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Israeli Strikes Intensify in Iran and Lebanon; Trump Slams Starmer; Gordon Sondland is Interviewed about Trump Disagreements; Ali Vaez is Interviewed about Iran; Congress to Vote on War Powers Resolutions; Hegseth Holds Briefing. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired March 04, 2026 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Fight -- the fight is always, how do you become competitive again? And you had -- you had Crockett arguing that the way was to energize the base. Talarico said that you had to build a broader coalition and kind of cut into those Republican suburbs.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: And he campaigned in some districts that Trump won. Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: And he did -- and he did really well in the kind of -- the kind of white collar Texas, Collin Denton outside of Dallas, Williamson and Hays outside of Austin, Austin itself and in Latino Texas. That was the coalition he put together.

The answer, of course, is in Texas, the hill was so big for Democrats you have to do both. You have to mobilize a strong turnout among minority voters who are a bigger share of the electorate now than they were in 2018 when Beto got to 2.6 points of Ted Cruz. But you also have to win those --

CORNISH: Yes, but a lot of people are going to --

BROWNSTEIN: You also have to win those suburban voters that tipped Georgia and Arizona, Virginia, Colorado before them.

CORNISH: But let me ask the question. Everybody is going to look at that kerfuffle over the Talarico interview that raised objections and raised his profile nationally.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. (INAUDIBLE). Oh, yes-huh (ph).

CORNISH: I mean that had to have been considered a turning point that brought us here.

BROWNSTEIN: And he raised a lot of money. Helped him raise a lot of money as well.

Look, I -- you know, maybe. But, like, this followed I mean very closely the 2020 primary, where you had a white liberal against a black state senator. And I think that was 52-48. This was like 53-47. Similar geographic profile where the -- in both cases the African American candidate did well in Dallas and east Texas, which have a larger black population. The white candidate did better in the kind of the white collar suburbs combined with the Latino vote. So, there is kind of some history of that.

You know, the question -- the question is like, against Paxton, you can see a path for Talarico to make this very competitive. You know, whether he can get over the top is another question. Beto O'Rourke, the best recent showing, got to win 2.6 points of Ted Cruz in 2018.

CORNISH: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: And, since then, as I said, the state has grown more diverse. One political scientist said to me, if you get the -- if you get Beto's share of the vote among all the different big groups, demographic groups, and you apply it to today's electorate, that would probably be a winning coalition.

CORNISH: Oh, OK.

BROWNSTEIN: So can -- you know, but that was almost two-thirds of Latino voters.

CORNISH: That's was -- just say.

BROWNSTEIN: And they have moved a lot toward Trump since. They will move back. Will they move enough? And can they break past 45 percent among college educated whites in the suburbs? That's what they have to do. Easier to do against Paxton than against Cornyn.

CORNISH: No, ending on three great questions. Thank you. That's what people are going to be thinking about going forward.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me. Yes.

CORNISH: That's Ron Brownstein. Love his writing. You can check it out at cnn.com.

We're now going to continue with the breaking news coverage of the war in Iran. We're going to take a deeper dive into the president's confusing rationale and ask, with his recent -- with his recent comments, did that make it worse? Not the age of Churchill. That's another thing the president said. Why is he lashing out at the U.K.'s prime minister?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:37:14]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CORNISH: Back to our coverage of the war with Iran. Israel intensifies its strikes on two fronts as U.S. assets come under fire in the Middle East.

So, a consulate in Dubai, a CIA station in Saudi Arabia and a U.S. base in Qatar all sustained hits. This as in less than two hours from now we're also going to talk about the upcoming briefing from the Pentagon. Pete Hegseth is going to be talking with reporters. That's happening at 8:00 a.m. Eastern.

So, this comes as Israel orders residents in dozens of villages and towns to evacuate in southern Lebanon as it launches attacks on the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. So, the Israelis are also striking Iran's ballistic missile sites, as well as a compound where senior Iranian clerics gathered to elect a new supreme leader. It also shot down an Iranian fighter jet.

And we've got CNN's Oren Liebermann live from Tel Aviv to give us an update.

So, let's talk about southern Lebanon. What are Israelis hoping to accomplish there?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF AND CORRESPONDENT: Israel has made clear, and this is from the Israeli military chief of staff just yesterday, that Israel will not stop attacking Lebanon and targeting Hezbollah until the Iran-backed militant group is disarmed. And that's why we see a broadening campaign, not only in Dahieh, which is a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital of Beirut, where Lebanese state media reports that there have been residential buildings struck there and several people killed. Israel says they're going after Hezbollah targets and infrastructure in Beirut.

But also, on top of that, Israel has now ordered, or given an evacuation warning for not specific villages, but basically all of southern Lebanon south of the Litani River. This is a major development over what had been evacuation warnings for individual sites, even though a large number of them now the Israeli military's Arabic language spokesperson issuing an evacuation warning for basically all of southern Lebanon as the Israeli military seizes more positions just north of the border there. So, that is very much an intensifying war on the side of Israel, as we do see some Lebanese, or rather Hezbollah launches into northern Israel, many of which have been either intercepted or landed in open areas.

Meanwhile, in Iran, Israel said just a short time ago, actually, earlier this morning, that an Israeli F-35I fighter jet had shot down in air an Iranian fighter jet, a YAK-130, which is an aging Soviet design, or Russian design, that the Iranians operated. The reason this is significant is two points here. First, it marks the first time that an F-35 fighter jet, the most advanced modern U.S. stealth fighter jet, has shot down a manned enemy aircraft in any theater by any country.

[06:40:01]

And second, it's the first time the Israelis have shot down a fighter jet, an air-to-air kill, in some 40 years, as Israel widens its strikes on Tehran and against the Iranian regime.

Audie.

CORNISH: OK, that's Oren Liebermann in Tel Aviv. And I want to stay with this conversation now about what's happening politically.

President Trump is furious with the U.K. He's claiming that Prime Minister Keir Starmer is being very uncooperative with the U.S.- Israeli mission against Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Trump is angry with Starmer for only allowing the U.S. to use U.K. bases to launch limited defensive strikes against the Iranians.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: This government does not believe in regime change from the skies.

The lessons of history have taught us that it is important when we make decisions like this, that we establish there is a lawful basis for what the United Kingdom is doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: We're bringing in now Salma Abdelaziz, live from London.

As we showed, President Trump kind of lashing out at Starmer. Can you talk about what's going on between the two of them?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Trump yet again, of course, berating and belittling European leaders that he believes are not on side. And across the continent, to be honest, Audie, the response has been fractured, uncoordinated and unclear. You have, of course, here in the U.K., Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who quickly addressed the nation over the weekend and said it would not be involved in initial strikes. He even brought up the lessons of Iraq and said he did not want those to be repeated, but then later went on to say that the United States could use two of the U.K.'s military bases abroad, as you mentioned, for those limited defensive actions.

That was not enough for President Trump, who has lashed out in those comments that, I have to say, have to be about the most insulting comment you could make towards a British leader. The beloved wartime leader, of course, Winston Churchill, comparing and saying this is not what we are dealing with. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is going to face lawmakers in just 30 minutes over those embarrassing comments.

But he's not the only one on the continent struggling to not alienate President Trump while also trying to maintain a balance for needs at home. You also have President Emmanuel Macron, who came out and essentially said, look, this is an intervention that is outside international law and called on the United States to move away from conflict and back towards diplomacy.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON, FRANCE (through translator): Together with Germany and the United Kingdom, we have clearly stated that an immediate halt to the strikes is desirable and that lasting peace in the region will only be achieved through the resumption of diplomatic negotiations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABDELAZIZ: But perhaps the person to face the greatest wrath has been the Spanish prime minister, who went out to say one can be against a hateful regime and against intervention outside of international law.

President Trump has responded by saying that he wants to cut off all trade to Spain.

CORNISH: OK, Salma Abdelaziz, in London, giving us that range of opinion out of Europe.

And so we're bringing back into the group chat Gordon Sondland, former U.S. ambassador to the E.U. under President Trump.

So, I think you understand all these relationships, right, and some of these responses. What I heard in it is, the U.S. and the U.S. population, they're not the only people still thinking about Iraq, still thinking about the past. What do you hear in the way they're responding?

GORDON SONDLAND, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE EUROPEAN UNION: Well, let's go back to what the Europeans are doing and what Starmer and the prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, and Macron are doing as despicable. It really is.

We are taking the risks with Israel to finally, once and for all, fix this problem. Going back to negotiations, as Macron mentioned, means that Iran will have the time and the capability to build up long range ballistic missiles, medium range ballistic missiles, and threaten everyone.

Look how -- look how hard --

CORNISH: But they're also saying, regime from the skies is not something that --

SONDLAND: Well, wait a minute --

CORNISH: No, no, I wanted to address that because it's whether or not they're going to jump in on this particular approach and support this particular approach to doing it. And I don't -- I want to make sure my Pentagon person has -- I'm not the expert here, but I hear them also critiquing how this has played out. JENNIFER GAVITO, SENIOR ADVISER, COHEN GROUP: Yes, I mean, I think

that is absolutely right, there has never been a successful regime change operation from the air, combined with questions, I think, that we're facing here in the U.S. too, understanding what exactly the objective is and how it's meant to be achieved.

SONDLAND: We don't know what's for dinner, but we have to set the table. Setting the table means eliminating Iran's ability to strike externally. What happens internally in Iran, President Trump was very forthcoming. He said, I don't know. I don't know who the new leader is going to be. I don't know whether there is going to be regime change. He doesn't know. And he's telling the truth.

What he does know is, it's a completely different conversation once Iran's ability to strike externally has been eliminated or has been degraded so far that they really are impotent at that point.

[06:45:08]

CORNISH: So, right now, you talked about yesterday, the administration maybe has not the -- done the best job with its explanations.

SONDLAND: Correct.

CORNISH: OK, right now, I think, looking back at some of the polling, a lot of Americans agree with you, does Trump have a clear plan for handling Iran? Sixty percent of adults polled here saying, no.

I want to play for you Marco Rubio over the last, let's say, 48 hours, as he's tried to bring some connective tissue to the rationale.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE (March 2, 2026): We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.

RUBIO (March 3, 2026): I told you this had to happen anyway. The president made a decision. And the decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program. That Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ability to conduct these attacks. That decision had been made.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: The reason why I'm playing this is because he was telling reporters, like, look, why are you saying I said something different than what I said the day before? You laughed when I said connective tissue. Is that not the right description?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I mean, I was listening to that live, and I was like, this is completely laughable on its face, the idea that Israel forced our hand. We have the largest armada in American history, pretty much in the Middle East. We have a deeply integrated operation with the Israelis. The idea that we went for, you know, that if they went first we would be attacked. It makes no sense. And so now they've tried to walk it back.

But, you know, clearly, Netanyahu was here in D.C. on February 11th, had a three hour conversation with the president. You know, this has been well integrated from the -- from the start. And it just fails every commonsense test that they would do something unilaterally.

CORNISH: Also, one other thing. Please, bear with me. I'm going to play you a bit of Megyn Kelly this week on her show talking about this war, because there is that constituency out within MAGA-land with their concerns.

Here she is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGYN KELLY, HOST, "THE MEGYN KELLY SHOW": I've got serious doubts about what we're doing. I support the president. I voted for the president. I campaigned for the president, as you know. But that doesn't mean -- and being a conservative or being a Trump supporter or being part of MAGA does not mean you have to accept another Middle East war without questions. And anybody who tells you that can suck it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Subtle, as always.

Ambassador.

SONDLAND: Well, again, I think we're conflating regime change with neutering their strike abilities. And I look at how difficult this would be if we waited another year or two and continued, as President Macron suggested, additional conversations. While they're sitting in Oman with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, they're building missiles at a prodigious rate. I mean, the Israeli air force is throwing everything at them that they have, plus two carrier strike groups. And this is not easy. I would hate to be the combatant commander 12 months from now, if they continue to, you know, escalate their missile development.

So, this had to be done. It had to be done now. It's not about regime change initially. It's about changing the conversation with Iran once they have no ability to strike externally.

CORNISH: Right. And we're not -- we're not there yet.

SONDLAND: And that -- and that message -- and that -- we're not there yet.

CORNISH: Yes.

SONDLAND: And that messaging is not clear.

CORNISH: OK. Ambassador, thank you so much. SONDLAND: Thank you.

CORNISH: Always a pleasure to have you here.

Stay with us because next on CNN, with this breaking news coverage, we're going to talk about the war powers vote in Congress. So, will the effort even get enough support to rein in the president?

Plus, who will run Iran? The warning this morning as Iranian officials gather to choose a successor.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:53:00]

CORNISH: We're going to talk about a major unknown as we move into this week. Who, at this point, is actually running Iran? We've got three days of national mourning to begin today for the previous ayatollah, Ali Khamenei. And as the ruling clerics of the country gather virtually to name a successor. So, one name rising to the surface is a previous supreme leaders' son. It's unclear if he or other frontrunners are still alive after U.S. and Israeli strikes.

So, Israel targeted the building where Iran's top clerics meet in a new airstrike. Israel's defense minister has also said any new leader appointed would, quote, "be a target for elimination."

So, joining me now, Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group.

I've been reading a lot of your work, Ali, so I'm glad that you are here. You've talked about these strikes opening up pandora's box. But what I want to put to you is this clip of tape from Donald Trump. Something he said about what he thinks a next scenario could be.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who's as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don't want that to happen. It would probably be the worst. You go through this and then in five years you realize you put somebody in who was no better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: He said five years. Could it be sooner than that?

ALI VAEZ, DIRECTOR OF THE IRAN PROJECT, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: Thanks a lot for having me.

Well, this clearly shows that the president is improvising. He has no plan for the day after, no strategy of what comes next. He's just hoping that the pieces would fall in a way that it would work for the U.S. interests.

But this is really a major gamble. Indeed it is quite possible that the most powerful force in Iran, which is the Revolutionary Guards, designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization, would be the one that would determine the fate of the country and the future direction of travel, regardless of whether they're doing it from behind the scenes or from behind the curtain.

[06:55:03]

CORNISH: Now, we have lawmakers who have been hearing from the administration, and I want to show you this tweet from Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari. She said that after the bipartisan briefing, she said, quote, "what was striking, a democratic future for the Iranian people never came up as a priority. I specifically asked. Empowering another faction of the barbaric regime will not bring freedom to the Iranian people."

I wanted to bring this up with you because you have Israel and the U.S. trying to do strikes against the police state, trying to do strikes against those agencies and armed parts of the government that turned on protesters. Will that work?

VAEZ: It's very hard to imagine that it would work because, look, the Revolutionary Guard has about 200,000 forces, more than a million men in arms with its militia and other security forces and they mostly use small arms to repress the Iranian people and massacred them in January. Not tanks and fighter jets or missiles.

So, in order to completely neutralize that kind of repressive capacity, you either have to have boots on the ground or you have to literally flatten huge parts of the country to make sure that these people no longer can repress. But even then, the Iranian people are unarmed, unorganized, leaderless, and it's really hard to imagine that they would be able to take over. So, all of it sounds delusional.

CORNISH: Ali Vaez, I hope to have you back because I want to talk about the names that are emerging. In the meantime, thank you for being with us.

VAEZ: My pleasure.

CORNISH: OK, We're bringing back Ron Brownstein because we've got a few minutes left, and Pete Hegseth is going to hold this Pentagon press conference at 8:00 a.m. I want to start with you guys on this side of the table. What do you want to hear from him? And maybe this is in the context of what you saw from him earlier this week.

BERGEN: Well, I mean, what is the end game?

CORNISH: Yes.

BERGEN: I mean I don't expect that there'll be a good answer. We've got --

CORNISH: Is it too soon for that answer? I know we're talking about it.

BERGEN: Yes. I mean -- well, I mean -- I mean, do they have any scenarios for what the day after looks like? I mean, when we overthrew the Taliban, we appointed Hamid Karzai. He was actually elected by a bunch of Afghan leaders. He led the country for quite some period of time. There were free elections. We just heard about the lack of discussion of elections.

CORNISH: Yes.

BERGEN: So, you know, it's not impossible to have a plan.

CORNISH: Yes. Whether it works, especially given the Taliban is now in power.

BROWNSTEIN: They seem to be staggering toward the rationale they're likely to stick with, which this is about degrading their military capability, not transforming the country.

I would just say that he starts this -- this war, the president is on an extraordinarily narrow ledge in public opinion.

CORNISH: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: Republican voters are with him. So, Republican legislators are with him. But there is very little tolerance for any cost of this.

CORNISH: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: Whether it's casualties or simply higher costs at the pump.

CORNISH: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: You know, you were talking --

CORNISH: Which we didn't even talk about today, global oil market surging.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. I mean --

CORNISH: And we do have a breakdown, some of this polling of Democrats, independents versus Republicans on this question.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CORNISH: Is long term military conflict between the U.S. and Iran likely? I like to look at independents.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CORNISH: We've also been looking at this number of Republicans split 44/44, which means even within the coalition people aren't sure.

ALEXANDER WARD, NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Look, this is wartime jazz. The administration is absolutely improvising in real time, and war is hell, even in the -- when you have best laid plans and when things are going even remotely well. And so -- CORNISH: Yes. I've never heard that term, but it's terrifying. So, wartime jazz, did you say?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

WARD: Yes.

CORNISH: This is not an area -- yes.

BROWNSTEIN: No, yes, that's a new phrase. That's a good phrase.

WARD: I mean, right, this is -- and so they have no plan. There's no strategy. They're saying that openly. They -- they're, like, quite literally admitting that this is all being done in real time. And if you're the American public, you want to know what the government's doing in your name, and you want to know that if you're going to war and you're risking the lives of American sons and daughters, and it's been six so far --

CORNISH: Yes, so far six. Yes.

WARD: Then that you actually know what you're aiming to achieve. And in this case, they are literally saying, we'll figure it out as we go along.

CORNISH: We have just a few seconds left. Give me your takeaway here for (INAUDIBLE).

GAVITO: That I completely agree with Ron, and Gordon before him, that they do seem to be stumbling to this justification of degrading the capabilities. But at the same time, overnight these reports about arming the Kurdish factions in Iraq also suggests that they're dabbling at the same time in the potential for trying to foment regime change.

CORNISH: Yes. Just to give people some context here, you do have ethnic minorities, sectarians who want their own state. You do have people who are ex-monarchists who want to bring back the son of a shah. You do have people who are ex kind of -- from ex terror groups who are saying, look, now we are ready to have a democratic leadership. There's a lot of names on the table.

GAVITO: But very quickly, what you're likely to get out of that scenario is chaos.

BROWNSTEIN: And the backdrop for all this, you're eight months from the midterm election with a president who is starting at his lowest approval rating, really, at any point of his two terms.

CORNISH: Did you just say starting?

[07:00:00]

BROWNSTEIN: Start -- starting the war at a low -- at his lowest point in public approval, only eight months from an election, undertaking a totally volitional war of choice that most Americans oppose. Yes, Republicans are in line now, but the clock is ticking toward November.

CORNISH: Yes. Well, we're going to hear from Pete Hegseth today. I -- he will take issue with the term war of choice. I think we're going to be hearing more backtalk to that this week.

But thank you for waking up with us. And stay with us, we've got more headlines next.