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The Situation Room

President Trump Meets With German Chancellor; War With Iran Escalates. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired March 03, 2026 - 11:30   ET

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

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: We are following all of this breaking news.

Just moments ago, we spoke to Israel's ambassador to the United States, and he confirmed Israel struck a compound in Iran that chooses the new supreme leader.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YECHIEL LEITER, ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES: It is true that we struck in an area where the electors were meeting to appoint a new supreme leader, somebody who would be in charge of spreading death and mayhem both in Iran and outside of Iran. And there is a very good chance that the electors will not be readily available for any further meetings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Joining us now is Brett Bruen. He was a National Security Council official in the Obama administration and is a former diplomat.

Thanks for being here with us.

So what do you make of what we just heard from the ambassador there on that compound strike?

BRETT BRUEN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT: Well, Pamela, I think it raises a question about succession and what is the Israeli, what's the Trump administration's plan for who they're going to negotiate with?

And the concern, Pamela, is really that we are sowing the seeds of a more extreme group or individual to take over a portion or the entirety of Iran. So, I worry that, with this successive effort to decapitate the Iranian leadership, we may find ourselves having to deal with an even worse leader and even more violent group.

And that obviously has all sorts of repercussions for the region, as well as for the homeland. BROWN: History has been quite the teacher when it comes to regime

change. And you heard Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth say yesterday that this is not about regime change, even though the president had called on the Iranians to rise up and take control.

And I wonder, given what you just laid out, if you view that as the administration giving itself an out, so that if that does go awry, if even more hard-liner takes over the regime, that they can say, well, look, that was never the objective in the first place.

BRUEN: And yet Trump himself has consistently said that he wants a change of regime. That was, in fact, the premise, if you will, that they couldn't trust the Khamenei regime, that they had to put in place different leadership, because this was a regime bent on attacking the United States, bent on attacking our allies.

And so if that is the premise on which we went into Iran, the question then becomes, how do we reconstitute some sort of government? And those are the questions, Pamela, that have to be asked now. How are we preparing for what comes next?

Because this is not Venezuela, where we have a government that is going to just take over from the deposed leader. We are now in the process of dismantling the security, the military, a whole host of other elements. Let's not forget Afghanistan's right on Iran's border. We have the remnants of lots of extremist groups there that now may see an opening in Iran.

BROWN: All right, Brett Bruen, thank you so much. Always good to have you on.

BRUEN: Sure thing.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: And just ahead: Gulf states in the Middle East are on defense right now, as they bear the brunt of Iran's retaliation. Do they have what they need to defend themselves?

Our reporters are live in the region. We will go there when we come back.

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[11:38:18]

BLITZER: Right now, we're standing by for a meeting over at the White House between President Trump and visiting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

The chancellor has arrived at the White House, and we will bring you that meeting once it begins. Stand by for that.

We're also covering other breaking news unfolding in Iran right now. And this just in, Israel has struck a compound in Iran that belongs to the group that elects the country's next supreme leader. The strike was intended to hit while the next leader was being elected. But Iranian state media has now said the building was evacuated before the attack.

And this could prompt new retaliation from Iran. Indeed, across the Middle East right now, the U.S. State Department is telling all Americans to get out and get out as quickly as possible before it's too late. This comes after embassies in both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, U.S. embassies, were hit and have since closed.

CNN's chief international correspondent, Clarissa Ward, is joining us. She's in Erbil, Iraq, right now.

Clarissa, what are you seeing today?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, there's been an interesting shift today.

Up until this point, we have seen a steady stream of attacks coming from Iran, but also from Iran-backed Iraqi militias, missiles, drones, rockets, but all of them or almost all of them attacking positions where they believe there are U.S. service members, so the U.S. Consulate in Erbil and most prominently behind me the airport of Erbil, which is one of the very few places in Iraq where there is still a U.S. troop movement.

But, today, the IRGC announced that they had fired off 30 drones to Kurdish Iranian opposition militant positions here inside Iraqi Kurdistan. This is interesting because we haven't seen this before in such a concerted way. We have spoken to two of those Iranian Kurdish militia groups.

[11:40:15]

They said that there were four drones that hit. One person was lightly injured. But all of this is kind of fueling speculation that Iran is now trying to crack down on anyone or any militant groups that they think might be involved at some point potentially in trying to help the U.S. and Israel on the ground to dismantle the Iranian regime.

Now, for the Iraqi Kurdish leadership here, Wolf, this is a very tense situation, very sensitive. They have crucial relationships with Iran and with Turkey, so they really don't want to get involved. They don't want to be seen as being anything other than neutral in this conflict.

When that reporting came out yesterday from Barak Ravid at Axios that President Trump had actually spoken to the two most prominent Iraqi Kurdish leaders here, there was basically 24 hours of silence from the Iraqi Kurdish leadership.

We have now had a statement from one of those leaders basically trying to kind of downplay things, saying that at a certain point in the conversation, President Trump articulated what the strategic objectives were of this war, but very clearly here the leadership feeling that they are in a very difficult, tense and sensitive position and they don't want to invoke the ire of Iran and those Iran- backed militias in Iraq and come under even more attacks, Wolf.

BLITZER: Clarissa Ward, one of our courageous journalists on the ground for us in Erbil, Iraq, right now.

Stay safe over there, Clarissa. Thank you very, very much.

And joining us now, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Schwartz. He's a CNN military analyst, a former U.S. security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

General, thanks so much for joining us.

The State Department is warning Americans to get out of the Middle East as quickly as possible. We have seen U.S. embassies already attacked. Are places like these the biggest vulnerability for the U.S. in the region right now?

LT. GEN. MARK SCHWARTZ (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I think they are, Wolf. Good to be with you and Pamela this morning.

Any longstanding military facilities or, in this case, diplomatic facilities are a significant target, obviously, for the Iranian regime. So they have had those locations mapped and known for years now. So, yes, they certainly are vulnerable, as are the U.S. bases that we have across the Gulf states. And we saw that play out on Saturday, unfortunately, of the U.S. service members there.

BLITZER: President Trump warned of what he called a big wave of attacks to come. And we're learning that Israel struck a compound belonging to the group responsible for choosing Iran's next leader.

Do you expect to see more of this type of attack from both Israel and the United States?

SCHWARTZ: Well, I certainly think any opportunity that Israel and the United States has to continue to go after regime leadership, whether that's military or the higher ulama of the Islamic State of Iran, they will go after it.

In terms of large major operations forthcoming, I think we could see the employment of our B-2s again with those huge GBU-57s that are very capable of deeply penetrating some of the enrichment facilities, the remnants thereof, in some cases, that haven't been completely taken out yet.

So I think that would be a very viable next step, given that we have air supremacy now over Iran and the ability of those aircraft to be deployed is greatly enhanced.

BLITZER: Could any of the countries under fire right now from Iran run out of defensive missiles before this is done?

SCHWARTZ: There's that possibility.

Earlier, when you spoke with General McMaster, he talked about launcher capability and going after that for the ballistic missiles specifically. But as concerning are the drones. And while the Iranians have estimated of 2,500 to 3,000 of the ballistic missiles prior to this conflict starting, they have tens of thousands of drones, all different variants.

And so there is a likelihood that some of the Arab states, while they have some very great equipment from the United States and our allies from -- in Europe, there's a possibility that they could see a shortage, certainly.

BLITZER: Just a very personal question, because I'm so concerned of Americans who are in the Middle East right now, whether in the Persian Gulf area, some of the allies, like Qatar or the United Arab Emirates, for example, Bahrain or Israel, for that matter.

The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, just said, all Americans should try to get out of Israel as quickly as possible. The State Department is warning all Americans to get out as quickly as possible.

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But, as you know, airspace is closed for all practical purposes. Commercial flights are not allowed. How do they get out? They're trying to get out by land. But I know some other countries, like Britain, for example, have sent military aircraft into some of these countries to get their citizens out.

Why hasn't the U.S. used some of the U.S. military aircraft in the region, gone into some of those air bases in these friendly countries, and told Americans, go to these air bases, you will get on a military plane, and you will be allowed to escape the Middle East?

SCHWARTZ: Well, I think that's a very viable option. And I am surprised that, while we have seen some of our allies, like you mentioned, the U.K., doing this already, that we haven't done that, as well as maybe U.S. Central Command, working with the State Department, are orchestrating some major overland movements into Egypt, into Jordan, which are the two best places, obviously, to move out.

But there's also the maritime avenue to leave the country. And so there's opportunities with maritime vessels, merchant marine vessels. And having been in EUCOM, I know we looked at those -- that whole variety of options that you mentioned, using U.S. military airlifts, as well as using maritime vessels, to move and take citizens out of Israel and other areas in the region.

So I think there's a lot of options out there, and ideally CENTCOM and the State Department are looking at that in earnest.

BLITZER: Yes, they have got to move quickly and save a lot of lives, potentially get those Americans out of there. And if it means sending in military aircraft and getting them on those planes to get them out, they have got to do that quickly.

Somebody who spent a lot of time in the Middle East, and I remember, when there were similar situations, the U.S. military was always very helpful. So far, I haven't seen any moves by the U.S. military to do that. Let's hope that happens and happens soon.

And we're getting some more breaking news, General. I just want your reaction. Another U.S. Embassy in the Middle East has now closed. We're talking about the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, and the statement was that it's closed until further notice. And that's just hours after Israel said it began striking the city to target the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah.

What's your reaction?

SCHWARTZ: Well, I think it's a very prudent move. The ongoing operations when Lebanese Hezbollah struck into Israel just a little over 24 hours ago, and then the re-initiation of their offensive operations into Southern Lebanon, there's a broader five-phase plan for Lebanon that the Israelis have coordinated with the United States to ultimately get the government of Lebanon to rid Lebanon of Lebanese Hezbollah.

There's a long way to go, but I think it's a very prudent step right now. Diplomacy, we can still maintain communications with those in the Lebanese government that we need to without putting Americans, whether they're Department of State or U.S. citizens writ large, at risk. So I think it's a very good call.

BLITZER: All right, thanks very much, Lieutenant General Mark Schwartz. Always good to have you. We will continue this conversation down the road.

We're watching all the major breaking news right now, and we will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: All right, President...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Yes, take a look. Go ahead, Pamela.

BROWN: Yes, the president you see here meeting with the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz. Let's listen in.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, thank you very much, everybody. We have a meeting with a man who's become a friend of mine. And we have known each other for a little while in some very interesting times.

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And we get along. Our countries get along very well. We have a great affinity for each other. And the chancellor has been very well received in Germany. He's a very, very successful man. He became the chancellor of Germany, which is a big deal. And he's doing a very good job, in my opinion, a really great job, very popular.

And the relationship that we have in trade and everything else has been very strong. We have been able to do our deals, and it's been very strong. We will obviously be talking a little bit about Iran today. And he's been helping us out. You have been very nice, actually.

And that is coming along, as you see, very well. They have no navy. It's been knocked out. They have no air force. It's been knocked out. They have no air detection. That's been knocked out. Their radar has been knocked out. And just about everything has been knocked out.

So we will see how we do. But we're doing very well. We have a great military, and they're doing a fantastic job. So we will be talking about that. And we're talking about some very big trade deals. And those, I know, will work out too.

So I just want to say it's a great honor to have you at the Oval Office, the beautiful Oval Office, beautiful White House. It's a special place, even from your standpoint, and you have some very special places too. And I look forward to being with you.

FRIEDRICH MERZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR: Thank you.

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

MERZ: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President, for having me here in this Oval Office for the third time now.

TRUMP: Yes.

MERZ: I'm really happy to have the opportunity to speak with you in these challenging times.

We are on the same page in terms of getting this terrible regime in Tehran away. And we will talk about the day after, what will happen then if they are out. We have to talk about our trade agreement, which I would like to be in place as soon as possible.

And we have to talk about Ukraine. There are too many bad guys in this world, actually. And this is an issue we have to talk about, because we all want to see this war coming to an end as soon as possible. But Ukraine has to preserve its territory and their security interests. And, well, we will talk about that.

TRUMP: Right. We will, indeed.

MERZ: Looking forward to that.

TRUMP: Well, thank you for being here.

MERZ: Thank you.

TRUMP: That's an interesting...

(CROSSTALK)

MERZ: ... for you hospitality. Thank you for letting me spending the night in your guesthouse.

TRUMP: That's right.

MERZ: It's a very, very comfortable place.

TRUMP: Good. I hope you like it, right?

MERZ: Absolutely. Yes, a great place, and a famous place.

TRUMP: That's very famous.

MERZ: So many former presidents.

TRUMP: That's right.

MERZ: Yes.

TRUMP: Very famous place.

Any questions, please?

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Mr. President, did Israel force your hand until launch these strikes against Iran?

TRUMP: No.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIC) the United States into this war?

TRUMP: No, I might have forced their hand. You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics. And it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going to attack. If we didn't do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.

And we have great negotiators, great people, people that do this very successfully, and have done it all their lives very successful. And based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they were going to attack first. And I didn't want that to happen. So, if anything, I might have forced Israel's hand.

But Israel was ready, and we were ready. And we have had a very, very powerful impact because virtually everything they have has been knocked out now. Their missile count is going way down. Amazingly, they're hitting countries that were -- let's call them neutral, right? They lived together for a long time. They -- I think they were surprised. I was surprised.

I think it -- and now those countries are all fighting against them and fighting strongly against them. Someday, they will write a story and they will say why they did that. But they hit countries that had nothing to do with what's going on. They were sort of leaving everything alone. All of a sudden, they get -- they had missiles shot in, which shows you the level of evil that we're dealing with.

They will hit people that were actually at least somewhat friendly and they had no problems with. They're also hitting only civilian places, hotels and apartment buildings. And we're hitting them where it is much more appropriate. We're hitting them very hard. And the big-scale hitting goes now. They

no longer have air protection. They no longer have any detection facilities at all left. And so they're going to be in for a lot of hurt. These are bad people. These are people that killed I guess it's 35,000 it's coming out, 35,000 over the last three weeks, protesters, 35,000 violently killed.

[11:55:08]

So these are bad people, and the leader of the pack is gone. And, as you know, 49 people were taken out in the first hit. And I guess there was another hit today on the new leadership, and it looks like that was pretty substantial also.

So they're getting hit very hard, and we will see what happens. A lot of people are coming forward. A lot of the people you would at least suspect want to quit. They want to have immunity. They're asking for immunity, and probably at some point they will be dropping, as you would say, laying down their guns. We will see what happens.

In the meantime, we're just continuing to go forward. Our military is the number one in the world by far, and we are -- this is -- everything's big in my book. Venezuela was big. This is big. The original hit, Midnight Hammer, was big. Everything you view is big, but it's not considered very big by some standards, by some of our standards.

We have a military like no other military that's ever been built.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Mr. President, what's the worst-case scenario that you have planned for in Iran?

TRUMP: Well, I don't know if this is the worst case. We have them very much beaten militarily from the military standpoint. They're still lobbing some missiles. At some point, they won't even be able to do that because we're hitting all of their carriers. We're hitting all of their missile stock.

They built up all these missiles over the last few years. They had a lot of them. They have shot a lot of them, and we're knocking out a lot. I guess the worst case would be we do this, and then somebody takes over who's as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don't want that to happen. It would probably be the worst.

You go through this and then, in five years, you realize you put somebody in who was no better. So we'd like to see somebody in there that's going to bring it back for the people. And we will see what happens with the people. They have their chance, and we have said, don't do it yet. If you're going to go out and protest, don't do it yet. It's very dangerous out there. A lot of bombs are being dropped.

But I always say that would be about the worst.

QUESTION: Do you have someone in mind right now? As you have said all the people you do have in mind have been taken out. What do you think...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Well, most of the people we had in mind are dead. So we had some in mind from that group that is dead. And now we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports.

So I guess you will have a third wave coming in. Pretty soon, we're not going to know anybody. But we have -- I mean, Venezuela was so incredible because we did the attack and we kept government totally intact. And we have Delcy, who's been very good. We have the whole chain of command. And they have been -- look, the relationship has been great.

We have taken out 100 million barrels of oil already. And a big part of that goes to them and a big part goes to us. And it's been great. We paid for the war many times over. And we're going to be running the oil. And Venezuela is going to make more money than they ever made, and that's great for the people.

The relationship has been great. It's been seamless. Nobody has actually ever seen anything like it. If you look at Iraq, where very stupidly everybody was fired, the generals were fired, the military was fired, the police were fired, the fire departments were fired, and all of the government workers were fired.

So after -- people would call -- they had no idea. And, by the way, ISIS was formed. That's where ISIS came from, all of the fired people. We don't believe in that. So we will see what happens. But, first, we have to finish off the military.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: (OFF-MIC)

TRUMP: I guess he is. Some people like him, and we haven't been thinking about too much about that. It would seem to me that somebody from within might -- maybe would be more appropriate. I have said that. He looks like a very nice person.

But it would seem to me that somebody that's there, that's currently popular, if there's such a person, but we have people like that. We have people that were more moderate. You know, these were radical lunatics. And you know what they get? They get nothing. All they do is kill people.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: (OFF-MIC)

TRUMP: You have asked. Not your turn. Not your turn.

Please.

QUESTION: Mr. President, are you going to take the heat off the Europeans (OFF-MIC) TRUMP: What does that mean?

QUESTION: (OFF-MIC) NATO but (OFF-MIC) helpful to you in this. And...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Well, some of the European nations have been helpful, and some haven't. And I'm very surprised.