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Trump Says It's Very Late for Iran to Start Negotiating; Trump Warming to Idea of U.S. Strikes on Iran; Trump Weighs U.S. Military Intervention in Israel-Iran Conflict. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired June 18, 2025 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Whether the U.S. will get involved in Iran.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I said, it's very late. You know, I said, it's very late to be talking. We may make -- it's -- I don't know. There's a big difference between now and a week ago, right? Big difference.

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BROWN: And this comes as the Israel-Iran conflict is now in its sixth day.

So, this was overnight over Tehran. Video from a semi-official Iranian media outlet showing air defense's repelling projectiles over the city.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. is scrambling big time right now with more assets to the region, including a second aircraft carrier strike group, and more than 30 tankers for in air refueling.

This morning Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is rejecting President Trump's calls for unconditional surrender. This is what he said just a few hours ago.

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AYATOLLAH ALI KHAMENEI, SUPREME LEADER OF IRAN (through translator): Iran has never surrendered. Why should we surrender? If they threaten us again, they will receive an irreparable strike.

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BLITZER: Fareed Zakaria, the host of CNN's GPS is joining us now live from London. Fareed, everyone wants to know if the U.S. is going to get directly militarily involved in this conflict. What's your analysis?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, FAREED ZAKARIA GPS: Well, President Trump is clearly enjoying playing the part of a very unpredictable leader, you know, some people call it the madman theory of foreign policy, where, you know, you deliberately make it so that no one can guess what you're going to do and you're sort of trying to out crazy everyone else. And Trump is doing that and he is doing it very effectively.

But I think at heart what's happening here is it's sort of FOMO foreign policy, by which I mean. President Trump did appear to be negotiating with the Iranians and Steve Witkoff was due to meet with them. He had been meeting with them. Then Bibi Netanyahu decides to move forward. It succeeds wildly. It succeeds I think even more than Israelis expected, and Trump now wants to get in on the action. So, he's, you know, taking credit in a sense for the Israeli action. But does that mean he'll join in?

So, far, Trump has tended to be fairly cautious about major military escalations. So, I'm going to guess that this is mostly Trump trying to pressure the Iranians to come to the negotiating table with essentially a surrender, which is to give up their right to enrichment, you know, this was the issue that would -- this was -- appeared to be the obstacle.

So, what he wants is a real win on negotiation. He can say, I achieved what nobody else was able to achieve, and he is rattling the sabre for that reason. Now, there's always a danger, you know, that -- a scholar once said there, there's one problem with threats in foreign policy. They can be very expensive if they fail. It means you have to carry it out. If that's -- if that -- if the Iranians don't agree, then it leaves Trump in a bind.

BROWN: So, we know just based on the available intelligence and, you know, talking to Israel that it cannot fully eradicate Iran's nuclear capabilities without U.S. involvement. If the U.S. does get involved to try to take out Iran's nuclear capabilities it would take more than just going in with one strike, right, just given the depth and the complexities around it?

ZAKARIA: You never know, you know, in military affairs what exactly might happen. But I mean, on paper, the U.S. has B-2s, the stealth bombers with this bunker bust busting bombs that could probably destroy Fordow. I mean, they could essentially destroy the whole mountain and the whole -- you know, the entire facility would collapse in all likelihood, probably with just one or two strikes. As I say on paper, that is the American capability. The Israelis have nothing like that.

But Fordow is not, you know, hermetically sealed facility. There are, you know, heat vents, there are entrances. So, there would be ways for the Israelis to very significantly degrade Fordow. It would take many, many strikes, but they have the capacity to do that.

They -- I mean, the Israeli pilots are now flying over Iran as though it's their own territory. There is no air defense of any kind. As long as they don't have to get to the ground, they can just keep pummeling and hope that -- you know, as I say, again, these things are unpredictable. You keep hitting at the entrances, the heat shafts, the vents, and something could easily give way.

[10:35:00]

BLITZER: I mean, it's interesting you say that, Fareed, because Trump and his remarks just a few minutes ago said, I'm quoting him now, "They have no air defense," referring to the Iranians. Meaning, the Israelis, for all practical purposes, destroyed Iran's air defense system. Is that right?

ZAKARIA: Yes, it's even more dramatic than that, Wolf. They destroyed -- they've destroyed all of Iran's air defenses. You remember they did that several months ago after the Hezbollah attacks. But what they've also done is in this extraordinarily clever move, they got all the Iranian commanders into a room and then, you know, struck the rooms, killing almost all the missile commanders, which meant that the people who would order a strike on Israel the minute the Iranians began striking were all dead.

And so, that gave the Israelis a window to destroy a whole bunch of missile launchers. So, one of the reasons you're not seeing a lot of Iranian ballistic missiles launched at Israel, fewer than Israel had predicted by far, is that the missile launchers have been destroyed by Israel.

So, they'd have no day air defenses. They also have many fewer missile launchers than they did. They still have a bunch of missiles, but you can't do a lot with missiles if you don't have the launchers to launch them.

BLITZER: Good point.

BROWN: All right. Fareed Zakaria, thank you very much. Always appreciate you coming on to give your analysis.

BLITZER: I want to go right now to CNN Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward. She's joining us from Tel Aviv. So, what are you seeing there in Tel Aviv overnight? Sirens were going off and there was a lot more activity over the skies, right?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there was a lot of activity and a lot of sirens, but not so many ballistic missiles as we have been seeing earlier on. Roughly 30 missiles last night, 30 missiles the night before. That's a big departure from some 200 missiles on the first night of this chapter in this conflict.

So, as a result of that, perhaps you're definitely feeling and noticing a more relaxed posture here in Israel today. And we have heard now the military has made recommendations to essentially allow some semblance of normalcy to begin again, some semblance of reopening the economy. What that might look like is things like people being able to go back to work in certain situations. More shops being able to open. We heard today from Israel's defense minister, Israel Katz, basically saying that this gradual phased reopening of the economy and allowing people to move around more freely is what he called a message of victory over Iran.

At the same time, nobody is completely relaxing, and particularly in anticipation of whatever decision President Trump makes, vis-a-vis whether to intervene more forcefully in this conflict. The U.S. embassy here in Jerusalem has announced that it is closed today, tomorrow, and Friday. No real official reason given, but certainly, the timing is not coincidental, I would say, and also particularly given the fact that many Americans are stranded here at the moment and trying to get out of Israel. It's certainly an unusual time in that context for the U.S. embassy to close for three days.

So, people waiting and watching and preparing for whatever comes. But certainly, a sense on the ground, particularly here in Tel Aviv, that people are breathing a little bit easier as a result of what is believed to be significant damage done to Iran's capacity to launch those ballistic missiles, which were coming out in full force just a few nights ago, Wolf.

BROWN: All right. Clarissa Ward, thank you so much. We'll be right back.

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[10:40:00]

BROWN: And welcome back. We are following the very latest out of the Middle East where the deadly standoff between Iran and Israel has entered its sixth day.

BLITZER: And we're now learning that President Trump is warning -- warming, I should say, warming to the idea of U.S. military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. A move that Iran's supreme leader warns would result in, quote, "irreparable damage." And only moments ago, President Trump said he's -- he encouraged Israel's prime minister, Netanyahu, to continue his campaign in Iran.

I want to turn to CNN National Security Correspondent Kylie Atwood, who's here with us in the Situation Room. Kylie, as the president weighs various military options right now that are before him, are there back-channel discussions quietly taking place with some of America's allies to see if this can be resolved diplomatically?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: A tremendous amount of those conversations are happening. But, Wolf, most of that, at least from European allies, is trying to get to the administration to encourage them to continue pursuing the diplomatic path. That was at least a point of the discussion that Secretary Rubio had with his French counterpart on Monday that the two agreed to. But of course, since then we have reported, and we saw with the president's remarks earlier today that there is a warming from President Trump to turn to the U.S. military to go after Iran's nuclear targets.

So, those U.S. allies and U.S. counterparts in the region are now furiously trying to figure out what the administration is going to do here. And while they're waiting to see what happens here, they also have to prepare for the possibility of a wider conflict. The European Union's top official just yesterday, said that the block is going to be helping European citizens in the Middle East to evacuate.

[10:45:00] We have not seen the State Department move yet to say that they'll provide support for Americans who are in the region to evacuate. But we did see the State Department say yesterday that the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem is going to be closed today through Friday. We're watching to see if there's going to be any other shift in personnel movements or personnel leaving the region from the State Department in the coming days as we weigh the possibility of the U.S. joining Israel in this military operation.

BLITZER: There are a lot of U.S. citizens in Israel right now who are stranded. I've spoken to several of them over the past couple of days. They've been trying to call the U.S. embassy, the counselor section to get some advice on how they can get out and they've gotten no answers.

ATWOOD: That's right. And the counselor section at the embassy is closed right now because the State Department says that the embassy is going to be closed. We should also consider though that the State Department has stood up a task force based here in Washington to be the point of contact for all of those Americans around the world who are trying to figure out what to do next. So, you would assume that State Department is taking in all that information that they are getting all the question from those Americans, perhaps the request to get out of the region and trying to figure out the best way to go forward, how they can support those Americans.

BLITZER: Yes. The aerospace over Israel has been completely closed. All flights in and out of Ben Gurion International Airport outside of Tel Aviv, they've been canceled. So, there's no way to fly out, if you will.

ATWOOD: The way out isn't easy.

BLITZER: Yes, it's very --

BROWN: And we heard from President Trump that the Iranians just reached out recently. What more do we know about that? I mean, you heard him say this morning though, it's very late to be talking.

ATWOOD: He did. So, he did not completely close the door on diplomacy, but it was also very telling that he said a number of times in those remarks this morning that it is too late, that they should have come to the table when they had the option. He gave them those 60 days. He said, we need to get to a deal within 60 days, and they didn't.

So, you could see even as he is keeping the door open, not saying that he has definitively made a decision about a U.S. military strike alongside the Israelis in Iran, he is waning away. He is growing colder on the possibility of a diplomatic solution.

And it's important to note that there are many interlocutors with Iran who have now been talking to the administration, trying to do everything that they can to get Iran to the table. But we haven't seen that definitively play out in an opportunity that President Trump thinks will actually deliver a diplomatic solution here.

BLITZER: Yes.

BROWN: All right. Kylie Atwood --

BLITZER: He said -- Trump said, why didn't you negotiate with me? And he said they've effectively missed their opportunity. And now, they're going to pay a price. And he said that's very, very sad, presumably because a lot of people are going to die.

BROWN: Yes. Yes. All right. Kylie Atwood, thank you so much. We'll be right back.

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BLITZER: This morning, there is one overarching question very much hanging over the Middle East right now, will the U.S. military actually enter the conflict between Israel and Iran? Two officials tell CNN that President Trump is warming to the idea of using American military assets to strike Iran's nuclear facilities.

Joining us right now here in the Situation Room is Brett McGurk, CNN global affairs Analyst.

BROWN: He is also the former White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa under President Biden. He has served Presidents Bush, Trump, and Obama. So, what is your assessment right now? Should the U.S. stay on the sidelines?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST AND FORMER WHITE HOUSE COORDINATOR FOR MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA: I have to say what I'm seeing right now, I think we are gearing up for a strike, I think, on the Fordow facility, which we've been talking about all week.

BLITZER: A U.S. military strike?

MCGURK: U.S. military strike.

BROWN: And what makes you say that? What --

MCGURK: Well, what I can see is the military maneuvers are getting in place. I've been very struck by -- since the president said unconditional surrender, that just leaves very little room for diplomacy. Here's what I'd be thinking about if I was in the White House right now, number one is timing. I think you don't want to do a strike like this until everything's in place. We're not going to have everything in place probably for a few more days that the Nimitz, which is a carrier strike group, is coming from the Endo Paycom Theater, that's probably going to take a few days to get there. You want to get that in place. I would try to use that time to see if Iran is prepared to take a diplomatic off-ramp. So, I think we have a few days here, hopefully. Really try to use a diplomatic off-ramp.

The second issue is alignment with Israel. This is really critical. If we are going to do this, and the president spoke with Netanyahu yesterday, notably, there's been no readout of that call. I think you want to say to the Israelis, we're prepared to do this. We're the only ones that can take out the Fordow facility. And we need alignment on the objectives. The objective here is the nuclear program and the missiles, and then that's it. We're not going to have mission creep. This is going to be end of the military campaign. You need alignment with the Israelis on that before we do that.

Finally, is risks. I know a lot about the risks here. They're not insignificant. Two of them have been significantly diminished. The air defense of Iran, that was a serious risk to a campaign like this that's been knocked out. Hezbollah had 150,000 missiles and rockets targeting Israel. That's no longer there. But there's still risks to our personnel in the region. I think you want to mitigate those, get protections in place, make sure our people are ready.

So, timing, alignment, and risks, I think right now is the focus. But the president said the next week is going to be some big events, and I think that's where we're heading.

BLITZER: So, if the U.S. does get involved right now, what would that look like?

MCGURK: Well, the -- as I see it -- and again, I don't -- nobody's told me, but I see most likely a strike against the Fordow facility. That would be a series of strikes with the -- it's called a MOP.

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BLITZER: That's where they're enriching uranium to build a bomb. They need to really enrich that uranium, and that's where they do it deep underground in that mountain.

MCGURK: Let me say, talk about Fordow for a second. It has been a vexing problem across multiple administrations. It was a secret facility dug in the 2000s. It was revealed by intelligence. President Obama actually announced it to the world in 2009. It was a key topic in the nuclear negotiations. The JCPOA, the Obama era deal actually has a provision, no enrichment of Fordow until 2030. Trump administration last time pulled out of that deal.

The Iranians are now enriching in that facility with very advanced centrifuges up to 60 percent, just below weapons grade. It's a serious problem. The IAEA just confirmed that last week. So, now -- and we have developed over years the military option. So, president has it. And I have to say in the last two years of the Biden administration, we really refined this military option. It is viable. That doesn't mean it's advisable, but it's a very viable military option.

I'm sure what the president was briefed on yesterday is a viable military strike on that facility. It would probably be a series of strikes. But you can render that facility inoperable. Nothing is guaranteed.

BLITZER: It would be B-2 bombers carrying those very heavy buster -- those very heavy bombs.

MCGURK: B-2 bombers with the 30,000-pound, it's called a MOP. It's never been used before. But it has really been designed specifically for this operation. It's -- so, look, we can do it. And CENTCOM knows how to do it. From everything I'm seeing from the president, he might not have made his final decision, but clearly, I think the orders have been given and get ready. And I would try to use the time we have here to see if there's a diplomatic off-ramp.

Everybody right now is talking to everybody. Everybody in the region's talking to everybody, talking to the Iranians. But you know, you have Khamenei say, the supreme leader, he probably doesn't even know what the heck is going on. But he made a very defiant set of remarks today, and the president is saying unconditional surrender. So, as I see this lining up, it seems to be lining up for a military strike.

Now, I have to say, this is not the invasion of Iraq. We're not mobilizing ground forces. This is an airstrike. And if you have alignment with the Israelis, you want to try to focus on, let's not have mission creep here. This is not a regime change operation. This is about the nuclear program, and then that's it.

BLITZER: Let's see if that happens. Brett McGurk, as usual, thanks for your expertise. We really appreciate it.

MCGURK: Thanks, Wolf.

BROWN: Yes. Really a pivotal time. Thank you. Coming up right here in the Situation Room, we're taking a closer look at Iran's nuclear facilities and damage done by Israeli strikes.

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