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Inside Politics

Trump Floats "Regime Change" To "Make Iran Great Again"; Top Iranian Commander: "We Will Never Back Down"; Trump Pledge To End Endless Wars Tested By Iran Strikes; IDF: Israel Strikes More Military Targets In And Around Tehran; VP Vance: We Aren't At War With Iran; Qatar Temporarily Closes Airspace Due To Security Concerns; Putin Hosts Iran Foreign Minister At Kremlin. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 23, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN CO-ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: It's a storybook ending for the leagues' best regular season team, led by regular season and finals MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. And it marks their first championship since the franchise relocated from Seattle. Congratulations to Oklahoma City.

And thank you to our viewers for joining us this morning. You can always keep up with us on social media at Wolf Blitzer and at Pamela Brown, CNN. We'll see you back here tomorrow, every weekday morning, 10 am Eastern. Inside Politics today with Manu Raju starts right now.

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Today in Inside Politics, a battlefield of unknowns. World is bracing for Iran's next move, as a country warns the United States will pay for bombing three of its key nuclear facilities. U.S. officials are racing to assess the damage and determine if Iran still is a nuclear threat.

Plus, regime change. President Trump is floating that idea to quote, make Iran great again. The White House claims he's simply raising a question, but it underscores the crucial concern across the political spectrum. How does this all end?

And Wall Street is zeroing in on the Strait of Hormuz amid growing fear Iran could retaliate by disrupting that essential shipping lane, which would send oil prices through the roof. The president's response calls to drill, baby drill.

I'm Manu Raju in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

We start overseas, where Israel and Iran are trading a fresh barrage of fire today. The IDF says it struck the heart of Tehran. And CNN Fred Pleitgen experienced it on the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We've just witnessed a massive air strike here on the area of sort of northern central Tehran. We actually went downstairs into a shelter once we heard planes overhead, and then we heard explosions. You can see now, the sky over the northwest of Tehran is completely filled with smoke.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And this was the scene as Iranian fire hit Ashdod, a major port city in southern Israel. Here in Washington, the White House is reiterating the weekend strikes in Iran succeeded in obliterating Iran's nuclear program. The U.N. nuclear watchdog says the attack caused significant damage, but it's still too early to fully assess the impact.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins is live for us at the White House. And CNN, you have new reporting on the president's responses as cleaning crisis. Tell us what you've learned.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Manu. The president has been closely tracking the coverage of the strikes ever since he made the decision to go ahead with this and ultimately culminated in those strikes on these three sites that we saw playing out on Saturday night. He has spent the time since getting briefed and updated by his own national security team. He's actually got a meeting coming up here in the next hour with his national security team inside the Oval Office. It's scheduled for around 1 pm and we'll see if any updates come out of that.

But they're obviously keeping a close eye on what was just playing out in Fred's shot right there, as Israel is striking Iran. And also, they are waiting to see how Iran chooses to respond and what the scale of that retaliation is going to look like. It's something that they've been tracking closely, obviously, with some 40,000 U.S. troops stationed in the region. It's been a big concern of theirs that they've been tracking.

As the president has been watching all this play out and maintaining that Iran's nuclear program was obliterated that Manu as you just noted. There are still real questions about the extent of the damage that was done and what exactly that looks like.

And it also comes after we heard the president yesterday contradicting what we had been hearing from top officials, including the Vice President J.D. Vance, the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, about what ultimately is the goal with Iran beyond dismantling its nuclear program, also the question of regime change.

And after the president seemed to float this idea yesterday that that could be on the table. This is what the Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told our colleagues this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president posture and our military posture has not changed. The president was just simply raising a question that I think many people around the world are asking, if the Iranian regime refuses to give up their nuclear program or engage in talks, but if they refuse to engage in diplomacy moving forward, why shouldn't the Iranian people rise up against this brutal terrorist regime? That's a question the president raised last night. But as far as our military posture, it hasn't changed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: So obviously, Leavitt, they are seeking to explain what the president was saying. This has generated a lot of push back from Republicans who were deeply skeptical of the strikes in the first place and of what is going to come next year. There was a blistering statement from Marjorie Taylor Greene earlier, saying, essentially, this is not what they voted for, saying that now six months in, quote, we are back to foreign wars, regime change and World War III.

The White House has been closely watching to see what that response has been like, Manu, and all of this comes, I should note, as the president is expected to leave the White House here tomorrow to go to the Hague for the NATO Summit, where he's going to be meeting with world leaders. Now these strikes and what the Iranian response is going to look like will be hanging over all of that.

[12:05:00]

RAJU: Yeah. I'm sure dominating that discussion too. CNN's Kaitlan Collins live for us at the White House. Thank you. And I'm joined by an excellent group of reporters here at the table, CNN's David Chalian, Molly Ball of The Wall Street Journal, Hans Nichols of Axios, and CNN's Kristen Holmes. Nice to see you all after quite an eventful weekend to say the least.

This obviously such a strategic gamble by this president to take this step, a huge political gamble as well. And unlike when George W. Bush made the case to -- try to make the case the American public for going into Iraq. This was months and months in the making. This happened pretty quickly. There was not as much of a push to sell this as an imminent threat to the United States, and the implications to here are really unknown over Trump's move.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yeah. I mean, that's why I think you feel like so many aspects, so many factors, so many players in this bracing, like bracing for what the Iranian response is going to be, bracing for how Israel continues to play out its conflict with Iran, the bracing for the political fallout inside this White House, and this is still an evolving thing.

To your point about sort of making the case in advance the American people. I do think that is something that is worth watching, because even some of President Trump's most stalwart allies, who may have expressed skepticism about this in advance, like Steve Bannon.

But who are holding their fire in terms of like, not criticizing him fully for taking the action, but urging him that he hasn't yet done enough to explain to the American people where the American national security interests really were here to justify this and how they're fortifying protection going forward.

RAJU: And which is why the message is so essential at this point, selling this to the American public, selling it to the world, about why they took this rather unprecedented action. And you saw yesterday, Vice President Vance, we saw Pete Hegseth said, this is not about regime change. This is not about regime change. And then Trump's post from yesterday, raising the question, as Karoline Leavitt said. Just raising the question, why couldn't there be regime change?

Kristen, you cover the White House. Is this -- how problematic is his view this comment by the president?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well. So, I think there are two things going on here. One, you talk about seeing Rubio and Hegseth. We also saw Karoline Leavitt this morning on television, not just talking to reporters. They are doing a full court press here in their effort to try and spin the narrative that this isn't war. You heard Vice President J.D. Vance saying, this isn't war with Iran. This is war with a nuclear program.

They are trying to spin this as we had to do it. They had a nuclear weapon, or they might have used it, and also trying to send the message that we're trying to be done here. This isn't going to be a long-term conflict, which even though, right now, we don't know what this is going to look like, and we don't know what's going to happen next.

Now on the regime change, when his team and when you talk to his team, they were really trying to stay away from this idea of regime change. We heard them directly say it. We saw Karoline Leavitt just a few days ago, sidestep a question directly. Does the Trump administration support a regime change? And now you have the president going out there and talking about it.

And one thing that I will say about all of this is that this is coming at a time where President Trump has been really trying to push forward on this idea that he could get a diplomatic resolution, that now Iran was very weak, particularly weak when Israel strike. Now even weaker that we have -- that the United States has struck their nuclear capabilities. And now he's not getting the reaction from Iran that he wanted.

He is not getting Iran saying, OK, we want to come make a deal. Instead, you're seeing the foreign minister of Iran saying, how could we trust you? So now you're seeing a new line coming from President Trump, which is, maybe we'll support a regime change.

RAJU: Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about this MAGA divide that is playing out within Donald Trump's own base. And one big reason why there's this divide is because of what Trump himself said along the campaign trail, promising to end foreign wars.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I want to tell you they lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none, and they knew there were none. Sometimes it seemed like there wasn't a country in the middle east that Hillary Clinton didn't want to invade, intervene in or topple. We will turn the page forever, one of those foolish, stupid days of never-ending war. If Kamala wins, only death and destruction await, because she is the candidate of endless wars. I am the candidate of peace. I am peace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So, I mean, this is dating from 2016 through 2024. A consistent message for Trump. And this is what Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of his closest allies, has said, just this morning in the aftermath of the strikes. She said, only six months in and we're back into foreign wars, regime change and World War III. It feels a complete bait and switch to please the neocons, warmongers, military industrial complex contracts and neocon TV personalities that MAGA hates and who were never Trumpers. It's pretty -- it's pretty strong --

[12:10:00]

HANS NICHOLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: It's a pretty strong stuff. It's one member of Congress. I don't mean to diminish any single member of Congress, but it's just one member. And to me, the bigger issue is that there haven't been many elected Republican officials who have come out and criticized the president, which shouldn't be that surprising to us, because it hasn't happened for the duration of Trump's first Trump 1.0 in the first six months.

So that could change this week. We're likely to get a vote on this sort of War Powers Resolution act, War Powers Resolution act -- War Powers Act Resolution, excuse me. And that will give us a sense if there's any real dissent in the Republican Party. But you know, that's our urgent task for the week is figuring that out. I suspect not.

RAJU: But Trump still has to pay attention to that, those voice on the right.

MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Absolutely. I mean that message from President Trump consistently through two campaigns, that was a winning message. It was a message that was very much, I think, in tune with the sort of pulse of not just the Republican base, but the American people who were tired of these kinds of entanglements. And that was an argument he prosecuted very successfully.

And I think, Hans is exactly right that you're not -- you're going to see Republicans largely fall in line behind the president, as they normally do in the -- in official Washington. However, I do think that the significance of Marjorie Taylor Greene is she is also someone who really has her finger on the pulse of that MAGA base. She understands where they're coming from, and she channels their perspective very effectively.

And so, I think if she's seeing this as exactly the kind of neocon warmongering that MAGA was invented to drive out of the Republican Party. I think she is someone that, first of all, the president is definitely going to take notice of. And second of all, she's clearly hitting upon something that's really out there among the base of the party.

CHALIAN: But to Hans' point, it is so far, a lonely voice, or if not lonely, not the majority of what we're hearing right now, even from MAGA Republicans. So, I agree with you about official Washington. But I think we have to not pre-suppose that there is -- that the divide that existed before the attack that we saw play out publicly is going to exist in these hours after.

I think the facts on the ground are going to determine that to a large extent. So, I think it's a space to watch. I don't think we should over accentuate that there's this huge divide in his movement. He's pretty confident. He can bring the movement along. I was with Bannon last week at this event with reporters. He said, he thinks if the president took action, a lot of MAGA would come with him.

So, yes, it's a voice you have to pay attention to. Like you said, there's no doubt. She does have her finger on the pulse. But right now, it just is not, I would describe like his coalition is in a complete divide.

RAJU: But the threat that Trump is trying to do is to stamp out any dissent within the ranks. Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who I talked to yesterday about this. I asked him about Donald Trump's handling of this issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Did he break a campaign promise on this?

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): Absolutely, he broke a campaign promise. And there, a lot of the base will say that, although not too many of my Republican colleagues will say that. They're frankly afraid of him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And this is how he's starting to stamp out dissent. He's putting out Truth Social after Truth Social, calling for Thomas Massie to lose his primary next year, and saying he'd campaign against him too.

HOLMES: Well, they're saying they're going to put money behind it too as well, that they're going to actually put forward an entire campaign against Massie. But Donald Trump has had an issue with Thomas Massie for quite some time. And this isn't just about this. Yes, he's annoyed that he's --

RAJU: Is it to send a message to the rest of the party --

HOLMES: It is. It is to send a message to the rest of the party. But I really have to agree with David, just on the fact that, at the end of the day, how everybody falls is going to be only after we learn what actually happened on the ground.

And again, that's part of this whole spin that we're seeing from the White House out there, talking about this is not a war. They are trying to send a message to the public that that's what they want. But we just don't know how this ends until we actually see, one, the results of what happened, how successful those strikes were. And two, what the next step Iran takes us.

RAJU: Yeah. A lot of huge questions ahead. All right, coming up for us. The world is on edge, wondering how and when Iran will unleash the threat to make the United States pay for those strikes. One country where a lot of American troops are based, just temporarily closes airspace. CNN is live in the middle east, after the break.

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[12:15:00]

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RAJU: We're following significant developments across the middle east. Qatar is temporarily suspending air traffic due to regional security concerns as Iran vows to retaliate against the United States for its weekend strikes. Qatar is home to a large American military base. And this comes after more Israeli strikes in Iran, including one targeting a notorious Iranian prison.

It's part of the latest Israeli barrage that hit several military sites, including the road to the Fordo nuclear site, according to the Israeli military. CNN's Nic Robertson is live in Tel Aviv. So Nic, tell us what Israel's next steps are in the coming days?

[12:20:00]

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah. We're hearing from a source familiar with the discussions in government, saying that Israel can achieve the majority of its targets within the coming days, within the coming days, making it sound as if it could be quite a short period of time, working to finish targets and operations to promote negotiations, is the way that it's being framed.

What we've seen today is Israel switched targets slightly, not just the Fordo nuclear facility, the approach road (Ph) there, not just the missile systems, the launch sites, the storage systems for those missiles. But actually going after targets that are much closer to the regime inside of Tehran.

The IDF talking about hitting sites that are headquarters and command centers for internal security apparatus for the besieged forces, a paramilitary force that the regime uses with brutal effect to put down anti regime protests. The Evin prison, the infamous Evin prison where the regime in Tehran holds their political prisoners. The doors were blown off there in an apparent strike today.

Israel's defense minister talking about using unprecedented force in Tehran. So multiple of these internal security sites in Tehran, which is -- that's the difference, right? Not external security targeting Israel, but internal suppressing the Iranian population, which gives the sort of impression that this might be a way to enable regime change, no indication that it is -- no indication if it were, how long that would take.

But these actions do seem to point in that direction. Indeed, the Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar put out a tweet, and on that tweet, he said, we warned the Iranians not to target civilians. You might think right that he meant, don't target Israeli civilians, but he said, and they didn't.

So, we did this today. Picture of Evin prison being hit. That really tells you there that what the Israeli government is signaling to the Iranian civilians is that we're supporting you. That does seem again to be indicative of trying to shape the ground potentially for regime change.

RAJU: And it's going to be absolutely a hugely significant moment. We'll see where this ultimately leads to. CNN's Nic Robertson live for us in Tel Aviv. Thank you so much. And the big question gripping Washington, what's next? And could the U.S. be sucked into a much bigger war in the Mideast? Vice President Vance, though, says no.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, we're not war with Iran. Jon, we're at war with Iran's nuclear program, and I think the president took decisive action to destroy that program last night.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right. Let's look at what comes next. We have Barak Ravid of CNN and Axios, and CNN's chief international security editor, Nick Paton Walsh. Good afternoon to you, gentlemen. Barak, first to you. Vice President Vance says there won't be a wider war, as he warned Iran against retaliating. But what are your sources inside Israel telling you about what they think comes next and how much U.S. support could be needed?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL & GLOBAL AFFAIR ANALYST: So, I think what is most interesting is what's going to happen in the next hour with the Iranian retaliation to the U.S. strike in Iran. President Trump is going to convene his national security team at 1 pm. And according to an Israeli official, it is highly likely that around this time, the Iranian retaliation will happen, and it will likely be against a U.S. base in Qatar.

And I think this is -- this might also show us that what the Iranians are going to do could be. I mean, we don't know that for sure, but could be in some way coordinated with the U.S., meaning that the Iranians made sure that the U.S. sort of knows what it's going to do in order to avoid further escalation.

RAJU: Yeah. In Qatar would obviously be a huge significant moment in a decision for the United States, how to respond. Nick, I wanted to ask you about because there are still a number of U.S. troops within range of Iranian strikes. You can see that -- our viewers can see that on your screen there.

As you can see there are more than 45,000 U.S. troops within range of Iran. So, what do you expect? Can we see a direct attack, potentially, some U.S. troops, or even some sort of asymmetric, asymmetric response that targets U.S. interests in the region? NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: I think, from what we've seen in the past, Manu is, look, the fact we're talking about the possibility on cable TV might suggest this is part of some element of telegraphing to reduce the eventual damage of any particular Iranian attack. If indeed, we are going to see something in the hours ahead.

[12:25:00]

And so, I think it's important to point out that Iran is struggling with its ballistic missile program at the moment. According to Israeli assessments, they had 2500 at one point. They have lost 800 on the ground. They haven't even launched, 500 have been launched. And that puts them to sort of roughly the lowest level you might expect a nation to want to retain of missiles that could hit Israel to have a viable deterrent.

So, there's that element, what could they actually fire and still have enough left. And then, of course, there's the fact that the United States has been on high alert, particularly around significant bases like Al Udeid in Qatar and the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain as well, expecting potentially something like this.

So, the calculation for Iran is going to be complex, and that they will ultimately have to see some effect of an attack in order to be able to declare that they've had their retaliation. But at the same time, they're going to have to be clear that they don't cause a spiraling escalation. U.S. President Donald Trump has been very clear about the kind of retaliation that would come after this.

So, I think it's really hard to see exactly what may happen in the hours ahead, this closure. We've been hearing of Qatari airspace to commercial traffic may be the result of some intelligence, or it may simply be the snowballing from an earlier warning by the U.S. Embassy for its staff and people to shelter in place there.

But there are suggestions, I think we've seen in the past how moments like this involve some element of telegraphing, but it's really unclear what happens here. This could just be snowballing misinformation, or it could be something potentially about to happen.

RAJU: And Barak, Russian President Vladimir Putin, is hosting Iran's foreign minister in Moscow today as a show of support. One of his allies, Dmitry Medvedev, said yesterday that, in light of the strikes quote, a number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads. So should the U.S. be worried that Iran's allies, like Russia could help accelerate their nuclear program?

RAVID: It's always good to worry, but I think Vladimir Putin, right now, has bigger fish to fry. I would be highly surprised if the Russians will take any real measures or steps to assist the Iranians, other than political and moral support. I think Putin's interest at the moment is to keep good relationship with Donald Trump and to focus on the war in Ukraine and not to get dragged into what's going on in Iran. So, I don't see anybody at the moment really coming to Iran's help. RAJU: And Nick very quickly, what do you think of this meeting between Russians and the Iranians?

WALSH: I mean, yes, it is a very symbolic show of support. It is, I think, more remarkable though, that we have not seen Russia come to the military assistance of Iran in the way that Iran has to Russia. There are Ukrainian civilians every night pray to Iranian designed or often built, Shahed drones. We've not seen a sudden snapback reflexive response from the Russians. As Barak said, they are way over stretched right now, even in Ukraine.

And so, this is a pivotal moment, I think, for Russia's allies in the region. They lost Bashar al-Assad in Syria late last year. And now potentially they're seeing Iran reeling from a lack of support from Moscow, a defining moment. Certainly, we may potentially see that Russia did indeed offer something. But as it currently stands, I think it's the absence that's more notable.

RAJU: All right. Nick Paton Walsh and Barak Ravid, thank you both for joining and sharing your expertise. Really appreciate it. And as Republicans face their own divide over the president's strikes, where exactly does that leave the Democrats? We'll get into that, next.

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