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State of the Union

Interview With Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT); Interview With U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright; Interview With Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC). Aired 9-10a ET

Aired March 08, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST (voice-over): Noem more. After high-profile missteps, President Trump ousts his homeland security secretary...

KRISTI NOEM, FORMER U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: I'm Kristi Noem.

TAPPER: ... and replaces her with a close ally on Capitol Hill.

SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK), DHS SECRETARY NOMINEE: There's an opportunity to build off successes and things that maybe didn't go quite as planned.

TAPPER: What will it mean for Trump's immigration crackdown? Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who called for Noem to go, joins me in moments.

Plus: unconditional surrender. President Trump expands his war with Iran.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're doing very well on the war front. On the scale of 10, where would you rate it? I said about a 15.

TAPPER: But as the conflict spreads around the region, does he have a plan for what comes next? Democratic Senator Chris Murphy is here.

And crude awakening. As the war in the Middle East sends oil prices through the roof, how much pain at the pump will Americans expect? I'll ask Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Hello. I'm Jake Tapper in Washington, where the state of our union is wondering if we have seen this all before, President Trump escalating his war, demanding Iran's unconditional surrender.

Overnight, apocalyptic scenes in Tehran, flames and smoke after the Israeli military said it struck fuel storage sites in the capital of Iran.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen is on the ground in Tehran and described the aftermath. We should note that CNN operates in Iran only with government permission.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is what Tehran is waking up to this morning. The sky above the city is covered in very thick black clouds. You can see that everywhere. That's the west of the city over there. And this is the north of the city.

Normally, if you look to that direction, you could actually see the Alborz Mountains, but now all of that is also covered in clouds. It's also raining, but you can see that the rain, the rainwater is actually black also, saturated, it appears, with oil.

And then, if we look over there, you can see that the water that's running down here also is black. So that's what's coming down this morning, this sort of oil-filled rain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Here at home, the American public faced the human cost of this war, as the bodies of the six U.S. service members killed by an Iranian strike returned home yesterday.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., there is upheaval in the Trump administration after President Trump fired Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem following a tenure plagued by high- profile horrors and blunders. The final straw for Trump, it seems, was not Noem slandering two dead American citizens as domestic terrorists, citizens that immigration agents killed.

It was, in fact, a splashy $220 million ad campaign heavily featuring Noem and her suggestion during a congressional hearing that the president had approved it.

Joining us now, Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

Senator, you have been very critical of Noem's leadership. You were very aggressive in the questioning of her during her testimony on the Hill this week, questioning her competence in the role. Two days later, the president fired her. What was your reaction?

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): Well, I'm glad he moved on.

Secretary Noem may have been effective as the -- as governor in South Dakota, but it's very clear that her experience didn't scale to something the size and scope of Homeland Security. So I'm glad the president made the decision. I hope Markwayne Mullin gets in there. He's a friend of mine. I have had a great relationship with him in the

Senate. He's got to fix what's broken there and build on what's right. We have lost the debate over immigration and deportations. I believe that we should deport everyone that we can find that came across the borders during the Biden administration.

But we have got to be smart, use our limited resources, go after the most dangerous first. And it didn't look like that happened in Noem or under Noem.

TAPPER: So you phrased Markwayne Mullin as a replacement. We should note, of course, President Trump's top adviser, Stephen Miller, about whom you have been very critical, Miller is still calling the shots for the administration's aggressive immigration crackdown, specifically this quota of 3,000 immigration arrests a day.

How much can anything actually change as long as Miller is in that position of authority?

TILLIS: Well, look, if the Markwayne Mullin I know in the Senate, who's one of the most independent people I have had the privilege of working with in the Senate, goes over to Homeland Security, then he's going to tell Stephen Miller to stay in his lanes and let him lead the agency.

[09:05:12]

I believe that Markwayne recognizes that it's quality over quantity. We want to go after the most dangerous people, the gang members, the drug traffickers, the murderers, the rapists, the things that Noem promised that we would go after, and she simply didn't deliver.

I still need the information from Charlotte's Web. I'm in Charlotte today, and about 20 minutes from where I live, they went after about 500 people. It's not clear to me that the hit rate was very high. They disrupted a community.

They developed -- they created discord among law enforcement agencies. We want less of that and more of what I know Markwayne Mullin is capable of doing.

TAPPER: One of your points of contention with Secretary Noem was her handling of the aftermath of those fatal ICE shootings of two American citizens, specifically how she jumped to conclusions before their deaths had been investigated, calling them domestic terrorists.

I do want to play for you how Senator Mullin reacted just hours after Alex Pretti was shot and killed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MULLIN: A deranged individual that came in to have -- to cause max damage with a loaded pistol, with an extra mag that was completely loaded, was shot and killed. And how much more does this got to go on before the Democrat leaders there take responsibility for their words?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So, obviously, there's no evidence that Alex Pretti was deranged or that he came to cause maximum damage with the loaded pistol he had a license to carry or that any Democratic leader was responsible for this tragedy.

Does that give you any pause?

TILLIS: It gives me pause that you had people like Stephen Miller calling the shots that actually I believe that maybe Kristi Noem acted on. It was Stephen Miller that was talking about a terrorist brandishing a gun. It was Stephen Miller who said it was the position of the United States that we should go after Greenland.

It's Stephen Miller that's been repeatedly responsible for embarrassments for the president of the United States by acting too quickly, speaking first and thinking later.

I think if Markwayne -- I don't think Markwayne goes to the podium and repeats something that Stephen Miller says. I think Stephen Miller's demonstrated he too is out of his depth. And I think Markwayne will learn from that.

TAPPER: Do you think Stephen Miller should go?

TILLIS: Oh, of course I do. I think Stephen Miller is one of the -- one of the -- not only does Stephen really want to just paint a picture. He's not worried about substance. He's more worried about form.

But I also think that he has an outsized influence over the operations of the Cabinet. And I believe we have got qualified Cabinet members there that sometimes are doing less than what they want to because of his direction and his outsized influence.

He's a big problem in this administration. He has been from the beginning. But Noem is a Senate-confirmed Cabinet member. She should have been independent. I believe that Markwayne will be independent. I believe that Markwayne will be driven by data. He will leverage law enforcement resources, expertise, people like Tom Homan to get things right.

And if he doesn't, we'd hold him accountable. But I have a lot of confidence in my friend, and I'm looking forward to him getting this department under control, so that Republicans can seize an issue that helped us get elected, strong on the border, strong on deportation, strong on the rule of law.

TAPPER: It's been more than a week since the United States and Israel attacked Iran. I want to ask you some questions about that, but let's start with the basic one. Is the United States at war?

TILLIS: No, by definition, we're not at war. That's what Congress does when we declare war.

And the same argument or the same questions were being asked in 1999 when Clinton went into Kosovo and in 2011 when Obama went into Libya. Look, there's about a 60-day clock where the president can do more or less what he wants to.

But I think, in this particular case, he's going to need a supplemental to sustain an effort. So let's be instructed by the war powers resolution. If we move into 60 days of hostility, then technically, the president should be ramping down the following 30 days.

If it's going to take longer than that, and we know what our objectives are now, then let's make a request and let the administration make a request of Congress to not only provide supplemental funding, but probably a request for the authorization of use of military force.

If our ultimate goal is going to be regime change, then it may take longer than the 60 days that the war powers resolution provides the president before they really do need to come before Congress and get it authorized.

And why not? Wouldn't we want to legitimize this by getting a congressional vote supporting the president if it's going to be a long-term engagement? I believe we should.

TAPPER: On the question about whether or not regime change is the ultimate goal, I'm not sure that that is the ultimate goal, but we have heard lots of different explanations.

But I believe the president has most recently said that, first of all, all that Iran's leader needs to do -- this is what he told Dana Bash -- is, there needs to be a leader who -- quote -- "treats the United States and Israel well." No talk in there about how the Iranian people would be treated.

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But, beyond that, it seems like it's more a military objective to destroy the Iranian navy, get rid of their missile program, get rid of their nuclear program. Do you think regime change should be a goal?

TILLIS: Well, I think that the administration needs to be clear on what the goal is.

At one point, we were talking about regime change, and then we heard Secretary Hegseth say something different. I think that we need to articulate our objectives and our goals, because the American people right now are questioning whether or not we should be in this war.

Latest polls see unaffiliated voters and even many conservative voters just questioning what we're doing there. Let's be very clear on what the objectives are.

And I think the president owes the American people that. He owes Congress that, because, with that clarity, then we can start building support for an engagement that could go on for more than the two months that -- I think beyond that 60-day period within the war powers resolution, there has to either be a very clear commitment long term and a request of Congress or I believe a cessation of hostilities.

One of the two have to occur.

TAPPER: This morning, Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo are reporting for Axios that the United States, the Trump administration is weighing sending in special forces to Iran to seize Iran's enriched uranium. That actually would constitute boots on the ground.

Do you think that would cross a line where congressional approval is needed, or do you think that falls within the 60 days that you referred to?

TILLIS: When you start putting boots on the ground, and those boots on the ground may need reinforcement, that starts looking like a longer-term conflict.

And the last thing we want to do is live paycheck to paycheck if we believe that we need to ultimately do what Obama failed to do, and that is to keep Iran in check in terms of their nuclear capabilities. So, Jake, I feel like, if we're starting to ramp up in that direction, it makes the 60-day window look less likely to achieve.

So let's just be straight up with the American people. Let's move with a discussion about what an authorization for the use of military force looks like and provide the legitimacy to the president. I believe that some of the reasons why you may see some hesitancy among voters right now is they're just not clear what we're doing and how long we're going to be doing it.

We need to provide clarity there, so that we can get the American people squarely behind the effort as well.

TAPPER: Senator Tillis in North Carolina, I know you have got some kudzu to kill. Thanks for joining us this morning. Appreciate it.

TILLIS: Thank you, Jake.

TAPPER: As President Trump's war in the Mideast expands, Congress shows no signs of wanting to rein it in. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy joins us next.

Plus, as the war sends oil prices skyrocketing, what does that mean for you at the gas pump?

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[09:17:11]

TAPPER: And welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

President Trump is not ruling out sending ground troops into Iran.

Joining us now is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy.

Senator, thanks so much for being here. SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Yes.

TAPPER: So, as I just referenced, this morning on Axios, two very well-sourced reporters in the administration, Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo for Axios, are reporting that the U.S. is weighing -- they have not made a decision, but weighing sending in special forces to specifically seize Iran's enriched uranium.

You heard Senator Tillis say that might necessitate congressional authorization for use of force. What's your reaction? '

MURPHY: I mean, this is already a war that is becoming an ongoing disaster. It gets worse if the president is talking about putting ground forces in.

You're talking at that point about dozens, if not hundreds of new American casualties. I think this administration just fails to understand how to achieve any of their objectives. So, their objectives shift by the minute. Sometimes, we're pursuing regime change. Sometimes, we're not. They have been consistent about trying to eliminate Iran's nuclear program.

But what they fail to understand is that you can't bomb knowledge out of existence. Even if you were to do something wildly dangerous, like putting American ground forces in to try to extract some of their enriched uranium, there's still going to be the knowledge inside Iran, so that if you don't actually succeed in putting a new leader inside that country, they will just be able to rebuild that capacity as soon as American forces are gone.

So this is a billion-dollar waste of money. Every single day, we are pursuing objectives that the administration can't actually effectuate, including using military force to try to destroy the knowledge that already exists inside Iran to build a nuclear weapon.

TAPPER: Right, but, to play devil's advocate here, surely you can bomb enough to, like, degrade their capabilities and also create a deterrence.

I mean, in 2020, you wrote about Iran after you met with the foreign minister -- quote -- "I have no delusions about Iran. They are our adversary responsible for the killing of thousands of Americans and unacceptable levels of support for terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East."

So you're taking issue with the way this war is being conducted. Do you take issue with the fact that they are -- that they killed the ayatollah and they're taking out the missile facilities and taking out the nuclear enrichment facilities?

MURPHY: So, there are all sorts of regimes that I oppose around the world, but that doesn't mean that I advocate for the United States military to go in with aerial campaigns and ground campaigns to eliminate that leadership, because what we have vast experience with, especially in the Middle East, is, that leads to more destabilization, more problems, more threats against the United States. And, again, let's be clear. Even though Donald Trump says that his

goal is regime change, it doesn't look as if we're going to do anything except substitute one hard-line leader with another hard-line leader.

[09:20:02]

And that, in the end, is going to make Iran a place that continues to engage in provocations throughout the region and against the United States after our military campaign is done. This, in the end, just doesn't seem to achieve anything, other than waste a billion dollars a day and drive up prices for Americans here at home.

TAPPER: So your former colleague Senator and now Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he would say would he, would he -- were he here, there is a difference between Iran having a nuclear weapon and all the other regimes you're referring to that you oppose their leaders.

I imagine you're talking about China and Russia, in that the mullahs in Iran -- this is again Rubio's characterization -- are madmen and they believe in holy war and they believe in killing the crusaders of the United States and the Jews of Israel, and there is a special degree of unacceptable for them having a nuclear weapon.

MURPHY: So, yes, I don't disagree.

But what I disagree with is that an aerial military campaign or even the insertion of ground forces can permanently dislodge Iran from having a nuclear weapon. Again, you were talking about knowledge. That can't be bombed out of existence.

TAPPER: So how do you stop it?

MURPHY: A diplomatic agreement. We had a diplomatic agreement. Barack Obama negotiated an agreement in which Iran was more than a year away from getting a weapon. We had daily inspections scouring the country. It was working.

Donald Trump's advisers told him it was working. He threw that agreement into the trash, which precipitated the crisis that we are in today. This was -- this is a place where diplomacy probably is the only true path to make sure that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon.

TAPPER: So, the administration is reportedly weighing Congress to approve an additional $50 billion in funding for these operations. You have said you're a hell no, not just a no, on funding the war.

We have seen this movie before. We know that vote will be cast as, especially if you run for higher office, you voting against the troops.

MURPHY: Oh, come on. I mean, the American people don't want this war. They don't want this war. They have seen what happens when American troops go into places like Iraq, places like Afghanistan.

Ultimately, we get a lot of people killed. We waste a lot of dollars. The one thing the American people are clear about is that they do not want the United States dragged into another long-term war in the Middle East. If you support the troops, then you should be voting against funding this war, so that we get our troops out of harm's way.

Virtually nothing good happened from sending thousands of Americans to die inside Iraq in the 2000s. And if we don't learn that lesson, then shame on every single one of us.

TAPPER: So, new evidence suggests that the U.S. military may have been responsible for a strike on a girls elementary school in Iran.

Iranian officials say at least 168 children and 14 teachers were killed. We have not independently verified those numbers. Trump was asked about it. He said he thinks Iran did it. What do you know, as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? And if it was the U.S., do you think there should be accountability? And do you trust Secretary Hegseth to bring about that accountability?

MURPHY: I think it is likely the United States that carried out this attack on this school.

I think it's unforgivable under any circumstances. But the fact that this was one of our first targeting decisions, that this mistake was made on the first day of war, I think speaks to the incompetence of our leadership at the Department of Defense.

There is also some reporting in the last 48 hours that we hit a desalinization plant. That may be an intentional strike. If we're hitting girls schools by mistake and trying to separate the ability of the Iranian people to get clean water, that's a war ultimately that's going to give rise to a broader Shia militancy against the United States.

It was our attacks on civilians, some intentional, some unintentional, inside Afghanistan that ended up giving rise to the -- giving a second chance to the Taliban.

TAPPER: And do you think this strike against the girls schools is a war crime?

MURPHY: Well, I think, if it's a mistake, it's very different than an intentional strike.

So there are undoubtedly mistakes that are made in war. I trust that this was a mistake. But the fact that it was a mistake made on the first day, I just think speaks to the fact that we don't have serious people right now making decisions at the White House.

TAPPER: Before you go, sir, I want to turn to the shakeup at the Department of Homeland Security.

You work with Senator Markwayne Mullin. Will you vote for him to be the next secretary of DHS?

MURPHY: I won't vote for him, in part because I have not yet heard that he's going to make any commitment to clean up the broad illegality at that department.

And I think you were right in your questioning of my colleague Senator Tillis. It doesn't really matter who's the secretary of homeland security. Stephen Miller is calling the shots. A recent judge said that they are violating 96 different court orders. There's still a risk of more Americans being killed. They are rounding up and disappearing thousands of legal immigrants to this country.

[09:25:08]

Until we have a homeland security secretary and a White House that are committed to ending this illegality, the terrorizing of American communities by the Department of Homeland Security, I'm not going to support anybody who's up for that mission.

TAPPER: All right, Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, thank you so much for being here this morning.

MURPHY: Thank you.

TAPPER: Appreciate it.

TAPPER: Coming up: With the Iran war choking off a key shipping lane in the Strait of Hormuz, how high could oil prices get?

The secretary of the Department of Energy, Chris Wright, is next.

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TAPPER: People in Tehran, Iran, woke up this morning to smoke filled skies and raining oil after the Israeli military overnight struck fuel sites in the capital city, sending flames and toxic smoke high into the air.

Joining us now is President Trump's energy secretary, Chris Wright.

Thank you so much for joining us, Mr. Secretary.

So let's start with these images out of Tehran after the Israeli military says it struck fuel sites in the Iranian capital. Is this going to be a new continuing strategy for the U.S. and Israel, targeting Iran's oil industry?

CHRIS WRIGHT, U.S. ENERGY SECRETARY: No. No, there are no plans to target Iran's oil industry, their natural gas industry, or anything about their energy industry.

And these are Israeli strikes. These are local fuel depots to fill up the gas tank in this neighborhood in Tehran. The U.S. is targeting zero energy infrastructure. We want to end a 47-year war.

TAPPER: So, CNN's Fred Pleitgen is on the ground in Tehran, and he reports thick black smoke and oil raining from the sky. One resident told CNN it -- quote -- "feels like we're suffocating." I know that the president has voiced concern for the Iranian people in the last few months. You are a former energy executive. What are the health impacts from these strikes on fuel sites?

WRIGHT: Yes, of course, there's air quality impacts of that.

But I would focus on the thousands of American soldiers that the Iranian regime has killed over the years. They opened their regime by kidnapping 66 Americans and holding them hostage for over a year. Three years later, they killed hundreds of Marines in Beirut, doing nothing of aggression towards Iran.

And then they continued that through IED bombs in Iraq. So this is a murderous regime. In fact, they recently killed somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 of their own citizens protesting their murderous regime. So that's a far greater worry than a few days of lower air quality in Tehran. They're just not even on the same magnitude.

TAPPER: Let's talk about gas prices here at home.

The head of GasBuddy's petroleum analysis told me a few days ago that two of the 10 largest single-day price increases in history happened this week. The price of oil jumped 36 percent, the largest one-week spike since 1983. President Trump told Reuters about gas prices -- quote -- "If they rise, they rise."

Is that really the message of the Trump administration to consumers, who are already struggling?

WRIGHT: The Trump administration has been all in on lowering energy prices, and I would say quite successfully. We have seen a dramatic decline in gasoline prices, in diesel prices. Soon, you will see it in electricity prices as well.

So Trump administration, in stark contrast to the Biden administration, his goal has been to lower energy prices, the Biden administration quite successful in raising energy prices. Gasoline today is still $1.50 a gallon cheaper than it was in the middle of the Biden administration.

But you're right. We want it back below $3 a gallon. And it will be again before too long.

TAPPER: What do you mean by too long? How much longer?

WRIGHT: Look, you never know exactly the time frame of this, but, in the worst case, this is a weeks, this is not a months thing.

This is, Iran has continued to build up their capabilities, first a massive expansion of their missile program, so that they can shield the completion of their nuclear program. It is simply unacceptable for the United States, for the Middle East geography and for the world economy to have a terrorist regime with nuclear weapons and a gigantic missile arsenal.

They have raised energy prices for Americans for decades. It's finally going to come to an end.

TAPPER: So one of the reasons for the spike in prices at the pump is, roughly 20 percent of the global oil shipments passed through the Strait of Hormuz. That traffic has ground to a halt since the war began because of Iranian threats.

The Trump administration says that the U.S. Navy has offered to start escorting oil tankers through the strait. Have any oil companies taken the Trump administration up on that offer, and when might those escorts begin?

WRIGHT: Well, a large tanker went through the gulf about 24 hours ago through the Straits of Hormuz.

So we're still focused right now on continuing to attrit their missile and drone capability to reduce their ability to disrupt traffic, to attack their 10 neighbors that they have been attacking. And that work is going tremendously well. Their missile launches are down by 90 percent, well over 80 percent reduction in their ability to fire drones.

So, again, we're not too long away, I think, before you will see more regular resumption of ship traffic through the Straits of Hormuz.

[09:35:00]

TAPPER: That's great that a tanker made its way through, but, as you know, it's usually 60 to 100 a day that make their way through.

WRIGHT: Yes, that's right.

Oh, yes, we're nowhere near normal traffic right now. And that'll take some time. But, again, worst case, that's a few weeks. That's not months.

TAPPER: For months, the Trump administration...

WRIGHT: And we have -- Jake, we have that oil.

TAPPER: Yes.

WRIGHT: We have the -- the world is very well supplied with oil right now. The United States is a net oil exporter. We're a net natural gas exporter. We are suffering high prices, not in natural gas, but in oil, because it's a globally connected market.

We're communicating with our allies abroad. The oil is there. You're seeing a little bit of fear premium in the marketplace. But the world is not short of oil today or natural gas.

TAPPER: So, for months, the Trump administration has used economic sanctions to pressure allies like India to stop buying Russian oil.

But, because of this war, the Treasury Department just gave India a 30-day waiver allowing them to buy Russian oil. The Kremlin says it's already seeking -- seeing -- quote -- "a significant increase in demand" for Russian oil, this at the same time that the Russians, according to an intelligence official to CNN, are helping the Iranians know and locate American service members and targets in the region in this war.

Is this war undermining, at least in the short term, the administration's goal of isolating Russia and making allies less dependent upon Russian oil?

WRIGHT: It is not. The United States' policy towards Russia has not changed at all. India is very clear on that. They had displaced all Russian oil imports. And they were raising their imports from the United States, from Venezuela and other nations. India's been a great partner through this.

But I did call up the Indians, as did Treasury Secretary Bessent, and say, look, there's a whole bunch of oil that's floating to wait to unload at Chinese refineries. Instead of having it wait six weeks to unload there, let's just pull that oil forward, have it land at Indian refineries and tamp this fear of shortage of oil, tamp the price spikes and the concerns we see in the marketplace.

It's just a pragmatic effort that has a short time span.

TAPPER: Secretary...

WRIGHT: No change in policy towards Russia.

TAPPER: Energy Secretary Chris Wright, thank you so much for joining us this morning, sir. We appreciate it.

WRIGHT: Thanks for having me.

TAPPER: Up next: Does President Trump risk making the same mistakes as previous presidents in the Middle East? My panel is here to discuss.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:41:54]

TAPPER: As President Trump escalates his war with Iran, he says there will be no deal with Tehran without the regime's unconditional surrender.

My panel is here to discuss.

Thanks so much for being here, everyone.

Karim, let me start with you.

We are hearing Iran has picked a supreme leader, though they have not announced a name yet. What are you hearing?

KARIM SADJADPOUR, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: By all accounts, the person who's most likely to be selected is the son of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. He's called Mojtaba Khamenei, 56 years old. Just like his father...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Well, there's Khomeini and Khamenei. You mean the most recent...

SADJADPOUR: The most recent, yes...

TAPPER: OK. Yes.

SADJADPOUR: ... who just passed.

Mojtaba Khamenei is 56. He's very close to the Revolutionary Guards, who will be the power behind the throne. And my view, Jake, if he indeed is selected, it's going to undermine the original rationale for the revolution.

The revolution overthrew a hereditary monarchy and said hereditary monarchy is un-Islamic. And now they have set up a hereditary theocracy.

TAPPER: Do you think that unconditional surrender is a realistic goal?

REBECCAH HEINRICHS, THE HUDSON INSTITUTE: I think this is Trump giving a maximalist goal.

I think that it makes a lot more sense to look at what Admiral Brad Cooper has said the goals are. He's the guy in charge of CENTCOM carrying out the campaign. And he's been very consistent. So has General Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

And it's to make sure that the regime can no longer pose a threat to Americans and our regional allies. And that has much more concrete goals that are achievable. And so I think that's what we should be looking at. And I think President Trump, again, he -- it's very typical of Trump to give that maximalist goal, but it's actually looking for something short of that.

TAPPER: So let's talk about the politics of this.

Jonah, the White House this week posted a series of videos online comparing the war in Iran to what looked like illegal hits on an NFL field, baseball grand slams, movie clips, some of which featured the bad guys. I don't know if they knew that or cared about that. What was your reaction to all that?

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It feels very much consistent with, say, Pete Hegseth's press conferences, where there's a very sort of like Chesty McBro frat vibe to a lot of this stuff.

I don't like the gamification of war. I don't mind a little, like, pride in taking -- in how well the military is doing, but it just shows how much of this administration lives online and thinks that Twitter and social media are the real world and that this is how you communicate. It might work with some younger people, but I find it kind of gross.

TAPPER: What did you think when Pete Hegseth six days ago came out and said that the news media only covers killed-in-action troops because we're trying to make President Trump look bad...

NAYYERA HAQ, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: Well...

TAPPER: ... that we only do that in a prominent way for that reason?

HAQ: Well, the American public deserves to know how their service is being used and what sacrifices are being made in its name. And this impacts families.

But the administration had plenty of opportunity to make a case about this war. They had the State of the Union the night before. When President Bush was going into Iraq, he used 75 percent of his speech at the State of the Union to talk about the war.

I mean, you look back on it and you think, well, at least they cared enough about the American public to lie to us back then. But we didn't even see that kind of run-up. What we see is five or six different days of five or six different rationales, with Lindsey Graham now landing on holy war.

[09:45:10]

So this is not the type of effort that is sincere in trying to get the American public to go along with a ground invasion of Iran.

TAPPER: You look like you want to say something.

HEINRICHS: No, I think that the administration has been very clear about what the goals are.

I think that we have seen this coming for a long time, since this is really a continuation from Trump one, the pressure campaign around the Iran regime, trying to get the regime to back away from its nuclear program. Then we had Operation Midnight Hammer, where we successfully degraded the nuclear program.

And then President Trump wanted them to be chastened to back away from their program and to end their funding of terrorist proxies throughout the region. We heard about that regularly. And so I don't think that anybody's confused about the purpose or the goals of the war.

The other thing I would say...

(CROSSTALK)

HAQ: So, that's fascinating to hear that.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Just let her -- we will come back to you. HEINRICHS: The other thing I would say about the last point about the

videos, I would say, I agree with Jonah. I don't like them either, but I don't think we're the audience. I think that there are a lot of...

TAPPER: Oh, it's definitely young men under the age of 25.

(CROSSTALK)

HEINRICHS: Well, and veterans, that there's been so many veterans of the global war on terror who've been named by the Iran regime. And now many of them are very supportive of going after the regime now. They want to win.

If it boosts the morale of veterans and those fighting this war and hurts the morale of our enemies, we want to break their political will, I that we understand why they're doing it.

HAQ: I'm not sure what numbers or stories you're looking at about the lack of confusion about the purpose of this war.

Yes, there's been threats of Iran, President Trump striking Iran, but also back in June, the idea was that the nuclear program had been completely defeated, and it was posting on the White House Web site that it's fake news to suggest otherwise. And now we're hearing that the nuclear program came back so quickly.

It's a constantly moving narrative target, and it's a choose your own adventure depending upon the day. But the idea that the people who served in Iraq and Afghanistan support this war, that veterans support this war, that -- the numbers are not showing that at all in polling, in data, even anecdotally, because those are the ones who realized, we served, we were maimed, we sacrificed treasure and blood, and Iraq fell apart and became a breeding ground for ISIS.

Afghanistan, the Taliban are now back stronger than ever. The goals of ground war about regime change, government in the box has not worked in the past. And that's where we're headed.

TAPPER: What are the risks in terms of the U.S. and Israel losing the support of the Iranian people, who hate the regime?

SADJADPOUR: That's a real danger, Jake.

I mean, we have to remember why we have gotten into -- ourselves into this situation. Last January, the Iranian regime killed up to 30,000 of its own people, and President Trump had said to the people of Iran, help is on the way.

And an American general told me that all populations suffering under tyranny want a magic bullet which is only going to kill the bad guys and not do harm to good people.

TAPPER: Yes.

SADJADPOUR: And, unfortunately, that is not how war is ever conducted. TAPPER: Any final thoughts on how the administration so far has

conducted itself? It's only been eight days.

GOLDBERG: Yes, so, look, I mean, where I disagree with you Nayyera is just simply that there are a lot of people who want to fall back to their old sort of talking points about the Iraq War, forever wars. That's a huge talking point on the right, far right. I don't think this is going to be a forever war.

I mean, you never know, but I think the odds are much greater that Trump figures out an exit strategy pretty soon. The second part of his unconditional surrender comment was like, I get to define unconditional surrender. So, literally, it just means I get to decide when this war is over.

HAQ: Here's the thing. The enemy has a choice in this as well.

GOLDBERG: Of course they do.

HAQ: And this is the part that gets forgotten.

GOLDBERG: Yes, but my point is simply that Trump does not like long, extended commitments...

TAPPER: Yes.

GOLDBERG: ... that his whole record is about antiseptic things. You're going to see a huge shift in the debate pretty soon, I would bet, to, why isn't he seeing this through, rather than why did he get us into a forever war?

TAPPER: Thanks so much, everyone. Great, great conversation.

When we come back: The Trump administration doesn't like some of the questions it's getting from pesky reporters about this war.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:53:41]

TAPPER: You see President Trump there at Dover Air Force Base yesterday welcoming home the remains of six American service members killed so far in the conflict with Iran, what's called a dignified transfer.

Their names are 20-year-old Sergeant Declan Coady, 39-year-old Sergeant 1st Class Nicole Amor, 35-year-old Captain Cody Khork, 42- year-old Sergeant 1st Class Noah Tietjens, 45-year-old Major Jeffrey O'Brien, and 54-year-old Chief Foreign Officer 3 Robert Marzan.

They were killed by an Iranian drone strike on an operations center in Kuwait, a source telling CNN there were no warnings, no sirens before the attack. When reporters began asking about that deadly strike almost a week ago, the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, well, he bristled at the questions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: When a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it's front-page news. I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: That's just not even remotely why we cover service members who are killed.

To state the obvious, journalists reporting prominently on American service members who have made the ultimate sacrifice, this long precedes Secretary Hegseth's tenure. It's been going on for decades, and it isn't about making the president, any president, look bad.

It should be front-page news. It certainly was in the home states of Sergeant Tietjens and Captain Khork and Sergeant Amor. In Iowa, home of Sergeant Coady, Major O'Brien and Chief Marzan, it was front-page news three days in a row, as it should be.

[09:55:17]

Hegseth's bizarre accusation led to the White House attacking the news media, specifically CNN. But let's be clear. It is the news media's responsibility to cover this war, not to cheerlead for it.

It is our responsibility to ask questions of government officials, especially when the lives of American service members are on the line, especially when civilians abroad, whether in Iran or Israel or anywhere else, are being killed, questions such as, were there adequate anti-air defenses at that U.S. base, or even more basic ones, such as, are we at war with Iran?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): We're not at war right now.

HEGSETH: We didn't start this war.

REP. BRIAN MAST (R-FL): Nobody should classify this as war.

TRUMP: I have to go back and look at the war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: OK.

Or how about, how long will this conflict last?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: You can say four weeks, but it could be six. It could be eight. It could be three.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: I swear, that rings a bell.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Yes, see, we remember what happened the last time not enough reporters challenged an administration launching a war in the Middle East.

And now this administration is attempting to grab the same tired playbook. They're attacking CNN for reporting inside Iran, showing what life looks like there. They're attacking the news media for asking questions of the president or the secretary of defense. They're attacking us for covering, covering troop deaths.

Guess what? We're not going to stop. It doesn't matter how many times the propaganda campaign that accompanies any war is deployed against us. So, get used to it.

Thanks for spending your Sunday morning with us. The news continues next.