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The Story Is with Elex Michaelson

Israel Launches "Broad-Scale Wave of Strikes" in Tehran; U.S. House Rejects Measure to Limit Trump's War Powers; Trump Renews Call for Netanyahu's Pardon; Trump Taps Mullin To Replace Noem As Homeland Security Chief; Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales Ends Reelection Bid; Qatar: Air Defenses Intercept Drone Targeting U.S. Base; Oil His Highest Level Since End of Biden Administration. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired March 06, 2026 - 02:00   ET

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

[02:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNKNOWN (voice-over): This is "CNN Breaking News."

ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to a special extra hour of "The Story Is." I'm Elex Michelson. And our top story is the war with Iran and what Israel caused a broad-scale wave of strikes happening across Tehran right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON (voice-over): Dramatic video from the Iranian capital shows huge explosions lighting up the skies overnight. Then there was this moment live on Iranian state media.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

MICHAELSON (voice-over): There are reports that a popular shopping district in one of the busiest streets in Tehran were also targeted. State media says central and eastern areas of the city now deserted. Iranian Red Crescent says more than 3,000 homes in Iran have been damaged by U.S. and Israeli strikes. President Donald Trump says those bombing campaigns will only intensify.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The United States Military together with the wonderful Israeli partners continue to totally demolish the enemy far ahead of schedule. We're destroying more of Iran's missiles and drone capability every single hour.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Israel is also ramping up its strike on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Residents have been fleeing from huge swaths of Beirut and its suburbs. You look at this live picture right now from Beirut. You can see the smoke left over from one of those attacks. Israel is also attacking parts of Northern Lebanon for the first time in this conflict. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says he is not concerned about the U.S. running low on munitions. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Our capabilities are overwhelming and gathering still, as are those of our Israeli partners. Our munitions are full up, and our will is iron clad, which means our timeline is ours and ours alone to control.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: We've got live reporters covering all angles of this story from around the globe. Eleni Giokos has the latest on the impact on oil and markets, Bijan Hosseini is in Doha monitoring the impact on travel, and Brian Todd standing by in Washington. But first, to Oren Liebermann in Tel Aviv, Paula Hancocks in Dubai. Oren, let's start with you and the latest on those strikes in Tehran.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: These are strikes we're seeing not only in Tehran but also in Lebanon. Let us start with Tehran, and that's where, each morning, we've woken up to the Israeli military saying they've announced a new wave or carried out another wave of strikes across not only Iran but Tehran itself as they go after the regime, its military capabilities, its leadership capabilities, and basically any arm of the regime itself to try to weaken it, to try to destroy it. That's effectively obvious at this point, and that very much continues here as we wake up in Tel Aviv on the seventh day of this war.

Yesterday, Israel's military chief of staff said, since the beginning of the operation, they have struck 2,500 targets with some 6,000 munitions. So, missiles and bombs that the military has used to carry out its growing target list, and that very much continues today.

Meanwhile, in Lebanon, Israeli military says they have carried out the 26th wave of strikes on Dahieh that is in southern suburb of Beirut that is considered a Hezbollah stronghold. Israel issued evacuation warnings for large swaths of the country, including all of Southern Lebanon, south of the Litani River, the Dahieh part of Beirut. So, this is an area where hundreds of thousands live. And then also in the Bekaa Valley in Beirut -- in Lebanon as well.

Meanwhile, as you pointed out, Elex, they also carried out the first strike in Northern Lebanon, in Tripoli, targeting what they say was a Hamas commander operating there, carrying out training operations.

[02:05:00]

The question is, where does this go from here on Israel's northern border? Israel has already seized additional outposts right along that border. And with these evacuation warnings and the largest strikes that we're seeing, it does certainly seem to raise the possibility of a larger ground incursion or ground invasion into Lebanon. Israel has made clear that all options are on the table.

Meanwhile, although there was no incoming here overnight, there certainly was throughout the day yesterday, five, six, seven times. There were sirens warning of incoming missiles here to Tel Aviv. Many of those intercepted. But we also saw what appeared to be cluster warheads breaking up in the skies over central Israel and over the Tel Aviv area. The missile coming in and breaking up into smaller, what looked like flaming projectiles with warnings and reports of damage across marks of central Israel, including fairly close to the airport.

So, on day seven here, what we see is an escalation, frankly, and a continuation with neither side showing any interest in backing down. No apparent off-ramps here. As Israel and the U.S. have made clear, they will keep striking and striking harder when it comes to Iraq and its proxies.

MICHAELSON: Oren Liebermann in Tel Aviv obviously having a little bit of audio challenges there, but we got the most important things in what you said. Hopefully, we get to go back to Oren for more information a little bit later, get those audio problems fixed.

In the meantime, we want to go to Paula Hancocks and talk about what you are seeing and what you know about the strikes targeting Iran's drone operations.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Elex. This is something that we heard from Central Command, saying that they had targeted an Iranian drone carrier. So, this is a ship. According to CENTCOM, it's effectively the same size as a World War II aircraft carrier. So, they targeted this drone carrier. They said that it was a hit, that it was on fire. This clearly in defense of the Gulf nations, in defense of the number of drones that are being fired against U.S. allies over the past seven days now.

So, what we've heard from the U.S. as well is just how significantly the impact has lessened, the ability of Tehran to be able to retaliate against the Gulf nations. Ballistic missiles down 90 percent over 24 hours. According to U.S. officials, drones down 83 percent.

We did hear an interception about 10 minutes ago. I feel like I say this to you a lot, Elex. This does appear to be a time of the morning where Tehran likes to target Dubai here.

But what we saw on Thursday night was unusual for the past couple of days in Abu Dhabi. We really felt like we had gone back to the beginning of this war, the first couple of days when the incoming was relentless there. At about 7 p.m. and for the next hour, there were alerts followed by thuds followed by interceptions. So, that was a surprise to many in the UAE who had believed that the capability of Tehran to hit and to fire these drones and missiles had lessened significantly. Now, the numbers show that their ability has lessened, but they are still able to have those impacts, and that really was quite a barrage on Thursday night. Elex?

MICHAELSON: Well, I'm good to hear for you that that intercept was able to be successful. How often is it not successful?

HANCOCKS: So, the figures that we're hearing specifically here in the UAE from the ministry of defence is that well over 90 percent are intercepted. Now, they do say that some missiles do get through, some drones do get through. We know that there are fighter jets in the air trying to target and intercept some of those drones, helicopters as well. We know that France has sent fighter jets to be in the skies over the UAE as well, more European nations getting involved.

There have been casualties. Three people have been killed since the beginning of this war. And more than 90 have been injured, we're hearing. But the authorities do say that most of those injuries are minor. Now, the injuries and the casualties are coming from the debris. They're coming from the interceptions, which are creating this very dangerous debris, which is falling from the sky. Much of it is falling across populated areas.

So, that is why these emergency alerts go out. They don't always go out, to be fair, before there is an interception. And they tell people to shelter in place, get inside no matter where you are, stay away from windows because they know that that's the most deadly effect of this at the moment.

There is evidence as well, though, I have to say. Satellite images showing that Iran is really trying to take out the air defense systems, specifically the U.S. air defense systems, across the Middle East.

[02:10:01]

Satellite images showing that a THAAD missile battery radar system appeared to be hit in Jordan. We've also seen the buildings' housing similar radar systems here in the UAE appear to have been hit and targeted as well. It's unclear at this point if that has had any impact on the air defense systems.

But as we -- at this moment, specifically in the UAE, the defense systems are holding, they are doing what they should be doing, and well over 90 percent are being intercepted.

MICHAELSON: That is good to hear. We've spoken to you the last four nights in a row. And three of those nights, there has been an intercept within 10 minutes of our live shot around 11 o'clock in the morning in Dubai.

We want to go back now to Tel Aviv. Oren Liebermann apparently got that audio problem fixed, and we want to get to the important information about who is going to lead Iran next. We know President Trump wants to weigh in on this. Is he going to get a vote in terms of who the new supreme leader is?

LIEBERMANN: Well, President Donald Trump certainly wants a vote when it comes to who Iran's supreme leader is. Israel hasn't actually put forward any point and said this is who we want to see lead it next. What they have made clear is that anyone in what is effectively the succession, anyone chosen by what's called the assembly of experts in Tehran, is somebody Israel would target and frankly try to assassinate. That was the defense minister, Israel Katz, who said that a few days ago as Iran was trying to meet to or Israel believes they were trying to meet to select the next supreme leader.

Any continuation of the current Iranian regime is something Israel is not going to accept and will continue its strikes, its targeted killings, and its assassinations to try to make sure there is something other than the regime. But what exactly that is? That part remains completely unclear and Israel has not put forward any sort of plan for that. How do you get from where we are now and the current governance of Iran to something that Israel would find acceptable? And neither has the United States.

The closest Israel has come to that is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu trying to speak to the Iranian people to tell them now is the time to rise up and overthrow your government. But that's not really a plan for a new leader. That's simply a plan to leave Iran without any sort -- any sort of governance here. So, it still remains unclear who Israel would find acceptable and certainly who Trump would find acceptable.

MICHAELSON: But interestingly, Trump telling ABC a few days ago that the person that he found most acceptable, they killed. A few of them, accidentally. And now, the United States says it is monitoring people that it potentially would like to see in charge of Iran and trying to keep them alive, where the language from Israel is, if you become the leader, we're going to try to kill you. So, interesting difference there between the U.S. and Israel on this as they work together to continue to target Iran.

Oren Liebermann, thank you. Paula Hancocks, thank you as well for your excellent live reporting.

The White House has said that it is sending ground troops to Iran, not part of its plan. They're not going to be doing that, at least not yet, but not entirely ruling it out. President Trump telling the New York Post this week that he would deploy them if necessary. Iran's foreign minister addressed the possibility of grand combat in an interview with NBC's Tom Llamas on Thursday. His message, Iran is not going to be caught off guard. They're kind of expecting it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBAS ARAGCHI, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: We were ready for this war even more than the previous war. So, you can see, you know, the quality of our missiles, how much they are upgraded after the last war because we learned lots of lessons. And we are prepared for any other eventuality, even, you know, a ground invasion. So, our soldiers are prepared for any scenario. When I said that we are waiting for them, it didn't mean that we are waiting for continuation of the war, no, but we have prepared ourselves to confront with any scenario, with any eventuality, any possibility, and we know that we can handle that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Right now, CNN correspondent Fred Pleitgen and his photojournalist and producer, Claudia Otto, are in Iran CNN, the very first U.S. network in the country since the start of the war. It is important to note that CNN is operating in Iran only with permission from the government there. Here is Fred Pleitgen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're making fairly good progress towards Tehran. It is a very, very long drive, though. Some things that we are seeing, we already went past one place where, apparently, there had just been an airstrike. There was thick, black smoke billowing over one place. So, it seemed like a fairly fresh airstrike. Also, some destroyed buildings that we saw from our vantage point as we were driving past.

The other thing that I would also say is that there are definitely more checkpoints than usual.

[02:14:58]

We did see checkpoints with fairly heavily-armed security personnel. Other than that, though, it seems as though things are going on, and we certainly don't see any sign of order collapsing here.

Taking a quick break for a coffee along the way, we've been driving for several hours, there's a couple of things that we've noticed. Number one is that, first of all, all the shops are open, all the shops are really well-stocked, even with fresh things like for instance fruits and vegetables. Coffee, obviously, also available as well. And then also the gas stations. There are no long lines at gas stations. Fuel seems readily available. And you just don't see any sort of degree of panic anywhere.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELSON: The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday rejected a measure that would have limited President Trump's war powers. The vote to rein in the president's authority failed 212 to 219 largely along partisan lines, which we expected, with the vast majority of Republicans in Congress now on record in supporting President Trump's war with Iran. A similar measure failed in the Senate earlier this week.

CNN's Brian Todd is live in Washington with more on that. Brian, when you joined us last night, you said, we know this is coming.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Elex. And, you know, these political battles in Washington, on one level, this is the first round of them, and that has just been completed. On another level, these political battles are really just starting.

As Elex alluded to, in the House of Representatives, this measure led by mostly Democrats but also one Republican, this measure to curb President Trump's authority to wage war in Iran without congressional approval, that failed in the House, as predicted on Thursday. That vote was 219 to oh 212. The vote came one day after the Senate voted down a similar measure led by Democrats. House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke about what that House vote meant in his eyes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE JOHNSON, SPEAKER OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: They made this very clear. The Department of War has made it very clear. This is a limited operation. It's operation that's limited in its scope and duration. It has a very clear mission, and that mission is nearly accomplished by all estimates. We are taking down Iran's ballistic missile capability, its stockpile, and its ability to produce more.

It would have been a very dangerous gambit to take the commander-in- chief's ability away to complete this mission. It would have been a very serious misstep by Congress, and I'm grateful that that resolution failed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: But in reality, these votes were really just symbolic. The Democrats knew that these votes would fail. What it really means now is that the Republicans are now, the vast majority of Republicans, are now on record as supporting President Trump's war in Iran. And that is important for Democrats. The Democrats wanted to put them on the record in case this war goes very badly. That's when they can try to hurt them politically, especially in the midterm elections in November. Elex?

MICHAELSON: Oh, we think about how big the war in Iraq was politically for years in terms of who supported it and who did not. It's part of the reason that Barack Obama was able to defeat Hillary Clinton and get the presidential nomination. That's a little ancient history at this time.

Let's talk about what's happening right now, including President Trump who, of course, defeated Hillary Clinton years later, and his comments on Iran's leadership. We talked about this a little bit with Oren. But you've got more on what he's thinking in terms of who's going to lead this country next.

TODD: That's right. Let's get to that quote they gave NBC News first on the gist of what he said here about the next Iranian leader. Quote -- "We want to go in and clean out everything. We don't want someone who would rebuild over a 10-year period."

Now, what's also interesting, Elex, is that Trump told NBC that his administration is taking steps to ensure that whoever these people are, his list of candidates are, they are trying to make sure that they survive the war. He says that we are watching them and we are tracking them.

He told Axios on Thursday also that he, Donald Trump, must be involved in the appointment of Iran's next leader. But, as you pointed out, Elex, many of the leaders that they were thinking of initially, that they would favor taking over Iran, they've assassinated. President Trump admitted to that. But now, he's saying, you know, we have a couple of other people at least who we're looking at. We want to make sure they survive. Let's see if indeed they do survive.

MICHAELSON: Well, it's also interesting that a few days ago, he was talking about Iran as a democracy, encouraging people to go out into the streets, take over their country, and elect their own leader. And now he's talking about the idea that the United States, another government, should be involved in selecting who runs a sovereign country, different part of the world.

TODD: Right. Right. It's really -- it's astonishing. And it's astonishing how his tone and his bent on this has changed over the past couple of days.

[02:19:57]

It's a little bit like the overall messaging that President Trump and the Pentagon are putting out about their rationale for the war in the first place, saying that it was to knock out the ballistic missile capability, to knock out the nuclear capability, then intimating that it might be regime change. The messaging is a little inconsistent at this point, at the very least.

MICHAELSON: Which is why we need you here every night in the middle of the night to break it all down because every night, there is a new story.

TODD: I'll do my best. That's right.

MICHAELSON: Brian Todd, thank you for being with us. We appreciate your excellent reporting. There has been a shakeup at a major government agency. Why President Trump fired the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem? And who's going to likely replace her? That's ahead.

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[02:25:00]

MICHAELSON: President Trump is renewing his call for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be pardoned for corruption charges. Trump says Netanyahu should have nothing on his mind but the war with Iran. Israel's president, Isaac Herzog, has the power to grant pardon. He says while his country is at war, he will not deal with the Netanyahu pardon issue. Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. He has denied those charges.

Ambassador Alon Pinkas, the former consul Israeli general from New York, joins us now live from Tel Aviv. Thanks for being with us. What does success look like for Israel in this war? We've heard sort of different language from the United States on what success looks like. How does Israel define success?

AMB. ALON PINKAS, FORMER ISRAELI CONSUL GENERAL, NEW YORK: Well, you know, if the U.S. is not, you know, not clarifying and not, you know, presenting a coherent case on the objectives in Israel, it's the same thing except that in America, you know, the president says one thing and sort of contradicts himself the other. Here, the prime minister is saying nothing other than, you know, other than going back to what he has said previously, that Iran poses a grave existential danger to Israel and indeed the entire western world. So, he's not defining what success would look like.

Obviously, Elex, Netanyahu has been talking, although he mellowed that down, about regime change. But surely, he knows that there is no case in history, bar one exception, Japan in 1945, in which regime change was induced via aerial power. And so, I doubt that's going to happen.

The question is, will the U.S. ride with Netanyahu along for the duration of this? Again, something that we don't know about, the duration. It could be days, it could be weeks, it could be months.

MICHAELSON: And for people that may not be as familiar with the history, when you're talking about 1945, you're talking about the United States dropping a nuclear bomb, which led to regime change, and hopefully -- two of them, of course, and hopefully, we do not have a situation like that ever again.

So, in terms of what's going on with how this happened, there's a whole New York Times article suggesting that Benjamin Netanyahu really pushed President Trump to do this. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, was asked if a call from Netanyahu pushed the U.S. to strike Iran. Here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think the president, prior to that phone call, had a good feeling that the Iranian regime was going to strike the United States assets and our personnel in the region. The president had a feeling, again, based on fact, that Iran was going to strike the United States, was going to strike our assets in the region, and he made determination to launch Operation Epic Fury based on all of those reasons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Had a feeling based off facts. Your thoughts?

PINKAS: It's weird that foreign policy decisions on this magnitude are based on feelings and gut instincts. But this contradicts the Israeli narrative. There was Mr. Netanyahu, who bragged on Fox News that he talked to the president into collusion on this war. There was the Israeli defense minister, who very early Saturday morning, last Saturday when the war began, said that Israel launched a preemptive attack against Iran.

And so, you know, there's a whole swath, there's a whole body of articles and essays and pundits talking about did Israel drag, did Mr. Netanyahu drag Mr. Trump. Look, Mr. Netanyahu has a track record of prodding and manipulating American presidents on a variety of issues.

Go back, Elex, to 2002. Netanyahu is out of power, out of government. He speaks in front of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and encourages the U.S. to attack Iraq on grounds that not only would it democratize Iraq, but it would bring about regime change in Iran. And he has been telling that to American presidents ever since. He tried to do it with Obama. He tried to do it with Biden. He finally succeeded twice, by the way, in June 25 and again now with President Trump.

But this is his modus operandi. This is not -- this is on brand Netanyahu trying to lure the U.S. --

MICHAELSON: Yes.

PINTAS: -- into doing something.

MICHAELSON: And it has been good for Netanyahu, if you look at in terms of his own survival as a politician, both what happened on October 7th and now this have held off the criminal cases against him? President Trump, his ally, now pushing for a pardon for him.

[02:29:58]

I mean, what does this do for Netanyahu's political future? Because the longer Israel's at war, it seems like the longer he gets to stay in charge.

AMB. ALON PINKAS, FORMER ISRAELI CONSUL GENERAL, NEW YORK: Well, that's -- you know, that's an authoritarian proclivity to always have an enemy, always fan the flames of fear and anxiety. Always talk about existential threats.

You know, as far as Mr. Netanyahu is concerned, every year is 1938. And there's a Hitler around the corner. This time, it's in Iran. Notwithstanding Iran's real threats and expressed threats against Israel.

But you're right. Look, this this could be a case, a rare case of a double wag the dog. There's Trump with the Supreme Court decision on tariffs, the Epstein files and his standing in the polls, who needed to do something to distract opinion. And there's Netanyahu, who you just correctly said, gets to stay in power and a further postponement of a trial that's been going on for four years already.

So, in that respect, Netanyahu by creating a permanent state of war and a permanent state of emergency, is getting away with it. But there are -- there is an election scheduled sometime in 2026, and it would be stupid and premature to say now how this war is going to affect his chances in those elections, because we don't know how this war, like we said before, you and I, we don't know how this war is going to end.

MICHAELSON: Yeah.

PINKAS: What is the geopolitical landscape going to look like.

MICHAELSON: And of course, there's an election for the midterms that could really impact President Trump's power as well, happening in November.

Ambassador Alon Pinkas, thank you so much. And thank you for referencing wag the dog, the '90s movie, of course, where a fictional president started a conflict in order to distract from other things. We appreciate your perspective from Israel, and if you notice, he worked for some of Netanyahu's opponents over the years. If you didn't get that drift, some of his analogies. Yes, yes.

A major shakeup in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. President Trump has fired Secretary Kristi Noem amid a DHS shutdown and growing scrutiny over her conduct as secretary. Trump plans to replace her with Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of

Oklahoma. He says Mullin will take over at the end of the month though he needs to be confirmed by his fellow senators first. That process kicks into gear. Mullin says he will work to earn everyone's vote.

Meanwhile breaking late tonight, Republican Representative Tony Gonzales ending his bid for reelection. This comes after the Texas congressman admitted to an affair with a former staffer who later died by suicide. Gonzales says he plans to finish out the rest of his term.

That announcement came just hours after Republican Party leaders called for him to withdraw his candidacy. He was set to face Brandon Herrera in a runoff for the Republican primary in Texas 23rd district on May 26th. There is, of course, a runoff in the senate primary on May 26th in Texas for the Republicans.

The war with Iran has all but shut down the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. It's driving the price of oil up to new highs while the U.S. president says he's not concerned about that, ahead.

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[02:37:35]

MICHAELSON: Welcome back to THE STORY IS.

This is a live picture right now from Doha. It's about 10:30 in the morning there. Usually, these streets would be busy. You see, right now many of them are empty as countries in the Gulf continue to fend off retaliatory strikes from Iran. Qatar's air defenses intercepted another drone attack targeting the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East earlier in the day.

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain have also shot down ballistic missiles and drone attacks in recent hours. A live look at flights from around the Middle East right now, the logjam of people trying to get out of the region is starting to clear. You see a lot of flights.

But look at this Iran, no flights at all. Everybody going around that country.

Oil prices are hitting their highest levels since President Trump started his second term. Brent crude climbed to $85 a barrel at one point, which was the highest intraday level since the final days of the Biden administration. Things are settling right now. You see Brent crude, regular crude, both around $80 a barrel.

CNN live in the region. Eleni Giokos is in Abu Dhabi.

But let's start with Bijan Hosseini in in Doha, Qatar.

And, Bijan, you had a scare this morning.

BIJAN HOSSEINI, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: Hi, Alex. Yeah, the team here getting an emergency alert on our phone a little before 4:00 in the morning, saying that there was a security threat actually, that the security threat level had been elevated.

About 15 minutes later, we did get the -- all clear that that threat was eliminated. And then about an hour after that, Qatar's ministry of defense confirming what you were talking about earlier, that attempted attack on Al-Udeid air base a drone attack that Qatar's ministry of defense say they successfully intercepted.

Look this is all happening were into our seventh day now of Iran's retaliation and kind of in the wake of this war is hundreds of thousands of passengers, travelers that are stuck and stranded as you mentioned, a lot of flight cancellations. We know there's been more than 11,000 flight cancellations across 10 countries. That's according to FlightRadar24 since this began seven days ago.

[02:40:00]

At one point, more than 20,000 passengers in the UAE alone. That country out of Abu Dhabi and Dubai that operates Emirates and Etihad, two major airlines. And then the government here telling us more than 8,000 passengers affected, passengers that were transiting through Doha International Airport.

We have been given some updates. We know that Emirates Airlines out of Dubai started operating a limited capacity of flights yesterday. We've been told that Etihad will do that today. A limited number of flights out of Abu Dhabi.

And we got an update from Qatar Airways just a little more than an hour ago. They are operating limited flights out of Muscat and Oman, and out of Riyadh and Saudi Arabia, but still nothing out of Doha here, as airspace remains closed.

MICHAELSON: So what are you seeing on the ground? What are you -- what are you -- in terms of, is life starting to go back to normal a little bit?

HOSSEINI: Look, not much has changed over the last seven days schools are still completely online. Only essential businesses are operating, people are being asked to work from home, are being asked to remain inside. It is, you know, a lot more quiet than were used to around here.

MICHAELSON: Bijan, thank you. Bijan, thank you.

We want to bring in Eleni Giokos right now.

Interesting comments today, Eleni, from President Trump when it comes to gas prices.

ELENI GIOKOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah.

MICHAELSON: We want to put this up on the screen. Basically, he's saying if they rise, they rise. Not, you know, saying that this is kind of going to be part of what is happening here.

Tell us more about what he said and your reaction to it. GIOKOS: Well, I mean, it's really interesting because we know if

there's anything that President Trump has an aversion to, its high energy prices. And of course, it affects the American voter. We've spoken about this through the entire week, and this is a year where you see the midterm elections.

But shrugging it off in an interesting kind of way, and that's after we heard from the U.S. treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, saying you know, we've got mitigation plans in place were going to offer insurance guarantees. You know, we're going to be doing naval escorts.

None of that has materialized. And the experts that I've been speaking to in the region saying that actually the risk which is, by the way, the worst case scenario that were seeing, we've got the Strait of Hormuz completely shut down, a trickle perhaps going through. And of course, the continued threats from the IRGC, as well saying were going to target any U.S. and Israeli ships, any ships that have any affiliation to Western nations. That risk is still very high on the agenda, and none of the mitigation plans have actually come into effect.

And if you see the Strait of Hormuz, you're seeing these cargo tankers as well as oil tankers standing by and too afraid to pass through because inflation costs on insurance costs have really skyrocketed.

But I want you to take a listen to what President Trump had to say. And basically saying the American consumer is going to have to deal with the short-term impacts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And yesterday, my administration announced decisive action to help keep down the oil prices, including offering political risk insurance for tankers transiting into the Gulf. As you know, pretty dangerous territory, further action to reduce pressure on oil is imminent and the oil seems to have pretty much stabilized.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIOKOS: Here's what we do know. You know, diesel prices in the U.S. reached $4 yesterday, and were really starting to see a lot of throughput now, despite the fact that the United States has a fair amount of strategic reserves. And of course, exports LNG and is an oil producer, it's definitely not enough to counter the perception of what's going on, because you're going to see a lot of capacity that's going to be taken out of the system.

Just yesterday, we saw another oil refinery struck. It was in Bahrain. The fire is under control, but we've seen multiple attacks on critical energy infrastructure. And I'm going to point this out again. The LNG facility in Qatar, one of the largest facilities in the world of natural gas, has completely shut down.

And it's not a switch that you can just turn on and off as you please. It's going to take a couple of weeks to come back online if and when that happens. So, you're going to see supply constraints of liquefied natural gas.

You're seeing constraints in the Strait of Hormuz. You're seeing critical infrastructure that is being targeted and every country around the world is looking at the inflationary impact, and it really needs to square up with what kind of strategic reserves they have in place whether they're going to tap into it and, of course divert now where they're going to get oil and gas from.

We know India is now looking at Russia. We know China is looking at Russia. And a few Asian countries are trying to find alternatives, but it's not an easy thing. And whether we like it or not, we're probably going to see an impact on consumers globally. This isn't just something that's happening in the Middle East. There's pain that is going to be felt across the board.

MICHAELSON: Well, and Indonesia saying that they might have three weeks of oil left, which is quite something.

[02:45:01]

GIOKOS: Yeah.

MICHAELSON: I want to bring up on the screen, though, that comment, which we had up from President Trump so that we can just read it out loud, which is: "I don't have any concerns about it. Talking about gas prices. They'll drop very rapidly when this is over. And if they rise, they rise. But this is far more important than having gasoline prices go up a little bit."

So that the comment there from President Trump.

Our thanks to Eleni and Bijan, thank you both for your continued reporting from the region. We appreciate it.

Israel says the war with Iran is entering the next phase. We'll talk about what exactly that means and how the battle is likely to evolve when we come back. More breaking news from CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELSON: This map shows you the U.S.-Israeli strikes in red. The Iranian strikes in yellow. After carrying out more than 2,500 strikes, with more than 6,000 weapons, Israel says it's moving to the next phase of the war with Iran. The Israeli military chief of staff says that that next phase will be to further dismantle the Iranian regime and its military capabilities.

CNN's Anderson Cooper asked a few experts about how things look now that phase one is behind us.

[02:50:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT (RET.), U.S. ARMY: From a military point of view, they've hit their first objective in the sense of phase one. Phase one, we're going after leadership targets, air defense targets, go against those offensive capabilities. They have missiles, drones probably haven't done as much to drones as we'd like.

But now that they've got air superiority, they're moving to the second phase. They no longer, as General Caine said, have to go stand off. Now they're going stand in. They don't have to use standoff capabilities. They don't have to use stealth. They now can bring in the bulk of the aircraft and the bulk of the weapons and the bulk of the ammunition.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Which may be slower aircraft or if they have air supremacy, if they're not worried about missiles being fired up, they can loiter over airspace and really pick their targets.

KIMMITT: And they can bring in the B-52, which can drop an awful lot of JDAMs.

COOPER: Alex, from your standpoint, where do you see things?

ALEX PLITSAS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So I completely agree with General Kimmitt. And if you take a look at the map here, right, we can see where the concentration of the strikes have been sort of inside of Iran. And this is reflective of the comments the chairman made earlier this week in one of his press conferences, and that as the operation continues, well move further into Iran.

So, he also gave a nuance where they said that we've got localized air supremacy. So that means we've taken out and cleared all the air defenses, basically going into this region. So, there may be still some that sort of loiters over here. But as we've seen from the attacks on the GCC countries in the last couple of days, they're expanding the infrastructure that they're hitting.

And so, they're also having to ensure that they're balancing taking out those offensive weapons General Kimmitt was talking about not just for us but also to protect our GCC partners in in Qatar and Bahrain, in the UAE, in Kuwait, where we've had a lot of large strikes.

And recently today, they actually they struck up in Azerbaijan, which has an interesting relationship between Israel and the Kurds and everybody else. And I kind of saw that as a warning shot to Azerbaijan after the leaks about a potential Kurdish offensive, not to get involved.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELSON: Thanks to "AC360" for that.

We've got some weather news, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:56:14]

MICHAELSON: Some dramatic video here. Severe storms are expected to stretch across the U.S. southern plains to the Midwest on Friday. At least two people, a mother and a daughter were killed in Oklahoma after tornado hit their car that storm system will bring damaging winds, hail and tornadoes from Texas to Wisconsin.

I'm Elex Michaelson. Thank you for watching the last three hours of THE STORY IS.

Our breaking news coverage continues with Ben Hunte and "CNN NEWSROOM" next. I'll see you tomorrow.