawk on Iran and has said they're never going to have a nuclear weapon. And as he said in his speech to the country the other night, that really taking that away from them is an investment for your children and your grandchildren to live in a safer world. And so, you know, I hear the comments about the money, but at the same time, you know, the president of United States is the commander-in- chief and he has a job responsibility to keep us safe. And if he is judged that a fanatical regime that has been at war with us for 47 years is on the brink of or about to obtain a nuclear weapon, you know, you would expect them to do something about that, and that he has done.

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I frankly think this is overdue. I think past presidents may have let this fester for too long. And now, it's this president that had the courage to do something about it. So, I don't think it's an either or. I think you can meet your domestic obligations and also take care of national security. I think that's what the president is doing.

DEAN: Can you do it both at the same time?

KOH: Scott, MAGA --

DEAN: Yes. Go ahead, Dan.

KOH: Scott, MAGA Republicans have talked about spending, deficit spending forever. This president has added more to the deficit than any president in modern history. When you have this kind of money being spent overseas, when the budget gap would be solved in Kentucky for teachers in five hours of what we're spending in Iran, I think people are questioning the priorities of this president. That's why his approval rating is so low and that's why 74 percent of independents don't agree with this war.

DEAN: All right. We're going to have to leave it there. Scott and Dan, it's always great to see both of you. I really do appreciate it. Thanks so much.

JENNINGS: Happy Easter.

DEAN: Good to see you.

KOH: Happy Easter.

DEAN: The mission we've all been waiting for, the historic lunar flyby, now less than 24 hours away. And the Artemis II crew is testing its spacesuits right now. You're looking at it. We're going to follow it all when we come back.

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DEAN: In less than 24 hours, four astronauts on the Artemis II mission will lay their eyes on the far side of the moon. And the journey will take the crew farther into space than anyone has ever gone. CNN's senior national correspondent Ed Lavandera is joining us now from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. What's on the agenda today, Ed?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it has been fascinating to watch, the crew, which I'll get to here in a second. NASA has just released one of the latest images that the astronauts have captured. And take a look at this photo through one of the windows in the capsule. And that little dot you see there in the distance, that's us. That is Earth. The astronauts are now more than 200,000 miles away from us here on Earth. They're under 55,000 miles to the moon.

And it is just a fascinating, if you think about it, where they are. They have the moon in front of them, they have the Earth behind them, and they are on this journey. So, they are hours away from entering into the lunar sphere. And in about 24 hours or so, they are going to be approaching the far side of the moon.

If you look inside the capsule throughout the day here, Jessica, the astronauts have been working with their -- what is known here in NASA terms as the Orion Crew Survival System. We call it the spacesuit. But they have been kind of practicing, essentially putting that on in the -- in zero gravity conditions. If you notice the video images coming out of the capsule today, much more crowded because they have recreated their seats and gone through all of that. They've been testing if there's any leaks in the suits, kind of going through all of these.

Remember, this is a test mission and the goal of all of these is to make sure that they have everything, continue practicing all of these different events, all of these different scenarios so that future missions have gone through this trial and error and they can kind of continue building on that.

But right now, as we are approaching, get closer and closer to the moon, astronauts really talked about what -- how emotional and how profound it is to see the moon getting closer and closer to them.

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CHRISTINA KOCH, MISSION SPECIALIST: I think that one of the interesting things that happens when you look at a moon that inherently just looks different is like the darker parts just aren't quite in the right place and something about you sense that is not the moon that I'm used to seeing. And sure enough, we got out our lunar targeting information, we matched up, and we're, like, that is the dark side. That is something we have never seen before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: So, Jessica, this crew really getting ready for this incredible moment that's going to be happening. They've got a fleet of cameras to capture all of these. Remember, they're going to be seeing parts of the moon that really have never been seen. So, part of what they're doing is, these cameras, to document as best as they can images of this moon because all of these images will be analyzed and studied and will be really important for future missions as they figure out and prepare for future missions landing on the moon at some point. Jessica?

DEAN: All right, Ed Lavandera from the Johnson Space Center, thank you so much for that. And still ahead here, a closer look at the rescue operation for the airman who was shot down in his fighter jet over Iran and then evaded, captured behind enemy lines. You're in the "CNN Newsroom."

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DEAN: New details now on the dramatic rescue mission of the second U.S. airman overnight shot down over Iran. Iranian state media has released this video confirmed by CNN showing a wreckage site after President Trump announced special forces rescued the crew member of that downed F-15 fighter jet. Sources telling CNN two damaged special operations aircraft had to be blown up during the daring operation involving hundreds of troops and intel officials.

CNN's Jim Sciutto is in Jerusalem with more on the effort to get that service member out from behind enemy lines.

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: This was a daring and dangerous operation involving dozens of aircraft, hundreds of U.S. military and intelligence personnel, but also the remarkable actions of this military pilot. The U.S. carried out multiple efforts at once, of course, launching this search and rescue team, but also the CIA carrying out a disinformation campaign inside Iran to spread false information that both pilots had already been rescued by then.

That, of course, wasn't true. The U.S. was searching desperately for the pilot. The CIA helped locate him. But the pilot himself went 7,000 feet up a ridge line, hid inside that ridge line, as the CIA pinpointed the location, and then those aircraft and those commandos went in to get him out.

[17:39:59]

This all began on Friday when, of course, that F-15 went down. The U.S. got their first communication from him Friday night indicating he was injured. That, of course, added to the urgency of this. But very much a happy ending. That pilot on his way home. A great relief to the U.S. Military and also, of course, to his family and loved ones.

Jim Sciutto, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Jim, thank you. And we're joined now by former NATO supreme allied commander, General Wesley Clark. General Clark, good to see you. I just first want to get your -- get your reaction to what is an incredible rescue mission. GEN. WESLEY CLARK, FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: So proud of our troops. Such a great operation. A lot of really brave men and women in that. Smart. Did what had to -- they had to do. And the crewman on the F-15, really capable. And the A-10 pilot who got back into Kuwaiti airspace. All heads at play. That's what we train for, that's what we expect, and we deliver.

DEAN: Yes.

CLARK: We're good.

DEAN: Yes. To see it actually happen was really, you know, and to really hear the details, it is really something and it does make you certainly quite proud of them.

CLARK: You're right.

DEAN: Yes. I want to ask you, too, about the president's escalating threats to Iran around reopening the Strait of Hormuz. He has been saying that Iran needs to make a deal with the U.S. or, as he said today, he's threatening to hit the country's power and energy infrastructure. What are these energy targets? What is the significance if we were to indeed hit them? And what kind of impact might that have also on the Iranian people?

CLARK: Well, there's no doubt that if we hit power plants and depending on where they are and who they're supporting, they're going to have an impact on the population. They also make a really significant statement to the regime that it can't endure.

But what it looks like to me is it's better and worse than it looks, Jessica. First of all, it says that we're running out of strategic targets that are strictly military. They do have these missile cities. We haven't actually been able to destroy them yet. We're going to have to adapt technologies to do this. We're going to have to learn to stay overhead, stare at them, and then take them apart piece by piece to stay on the military piece.

When you go after the civilian targets, they're there, they're significant, they will impact the regime. There's a limited number of them. And once that's done, if the regime doesn't come along and do what we want, then we may be near the end of what we can do with that kind of escalation. We may be into a long drawn out air campaign, working against the Iranian forces on the ground, the IRGC, their forces in the field, their equipment, everything about them.

So, it's not clear. I know the president wants this over. And it would be a great thing if the Iranians open the strait. They don't have it all that well. They've taken tremendous losses. They have some rebellion in some small areas. They have apparently lost control at least one place. They're under heavy pressure. Their leadership is torn, fragmented. And some want to stop and some want to continue. So, it's -- as it -- at this point in a war, it's in the balance right now. And I hope the president's threats will be listened to by the Iranians. I hope they'll say, OK, we've had enough. But we don't know that they will. DEAN: Yes. It does seem as if we're kind of at a real inflection point

right now for all the reasons you just described, either going more towards an escalation or is there a diplomatic off ramp with these talks, where might we be headed.

I'm curious what your thoughts are. Obviously, we've been talking about on the show, militarily, this has been quite successful in the sense that the military has been able to effectively target thousands of targets. But in terms of achieving strategic objectives and what the U.S. has gotten out of this, how would you rate that at this time?

CLARK: Well, we haven't obtained the strategic objective yet. In fact, we've been very tactically successful against the targets that we identified over the years, but they haven't had the strategic impact yet that we want them to have.

And we had two major vulnerabilities that we knew about in advance, but we have been unable to prevent, really. And that was the attack on our allies and partners in the Gulf. The Emirates and the Saudis, the Kuwaitis have been hit pretty hard right now. They signed up for us -- with us for protection, and we haven't been able to deliver it.

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And we knew that the Strait of Hormuz could be closed and that that would have a significant effect. And we knew kind of how hard it would be to open it. And for that reason, previous administrations have shied away from it. But we decided to go forward with the attack. And so, we just don't know where this is going, Jessica.

But it's pretty clear that it's going to be difficult. No matter what the president says, it's going to be difficult to walk away with the Strait of Hormuz closed. Our allies expect us to do something about it. The world will look at the United States and say, strategically, you took out a bunch of Iranian military targets, but you cost us the whole economic structure of the petroleum industry. And so, I think the pressure is on.

But it's always this case in a conflict like this. You don't always see the ending. You don't always have a clear plan. There's clear diplomacy at work. And it's really up to us to put the pressure on the Iranians, to show the strength and convince the Iranians, the jig is up, you need to open the strait, knock it off. That's what we hope the president's threats will do.

And we've got a lot of combat power. Now, if we have to go in on the ground, that raises all kinds of other issues. And so, we don't want to move into a ground campaign to say take an island and think that that's bargaining chips. They may not bargain when we take that island and we make losses. So, if we're going in on the ground, we've got to have decisive force, and that means more than a Marine Expeditionary Unit.

DEAN: All right. We'll see -- we'll see how this evolves. A critical 48 hours. General Wesley Clark, thank you so much. We appreciate it. And still ahead, we know the Artemis II crew is headed to the moon. The question is, again, why? Why are they -- what are they building toward it? An astrophysicist joins us after the break to talk about that.

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DEAN: The Artemis II crew is now about 50,000 miles away from flying by the far side of the moon to prepare for this big moment. The crew is currently testing out their space suits and will later perform a trajectory maneuver to fine tune their path to the moon.

Joining us now, Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and editor of "Jonathan's Space Report." Jonathan, thanks for being here with us. In just a few hours, the crew is going to enter the lunar sphere of influence. Why is this so important? Help people understand what this is and its significance.

JONATHAN MCDOWELL, ASTROPHYSICIST, EDITOR OF "JONATHAN'S SPACE REPORT": Right. So, what's happening now, right, is that we threw Artemis up really hard, it's sailing up into space, and the Earth's gravity is trying to pull it back, so it's slowing down. But in a few hours' time, the tug of the moon will start to beat the tug of the Earth. Artemis will start speeding up as it falls down toward the moon. And that's the lunar sphere of influence, is when the moon's gravity wins the tug of war with the earth. Artemis is going to speed toward the moon, just miss it, whiz around, and then head back to the earth.

DEAN: The gravity is an amazing thing and it is amazing that it can help them out in that way. I know that at the briefing yesterday, they were talking about the science questions that they had come up with, that they've been talking and teaching these astronauts who are jacks of many trades to be experts in geology and other things so they can know how to describe what they're seeing. What are they hoping to learn from this part of the mission?

MCDOWELL: Right. Really, you know, the science that they're trying to do is just use the astronauts' eyes as a really sensitive way of spotting little color differences on the surface that are clues to different kinds of rock, different kinds of processes going on.

Honestly, though, science is not the core thing here, right? What we're doing is a test flight of the Orion spaceship. And we're really trying to find out how do the astronauts operate near the moon, can they successfully communicate back to earth from that distance, do the systems of the spacecraft work well while they're going around the back of the moon. And so, you know, that made a big deal of the science yesterday, but it's -- I would say it's pretty peripheral.

DEAN: OK. And so, to that point, I think that leads right into my next question which is, how this mission kind of sets the stage for future trips? And in just a few years, if things stay on track, obviously, they want to try to land on the moon again in 2028. So, it sounds like, to your point, that's a lot of what they're doing, trying to set the stage for that.

MCDOWELL: Absolutely. It's a test flight. It's a test flight. For the first time, we're having humans on board this spaceship. It's laying the stage for not just landing people on the moon in a couple of years from now, but having a permanent base on the surface of the moon in the years to come. And beyond that, sending astronauts to the asteroids, to Mars, to the rest of the solar system.

So, while Apollo was, yes, let's go plant the flag and beat the Russians, Artemis is -- we're now -- we're playing the long game now where we're starting the settlement of the solar system, and this is the first step along that path.

DEAN: Wow. And so, what are you watching for in the coming days?

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MCDOWELL: Right. Well, I mean, certainly that moment when now they've left the gravitational field of the Earth, they're in the gravitational field of the Moon, first time since 1972. That, for me, is a big milestone.

I want to see, you know, maybe the Earth rise over the moon's limb as they start to head back. And there's close up views of the moon from the cabin. We've got robots orbiting the moon that gives really great views. But it's a little different when you know the person is actually seeing it directly.

And then what I'm really waiting for is those parachutes to come out after the 25,000 mile-an-hour reentry where they come in a screaming fireball and hopefully plop down safely in the Pacific just off San Diego Friday next week.

DEAN: We'll all be cheering when that hopefully happens. Jonathan McDowell, thank you so much. Good to see you.

MCDOWELL: Thank you.

DEAN: Still ahead here in the "CNN Newsroom," President Trump issuing new threats and a deadline for Iran, saying fully open the Strait of Hormuz or face severe consequences.

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