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Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), Is Interviewed About Israel Launches Unprecedented Strikes On Iran; Iran: Israel Will "Deeply Regret, Reckless Aggression". Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired June 13, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news, Israel attacks Iran. The IDF says it's still hitting targets right now in Iran, hours after hitting military sites and nuclear facilities around the country.

Iran's leaders are now promising their response will be, quote, swift and brutal. Again, raising the specter of a much broader conflict and all-out war, if you will.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. Pamela Brown has the morning off. You're in The Situation Room.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

BLITZER: And we begin with the breaking news. Rippling around the world right now, Israel launches a truly historic strike on Iran's nuclear program. Those bright flashes are explosions, Israeli explosions in northwest Iran. Israel strikes nuclear facilities and kills Iranian top scientists and military leaders.

Israel says Iran has retaliated by launching more than 100 drones against Israel. A short time ago, Iran warned Israel that Israel will deeply regret its attacks as fears grow of an all-out war. Tensions soar in the region. Security cameras capture these explosions in the Iranian capital of Tehran. It's not clear what was targeted, but look at those images.

Israel's spy agency, the Mossad, says these images show operatives, Israeli operatives, smuggling weapons inside Iran just ahead of this morning's strikes. And the Israeli military says its strikes are ongoing. The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, says the U.S. was not involved in Israel's attack.

And this morning, President Trump tells CNN Iran should negotiate, quote, and I'm quoting him now, before it's too late. I want to discuss more on all of this with CNN analyst and Axios global affairs correspondent, Barak Ravid. Barak, you've done amazing reporting on all this. Thanks very much for joining us. And I know you have some new reporting just coming out detailing how the idea for this attack took hold after Iran struck Israel last October. Do we know what motivated Israel to strike right now with these attacks?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL & GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Hi, Wolf. I think it was a combination. Last October, after Iran conducted its strike against Israel and Israel conducted its strike on Iran, I think there was an understanding on the Israeli side that there are two threats in Iran. One is the nuclear threat, and another one is the ballistic missile threat.

The Iranians since then started producing missiles on a very large scale and very, very fast, something like 50 to 60 ballistic missiles a month, just in comparison, before it was five or six ballistic missiles a month. And the Israelis figured that the Iranian idea is to launch hundreds and hundreds of missiles at Israel, taking advantage of the fact that Israel is a small country and they could try and overwhelm its air defenses.

When you put that together with more and more Iranian steps towards nuclearization and intelligence Israel claims it received about renewed efforts on nuclear weaponization by Iranian scientists, when you put all of this together, those were the two motivations for Netanyahu to tell the IDF and the Mossad to start planning this operation.

BLITZER: And they have. Israel says this operation to, quote, eliminate Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities could last at least several days. Some Israeli officials say it could last for even weeks. What is your sense, Barak, on how long this military operation could last?

RAVID: You know, first of all, when I'm thinking about it, I think we need to, all of -- all of us, need to stop using the word operation. I'm telling this to myself, too, because I still need to get used to -- to that fact. But Israel has launched a war against Iran.

It's not an operation that, you know, you do a one off or you do something like two days, three days. This is going to be something major. It could take a few weeks. And more than that, we still haven't seen the Iranian response. The reason the Iranians still haven't responded is because Israel managed in its opening blow to take out most of the senior Iranian military leadership.

[11:05:06]

So the Iranians are having trouble in, you know, figuring out what's going on, who's in charge of what, and giving -- giving orders. But this will change in the next hour or the next days. So I think we're going into something very different than everything we saw in the last 20 months. And as, you know, we saw a lot of bad things.

But this is a whole new stage in this war that started on October 7th and ended up with Israel launching a war against Iran.

BLITZER: All right, Barak Ravid, with your excellent reporting as usual. Thank you very, very much.

For more reaction on the significant escalation that's unfolding right now between Israel and Iran, I'm joined by the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican Congressman Brian Mast of Florida. He served in both the United States Army and the Israeli Defense Forces, by the way, as well. Congressman Mast, thanks very much for being here.

What's your reaction, first of all, to this unprecedented Israeli strike against various military and nuclear targets, including some of the military leadership inside Iran?

REP. BRIAN MAST (R-FL): I think, you know, I always reflect on good escalation and bad escalation. To me, this is good escalation. It's good escalation if you and your allies go out there and you eviscerate the capabilities of your enemies instead of your enemies setting the pace for what you can do. And that's what's taken place here.

And everybody's been asking the question, what is going to be the reaction of Iran? What's going to be the hit that they do back? Well, what we know about the hit that Iran does back is that it will not be a nuclear weapon. It won't be uranium. It won't be kilotons and megatons. It will have to be something based upon conventional weapons because Israel has gone out there and worked to destroy the entire stack of their nuclear infrastructure from scientists that develop it to places where it is developed to the -- the surface-to-air systems that might defend it against jets to the generals that might go out there and decide that they're going to be deployed. They are working to eliminate that stack. So, to me, that is good escalation.

BLITZER: I see what the Israelis are trying to do is not only copy but do what they did to the Hezbollah military leadership, to the Hamas military leadership. They're going after the military leadership in Iran right now to decapitate it, and they seem to be doing a pretty good job on that front. The Iranian foreign minister says Israel will, quote, deeply regret what he's calling Israel's reckless aggression. How significant are you expecting Iran's response to all of this to be?

MAST: I think they hope to mount a strong response, but they have to be incredibly frustrated just looking back at the past several months to say, what have their capabilities been? They have tried drone attacks. Those have been thwarted. They have tried ballistic missile attacks. They haven't been entirely thwarted, but they've been largely thwarted. We know that they didn't invest, Iran did not invest largely into their -- their aircraft systems.

Why? Because they knew that was a fight they probably weren't going to win. They're still utilizing picture, the original "Top Gun"-era jets, F-14 Tomcats, things like that. They haven't invested largely in jets in that way, so they -- they don't have the greatest capability to respond based upon what we've seen them try already.

We know that there are ways to defeat this, so I think they have to be very frustrated. And, you know, undoubtedly, there's always going to be saber-rattling, but I'd go back to the point that I already made. The whole premise of this operation is to make sure that no matter what the world has to worry about from Iran, it won't be nuclear weapons.

BLITZER: President Trump had some rather blunt advice to Iran earlier this morning, telling the country to make a deal before, and I'm quoting him now, there is nothing left. Is there still a chance for diplomacy, you think?

MAST: I think the President, President Trump has always been very clear. The United States of America does not have permanent enemies, and it's never too late to reach out and have diplomacy. And he has been doing this right up until the last second through his envoys, and I think he maintains that position. He's been very clear as well, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.

And so in that, you know, I won't speak for the president, but I got to believe that he is happy that this is one less threat that he has to face in terms of the things that have been destroyed. But I think for him, again, he's always willing to have his envoys at the table.

BLITZER: The President also suggested in another Truth Social post that subsequent Israeli attacks on Iran will be, and I'm quoting him now, even more brutal. Do you have any insight into what those may look like?

MAST: No, I think obviously you go all the way to the top. There's been a lot of question about, will there be attacks on -- on Americans in the region? Could be in Bahrain, could be in other places. That's why we saw over the last 24 to 48 hours, Americans being the -- the civilian personnel, especially being evacuated out of the region. And so I think the response has to be there.

Listen, if there is a threat to American life, if you take an American life, then the Ayatollah should be considering that it's in forfeit of his life.

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BLITZER: If the Iranians start attacking U.S. forces and there are more than 40,000 American troops stationed right now, not far from Iran, in the Middle East, if they do that, will the U.S. directly get involved and retaliate against various Iranian targets?

MAST: I do not see any circumstance where U.S. forces are targeted and we do not respond.

BLITZER: So the U.S. would respond if the American troops in the region, that's why their family members and other so-called non- essential personnel have already been told to leave the region to go back home right now. This is a potentially very dangerous situation.

MAST: Yes.

BLITZER: Has your committee, Congressman Mast, you're the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, been fully briefed by the administration on what's going on? MAST: I've spoken to a number of individuals both within our administration here and across the pond with the Israeli government as well. Being chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, as you can imagine, we get those phone calls from ambassadors and foreign ministers and defense ministers. So it's been a constant contact.

BLITZER: Well, we'd love to have you back in the coming days to update our viewers here in the United States and around the world. Congressman Brian Mast, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, thanks very much for joining us.

MAST: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: And there's more breaking news we're following. Markets here in the United States are responding to Israel's attacks on Iran, sliding to start today's trading. This comes after President Trump told "The Wall Street Journal" the attacks are, quote, great for the market.

Let's go live to CNN business and politics correspondent, Vanessa Yurkevich, who's monitoring what's going on, on Wall Street right now. What are you seeing over there, Vanessa?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS & POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, it appears that the opposite is happening from what President Trump said. You can see markets now. You see the Dow down 534 points, the NASDAQ, the S&P also dipping this morning because of these geopolitical tensions and this attack on Iran by Israel.

Essentially, investors are worried. They're worried about how much this is going to escalate. They're worried about whether the United States is going to be involved. And they're very worried about the energy supply chain. This is because Iran is part of OPEC. That is the group of the largest producing oil countries in the world.

And investors are worried that they could see -- we could see oil prices skyrocket to $100 a barrel. And just to put this into perspective for you, Wolf, in the last day we saw Brent crude, that is the global benchmark for oil, was up nearly 6 percent, U.S. oil jumping 8.6 percent to about $74 a barrel. Those were the largest single-day increases, jumps, since the war broke out between Russia and Ukraine in 2022.

And essentially, investors are watching this and are very concerned that the energy supply chain could be disrupted. And if it is, and if we do see oil prices continue to increase, if this -- this situation increases, that could fuel inflation. And that is something that obviously investors have been watching very closely.

We've also seen some key company stocks moving on this, declining, American Airlines, Delta. Those two companies obviously rely on oil, fuel to power their airplanes around the world. So investors pulling back on those companies, expecting essentially that oil prices could continue to rise. This is obviously a very volatile situation.

One analyst telling me that this could wrap up quickly in the sense that maybe this won't escalate to what investors are fearing. But we are in the early stages, and investors watching how Iran may respond to this and whether or not the U.S. will be impacted in any way. But the markets right now, obviously, investors a little bit fearful of potentially what is to come, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes. The Dow Jones Industrial is down more than 500 points right now, at least so far. Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you very much for that report.

And still ahead, as Israel intensifies its attacks on Iran, the Trump administration is still holding out hope that this won't derail one of its -- one of the President's global goals, blunting Iran's nuclear ambitions.

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Plus, Iran's president pledging what he calls a powerful response for Israel. How the IDF's actions around the region may have diminished Iran's ability, though, to retaliate. Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

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BLITZER: We're continuing to follow all the latest developments out of the Middle East right now, following Israel's unprecedented attack on various targets, nuclear and military, in Iran. We're also getting brand new reporting about what senior U.S. officials think could have been a key factor in Israel's decision to strike right now.

For more on this, I want to bring in our national security correspondent, Kylie Atwood. She's here with me in The Situation Room. You helped break this new reporting. Update our viewers.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN U.S. SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, yesterday when the IAEA passed a resolution saying that Iran was not in compliance with its nuclear nonproliferation responsibilities.

BLITZER: It's the International Atomic Energy Agency.

ATWOOD: That's right. That monitors what Iran is doing with its nuclear program. They said that they weren't in compliance with their responsibilities. That triggered Iran to then say that they were going to be speeding up their activity on their nuclear program. And when you spoke with U.S. officials after that, they were incredibly concerned because for some time U.S. officials had been tracking the possibility of Iran, excuse me, of Israel attacking Iran.

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But after this happened, they were concerned that that possibility had heightened. I talked to senior U.S. diplomats in the region who were seeing activity through the intelligence that was coming through that indicated that those chances were rising. Simultaneously, the State Department stood up a task force.

That task force is now convening. It was stood up yesterday before the strikes happened but is very active today. That task force is essentially the convening mechanism for all of the information that the State Department is receiving right now with regard to what's going on in the Middle East.

It will serve as a key tool if there are any evacuations that need to take place from the region. Right now, there aren't any additional evacuations that have to happen. A senior U.S. diplomat told me that that will only happen if they believe that Iran is going to target the U.S. facilities and personnel in the region in response to Israel's strikes overnight.

They don't know if that's going to happen. As of now, none of those changes have happened yet.

BLITZER: Yes. The U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet is stationed in Bahrain.

ATWOOD: Yes.

BLITZER: Thousands of U.S. Navy personnel and others stationed right there all over the region were watching this closely. Thank you very much, Kylie, for that update. I want to continue our discussion right now with CNN Global Affairs analyst Brett McGurk. He's also the former Middle East and North Africa coordinator for the National Security Council. How close are we, Brett, right now to an all-out, full-scale war between Israel and Iran?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: You know, Wolf, I've seen predictions of all-out Middle East war, I don't know how many times since October 7th attacks. They've all proven to be false. I think you have to consider here the scope and effectiveness of this Israeli operation. It is extraordinary. All the Iranians who would be meeting right now to figure out how to coordinate a response, they're all dead.

The head of Iran's military, the head of the rocket and drone command, the head of the IRGC and the IRGC Quds Force, and you know what they do. They organize all the proxies around the Middle East. They're all dead.

BLITZER: Just like the leadership of Hamas, the leadership of Hezbollah.

MCGURK: Yes.

BLITZER: Israel is following the same pattern.

MCGURK: Well, you know, we have to -- we were here yesterday talking about, Wolf, what happened in Vienna with the IAEA. And first time in 20 years, 19 countries condemned Iran for being in total violation of its nuclear obligations. What did Iran do? It said, we're going to escalate our program. We're going to -- we're going to declare a new underground enrichment facility.

We're going to put advanced centrifuges into Fordow. That is a complete miscalculation by Iran. You know, I've been reflecting a lot here, Wolf, since October 7th, and the whole strategic equation in the Middle East changed, obviously, on October 7th.

I would say two things. Iran made a very fateful decision after Hamas's horrific attack and really invasion of Israel. It decided to join in. It supported Hezbollah in launching a northern front against Israel just days after October 7th. It supplied weapons and gave a green light to its proxies in Iraq and Syria and to the Houthis in Yemen to open a multi-front war against Israel.

It attacked Israel twice in April and October of last year with hundreds of drones and missiles. I was, of course, involved in all of this in helping to defend Israel. And Israel made clear after October 7th, we will never again allow threats to fester against us. And so that is essentially what has led to this.

And I'm also been reflecting on when we had the transition to the Trump administration. You know, where was the Middle East? Israel was in a very strong position. We had a ceasefire in Gaza, a ceasefire in Lebanon. Hezbollah knocked us back. New government in Syria. The Iranians lost the Assad regime.

Strong relations in the Gulf. And Iran in the weakest position it has ever been. And I remember having this conversation with Steve Witkoff and Mike Waltz when they were coming in. And that is basically what set the foundation for this extraordinary operation that you've seen today.

And Israel right now, this is not over. Israel has demonstrated they have total intelligence penetration and dominance in Iran. And they now have total air dominance over Iran. So all-out war, you've got to ask, what can Iran really do? Their hands are really tied. They will respond. They can launch missiles. We know what that's like.

We know how to defend against that. They can turn on their proxies. Their proxies are significantly degraded. I think Iran here is in deep, deep trouble. And I got the Israelis. This operation is extraordinary.

BLITZER: You know, it's interesting because a lot of U.S. intelligence experts have told me over the past year or so that most of Iran's most sophisticated nuclear weapons program, enriching uranium, is deep underground in these mountains. That the U.S. would have the capability of destroying them with airstrikes. But Israel still doesn't have that capability.

MCGURK: Yes.

BLITZER: Is that true?

MCGURK: So, Wolf, this is a big open question. So we know Israel last night attacked the Natanz enrichment facility. That is their main enrichment facility. It's where they enrich up to 60 percent, something you and I talked about yesterday, just below weapons grade. It looks like that's been destroyed. Fordow is an underground facility. They still have deep underground. They still have advanced machines there.

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Unclear so far what the Israelis have done to Fordow, if anything. Fordow has to be disabled. Otherwise, Iran can still have this capacity. Look, one card Iran has, again, I think it would be a fateful miscalculation if they did it. One card Iran has is said, OK, we just got attacked. Now we're actually going to go move towards a nuclear weapon, spin the fuel up to 90 percent weapons grade.

If they do that, I actually think the Americans would then come in and take out Fordow. But we are not going to allow that to happen. It's a card Iran has, but, again, it would be a mistake.

BLITZER: You keep saying, under his watch, Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.

MCGURK: Yes, he's right. He's right.

BLITZER: We'll see how that unfolds. All right, thanks very much.

MCGURK: Thanks Wolf.

BLITZER: Always appreciate you joining us, Brett, Brett McGurk.

MCGURK: Thank you.

BLITZER: Up next, the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, is standing by to join us live in the Situation Room as the Middle East braces for even more strikes between Israel and Iran.

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