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State of the Union

Three Troops Killed Amid Iran Operation; Israel: Nine Dead After Iranian Missile Hits Residential Building; Iran Launches Retaliatory Strikes After Supreme Leader's Death; Israel Reports Fatalities After Iranian Missile Strikes Building; Israel Claims "Majority" Of Iran's Senior Military Leader Killed. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired March 01, 2026 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:22]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Earthquake. The United States and Israel launch sweeping strikes against Iran, killing its supreme leader and throwing the region into chaos.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're doing this for the future. And it is a noble mission.

BASH: Does President Trump have a plan for what comes next? I'll ask the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, Senator Jack Reed.

Plus, run around. Democrats are up in arms after Trump bypasses Congress to attack Iran.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Congress decides whether we go to war or not, not the president.

BASH: What will Congress do? And are Americans behind this war? Democratic Senator John Fetterman joins me in moments.

And uncertain future, as the mid-east braces for a new war, how did we get here? And what does the next chapter look like for Iran? Experts are here to break it all down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Hello. I'm Dana Bash in Washington for another two-hour edition of "State of the Union." We are following breaking news out of the Middle East.

Three U.S. service members were killed in action as part of Operation Epic Fury. Five more are seriously wounded. That's according to U.S. Central Command. And that's all we know so far.

This tragic development comes as the bombing campaign against Iran continues targeting the regime's nuclear program, weapons systems, and decimating its leadership.

Overnight, Iranian state T.V. confirmed that the country's supreme leader since 1989, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in the attacks, potentially seismic event that throws the future of the Iranian regime and the broader Middle East into a new era of uncertainty.

I want to go straight to Clarissa Ward, who is an Erbil, Iraq. Clarissa, I know you just arrived there. You have covered the Middle East for years and years.

Give us a sense of what you make of this moment that we're in and what you're hearing from your sources there.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is a truly historic moment, Dana. The entire region is now on a knife edge with no off-ramp in sight. And many more questions than there are answers.

At this stage, we don't have a good picture of who is now in charge in Iran. What will Iran's next move be? Is there any possibility to now de-escalate this situation?

I've been talking to sources throughout the region. They are very concerned that this is rapidly getting to a place where it will be very difficult to pull back from the brink. And I think you can see some of the kind of mixed emotions when you just look at the very few pictures, Dana, that we're able to see coming out of Iran.

On the one hand, you have people celebrating on the streets of Tehran at the news that the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini has been killed.

On the other hand, you have deep-seated anxiety and fear. What will come next? Will there be chaos? Will there be another protest movement? How will that be organized? How will we find the courage to go back out onto the streets when the regime that clamped down on us so horrifically, and so brutally in January, is still effectively in place?

Here, where we are in Erbil, as with many places across the region, there have been pretty much regular missile strikes, rocket strikes, drone attacks coming, not just from Iran, but from Iran-backed militias in Iraq.

The vast majority of those have been intercepted, although today, there was a drone strike at the airport where there are still some U.S. troops present here.

And basically, everybody is trying to keep their head down and brave the storm with no real concept, Dana. And I think this is what gets to the fear of this situation of where this thing is going.

BASH: Yes. No concept at all. Clarissa, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.

I want to go now to Israel, where police say multiple people were killed by an Iranian missile slamming into a residential area near Jerusalem.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is joining me live from a scene near Bet Shemesh, Israel. Jeremy, that looks absolutely horrific.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Dana. And it is almost difficult to fathom. But until a few hours ago, this was someone's home right behind me, and it has been completely reduced to rubble, nothing but twisted metal and bits of concrete, as well as some of the belongings of the people who lived in this house.

[11:05:02]

What this also shows you, Dana, is the power of decisions and the randomness of decisions in wartime scenarios like this.

I'm told that the woman who lived here and her five children, they made the decision to go to the house next door, which had a safe room inside of it, and that is how they managed to survive this attack that completely leveled their home to the ground.

I joined you before from next to a synagogue that was struck and took the brunt of this ballistic missile that was launched here. That's right behind me over here. As you can see, there is no synagogue left anymore. It's been completely flattened.

But this is also where you look at the randomness and the tragic randomness of those decisions, because beneath that synagogue was also a bomb shelter.

But in this case, the people who were in it, at least some of them, they were killed by the power of the blast as that synagogue caved in on top of the bomb shelter that was beneath that synagogue, killing several people.

We know that from this scene, at least nine people have been declared dead so far. There are multiple others who are still in the hospital with severe to moderate injuries as well. This is the deadliest strike that we have seen so far since this conflict broke out yesterday.

And, of course, it is a reminder of the fact that despite the stellar air defense assets that Israel has supplemented by United States air defense assets as well, when Iran fires large numbers of ballistic missiles, there is always a chance and an increasing chance, with them larger the number of missiles, that one of those could get through.

And in this case, one missile got through, Dana. At least nine people are dead. And an entire community here has been devastated. Dana.

BASH: Jeremy, thank you so much for that reporting. I really appreciate it.

And here with me now is the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jack Reed of Rhode Island. Thank you so much for being here, Senator.

First, I do want to --

SEN. JACK REED (D-RI): Thank you.

BASH: -- get your reaction to the death of these three U.S. service members who lost their lives in this operation in Iran.

REED: Well, the greatest strength of this country are the men and women in uniform who sacrifice everything so that we can enjoy the blessings of liberty. And their loss is a grievous loss to all of us, but particularly to their families.

So, at this moment, we have to consider their mothers or fathers, their -- their spouses, and thank them also for the sacrifice. But it is a -- it's the cost of war. And it's a real cost. It's not something that you can just dispose of and say it's one of those things.

BASH: Yes. It sure is a real cost.

Senator, you have been critical of these strikes for several reasons. You say the president never made the case for the war to the public. You say he never sought congressional authority. And he has no end game. Of those three, what concerns you the most?

REED: Well, they all concern me because we are now in a gamble. And we're in a situation in which the president has not clearly articulated what is his real goal and how will he achieve it. So, there's a lot of ambiguity. I think even within the administration of what comes next.

Then I think you have a situation where once again he has shown disdain for the Constitution. The Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to declare war.

The president entered a war without approval. In fact, even without a -- a good explanation of what he intended to do. And so we're in a situation now where it's -- it's ad hoc. It's not a strategic initiative, well-planned. It'll have consequences not just in the Middle East but throughout the globe.

BASH: Senator, we have seen presidents of both parties use the military to strike nations without congressional approval. So, this is not new. Why do you think this is different?

REED: Well, it's not new. You're exactly right. In fact, one instance in which the -- the president came to Congress was George W. Bush for the war in Iraq. I voted against it because I thought he had similar potential difficulties as this operation.

But you're right. On both sides, it's sort of taken their power and try to craft some type of novel interpretations of the law. But we're seeing a president who consistently ignores congressional will in pounding the funds. Firing people without -- without notifying Congress or giving sufficient time for us to react.

It's -- it's part of this everyday moment. But when you get to the point of going into a war, which I don't think at this point anyone can truly judge the outcomes, you need advice and consent from Congress. And they --

[11:10:03] BASH: So, if that comes before you, the consent part of this, maybe even some advice, and there is a vote on presidential war powers, how will you vote?

REED: Well, I would vote to require the president to within three days, either conclude the operation or to cease military operations.

Unless, and we made it very clear in the legislation, it requires the defense of Israel because that is a sworn obligation of the United States and that is recognized.

So, we want to get back to a situation where we can hopefully take over with non-kinetic means, our efforts to frustrate the Iranian government and -- and literally put them back in the box.

BASH: On that note, the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says that the strikes on Iran will continue and will increase in the coming days. So, it sounds like this operation isn't close to ending anytime soon.

REED: Well, I think that's right. And I think what we're seeing also, and what you vividly illustrated, is that the Iranians feel in a position that all they can do is retaliate. That if they just step aside as they essentially did after Operation Midnight Hammer, then they will be thoroughly degraded.

So, this is a battle that's going to go on with -- with more casualties, many of them innocent casualties. And I don't think we're going to get what we want.

If -- if regime change is the president's goal. If even ameliorating the condition of the Iranian people's goal, that cannot be done, I think historically, unless you put troops in the ground. And he said, we're not going to do that.

You know, we bombed Europe with the Eighth Air Force for years, tons and tons. And it took D-Day a year-long struggle to finally change the regime in Berlin.

BASH: Well, that's my next question is, do you think that regime change with air power alone is remotely possible?

REED: I don't think it's remotely possible. Because you could have a chaotic situation. But in Iran, over 40 years, they have built up a suppressive state in which there is very little organized resistance, very little communication.

What we saw a few weeks ago was spontaneous demonstrations. In fact, you saw them last evening. Some people celebrating the death of Khamenei. But there's not a coordinated institutional hook that we can grab hold of and exploit at this point.

Now, we have to see day by day what emerges. Is the next leader of Iran more temperate or more harsh? That remains to be seen.

But at this point, the sense is that they're going to fight until they exhaust their munitions. And ironically, we might be in that same position.

We have, as our Chairman of Joint Chiefs warned, this would be a tremendous rein in our ammunitions. And we might have to stop simply because we have no more effective ammunition supplies.

BASH: Before I let you go, President Trump said this morning that the attacks are ahead of schedule.

As the top Democrat on the armed services committee, do you know what that means? What is the schedule?

REED: No. I don't think the president knows also, by the way. I -- you know, the schedule is -- will take you to a destination. It's yet clear what destination he's seeking.

If it's the, you know, overthrow of that regime and the humanitarian uplifting of the people of Iran, we're far from ahead of schedule.

BASH: Senator Jack Reed, thank you so much for being here.

REED: Thank you, Dana.

BASH: Up next, as the Mideast faces an uncertain future, how could we get to this point? And what comes next?

And later, with the Supreme Leader, what do Iranians hope for in the future?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:15:42]

BASH: Welcome back to "State of the Union."

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it has launched another wave of missiles and drones on countries across the Middle East. This comes after Israel's defense forces said it had killed 40 senior Iranian commanders calling it a historic strike.

Here with me now, David Sanger of the "New York Times," CNN's Natasha Bertrand, and CNN political analyst Barak Ravid of "Axios."

Starting here at the table, David, I want to start with you because you wrote in a great "New York Times" piece this morning that President Trump has embarked on the ultimate war of choice.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Right. There was nothing down there that forced him to act and act now. There was no imminent nuclear threat. He had actually neutralized a good deal of that back in June when he hit Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.

And most of the nuclear fuel that is closest to bomb grade is buried at Isfahan. And there's been no evidence that anyone was digging it up.

His claim that they were soon going to have missiles that could reach the United States is contradicted by his own defense intelligence agency, which reported last year that they were probably a decade away from having something intercontinental.

They can certainly reach American bases, American allies in the region. That's been true for a long time. And there was no imminent threat.

[11:20:09]

So the question is, why did he choose to go do this now? And I think the answer, which I think you touched on talking to Senator Coons before was, this was a remarkable moment of weakness for the Iranians, politically, economically, certainly militarily.

He saw his chance. The CIA, you know, came in with intelligence about where they'd been tracking the supreme leader, and they'd been sharing that with the Israelis.

But the fact of the matter is that he did not need to go do this. And wars of choice are illegal under the U.N. Charter. They're illegal by most international law, unless you have an imminent threat.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: And I think that's where we're going to see the legal justification start to take shape. And we already saw it starting to take shape yesterday. And a call with reporters, administration officials said, the Iranians had missiles, essentially pointed at U.S. bases and U.S. forces, and they were prepared to use them preemptively.

And so we had to take action first to take out these missiles, take out the launchers to prevent a mass casualty incident.

We're told that that is not true, that the Iranians actually -- there was no intelligence to support the idea that the Iranians were going to take a first strike against the U.S. or against Israeli assets unless the U.S. and Israel acted first.

But, of course, going back to your point, they needed justification, not only, you know, under international law, but also to lawmakers who were coming -- potentially coming back to the Hill this week to vote on a War Powers Resolution to say that the U.S. was under imminent threat, that there was an imminent attack coming, and so they had to act quickly.

BASH: Barak Ravid, you spoke with President Trump yesterday. He floated the idea of off-ramps, but he also said he was willing to go along. How do you read that?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think I read that as President Trump sending a message to whoever is left in the Iranian leadership that it -- that this operation or this military campaign could end within days if his conditions are met, or it could last much longer.

I think the U.S. military has been preparing for a multiple week campaign. It could also end -- the first segment of the plan is five days. So, it could end sometime around Tuesday, but that's only the first segment. There are other segments afterwards, but President Trump will have to decide whether he wants to go to the second segment or not. I think that's what President Trump was trying to say.

BASH: Barak, you have incredible sources in the region. What are you hearing about the state of war as we speak?

RAVID: I think the main question right now is -- and we got to this point much faster than in June, because the first -- the opening strike was so consequential that, you know, taking out Khamenei and his top advisors.

But right now, I think we are in the state of sort of a war of attrition. On the one hand, Israel and the U.S. will try to take out as many rocket launchers as they can to try to degrade the Iranian ability to continue firing at Israel and the Gulf States.

And on the other hand, the Iranians will try to overwhelm the defense systems in the region, continue on blocking the Strait of Hormuz.

And -- and -- and the question will be -- will be more effective. I think that's what we're going to see in the next -- in the next few days.

BASH: Yes, which is the definition, David Sanger, of what happens in a war, whether it's a couple of days or even longer.

And one of the questions that Nick Paton Walsh was posing, which is one of the many good ones, is if the leadership is gone, who is now in charge? Who is calling for these missiles to be launched at Israel and other U.S. allies in the region?

SANGER: Well, before this all happened, as the U.S. built up its forces in the region, the Iranians developed succession plans that went down several layers. And I think that's because they learned the bitter lesson in June when they lost many of -- of their leaders. So, we're now about to go find out if their succession plan really works.

But for President Trump, he has actually laid out something far more ambitious here. Tactically, yes, he's got to take out all those launchers that we just heard Barak talked about.

But politically now, he's got to figure out how to engineer a regime change that is friendly to us. And as you were discussing earlier, it's hard in history to find a single example where a regime change has been brought about, certainly one friendly does, by air power alone.

[11:25:11]

So, the president might just suspend his goal and say, I gave the opening to the Iranian people and they didn't take it. Or he may keep going until he gets the result he wants.

BASH: Well, I mean, his stated goal is peace in the Middle East. I mean, that's a very lofty goal. BERTRAND: To say the least, yes. I mean, look, I think that the U.S. military, obviously, they had been preparing for this for weeks. Obviously, there were plans in place to conduct an overwhelming attack that did the immediate thing, which was to help the Israelis get rid of those Iranian senior leaders.

But we're told that the U.S. intelligence community actually did not have a good idea prior to this, of what would come next if the regime was deposed.

Unlike in Venezuela, where they had a good idea of who would take over once Maduro was ousted, they didn't have a really good idea of the kind of organizational chart of how this would play out in terms of who would then take power.

And so that's what made this additionally risky is because now you might end up with someone even worse. In fact, the intelligence community assessed that the IRGC, the hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is likely to, at least in the short-term, fill that power void.

BASH: Yes. I mean, we can't emphasize this enough and this is clear from every one of your answers. We have so many unanswered questions and we don't know what comes next.

Natasha, David, and Barak, thank you so much for being here.

Up next, democratic senator breaks with his party and says that President Trump's attack on Iran is, quote, right and necessary.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:31:03]

BASH: Welcome back to State of the Union. Democrats are demanding lawmakers return here to Washington and hold a vote on President Trump's attack on Iran. Launched without congressional approval.

My guest now is a Democratic senator who says he will vote no and that Trump made the right call. With me now is Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. Thank you so much for being here, Senator.

You are taking a very different approach than most of your fellow Democrats. You're fully behind what the president did in Iran. And you've actually been calling on him to do just this since last year. Is your support limitless if these strikes continue for weeks?

SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): Well, of course, it's not limitless. You know, my support was that they could never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb. I think every single member of the Senate says we should never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb.

President Trump was the guy willing to do that to make sure that didn't happen. If just putting out tweets and using harsh and strong language was effective, Iran wouldn't have been on the path to acquire a nuclear bomb. Those are the kind of things that are necessary. Now, let's never forget what Iran has done for the last 47 years into stabilizing that entire region and funding the proxies. They were behind 10-7 and to continue to do these things. So, for me, finally, do you really want to have real peace? Do you really want to have real security in the middle region? So, let's do that. And that's why I fully support that. So now, of course, it's not limitless.

Now, have people ever read the War Powers Act? You know, what's required of the president is to provide 48 hours of notification. And then he or she has 60 days up to 90 days to withdraw those troops, you know, before Congress approves that. Neither of those have been activated. He did provide that to the Gang of Eight.

And there are no American troops on the ground now. This was an incredibly, incredibly precise and successful strike. And they eliminated most of the leadership.

So, here we are. So, yes, I do support that, you know. Why can't the entire world celebrate that he's dead for what he's done to the world?

BASH: I guess the question, Senator, is that it's not over. It's not a, you know, it's not a one and done. They got the supreme leader and other members of the Iranian leadership, and now they've moved on.

They're continuing, the U.S. and Israel are continuing to strike in Iran. And just in terms of the reasons for -- for this, you gave a lot of reasons that Iran is a horrible regime and has been for 47 years, that it's done a lot of -- a lot of bad things across the globe. The question now is the immediate threat.

And American and European intelligence sources are undercutting the president's reasoning for these strikes. He said that there was evidence that Iran was getting ready to preeminently strike and that Iran was trying to resume enriching uranium and that that's not necessarily true in an imminent way. What do you say to that?

FETTERMAN: Well, what is true is that President Trump tried to negotiate that and tried to find firm, firm kinds of agreements, you know, absolutely. And they refused to those basic, basic kinds of things.

Remind everybody, you know, you are never allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, and clearly they was. And I absolutely supported what happened last June. You know, imagine if people just listened to the conventional wisdom that they could have possibly acquired a bomb, you know, if we weren't bombed back in June. So, yeah, there is a threat.

[11:35:11]

It's not imminent. That can happen right now. But it's one -- it's one that I think is entirely appropriate to deal with it. And that's why I support it. So, again, people keep describing that it was a legal war.

Now, read, read the War Powers Act. And now that has not been violated at this point, what happened yesterday. BASH: Let me ask you about that, because your colleague from Kentucky, Republican Senator Rand Paul, posted, the Constitution conferred the power to declare or initiate war to Congress for a reason, to make war less likely. My oath of office is to the Constitution. So, with studied care, I must oppose another presidential war.

So, just to be clear, it doesn't concern you that President Trump launched these strikes. I understand that he came to the so-called Gang of Eight, the leadership and members of the Intelligence Committee. But, more broadly, if these strikes continue, you don't think Congress should have a role?

FETTERMAN: First of all, who does Rand Paul agree with? He doesn't even agree with Republicans. He voted against them, too. So, I really don't -- I don't follow him, and I don't really use his kinds of insights in all of it.

So, what happened yesterday was incredibly successful. And now Iran was trying to acquire a nuclear bomb, and they have the kinds of missile technology that could inflict significant damage in Israel and our American forces as well, too.

Here we were. They refused to negotiate. They refused to change a different way forward, and I fully support that. And now if you talk about the War Powers Act, that wasn't broken. So, that's the conversation that we're in now.

And I don't understand why we can't just say, thank God, no, we weren't lost any -- any soldiers. And we were incredibly effective about destroying the Iranian leadership. And there wasn't any kind of outcry from -- from parts of the left after Iran executed about 30,000 other young people that were just simply protesting for democracy.

Why? Why can't we just objectively say what Israel has been able to accomplish since they were calling for a ceasefire back in 2024? Hamas would be still there. Sinwar would be alive. Hezbollah would be allowed to fire thousands of rockets into Israel now, too. And then Houthis, too. And Iran would be able to be perceived as a strong military presence in the region.

BASH: Yeah.

FETTERMAN: Turns out it really wasn't effective. So, here we are. We're in a much better place now. If anyone wants those things that they claim that they do, like peace and they can never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb, when someone actually did that, they could actually make sure that's possible. And I'm open to a better opportunity for more -- more peace and prosperity for the Iranian people, for more security that Israel deserves. So, that's the point. And, you know, this was not an illegal war based on terms of what the War Powers Act is.

BASH: Senator, thank you so much for your time this morning. I really appreciate it.

FETTERMAN: Thank you. BASH: Just a note, I spoke to Senator Fetterman earlier this morning, and since then we have learned three U.S. servicemembers were killed, five more seriously wounded. Our thoughts are with their families.

Up next, President Trump is wading into the Middle East, and it is one of, of course, the most complex parts of the world. Is he ready?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:43:36]

BASH: Welcome back to "State of the Union." I want to get straight to CNN's Alayna Treene in West Palm Beach, Florida, near Mar-a-Lago. Alayna, you have some new reporting on the U.S. role in this operation that killed the Supreme Leader.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, so this is a joint reporting effort with many of our colleagues, Dana, but essentially what we have been told by a number of people familiar with the preparations for this attack on Saturday said that for months the Israeli and American intelligence agencies, including the CIA, had been tracking the Supreme Leader's movements, monitoring his daily patterns, where he lived, where he would be, and they found this opportunity when they learned that top Iranian officials, including the Ayatollah, were going to be meeting on Saturday at the Ayatollah's compound in Tehran.

I should note they were meeting at three different sites. Each of those sites were bombed on Saturday simultaneously. And look, that actually shifted. Once they learned about this, that shifted their initial plans, which were supposed to be having these strikes take place in the dead of night. They shifted them to taking place during the day, seizing on this opportunity with the Supreme Leader being out there in the middle of the daylight.

And I do want to add, Dana, that this operation had been in planning for weeks, if not months. We know that when the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, went to Mar-a-Lago in December to meet with the president, he told Trump that Iran was restarting its ballistic missile program, trying to restart its nuclear program, and the president said then to Netanyahu that they would support a strike if that happened. And, of course, we saw all of that carried out over the weekend.

[11:45:12]

Dana?

BASH: Alayna, thank you so much for that reporting. I want to bring in CNN National Security Analyst Beth Sanner, and former Senior Advisor to President Biden, Amos Hochstein. Thank you so much for being here.

Beth, you were Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and so you know a thing or two about how that works as we're going into, as any country is going into a military operation. What do you make of Alayna's reporting? BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: As a former CIA official, I'm -- it makes my heart sing that the United States Intel actually had very, very good sources here. For a while, the Israelis were the ones who had all of the deep penetration, and the reporting that's coming out now really shows that -- that the U.S. intelligence community has been building up its own capabilities.

I think this is really important to have your own set of eyes, your own intel, and not rely just on another intel agency, but I think it's good, and you have to be very, very agile in these sorts of things. You have to be able to strike at the moment. This is what the Israelis excel at, and we haven't been known to be as agile in the last decade or so, so this is, to me, actually really positive news about the state of our intel military collaboration.

BASH: And Amos as somebody who interfaced with a lot of regimes in this region, to put it mildly, what is your take on the moment where we are right now, and more importantly, where we go from here?

AMOS HOCHSTEIN, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, two of the very good questions. Where we are is the decision to go to war happened quite some time ago. I think the negotiations, the so-called negotiations, were largely a play for time. They weren't serious negotiations. When the protests erupted and they were massacred by tens of thousands of protesters being massacred by the Iranians, the decision was going to do it, to do it happened, and the president kind of painted himself to the corner saying, help is on the way.

But he didn't have the military capability to actually do it at that moment in time, so they needed a lot of time to get the U.S. forces there and then to do the strike. The reporting now on the opportunistic moment of taking out the supreme leader, that was more a tactical decision of what time to go. But the decision was to go at this weekend, next weekend, but it was going to be a Friday night or a Saturday at some point here.

Taking out the supreme leader, taking out leadership and the ability to destroy large parts of Iran was never in question. We have total air superiority almost and capability superiority. The question is, do you destroy enough to be able to get to withdraw with a deterred Iran, or do you do enough to collapse the regime? And if you collapse the regime, are you doing regime change or regime collapse? Those are two different things, and I don't think anybody has the answer to that question.

BASH: And that will depend on how long both the U.S. and Israel continue their airstrikes there. And, you know, it seems as though they're preparing the American people for weeks, not days. Beth -- and maybe both of you can answer this question. You both worked for past presidents. You worked for this president. You were in an official capacity. You weren't a political appointee. Why now? I mean, the idea of Iran being a state that is a sponsor of terrorism, that does, you know, horrible things globally, never mind to its people internally, that's been the case for almost 50 years. Why haven't other presidents done it? Why haven't other presidents done it? SANNER: Well, I mean, this takes a pretty audacious, risk-taking president, right? This is a high-risk, high-reward scenario, if I could ever define one, right? Where the reward, I think all of us would love that reward that is, you know, the shiny object.

But it is very, very fraught and complicated. But why now in the very big pictures? Because we've never had an opportunity of such weakness, right?

So, the fragility, both internally and regionally, there are no now real threats of the proxies. We haven't seen any response from the so- called axis of resistance yet. And even if they do, it will be pretty pathetic, I think, maybe disruptive, but pathetic.

And then internally, so like, why now? You know, and also you have this very frail 86-year-old cancer-ridden leader. You know, so I think that the reason is now.

And also, you know, the Israelis certainly, there is a real threat that Iran poses. And then the frustration that, look, we have big- picture goals in this region for peace and stability. You can't get that, in my view, with this regime.

[11:50:12]

BASH: Would we have been here had October 7th not happened?

HOCHSTEIN: For sure not. I mean, that's without categorically. But I -- look, a little bit of a different take. There's no doubt that Israel has its national security interests, and this conflict serves it. The question that we have here is that there was no imminent threat to the United States. There was no imminent threat to the American people. There was a horrible regime with thousands upon thousands of deaths and blood on its hands. Including Americans.

We have a relatively unpopular president who did not explain to the American people why we're doing it. So, I think that's why, despite the fact that we are all very glad to see a horrific tyrant in his days, who chanted death to America for years and put a death sentence on American officials and military leaders. At the same time, we have to, at some point, the President of the United States, who spent the last 15 years saying the only reason to attack Iran is an unpopular president.

So, now we have to explain to the American people very quickly, and we have to take down, we haven't talked about it yet, but three American service members and five were -- killed and five were injured over the last 24 hours.

And so, at some point, we have to bring the American people in and say, here are the interests for America. Clearly, a new regime in Iran would be better for everyone. For us and for everyone in the regime. But we have to get there.

SANNER: But we still don't know.

HOCHSTEIN: Yeah, yeah.

SANNER: We still don't even know if that's why we're there.

BASH: Yeah. All right. Thank you both. I'm sure we'll be talking in the days to come.

HOCHSTEIN: Thank you.

BASH: When we come back, a quick trip down memory lane.

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[11:56:09]

BASH: There's always a tweet like this one. "Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly, not skilled." That was Donald Trump, the private citizen, in 2013.

A few years later, as president, Trump declared, quote, "going into the Middle East is the worst decision ever made." Now, it's not just Trump. Before 2024, before that election, his top advisor, Stephen Miller, declared, quote, "warmongering neocons love sending your kids to die for wars they would never fight themselves. Kamala equals World War III. Trump equals peace."

And then there's J.D. Vance, who in 2023 endorsed Trump with his op- ed, saying, quote, "Trump's best foreign policy, not starting any wars."

Here's Vice President Vance on Saturday monitoring the attacks on Iran from the Situation Room. Next to him is Trump's Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who in 2019 tweeted, "President Trump seems determined to go to war with Iran even after he campaigned on the platform of ending regime change wars." Gabbard even sold, "no war with Iran" T-shirts. What a difference a few years make.

Don't go anywhere. State of the Union continues next. Senator Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, Republican Ted Cruz will be here in moments. Don't go anywhere.

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