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CNN Live Event/Special

Iran Fires At Least 180 Missiles Into Israel As Regionwide Conflict Grows; Israel's Netanyahu Says Iran Will Pay After Missile Attack; Iran Warns of Broader Strikes if Israel Responds to Attack; Police Step Up Security at U.S. Places of Worship Amid Attacks; Trump Compares Soldiers' Traumatic Brain Injuries to "Headaches". Aired 1-2a ET

Aired October 02, 2024 - 01:00   ET

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

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[01:00:32]

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to CNN special live coverage. I'm Kaitlan Collins. The Middle East is on the brink tonight, as the world is watching and waiting to see what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, definition of payback looks like after this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. OK, guys, we got to get off the roof. These are coming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Rockets fired by and from Iran that pierced the Israeli sky earlier today. On the ground, the sound of air raid sirens, 180 missiles in all launched during the assault, sending millions of people racing to bomb shelters.

Israel says tonight that the Iranian strike had no impact. Air defenses ended up intercepting many of those missiles that were fired by Iran, though, I should note some did land in the central and southern parts of the country.

One Iranian missile hit a school in central Israel, and this burst out of Iran is just the latest moment in a year that has been filled with many of them test new ones. Israel's warplanes assassinated Hezbollah's leader just last week, months after erasing Hamas is political leader from the battlefield, and now tonight, Israelis Prime Minister says Iran has made a mistake with this attack and is also dramatically underestimating their determination to retaliate.

We have CNNs reporters posted around the globe tonight, from Tel Aviv to Beirut, even at the Pentagon, covering every single breaking development on this fast moving story. I want to start with CNN's Becky Anderson.

Becky, obviously, as we're looking at all of this, the major question as it stands right now is how and when Israel is going to respond to this attack?

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, absolutely, I mean, it's just after eight o'clock in the morning here in Israel, and people waking up to a country largely intact after what was an unprecedented Iranian ballistic missile attack on its military and security infrastructure.

The teams here in Tel Aviv and those of our teams, not just around Israel, but around the region, were witness to what was really the most remarkable attack, as missiles came piercing through the sky. As you described it, those sirens were wailing.

This was around 7:30 in the evening, so around about 12 hours ago, this was an attack which had been warned of the U.S. putting out a statement earlier on in the day, suggesting that an imminent ballistic missile attack was imminent from Iran.

But when it came, it was ferocious, as many as 200 ballistic missiles, scale and scope of this really absolutely extraordinary and bigger in scale and scope given the use of these ballistic missiles and the attack here back in April, which was pretty much thwarted.

Now, as you rightly suggest, most of these missiles were intercepted by both the Israelis and the Americans, they say, in coordination with the Israelis and allies around this region who helped. But as you rightly point out, some of those missiles did end up hitting the ground across Israel and in the West Bank.

Sadly, one Palestinian in Jericho losing their life, and there have been other casualties. Now, the sites targeted, Mossad headquarters, just on the fringes of Tel Aviv here, and a couple of the very strategic air bases, one to the south, where the assessment on damage is still ongoing, but the IDF has said its Air Force still has full operational ability.

And as you rightly point out, the warnings are that retaliation will come, not just against Iran, and we'll speak to that in a moment, but also against Hezbollah, and overnight, we have seen further attacks by Israel on targeted attacks, perhaps they say, on Beirut in its southern suburbs.

[01:05:07]

They say reports suggest and the IDF standing this up that two senior Hezbollah commanders have been assassinated there.

So despite the fact that we haven't yet seen the retaliation by Israel on Iran, and that could be, for example, on nuclear facilities, on its oil infrastructure, on its counter strike facilities, those launching pads from where these missiles were launched. We do continue to see the eye the Israeli operations against Hezbollah Iran backed Hezbollah's assets in Beirut. Kaitlan.

COLLINS: Yes, we're watching it all very closely. Becky Anderson, you're live in Tel Aviv. If you get any word of a response from Israel, what they've decided will obviously come back to you as we check in throughout this hour. I also want to go to Beirut. That's a refined, CNN's Jomana Karadsheh in Lebanon.

Jomana, obviously, there's a real question there. You know, earlier I was talking to Ben Wedeman. He was describing celebratory gunfire as Iran was launching this attack against Israel earlier, still not knowing what the impact of that was going to be. What's the latest on the ground now?

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know Kaitlan that gunfire that Ben described gunfire, some fireworks coming from the southern suburbs of Beirut. It was pretty limited, pretty small. The southern suburbs is where Hezbollah had a heavy presence in the past. You still have a lot of supporters of the group in the southern suburbs.

So really no surprise seeing that sort of moment of celebration that they had with the Iranian attack on Israel, considering the heavy blows that the group had has incurred in recent days. But overall, the mood in this country is one of apprehension and anxiety. I mean, people are very, very concerned about what is coming next.

As that attack, the Iranian attack on Israel, was unfolding, it did appear for a bit like there was a low in the air strikes that have been pretty much continuous in different parts of the country, mostly in the South, in the eastern Bakar region and here in the southern suburbs.

But within hours of the attack ending in Israel, it seemed that the airstrikes resumed again, with reports coming in from southern Lebanon of intense strikes there. But here in Beirut, we began seeing evacuation orders being posted by the IDF Arabic language spokesperson on his account on X telling the residents of a number of neighborhoods in the southern suburbs to evacuate.

And shortly after that, we began seeing and hearing air strikes there. It's unclear what specifically was targeted. The Israeli military said that it is going after Hezbollah targets and infrastructure and facilities there.

But keeping in mind Kaitlan that was these warnings from the IDF for coming in at about midnight until 3:00 am. This is a time where you would expect most people are sleeping, not really looking at social media. So many people may have not seen these warnings, and those airstrikes started soon after that.

COLLINS: Yes. That's a really good point about when those warnings are coming and if people are asleep, but Jomana, the other question I have is, as Iran obviously often would rely on its proxies like Hezbollah to carry out its attacks, to serve as kind of a deterrence from Israel, maybe responding too forcefully to something like what happened today, given what Israel has been doing over the last several weeks, though, not only going after Hezbollah leaders, but also where Hezbollah stores its weapons, according to the IDF, is there a sense even about what Hezbollah's capabilities are in this moment?

KARADSHEH: You know, Kaitlan, that's the big question right now. Clearly, its leadership, its command structure has been pretty much decimated in recent days, and a lot of these storage facilities where they have stored their weapons have been hit.

But Hezbollah is known to have, according to estimates, to have been storing 100 to even 200,000 medium and long range missiles. So it's unclear at this point how much of that has been destroyed, while it would seem that it is significant hits that it's taken in recent days, I think everyone is waiting to see what happens in the coming days.

You know, since those attacks have increased here we have seen the group still carrying out attacks.

[01:10:03]

Still launching medium range missiles, even longer range missiles, a ballistic missile, obviously interest -- it was intercepted a few days ago in Tel Aviv, but it is still carrying out these attacks. And I think their focus right now Kaitlan is going to be on preparations for close combats when we've heard the Israeli military saying that they have begun these incursions into southern Lebanon, and this is something that in the past, really -- it's what Hezbollah is known for, this guerrilla warfare, so they are probably beginning to prepare for this as we're seeing this happening now.

COLLINS: Jomana Karadsheh in Beirut. Thank you for that report. We'll check back in with you. Also want to go to the Pentagon now. That's where we find CNN correspondent Oren Liebermann. Oren, when this happened in April, the U.S. was able to kind of tell Netanyahu and the Israelis to take the win based on what Iran's response had been and that it hadn't actually they were not really that successful with their the 300 missiles or some that they fired that day.

What's the sense tonight of how much influence the U.S. has on what Israel does next here?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: From this perspective, the attacks are viewed as substantively different. April 13 was a mixture of drones and ballistic missiles, more drones, and that's what makes this attack much more powerful, even though there was a smaller number here, only 180 ballistic missiles, but they are far more powerful than the drones that were launched back in April.

There, it seemed Iran was more sending a message that they were willing to attack Israel. You're right, that most of that was intercepted, and President Biden pushed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take the win, essentially to say, look, the attack didn't do much damage.

Israel had a limited response in Iran that was much the same way. It was essentially sending a message to Iran that Israel could strike sovereign Iran if it wanted to. Now, this attack much larger, and the expectation is that Israel will carry out a much larger response. And we've certainly already seen that threat coming from Netanyahu, from the IDF and from others.

So the expectation is that this one will be bigger. Israel showed in April that it could attack Iran. Now the question, will they go after Iranian nuclear facilities? Will they go after Iran's oil and natural gas that's essentially the lifeblood of Iran's economy right now.

So the question what will they do? President Biden huddled with his top aides to try to get a better sense of what the possibilities might look like and how they will play out, not just Israel's response, but how Iran might retaliate for that.

So, very complex discussions to try to figure out how this goes. The U.S. has made clear they want to talk to Israel about what this might look like over the course of the next several days. So likely those conversations are already happening, but it's a question of when and how big does Israel go here? And what role will the U.S. play in that response.

If any the U.S. making it clear that they will back Israel when it comes to air defense, but offensive, that's a whole different question.

COLLINS: Yes, and we know there's a lot of U.S. troops in the region. More have been moved there in recent days. Oren Liebermann, thank you for that.

Joining me now is the former Defense Secretary, former chief at the Pentagon, Mark Esper. Thank you so much, Mister Secretary, for being here. I want to ask you about something that Barak Ravid of Axios is reporting. He is one of the best reporters on what is happening in the Middle East, and he says tonight that Israel is expected to launch what they are calling a significant retaliation against Iran. What do you think that could look like?

MARK ESPER, FORMER TRUMP DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, good evening, Kaitlan, it's good to be with you. Yes, look, I do agree that the Israel is going to respond, likely significantly. I think what you could see would be airstrikes against military facilities at the high end, their nuclear facilities. They could go try and attack the ballistic missile production facilities and maybe their air -- their missile launch sites. But we also have to keep in mind they could expand it, broaden it by going after economic targets such as oil refining facilities in the Gulf. So, much remains to be seen, but this is clearly a new day in the Middle East.

COLLINS: Well, and so the question is not just how Israel responds here, but if Israel strikes Iran itself, not just a proxy of Iran, and in a significant way, going after its nuclear capabilities, going after an energy facility, maybe an assassination. I mean, the Iranian supreme leader was taken into hiding basically the other day, because they clearly are fearing for his safety.

Does Iran then respond to that? And we just see this continue to go back and forth as the Middle East is put on the brink even more than it is already.

ESPER: Yes. Well, first things first, Iran breached that threshold in April, when it shot though at that point in time, over 300 missiles and drones and cruise missiles at Israel. And that crossed that threshold at this point in time. So I think the fact that if Israel decides to respond to attack Iran directly. [01:15:00]

Yes, Iran may respond. But the fact is, Iran does not want a wider war. I think at this point they've realized they can't -- certainly can't win it, and they've once again proven that their missile capabilities, which we paid close attention to when I was in office, is rather feckless. It's the second time they struck. Last night with over 180 missiles, and they were completely proven ineffective.

So, I don't know what Iran has left to respond with their proxy groups have been decimated in in southern Israel with Hamas, Hezbollah is on the ropes. We see today, this morning, Israel still pressing and will continue to press into southern Lebanon, and we've seen no other reactions out there, with the Houthis are out there, but Israel struck them the other day.

So we could see a tat for tat -- tit for tat response. But at this point in time, Iran is signaling that it does not want a wider regional war.

In fact, Kaitlan, what struck me about last night was, after the attack, what the Iranians said was, we're done. This is a response for the killing of Haniney, Nasrallah and others, but there was no mention the fact that they might attack if Israel goes further into Lebanon. So they kind of left their Hezbollah partners hanging out there. So it remains to be seen. But I think at this point in time, we're all going to watch and see what the next move is by Israel.

COLLINS: And of course, Haniyeh was that major leader of Hamas, Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah that was recently killed. Major blows to both Hamas and Hezbollah. It sounds like you kind of think, based on what we've seen of Iran's capabilities the decimation of the leadership of Hezbollah, that Israel may have freer reign than it did in April to respond here and to go bigger in its response, potentially.

ESPER: Oh yes, absolutely. Kaitlan, you hit the nail on the head. Look, going back to April was a different strategic situation. At that point in time, they were still fighting. They Israel was still fighting. Hamas in Gaza. You still had Ismail Haniyeh in charge. You had Yahya Sinwar there as well. At the same time in in Lebanon, you had Hezbollah intact, its leadership intact. They still have anywhere up to 150,000 rockets and missiles and drones.

And now you have a situation months later where the leadership has been decapitated from both Hamas and Hezbollah, and you've had several Iranian IRGC leaders killed as well. And so I think right at this point in time, Gaza -- in Gaza, they have the situation pretty well under control. And Hezbollah in the north, they're -- they are on the ropes.

And so the fear that if Iran -- if Israel responded to Iran, and Iran would tap its proxy Hezbollah, to shoot 10s, 20s, tens of thousands of missiles against Israel. That seems to be far less of a concern at this point in time. And so thus, as you said up front, Israel has a much freer hand. And as you said in your earlier at the tee up here, it appears that Hezbollah has been so decimated, both the elimination of their leadership and their inability to conduct command and control that we aren't seeing much response from them in the north when it comes to rockets and missiles.

COLLINS: Yes, and Secretary Esper, we just got finished watching the vice presidential debate here tonight between Senator Vance, Governor Walz, both of them did not really answer a question about whether they, as an administration, would support a preemptive Israeli strike on Iran obviously, that's an important question.

But I want to ask you about something else that Donald Trump said today that is relevant to when you were serving as his defense secretary. He was asked about U.S. troops who were injured during an Iranian attack in 2020 on a base in Iraq. Listen to what Trump had to say to reporters.

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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: What does injured mean? Injured means it mean because they had a headache, because the bombs never hit the fort. There was nobody hurt, other than the sound was loud, and some people said that hurt, and I accept that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: You were the defense secretary at that time. Is that how you viewed it just traumatic brain injuries of U.S. soldiers as headaches?

ESPER: Yes, that's obviously not accurate. You know, we talked about this afterward. I wrote about this in my memoir. We went through that entire night trying to get an assessment of what the damage was done to our -- harm done to our troops. I think at the time that Iran launched 13, 14, 15, 16, missiles or so at the Al Asad Air Base, and our troops defended extraordinarily well, but when we got up the next morning, we had no injuries, traditionally, as you would know, but over time, we came to learn as troops did self-reporting and really came to reported some of their symptoms that we had, I think dozens, over 100 cases reported, and several were very serious traumatic brain injuries.

And this is, look, this is a new a new harm from more that we've learned from the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, where concussions, where large blasts, much like were experienced in a ballistic missile attack in Al Assad, can create traumatic brain injuries that they're unseen, if you will, casualties of war.

[01:20:10]

And it took some time to discover these, again, but eventually we over 100 troops reported injuries. Some of them were very serious. I remember visiting a soldier at Walter Reed Hospital couple months later and talking about the attack and what he experienced and so it's quite a traumatic night.

COLLINS: Yes, I don't think they would classify it as just a headache. Secretary Esper, thank you for joining us tonight. ESPER: Thanks, Kaitlan.

COLLINS: Up next, we're going to go to the White House and get new reaction from there as President Biden is weighing the U.S. options here about how to back up Israel, while also trying to avoid a wider war happening in the region.

Plus, the attack is also at the center of the campaign trail, as Donald Trump, Kamala Harris and both of their running mates are all weighing in and pointing fingers in response to what we saw happen. This is CNN special live coverage will be right back.

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[01:25:26]

COLLINS: Tonight, President Biden finds himself facing a very delicate balancing act. The commander-in-chief confronting how to have Israel's back in the face of Iranian aggression today, with that attack while also taking the Middle East off a pathway towards an all-out war.

He monitored today's attack from the Situation Room with Vice President Harris and their national security aides. CNN White House correspondent Kayla Tausche joins me now.

Kayla, obviously it's a big question of how the White House is closely watching what Israel is going to do and how much influence they have over that response?

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, there are real questions, Kaitlan, about the latter part of your question, the level of influence that they could have over any potential response, but what they're trying to do in the meantime is just to keep those lines of communications open, to make sure that if there is a decision by Israel to move forward with a determined plan on how to retaliate against Iran, that they are in the know, they are in the know early, and that they have an opportunity to shape that potential outcome in the hopes of trying to contain any fallout in the region.

Their goal for the better part of a year has been to try to contain this situation from becoming an all-out escalatory conflict in the Middle East that engulfs the entire region, but this is slowly tipping toward that point which has officials on edge.

I'm told that in the Situation Room, that the mood was nervous, that they were pensive as they worried about what this could potentially do to upset whatever balance was left in the Middle East.

Now I'm told, when I talk to senior U.S. officials, that they don't necessarily expect to veto power and whatever Israel decides to do, and they know that they don't have it, but they do want some level of input, considering that there's so much aid, both financial aid and military aid, that the U.S. is sending, and there's also a heavy military footprint in the region that remains there. That was what President Biden said today when he offered his continued ironclad support for Israel, but also said that he was determined to keep American assets and personnel in the region safe.

Now, it's also important Kaitlan to note the distinctions between this strike and the strike that Iran carried out in Israel on April 13, six months ago. Officials acknowledged that what happened in the last 24 hours was on a much bigger scale than what happened six months ago.

Six months ago, the Biden administration was able to encourage Israel to have a more limited response, but they acknowledged that is not possible or not likely to be the case in this situation just because of the size of the barrage of the missiles that were headed toward Israel, the targets, the sensitive military and intelligence targets that they were headed toward.

And of course, you know, the lack of notice that they got from Iran that these missiles were coming, that was also a key difference from now and back in April. So there are many key differences. The Biden administration is monitoring the situation. They understand that they don't have complete control over what Israel ultimately decides to do, but they're trying to exert what little control they may have. Kaitlan.

COLLINS: Yes, it's a good point, and obviously Israeli officials are viewing it very differently as well from that April attack. Kayla Tausche, thank you so much from Washington.

Joining me now with their insights on what we are watching, Bloomberg, Bobby Ghosh, and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Joel Rubin, great to have you both here.

Bobby, let me start with you, because you we've watched Israel and Iran in this dynamic for a while, but especially since October 7, kind of walk up to the ledge of war before and then back away from it. What is the next step here in the sense of, there's a real fear of what the worst case scenario could look like. Which one seems like the most realistic?

BOBBY GHOSH, SENIOR EDITOR, BLOOMBERG BUSINESS: Well, the thing is, Kaitlan, that they never really back away. They walk up to the edge, and they stay there. And then with every action, they seem to sort of shuffle closer and closer to the precipice, and that's the main concern. There's very little backing down that's going on.

As Kayla was saying that this barrage was much more deadly than the one in April, primarily because of the distinction in the kinds of weapons that we use. Ballistic missiles are far more dangerous, travel much faster and can do much greater damage than the cruise missiles and the drones that were fired off in in April.

So, and the problem with every one of these incidents, is that a bar is raised, and both parties then feel that their response has to exceed the one that has just gone before.

[01:30:03]

Iran had to respond and had to respond in a way that was more dangerous and deadly than it did in April. And now, Israel will feel and Prime Minister Netanyahu is saying that it has to respond in an even more punitive way.

So we are now deep into unknown territory. Any predictions about what might come next are fraught. We cannot honestly say because we've not been here before. Iran against Hezbollah -- we've seen that movie a few times. Iran against Hamas definitely. Iran against -- I because your pardon -- Israel against Iran, that's a whole new scenario.

And I for one, would hesitate to offer any kind of guess as to what could come next, except to say, be afraid.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. And you make a great point about how quickly those ballistic missiles travel. I mean, it's within 12 to 15 minutes. We saw cars still out on the road, people who didn't make it to bomb shelters in time as this was all unfolding around noon here Eastern in the United States.

Joel, when you look at this and how quickly Israel's going to respond, that's the question here also. Not just the magnitude of the attacks and how quickly we see it. And in Israel we are approaching Jewish holidays that are starting Wednesday evening in just a matter of hours.

Does that factor into this -- this response from Israel or is that something that, you know, in this moment that's not relevant to when they decide to respond.

JOEL RUBIN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FO STATE: Yes, Kaitlan. You're right about the timing here. It's a very momentous week in the Jewish calendar. The Jewish new year Rosh Hashanah will start tomorrow night. It will be for a couple of days.

And then there's the October 7 anniversary on Monday and then a few days after Yom Kippur. And this is a very intense period in the Jewish calendar and clearly in Israel, the commemoration of the October 7th attacks really brings the country right now, is bringing the country together.

And I think to Bobby's point, these taboos have now been broken and that's the real risk. The taboo of Iran and Israel directly attacking each other was broken in April, a little bit.

the door is now wide open and that's the big concern is that these attacks, unlike in April, they seem very emotional, they seem very aggressive. There was no choreography. No sort of pre-warning the United States and our allies in the Middle East that these would be a limited response and therefore Israel should be careful and calibrated in what it does.

And so yes, I think these are heady (ph) days just to get to your point here, heady days inside Israel in its defense sector and its planning in the prime minister's office.

They feel like they are on the offensive. They feel like now, in many ways they took this blow. It was unsuccessful in terms of having casualties gratefully, thankfully. But now there's this sense of, ok, we've taken their shots and maybe

this is now the time to strike in a way that we have been afraid to have been held back from before, which is very concerning and hopefully will be something that the Biden team is able to continually counsel the prime minister to be very calibrated in any response to not have this continue to grow so that the taboos not only are broken, but that we really do escalate into an all-out -- a direct conflict.

COLLINS: Well, and Bobby, this will have a political lens to it as well, because it was the first question and first topic brought up at tonight's debate.

Obviously, before we could go, that is not what people would've thought would have maybe been the first question asked to Senator J.D. Vance and Governor Tim Walz tonight.

But it was something, given what we've heard from these campaigns. Former President Trump was arguing today that this happened in part because Iran doesn't respect the United States anymore, saying that that's because of President Biden's leadership.

I'm not sure anyone would say that Iran has ever respected the United States. I was just talking about their attacks on U.S. forces from when Donald Trump was in office.

But could you just speak to that in the sense of how Iran does view all this with the idea of how the United States is weighing in on what this response will look like.

GHOSH: Well, Iranians don't care about American domestic politics. I think their actions are not guided by who's likely to win the election. There is some suggestion that Bibi Netanyahu, his actions might be guided by that and he's counting on Donald Trump to win the election and that may factor into some of his calculations. I am personally skeptical about that.

[01:34:45]

GHOSH: In a war situation, you respond to events on the ground, not events taking place thousands and thousands of miles away. And of course, on both sides, there has to be a knowledge that support for Israel is the closest thing to a bipartisan consensus in the United States.

Yes. The president -- President Biden speaks about caution and about the need for ceasefire. Donald Trump is more bellicose and his rhetoric.

But when it comes to actual action neither president, neither party will back down from support of Israel, whether that comes to putting American hardware or military weapons in the hands of Israelis for their own use, or whether it comes to putting American weapons systems, American ships and planes close at hand to protect Israel.

These things are as close as you can get to being written in stone. And I think Benjamin Netanyahu can count on it. And surely the Iranians by now know that to be true.

COLLINS: Yes. It's a great point. We'll have to leave it there. Bobby Ghosh, Joel Rubin, thank you for both being here on such an important issue tonight.

Ahead, we're going to go back live to the region where Iran has just warned of broader attacks if Israel does respond. Israel has already said, it will be responding.

Plus, we're getting new word tonight that police here in the United States are stepping up their security at places of worship after this attack.

That's right after this.

[01:36:16]

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COLLINS: It's daybreak in the Middle East, as we are pulling back the curtain on destruction that happened in a region that was already teetering on the edge.

I'm Kaitlan Collins in New York. It's 1:40 a.m. here on the East Coast, but most of the world's attention is trained on Israel and its neighbors right now.

Blasts happening there overnight, both in Beirut and across Israel as Iran sent a volley after volley flying into the Jewish state. Well, the IDF re-upped (ph) its assault inside Lebanon continuing what has been a week's worth, a barrages aimed at decapitating the Tehran- backed terror group known as Hezbollah.

Back here in the U.S. we're also getting some breaking news as police across the country are stepping up security at places of worship as these attacks overseas are escalating.

I want to get straight to CNN's Josh Campbell, who is breaking this news.

Josh, tell us what it is that has the authorities on edge and why they're stepping up security right now?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes Kaitlan. We're hearing from law enforcement agencies from coast to coast about this increase in physical presence at Jewish houses of worship.

Of course, this comes after Iran's latest attack on Israel as well as the start of the Jewish high holidays, which begins tomorrow on Wednesday.

Now we're told from officials this is being done out of an abundance of caution as a deterrent. It's not based on any specific threat, but officials have continued to tell us that chief among their main concerns is the so-called lone wolf threat. This is someone who might not be associated with any group, but still conduct some kind of act of violence.

We're told that in New York, the NYPD will be partnering with state police to conduct missions at bridges and tunnels looking for explosives. There will also be helicopter units in the air scanning for any type of radiation.

Here where I am in Los Angeles, the LAPD says that it will be increasing patrols. There'll be more officers on the beat. There will be command post vehicles in certain places around the city. Horse mounted units who are around conducting patrols as well.

Of course, there have been concerns here in L.A. after an anti-Semitic attack just last year where two men were shot by a suspect after they were leaving Jewish houses of worship. That suspect was then taken into custody just yesterday. He was sentenced to 35 years in federal prison.

We're hearing from police agencies about increased protection at both Jewish and Muslim houses of worship. And of course, this comes as the FBI has been warning about this heightened threat environment.

Take a listen to these comments from FBI director Chris Wray. This was after the October 7th attack in Israel by Hamas. He spoke in very stark terms about the outsized nature of threats to Jews here in America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: The Jewish community is uniquely, uniquely targeted by pretty much every terrorist organization across the spectrum. And when you look at a group that makes up two 2.4 percent roughly of the American population, it should be jarring to everyone that that same population accounts for something like 60 percent of all religious-based hate crimes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL: Now, in addition to police, we're hearing from Jewish security organizations who say there's no known threat, but they continue to scan for them. They say that they recommend that houses of worship remained open during the high holidays but they say that officials there at these facilities need to take a look at their security precautions, make sure that staff are aware about what to do.

And then finally Kaitlan, they say that if houses of worship need grants for example, to conduct security assessments or to provide certain reinforcements for security, they stand ready to assist.

Obviously, a precarious time in the U.S. Law enforcement here in this country, very cautious, Kaitlan.

COLLINS: Yes. Of course, they want people to be able to feel safe, you know, living out and celebrating their religion.

Josh Campbell, thank you for keeping us updated on that breaking news tonight.

CAMPBELL: You bet.

COLLINS: Up next, Donald Trump tonight was dismissing the traumatic brain injuries of U.S. forces -- yes, American troops -- from an Iranian attack several years ago.

This was his defense against the Biden administration and the response to what happened by Iran today in Israel.

[01:44:48]

COLLINS: Trump now dismissing them as mere headaches.

We're going to talk to a veteran live next about his view of that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Donald Trump, once again downplaying the severity of traumatic brain injuries that U.S. troops suffered from in Iraq. As Trump said, that an Iranian missile attack on the Al-Assad military base in 2020 didn't damage the base or wound any troops.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: What does injured mean? Injured means you mean because they had a headache, because the bombs never hit the fort.

There was nobody hurt other than the sound was loud. And some people said that hurt. And I accept that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[01:49:50]

COLLINS: Now that comment is not new, but it's worth noting that Trump underlined what he has said previously, denying that service members were injured during that attack.

I spoke earlier about this with the former defense secretary Mark Esper. He was in charge of the Pentagon at the time. He recounted how serious this was and also how many of the cases became more severe over time. He even visited one of the soldiers at Walter Reed Military Hospital.

Joining me now is Iraq war veteran Paul Rieckhoff, who is the founder and CEO of the Independent Veterans of America.

You obviously had some strong feelings about this. You called it ignorant and absurd to hear Donald Trump hear this.

I mean, if you are a U.S. service member who was there that day, what's it like for you to hear the former commander-in-chief downplay that.

PAUL RIECKHOFF, FOUNDER/CEO, INDEPENDENT VETERANS OF AMERICA: It's insulting. It's a slap in the face. And it makes life hard for you.

I think what I really want to underscore is it's ignorant. It fails to understand that traumatic brain injury is the signature injury of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Almost 500,000 men and women have experienced a traumatic brain injury.

And he is the former commander-in-chief. He should know that. And in this incident in particular, over 80 people got purple hearts. So if they don't get recognized as being injured, they don't get benefits, they don't get care.

One soldier got 90 percent lifetime disability, so it's a very significant issue. And it's asinine, it's ignorant, it's confounding. He has no excuse for this.

And I think the bigger issue too is you're talking about the Middle East. Weve got 2,500 troops in Iraq right now, 900 troops in Syria, plenty of troops on ships that could experience exactly this type of injury if rockets continue to fall from Iran and their proxies.

COLLINS: Yes, which the Trump campaign knows well, because after Vice President Harris said no, no U.S. forces are in an active war zone, they pointed to where those U.S. forces were.

And you talk about, you know, just the actual material benefits of being able to get benefits. The importance of someone understanding your injury but also, you know, this is something that soldiers have struggled with, is actually saying, hey, I am injured just in a different way that you may not be able to physically see the same way you can with someone else. It still count as an injury though.

RIECKHOFF: Yes. I mean, and it hurts the national conversation. We're constantly trying to make the public aware of our sacrifice, of the kind of injuries we're experiencing and to have the former commander- in-chief say this and double down on it, I think is really problematic.

And ironically, it's happening on the night of a debate that's really historic because it's between two post-9/11 veterans. Weve never had two post post-9/11 veterans on the major ticket together.

So you've got Vance and you've got Walz, they both served overseas and they may have experienced, you know, troops in their units who had traumatic brain injuries.

I wish we got to that more. I wish there were veterans issues in particular, we got two more tonight. But you know, this is the latest in a long string of insulting and ignorant remarks from Trump having to do with the military and veterans. It's a constant thing with him.

COLLINS: Yes. Well, I mean, that's a really good point because he also seemed to just kind of downplay this, the hopes of saying Iran didn't do this when I was in office. They're only doing this when Joe Biden is in office.

I mean, they did actually hit the base. There were 11 missiles, I believe that actually hit the base and damaged it. There was real damage.

But you just said that Trump has a long history of this. I'm kind of surprised this didn't come up tonight, which is that I think Trump just says so many things that people just let them go.

But, but when he recently was comparing the Medal of Honor and the Medal of Freedom, we saw the altercation at Arlington National Cemetery.

I mean, these would have been campaign derailing moments for pretty much anyone else, especially a Republican candidate.

RIECKHOFF: Yes. And insulting John McCain, I mean, the list goes on and on. I think what they fail to recognize is this actually hurts them politically.

I think tonight we're going to talk about Walz and Vance, but you're going to see that clip of him talking about traumatic brain injuries over and over again and that may actually be more significant, especially if you're talking about Independent Americans. Independent, unaffiliated voters in places like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio -- those are largely veterans. Many of them are independent and are watching issues like this.

And they vote on character. They vote on integrity and they vote on who they can trust to be the commander-in-chief.

And you want a commander-in-chief who understands what a traumatic brain injury is, and can articulate that and passionately advocate for us and not politicize just about every issue that surrounds us.

COLLINS: So what do you think that looks like? Are those movable voters though in this, in this scenario when they watch this play out? I mean, that's a comment that Trump makes either at rallies or press gaggles. It's not necessarily a moment like on the debate stage tonight where tens of millions of people are watching.

RIECKHOFF: I think it's reflective of the questions about his character. You know, does he have honor? Will he respect the office? Will he go above politics and put country first?

I think you know, McChrystal -- General McChrystal's recent op-ed in "The New York Times" is significant. I think he can be in effect --

COLLINS: Powerful.

RIECKHOFF: -- very powerful and talked about character. He said I'm voting on character because I don't trust Trump's character and I trust Harris' character more.

I think for people who maybe don't like either candidate, at the end of the day, they're going to trust somebody. They're going to pick someone that they trust, that they feel ok with.

[01:54:44] RIECKHOFF: And surrogates like McChrystal and others, I think will be effective in moving those Independent voters who are largely non- college educated men in the states we talked about.

And many of them are veterans and care about national security. And are watching right now because they've got friends in the Middle East.

COLLINS: Paul Rieckhoff, thank you for joining and thank you for your service.

RIECKHOFF: Thank you Kaitlan. Thank you.

COLLINS: Really appreciate it.

I want to thank you all for watching our special report tonight.

I'll be back tomorrow night here at 9:00 p.m. Eastern for "THE SOURCE".

Our breaking news coverage on CNN will continue right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:59:55]

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, hello. I'm Becky Anderson in Tel Aviv. It's 9:00 a.m. here.

Israel warning Iran will pay for launching nearly 200 missiles into its territory.

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Rosemary Church in Atlanta, following a surprisingly civil.