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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

Israel Strikes Iran, Region Bracing for Imminent Retaliation; Iran State Media Reports, IRGC Chief Killed in Israeli Strikes; Israel Says, Second Wave of Strikes Against Iran Underway. Israel Strikes Iran and is Bracing for Retaliation; Federal Judge Rules Against Trump's Use of National Guardsmen in Los Angeles Protests. Aired 10- 11p ET

Aired June 12, 2025 - 22:00   ET

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

[22:00:00]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York. Our breaking news continues tonight. The world is now bracing for an all-out war after Israel launched airstrikes against Iran. Israeli officials say that the targets include Iranian nuclear facilities and military sites and called the strikes preemptive for Israel's self- defense.

Right now, you're looking at live pictures over Jerusalem's Israel braces for imminent retaliation from Tehran, potentially a missile or a drone attack.

But, notably, the United States is distancing itself from Israel's actions tonight, calling them unilateral and warning Iran to avoid targeting any American assets in the region.

We have reporters in the region and in Washington following this breaking news story and a group of analysts joining me at the table tonight.

Let's start here -- let's start with Oren Liebermann, who is in the field for us. Oren, tell us what you know tonight.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: Abby, two big pieces of information have just come into CNN here, and we'll start with those. First, multiple Iranian state-run media outlets are reporting that General Hussein Salami, the commander in chief of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has been killed as part of this Israeli attack. That is a tremendous development as Israel has made clear it's going after not only Iranian nuclear facilities and ballistic missile sites, but also the top levels of Iran's military structure and of their nuclear structure.

And this is seen by what Iranian state media is reporting now, again, the head of their elite, IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, General Hussein Salami has been killed as part of the attack. The question, have others been killed as well?

Again, that in and of itself would be a significant development, but that is just the beginning of it. An Israeli military official confirmed that a second wave of strikes is also underway and has been over the course of the past several minutes, as Israel targets what it says is the goal here, trying to cripple Iran's nuclear facilities and its ability to produce ballistic missiles. Israel has said that Iran has thousands of ballistic missiles with the capability of producing many more and that its nuclear enrichment had given it a significant amount of highly enriched uranium capable of producing within a matter of days or weeks, several atomic weapons.

That's why Israel believed that it had to carry this out effectively, unilaterally. The U.S. making clear that they were not a part of the operation, which again is. It is a noteworthy development, especially as this comes right before the U.S. and Iran were scheduled for a sixth round of nuclear talks in Oman. It would seem to be impossible for those to continue now given the Israeli action here.

Meanwhile in Israel here, hospitals are preparing and the home front command is preparing for what could be a large scale, potentially devastating Iranian retaliation. We have seen Iran carry out waves of attacks or barrages against Israel last April, last October, including more than a hundred ballistic missiles, more than a hundred drones. And Israel has intercepted some part of that. Some of that has gotten through. This, Israeli military officials say, could be far larger in terms of an Iranian retaliation capable of overwhelming Israel's missile defense. That's what we're waiting for now to try to find out how imminent this is, if we expect it in hours or in days.

Crucially, this story is not over yet. Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have made clear that there will be more strikes coming until they have completed the goal of this operation, which is to destroy or cripple Iran's nuclear capabilities. That because of the difficulties involved here, because of the distances involved, could take days or even longer than that because of the difficulty for Israel to carry out strikes in Iran so far away.

But that is clearly the stated goal of Israel here, which means we now wait to see the scale of the retaliation, as Israel's home front command has shut down the airspace with the transportation authority and made clear that Israeli citizens have to be ready to head to shelters.

PHILLIP: And, Oren, this part is very crucial, because, in the past, as you noted when Iran launched a retaliatory attack against Israel, the United States played a key role, being involved in protecting Israel in that moment.

[22:05:01]

Given the statement from Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, who is also the national security adviser, do you have a sense that the United States in this moment would be willing to do the same?

LIEBERMANN: So, there's a key difference between defending Israel and carrying out offensive strikes with Israel. The U.S. has made clear that the strikes were unilateral, the offensive side of that. It's hard to imagine a scenario in which the U.S. wouldn't help defend Israel.

But I'll build on that quickly here. It wasn't just the U.S. taking part in the defense of Israel with missile defense capabilities, with radar warnings. It was a number of other countries, for example, Jordan. The U.S. also had destroyers off of Israel's coast to help intercept missiles. And that was a key effort from the commander of U.S. Central Command, General Erik Kurilla, to put together that coalition of countries willing to help detect and intercept these missiles.

Because this was unilateral, it's unclear if those other countries are willing to play the same role. And what that means is the attempt to defend Israel from what is expected to be a large barrage of not only ballistic missiles but potentially drones becomes exponentially harder. The numbers will likely already be capable of overwhelming some of Israel's missile defense if other countries decide not to take as active a role in the defense of Israel and the ability to detect that incoming attack, it makes it even harder still.

And that's why you see the home front command, we've already gotten some of their alerts on our phones, hospitals getting ready, essentially getting ready for a worst case scenario. But look at where we are right now. There is open war, frankly, between Israel and Iran, and that may be the trajectory here of what we see over the next hours and days.

PHILLIP: Open war between Israel and Iran. Oren Liebermann, stay close. We will be with you as this story progresses this hour.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is in Washington with more from the White House's response to these strikes. Kristen, President Trump tonight had a Congressional picnic on the South Lawn. According to reporters, he left around 8:00. What do we know about what he is doing at this moment and what the White House is saying?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And, Abby, we had been briefed that White House officials were expecting this to happen. They thought this was a likely possibility and they were bracing for these potential strikes.

Now, we are told that Donald Trump conducted a cabinet level meeting at the White House tonight as this was going on. But I do want to talk about that Marco Rubio's statement, because that is the only statement we have seen from the entire administration. Often, Donald Trump likes to say something himself. The White House puts something out theirselves. They are all pointing to this Marco Rubio statement and there's a reason for that.

So, I do want to read you read it to you. It says, tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran. We are not involved in any strikes against Iran, and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region. Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for itself defense. President Trump and the administration have taken all necessary steps to protect our forces and remain in close contact with our regional partners. Let me be clear, Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel. So, a couple things I want to point out here. One, we know that they were already concerned about U.S. personnel. They had started removing the non-essential personnel from the region. But on top of that is this line here that says, Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary, showing that they got somewhat of a heads-up.

But one thing is unclear is who informed the U.S. and when did Donald Trump get on the phone with Netanyahu. The last known phone call that we know between the two leaders was on Monday. Donald Trump has both privately and publicly said that Israel should not strike Iran. So, was there any pushback from Donald Trump after the U.S. learned that Israel felt like it needed to do this, according, of course, to their statement.

And someone in the administration pointed to a statement that Donald Trump put out on Truth Social, as he was likely learning of this and as his team was expecting this to happen, saying, we remain committed to a diplomatic resolution to the Iran nuclear issue. My entire administration has been directed to negotiate with Iran.

Up until this evening, we were still hearing from administration officials that Steve Witkoff was planning to be in Oman on Sunday for that six rounds of talks with Iran. As Oren said, it seems unlikely that this won't be completely derailed, but that was in part why Donald Trump was urging Israel not to strike Iran, saying that it would mess up any deal that they had.

And to be clear, we are not really sure where these talks actually stood. We had reported weeks ago that Witkoff had provided a proposal to Iran that said that they could actually enrich some uranium. But just a few days later, Trump said that there was no deal that could exist, in which they had access to nuclear weapons where they could develop anything nuclear or enrich any uranium. So, what that did to that proposal still remains unclear.

But, again, as Oren has reported, it seems very unlikely that these talks are still going to happen on Sunday.

PHILLIP: All right. Kristen Holmes, we will also be back with you as the story progresses.

[22:10:01]

Thank you for that reporting.

I'm going to turn to the table now. CNN's Jeremy Diamond is here with us in studio from Jerusalem. We also have a panel of experts in diplomacy and military affairs as well.

But, Jeremy, what Kristen was talking about is at the heart of the matter. How close is Iran to a nuclear deal? Clearly, the Israelis believed, according to our sources, 15 nuclear bombs within a matter of days. Did they believe that Trump was being misdirected by this idea of nuclear talks with Iran?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was clear that the Israeli prime minister lost patience with this game of diplomacy that President Trump was trying to play very, very quickly. Obviously, from the outset we saw him initially try and kind of shape what a nuclear deal with Iran might look like, right? He talked about the Libya model. He talked about total dismantlement of the nuclear facilities. And then, of course, we saw a lot of back and forth over what that would actually be from Steve Witkoff and then from President Trump himself.

But, ultimately, it became quite clear, as Ron Dermer repeatedly, Netanyahu's closest adviser, Ron Dermer, repeatedly traveling to Washington, trying to influence these negotiations, and then clearly trying to make the case to the United States that diplomacy was not going to work with Iran and that strikes were what was necessary.

And I've been speaking with Israeli sources over the course of the last hour, all of them emphasizing to me that Israel felt it had a window of opportunity, that it felt like time was slipping away to carry out these attacks. One thing to keep in mind, the last attack that Israel carried out on Iran in October, it was destroying Iran's air defense capabilities around these nuclear sites. And so it was only a matter of time before Iran would be able to get those back in place, and that was one of the key factors, I'm told, tonight about carrying out the strike.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Now, there was another element to not just Israel communicating to the U.S. that it may not be able to get the deal that it want. But I heard from both Israeli officials and U.S. officials that Israel didn't necessarily trust the administration on these negotiations. In other words, they were concerned that the U.S., President Trump, might make a deal that went too far for Israel or didn't go far enough in terms of limiting Iran's nuclear program and therefore that it might act, that it might act without U.S. approval to take out Iran's nuclear facilities on its own.

PHILLIP: And that's the trust, by the way, is not limited to Israel. It is shared including by some of Trump's own allies domestically. And this was playing out very publicly over the last several weeks. That's -- part of the remarkable nature of this story was the infighting internally in the administration about which direction they should take has been playing out. Israel has stopped the conversation by taking these strikes.

ELISE LABOTT, EDWARD R. MURROW PRESS FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Think back to April when Prime Minister Netanyahu came to Washington and basically got this message from President Trump, I'm going to do what I'm going to do, okay? Then he made a deal with the Houthis, that no protections for Israel. Then he made a deal, then he was negotiating with Hamas without talking to Israel for the release of an American citizen.

President Trump is America first, and he's doing what he thinks is an America first policy. And Israel is doing an Israel first policy, and I don't think this is -- I don't think it's only about the nuclear. I think that this is a new paradigm. This totally changes the equation. I think Israel is going after the Iranian regime. They're looking at what they did with Hezbollah. They're looking after what they did with Hamas. Iran has never been so weak, and they're using what they did there as a template.

And as Jeremy said, they're trying to wipe out any attempt by Iran to rebuild its defenses. They're going after its command and control. They're going after. We just saw reports that the IRGC Commander was killed. America's doing what it's got to do and Israel's doing what it's got to do.

PHILLIP: Alex, on --

SCIUTTO: And the thing is what America -- what Israel's doing is against Trump's explicit goal for the Middle East. Going back prior to this election and since the election, he does not want war in the Middle East.

PHILLIP: Yes. He just wants no forever war.

SCIUTTO: And he has a war in the Middle East.

PHILLIP: Yes, now.

SCIUTTO: It's happening before our eyes.

PHILLIP: Alex. I mean, talk to us about the decapitation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. What is the significance of that?

ALEX PLITSAS, SENIOR FELLOW, ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Sure. I think it's definitely insignificant. In a literal sense, this is not a symbolic strike. So, the IRGC is a separate body from the Iranian military. It's about 10 percent of the total force reports directly to the supreme leader, and it was the aerospace commander that was also killed as well.

So, I think Israel tonight, if you look at the target set, would be the logical ones you'd go after, the senior military leadership in the chain of command responsible for retaliatory strike capabilities. You go after the ballistic missile systems that are capable of striking at Israel when they launched 200 previously along with drones that, quite frankly, everyone had a hard time shooting down, and we just heard there's thousands of them, so the next time this could be incredibly tough. And then you'd obviously go after the integrated air defense systems on the ground as well as the fighter jets, so you can then gain air superiority and air dominance. At that point, you control the skies and everything else are fixed targets that are left.

The nuclear facilities are complex in order to hit. We haven't sold the Israeli's bunker busting bombs in 20 years that they've asked for them.

[22:15:00]

The Iranians will tell you it's a peaceful program. At the same time, they build underground complexes with missiles with tunnels with 90 degree turns, because cruise missiles can't do a 90 degree turn at Mach 1.2. So, the options are limited for them afterwards. Do they collapse the tunnels and the air shafts and then attempt to continue to hit those targets? You know, is it heroic means, as we leaked in The New York Times, is there ground rate? I don't see this ending right now at all. And I think it depends on what happens next. I think the Iranians are assessing what capabilities they have left to strike, what the leadership looks like, and then they'll determine what they hit next.

DIAMOND: And this is also the critical question is can Israel accomplish what it has now set out to do?

PHILLIP: That was exactly going to be my question to both of you. I mean, if they don't have those bombs, can they really take out this nuclear program?

DIAMOND: That's right. And one of my sources tonight told me that the goal is to continue to attack Iran until it feels like this nuclear threat has been eliminated. And so that's a lofty goal. I mean --

LABOTT: They just said tonight, this is the first stage. Are they going all the way? Yes. Are they going to go after the supreme leader?

PHILLIP: What is all the way? I mean, what is all the way?

LABOTT: The all the way is going after the supreme leader. I think everyone thinks that if you kill the supreme leader, it's like --

PHILLIP: Regime change.

LABOTT: It's like regime change, ding-dong, the wicked witch is dead and all Iranians will just --

DIAMOND: And it just goes to the idea that there are different ways to dismantle Iran's nuclear program, right? You can dismantle it by destroying the facilities, destroying the bombs that could carry them. You could also dismantle it by taking out the Iranian regime.

LABOTT: But you just had President Trump in the region last week or a couple of weeks ago telling the Arab states, we don't need to be nation builders. We don't need to be regime changers. As Jim said, this is exactly what President Trump doesn't want.

And, you know, the statements tonight were very measured. I'm wondering what the U.S. -- I mean, I know the Rubios and the Waltzes of the world are celebrating. How does President Trump feel about it?

SCIUTTO: It's interesting, Abby, when we reported three weeks ago that Israel -- that the U.S. assessed Israel was preparing to strike Iran, I spoke to lawmakers who had been briefed, who said that there was concern that Israel might not just go for nuclear facilities but might go for regime change. In other words, up the ante, go for a far more ambitious goal.

And to Alex's point about the range of targets that this very much looks like a regime, decapitation operation, leadership, nuclear sites, military installations, nuclear scientists. PHILLIP: Alex, people are probably wondering at home, Israel is in the midst of a war with Hamas in Gaza that has spanned 18 months. This is a significant military operation that has wide-ranging consequences. Talk to us about the capacity that they have to deal with these multiple fronts at once. And is there going to be a point at which they are going to need to come calling to President Trump and say, we need more?

PLITSAS: Excellent question. So, I think, first of all, we're seeing the ghost of Sinwar come back once again. This is the result of the dominoes from 10/7. The reason you hadn't seen a unilateral strike previously is because Israel had feared, I think, the ballistic missile threat from Hezbollah, which was subsequently dismantled, then the pager attack took out the vast majority of their fighters that are there. They're not completely gone, but they were severely decimated. Hamas is largely a ground campaign. There's air support that's in there, but now we're talking long range strikes into Iran. So, it's a different military capability that's there.

In terms of the U.S. being involved, right, I think that was the point that was made previously, the U.S. is not involved now. And now Iran has got a decision make. To your point as well, when regime change calculus comes into it, do you take stock of whatever you have left and determine you're going to counterstrike against Israel only, or do you hit U.S. targets in the region knowing that they didn't participate, and then bring in a second party with greater military capability to then hit you a second time around?

And once they expend those capabilities, if the U.S. hits more military hardware, there's a balance of power tipping point at which the Iranian regime no longer has the ability to defend itself, and then it's at risk for regime change. And, quite frankly, that's a decision they're going to have to make. And that's why I think we haven't seen a retaliatory strike yet. They're taking stock of what's left and trying to figure out what to do next.

LABOTT: And they're trying to be -- the Iranians are terrorists. They're -- you know, they've done a lot of havoc in the region, but they're rational and they're strategic. And so, as Alex just said, they're going to think about it, they're going to be careful, they're going to take -- as the U.S. always says, we're going to respond at our time and at our choosing. I wouldn't be surprised if they try to, you know, talk to the U.S. and say, we'll continue to negotiate. You told the Israelis not to do this. I mean, we don't know how they're going to react right now. The Iranian supreme leader is right now --

PHILLIP: Jim, I really am wondering if it is true that Iran is days away from having over a dozen nuclear bombs, how is that a scenario in which the Trump administration, the president just days ago, says, we're sitting down with them, we're talking to them? Square that circle for me.

SCIUTTO: For one, I'm not certain the U.S. shares the assessment that Iran is days away from multiple nuclear weapons. It is true, I think, you often hear the phrase, weeks or months, it is certainly true that the breakout period, the period between where they are right now and having enough facile material to create a nuclear weapon has shortened significantly.

[22:20:04]

I think weeks is probably a reasonable guess.

LABOTT: But not recognized (ph), right?

SCIUTTO: Not one of us to-date. But we do know that post JCPOA, a deal that was designed to extend that breakout period, that period has shrunk in part because Israel and all the years since Trump pulled the U.S. out of that deal has been building up tons and tons of facile material. So, they're much closer today than they were under that deal.

I haven't heard a U.S. official describe it in those terms, days away from multiple nuclear weapons. Regardless, they're closer. And Trump's intention was to try to lengthen that period or even eliminate it via negotiation. But that path appears to be dead.

Now, Israel will attempt to take that away with the resources it has, which are not U.S. resources. It's not clear that they're able -- they're not going to lengthen it to infinite, right? You know, they may lengthen it. It's just not clear how far they lengthen it.

DIAMOND: And also as much as Israel has clearly decided to do this on their own, you know, without full U.S. support, I think it's clear that President Trump's position on this has changed over the last few weeks, right? When you listen to what he said at the very beginning of these negotiations, he made very clear no to Prime Minister Netanyahu. We said, he gave him a very clear no, do not strike Iranian nuclear facilities. I am engaged in this diplomacy that I hope will be successful.

In the last week or so, it's been a very different tune, right? Where he has made clear that, you know, this may not be working out. The Iranians are demanding too much. And you know what? One way or another, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.

PHILLIP: So, Alex, real quick, we're going to take a quick break, but I'm looking at the pictures of Jerusalem right now. Daylight is upon us here. But we also just learned that this is phase two of the strike. So, explain to us what phase one would have been and what phase two now that there is light, what that looks like.

PLITSAS: No, I think it's a great point and both of you hit on, I think, the key parts of the argument, but I'll answer the question. Hopefully, we can get back to the others afterwards.

Targets of opportunity, if you're going to want to do this, you take out the command and control first, and people are mobile, they change places, everything else, your underground facility is not going anywhere. If you have intelligence, you know where they are, you take that out, you take out the air defense systems, you take out the fighter jets, everything else, to give you control and prevent or try to limit Iran's ability to retaliate against you. And then you go after more fixed sites afterwards when it's safer for Israeli fighter jets and others to be over the skies if they're going to continue to attack in that manner.

So, I think that's what phase two looks like. There's a number of targets and the reason this becomes difficult, I know we're going to break, so give a wave whether to stop here, is once they -- you know, mentioned 12 weapons, so it's more like the facile material. So everybody listening at home is trying to figure this out. What are we talking about with enrichment? Uranium is found in the ground as a stone. It's like yellow. You grind it up into a powder and that's where you heard the term yellow cake that's Saddam was looking for. It looks like yellow cake batter mix that you get at the grocery store, you then heat that into a gaseous state.

If you put that into a centrifuge, which essentially if anybody's been to the beach or the pool or somewhere, you take a bucket of water and you spin it a circle, the water sucks to the outside. The air in the center forms like a vortex, right? It's because the water's heavier than air. So, uranium is found in like. 98.25 percent U-238 and 1.75 percent U-235, somewhere in there. So, if you calibrate the centrifuges just right, the U-238 gets sucked to the outside, U-235 in the center, you cascade from one to the next and you increasingly purify the uranium that's there.

The same tech, a little more complex, is used to basically take it from research purposes to weapons grade. Once they get past that point, and they were days away from that, then you disperse the material over Iran for weapon systems, everything else, and try to build one. Now you've got a much more complex military problem set.

And this morning's report from the IAEA as well as alleged intelligence leaks that came out, their clandestine activity, the Israelis said, that's it, we're going to take it out.

PHILLIP: All right, everybody stand by for us. Again, there's breaking news tonight. Israel has struck Iranian nuclear sites and is now bracing for imminent retaliation tonight. We'll go live to a CNN reporter who just returned from Iran. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:25:00]

PHILLIP: Our breaking news, Israel says a second wave of attacks is underway against Iran tonight. After the first striking Iranian nuclear facilities, the sun is now up in Israel where they are bracing for imminent retaliation.

Let's go live to Natasha Bertrand. She is in Washington, about the status of American forces and assets in the region that are now on high alert.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Abby. So, as of right now, we're told that there has been no change to US force posture in the region. It's worth reminding viewers that there are approximately 40,000 American service members across the Middle East, approximately 4,000 in Iraq and Syria alone. And, of course, the main concern for the Pentagon this evening is the safety of those service members because the Iranians, they have been known to retaliate against the Americans when they defend Israel, and they have been known to attack American forces via their proxy groups in Iraq and Syria, particularly when it comes to drone attacks. And those drone attacks have killed U.S. service members in the past as recently as last year.

So, they're of course on high alert this evening, but the U.S. involvement is really going to begin if and when Iran does choose to retaliate, because in the past, when Iran has launched ballistic missiles at Israel, the US has worked to help intercept those using its naval assets off the coast using its air assets as well. And so the question is going to be how far the U.S. goes to protect Israel given this is Israeli attack on Iran that the president clearly did not want.

Now, at this point, the Pentagon has not said anything. We have not received a statement from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at this hour. But the Pentagon has been making moves in conjunction with the State Department in recent days to kind of remove all non-essential personnel from a U.S. military base, as well as, of course, from the embassies across the Middle East.

[22:30:07]

And we should also note that, look, the Pentagon as well as the State Department as well as the broader administration, they have known for at least several weeks now that Israel was possibly planning an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

We reported back in late May that this was something the Israelis were considering. The U.S. officials were divided at the time about just how far Netanyahu would go.

And so the Pentagon has had some time to prepare for this contingency. They have been moving assets into the Middle East. And perhaps most tellingly, and one of the more recent things that they did was to divert anti-drone technology from the Ukrainians to U.S. forces in the Middle East.

Again, going to be really key if Iran decides to retaliate against U.S. forces there via its proxy groups who tend to use drones to attack U.S. military personnel and bases there, Abby.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, that is a significant move. Natasha Bertrand, thank you very much.

And stand by for us. Let's go live to CNN's Fred Pleitgen, who just returned from Tehran. Fred, first, what is your reaction to what we're seeing? And what has the reaction inside of Iran been to this plan for a perhaps multi-day attack?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Abby, first of all, the folks that we've been speaking to in Tehran says that a lot of them were just woken up in the middle of the night to those explosions that were happening in Tehran, saying those explosions were extremely loud and all of them knew exactly that something big was going on.

Now, one of the things, of course, that we know is that for the past couple of really hours, the Iranian state media has been reporting that apparently Hossein Salami, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has been killed in these strikes and possibly some other top Iranian IRGC officials were targeted as well.

So certainly the Iranians acknowledging that this is a big attack that's going on, that it's going on in various locations in the country, including, of course, the Natanz nuclear facility as well. The Iranians have not made any sort of official statements about possible retaliation. But one of the things that we've been doing over the past couple of days, Abby, is I've been in touch with senior Iranian officials who said to me a couple of days ago that if something like has happened now would happen that the Iranians have a target list ready, as they put it, for retaliation against targets inside Israel, including, the Iranians put it at that point in time, clandestine nuclear facilities of the Israelis.

So the Iranians clearly saying that they believe that they have a strong force, still a strong missile force, of course, drone force as well, with which they would be capable of striking back. Now, it's unclear whether or not this Israeli attack tonight changes anything, but the Iranians certainly have been saying that they've been gearing up for something like that, and that they have been ready for something like that as well.

Of course, they then also entered that spat with the United States, where they saw that the United States was changing some of its diplomatic posture in the Middle East, possibly moving some diplomats out of there. In fact, it was Hossein Salami who said just a few days ago that if there was a direct confrontation, military confrontation between the U.S. and Iran, that the Iranians would make sure that the U.S. has to leave the region, which is obviously not language that is new, but clearly a ramping up of language, as of course, at this point in time, there was diplomacy that was going on as well, these talks possibly still going on.

One of the things that we've seen in the past with the Iranians, I've been on the ground when big strikes took place, like for instance, when the head of the IRGC was killed, Quds Force was killed in 2020, and the Iranians do take their time, they do calibrate their response. So that's certainly something that we're looking for now again, Abby.

PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, everyone is waiting now to see when the retaliation comes and in what form, but Fred, everyone is also watching and reading the statement from Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, that first and foremost distances the United States from this attack. Secondly, it notably omits an explicit statement of support for Israel's defense, perhaps that is implied. But if you are in Iran right now, how are they reading that statement? And how do you think it might be factoring it into their plans for retaliation? PLEITGEN: I think that that's something that's actually key. It was

very interesting, that statement from Marco Rubio, first of all, omitting any sort of support for Israel by the United States, and then also saying that the U.S. had no part in this either. Because one of the things that the Iranians, of course, have said in the past days is that U.S. facilities in the Middle East would be at risk as well.

And that's something that we've been hearing from Iranian officials, is that if the U.S. were involved in any sort of strike together with the Israelis and would help the Israelis, that then the Iranians would go after U.S. facilities in the Middle East.

One of the big lines that we've been hearing from the Iranians over the past couple of years is they said, look, next to almost every U.S. facility in the Middle East, the Iranians have some sort of militia that's allied with them. And so therefore, things could get very dangerous for the United States.

[22:35:04]

How this changes the equation is really unclear. And it's also, of course, very interesting, because right now you do still have that diplomatic process that's been going on with the U.S.' envoy, Steve Witkoff, set to still go to the Middle East in a couple of days and meet with Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, to try and talk about Iran's nuclear program.

So whether or not that process continues is unclear. But it certainly changes things or could change things for the Iranians that the U.S. is distancing itself from these attacks and could possibly also change the Iranian retaliation. Right now, of course, they're most probably trying to come to terms with what is going on at this point in time.

But you do feel when you're on the ground, and we spoke to some senior diplomats from the Iranians a couple of days ago when we were in Tehran, that the equation between the Trump administration and the Iranians has somewhat changed. There is still a lot of distrust there.

But the diplomatic process is being given a chance or was being given a chance by the Iranians. They were still continuing these talks, even though one thing that we always have to point out is that, of course, there are also different factions in Iran as well, where you do have hardliners who have been very tough on this process, who said not to trust the United States, who says that Iran still definitely needs enrichment and needs enrichment to high levels as well. So that process right now, of course, could be completely different also, as the Iranians themselves also have varying positions inside the country.

The supreme leader, of course, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been one who has been very skeptical of the diplomatic process and says he doesn't believe that it could come to a success, Abby.

PHILLIP: Fred, stand by for us. Thank you for that great reporting.

I want to bring in now CNN military analyst, retired Colonel Cedric Leighton. Colonel Leighton, the stated objective of this operation, according to Prime Minister Netanyahu, is to essentially eliminate the nuclear threat from Iran. Do you have a sense of how long that would take and what that would need to entail if they were to be successful?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, that's a great question, Abby. I think the key element about the nuclear part is one of the things that the Iranians have done is they have built some really hardened facilities all around the country, like in Natanz and Fordow, those two sites that are particularly known for their nuclear research facilities. And what is key about this is that the type of concrete that they use is actually a very specialized, hardened concrete.

Now, the Israelis will tell you that they actually have a way of penetrating those particular sites, but it's questionable whether or not they can do that with the types of bombs that they have. So the Israelis would have to mount waves and waves of attacks.

Those attacks would have to come in basically in a series of sorties. What we probably saw this evening was the first two sorties of those attacks going through.

The Israelis believe that they have actually achieved a lot of what they set out to do with this, certainly in terms of the decapitation part of this. But for the nuclear part of that, I think it remains to be seen. I think it would take a while for them to be certain that they have actually destroyed Iran's nuclear capability, especially all those centrifuges that you often see when we talk about the Iranian nuclear program.

PHILLIP: In the studio now with our analysts and reporters, Jim Sciutto, hearing what Colonel Leighton said there, I mean, what's your sense of where this war, if it does in fact become all-out war between Israel and Iran, where it stands in the historical context? A lot of people are saying it is a big moment for the region.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, there's no question it is. It's interesting. I heard from lawmakers in the last couple of weeks that there was concern that Israel wouldn't go just after the nuclear sites, they might go big, and that that would very much lead to a war.

It's already a war between Israel and Iran. The only question is, how does Iran respond to this? The next question is, does the U.S. get drawn in in some way? If Iran responds in such a way that Israeli defenses by themselves cannot take out all the missiles and drones, and that's quite conceivable, the U.S. would help defend Israel, its ally.

How far does it go? What sort of resources would you need to do that over time? And then by doing so, that involves the U.S. more directly, in which case it might open the U.S. up to retaliatory strikes from Iran as well, U.S. forces in the region, etc.

There's a third category of attacks that there is concern about in this country, and there has been for some time, that Israel has enormous international terrorism capabilities. They have cells around the world, including in this country. They've attempted to carry out plots in this country.

PHILLIP: Iran.

SCIUTTO: Iran does, sorry. They've attempted to carry out attacks in this country, assassinations before. That, of course, would be an escalation, a significant one, but it is a capability that the U.S. would be concerned Iran might resort to, if you get to that point.

[22:40:08]

I mean, the difficulty about escalation ladders, and Alex knows better than me about this, is that it's hard to control them as you move up. And one person's proportional could be another person's escalatory, which then triggers a larger response.

And this is where we end. Right now, it's between Israel and Iran. If the U.S. were to get involved, it's hard to control.

PHILLIP: What about, Alex, the other partners in the region of the United States that were a part of defending, maybe I shouldn't, they wouldn't put it that way, that they were defending Israel, but they played a role in Israel being able to withstand that massive drone attack from Iran. I haven't really seen any reaction from those states. What does that say to you?

ALEX PITSAS, FORMER PENTAGON OFFICIAL: I think we largely won't. I mean, if we look since October 7th, right, you've seen statements of anger. You haven't seen any of the countries in the region withdraw their ambassadors or end diplomatic relations with Israel since the Abraham Accords took place.

Just, I guess, for transparency, I was Ambassador Shapiro's deputy for the N7 program of the Atlantic Council, which is part of the normalization efforts. And you haven't seen it take place. You haven't seen it with, because behind closed doors, there were some high fives from some of the regional intelligence services.

Hamas is widely hated everywhere you go. They don't want to see the violence that's happening in Gaza, but there's no love loss for Hamas. And there is no Arab state that wants to see Iran get a weapon because it's going to trigger a regional arms race.

And the U.S. doesn't want that either. So, there is a desire to contain this and not see a regional conflict. So, you're going to see just muted silence from a lot of folks that are in there.

That's what I think.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: I'm hopeful that that regional coalition that was built for those last attacks is actively being rebuilt right now, that they are reaching out once again to all of those regional allies, both the ones that they have overt relationships with and those they have covert relationships. I mean, we know that it's been widely reported that Saudi Arabia has

provided some kind of assistance with radar defenses, intelligence in the region as well, even though Israel and Saudi Arabia do not officially have relations. But I can tell you that speaking to people in Israel tonight, I mean, the mood is very different than it was with those last two rounds of strikes between Israel and Iran.

I mean, Israel is calling up tens of thousands of reservists right now. So, that suggests they are preparing for a range of scenarios.

And beyond that, we know that Israel got lucky last time Iran fired ballistic missiles. They fired about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel. Several of them struck, no casualties from those direct missile strikes, one man in the West Bank was struck by falling shrapnel. Israel is unlikely to get as lucky this time, especially if that range is much bigger and Israelis are bracing for that possibility.

PHILLIP: Everyone, stand by for us as we watch the skies over Israel as dawn emerges there. More breaking news tonight. A federal judge has ruled that Donald Trump's control of the National Guard in California is illegal. Stay with us.

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[22:45:00]

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PHILLIP: Back to Israel's strikes against Iran in just a moment. But first, major breaking news here at home.

A federal judge has ruled that President Trump illegally federalized thousands of members of California's National Guard. The judge has ordered the president to return control of the troops to the state of California. Eli Honig is with us as well as our political analysts.

Eli, this came from Judge Charles Breyer. He ruled very quickly after a hearing in which he openly mused about the founders worrying about kings, right?

ELI HONIG, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST AND FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: This is real constitutional history at work here. So, let me run you through the main holdings.

The bottom line is this federal district judge has blocked the president's effort to federalize the National Guard in California. Now, a couple important things from the ruling.

First of all, I think most importantly, this judge said that we as federal judges do have the power to review the President's determination here that the National Guard is necessary.

An argument the Trump administration had made is this isn't even for you to consider at all. The judge and the judge rejected that. The judge then found this is not a rebellion as the law construes that term reasonably. The quote from the opinion here is this is quote, "far short of

rebellion." The judge rejected Trump's assertion that he would be unable to execute the federal laws. The judge also found that the Trump administration had failed on a technicality.

You have to at least notify the governor formally. And despite various tweets and letters, that formal notification had not been made. And finally, the judge said this violates the 10th Amendment, which basically means the right to control the National Guard in this judge's opinion here belongs to the states and not to the feds.

Now, how does this play out from here? The judge put his own ruling on hold until tomorrow, Friday at noon. So nothing goes into effect until tomorrow, Friday at noon to give the Trump administration a chance to appeal this.

They've already filed a notice of appeal. We don't know how this is going to come out. This is the first ruling of its kind.

This statute has only ever been used once before, but it didn't go to court that time in 1970. So this is truly a first here.

PHILLIP: Yes. So they want a ruling from the Ninth Circuit on this judge's ruling by midnight tonight, because if they don't get it, then what happens?

HONIG: Yes. So the administration has asked the Court of Appeals, the mid-level Court of Appeals, please put this on hold by midnight tonight. So an hour and 10 minutes from now, if the Ninth Circuit does not do that, I expect the administration will then in the midnight, you know, after midnight, go to the U.S. Supreme Court and say, you need to block this.

[22:50:08]

So we're really going, you know, hour by hour here. But obviously, the administration feels very strongly about getting this block.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, Pete, the administration is claiming this is a rebellion. The judge says no.

He says, while the defendants have pointed to several instances of violence, they have not identified a violent, armed, organized, open, and avowed uprising against the government as a whole. The definition of rebellion is unmet. And the facts are that the United States have for decades had protests of all kinds, including many that have gotten way more violent than what we saw in California over the weekend.

Those were not rebellions. And I think that fact is hurting the administration's case.

PETE SEAT, FORMER WHITE HOUSE SPOKESPERSON FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, I think the fact is also that Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass were completely incapable of controlling this situation. It took five days for the mayor to impose a curfew. Also, I did not read this entire ruling because I don't understand

most of it, but 36 pages. And there were only a couple hours, I think, that elapsed between the hearing and this ruling being released.

It seems to me that it was preordained. It was already decided. Judges often have a scaffolding in place.

But I think the decision had been made.

PHILLIP: But Pete, I have to quibble with what you said earlier, because President Trump, before the National Guard or the military even had boots on the ground in Los Angeles, claimed that it had helped. So he acknowledged that there was improvement on the ground even before his order went into place.

So that really undermines this idea that this thing was completely out of control until he took that step. There's really no evidence of that.

SEAT: He also made very clear during the campaign that he was going to call up the National Guard if there were protests that were violent. We saw what happened in May of 2020.

In fact, I will tell you, there was someone in downtown Indianapolis murdered literally outside my bedroom window, and I saw the body. That's the kind of stuff that we are trying to prevent, that the President's trying to prevent here.

PHILLIP: Ashley?

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, I can't think about this conversation without also thinking about what's going on on the other side of the world with Israel's recent strike to Iran. And I think the reason why I think it's so important is because when there is turbulence across the globe, it is even more important for our leaders to abide by our rules and our laws and our constitution. And I think that's what that order just said.

He might have said that on the campaign trail that he was going to deploy the National Guard. That doesn't mean it was right. And it doesn't mean that it is not a constitutional pressing and to try and really disrupt.

We just need to call this what it is. It's political. He also, when he put that out, he was saying that it's just not for California, it's for the entire movement.

What he was saying around Donald Trump did not limit his deployment of the National Guard, which puts red states and blue states. I think the Trump administration needs to acknowledge that it escalated this incident in L.A. as someone who just got back from L.A.

L.A. is not burning. There were some bad actors, which does not equate a rebellion. Bad actors should be prosecuted and that is happening, but we don't need the National Guard, the LAPD is the one who's accosting those people and detaining them. PHILLIP: Geoff, as a conservative, how does it strike you that this

president seems really to be itching to get the military on the ground domestically for all kinds of different reasons?

GEOFF DUNCAN (R), FORMER GEORGIA LT. GOVERNOR: This whole situation is a dream come true for Donald Trump and his cast of characters for a number of reasons.

One, if you think about where this really started, it was a shiny object to get away. A week ago, we were talking about Elon Musk and him in essentially a digital fistfight. And so, that was one shiny object.

But then secondly, this is about power and control. Donald Trump feels like he's at his best when he's in a fistfight every morning in the parking lot.

I think the real story here is going to be, what does Donald Trump do if and when the courts do finally through all these appeals rule against him? Does he try to flex his authority above and beyond the courts? It feels like he's been running up against this guardrail over and over and over again against these judicial outcomes.

ALLISON: Because today, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, didn't acknowledge whether or not he would follow the rule of law. He wouldn't just answer a simple question of if the judge rules that he did not have the right to deploy the National Guard, will you follow it? The answer is simple.

PHILLIP: Well, they're stuck. These cabinet secretaries are stuck in political talking points. The legal side of things, the lawyers who are actually going in there and sitting in front of the Supreme Court, they know what's up.

But I do wonder, Eli, what do you think is going to happen at the Supreme Court if this gets there? Because this court has given some deference to the executive. Whenever Trump throws the word national security into something, they look at it a little bit differently.

Do you think they will in this case?

HONIG: Yes, so nobody should be spiking the football as Gavin Newsom is having a full-out celebration right now.

[22:55:04]

And I'm sure, I haven't looked at Twitter, but I'm sure that conservatives are going crazy about what a miscarriage of justice this is. It is round one.

It's going to go to the Ninth Circuit. This, I believe, will end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. The argument that I think could really appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in a way that this judge rejected is the argument that this is not a determination for one out of 700 district court-level judges in this state to make, to override the finding and the determination on national security made by the elected president, the elected commander-in-chief.

Judge Breyer here, related to Justice Breyer, but different guy. Judge Breyer here rejected that argument, but I think it's going to play much better in the U.S. Supreme Court.

DUNCAN: I think an interesting point, going back to what you said about integrating national security, the world literally feels like it's on fire right now. And we are running up against a President and a Governor and a legal system. We look like fools and we look like we're weak.

Vladimir Putin is sitting back at his desk just licking his chops. I mean, all of these foreign entities that don't like America are watching us and laughing and gaining ground on us around the world.

And this is the moment in time where we should pull together as Americans and be strong for the world to see. This world is a better world when America is able to lead, but we're not leading.

HONIG: And to that point, by the way, the judge actually finds that the presence of the National Guard has aggravated the situation. LA has made it worse. That's a finding in this opinion.

ALLISON: And the reason why we're not leading is because we have a President who's trying to destroy our constitution. That's the underlining, they are literally trying to break the norms of this country by pushing against the bounds. And that is not what the world needs right now.

DUNCAN: And destabilizing the country.

SEAT: They're trying to enforce the laws of this country, which means getting illegal immigrants out.

ALLISON: You don't need the National Guard to do that because that's not why they're there. They were there for the protest. So those are two separate arguments that are often conflated.

PHILLIP: Everyone, thank you very much.

Up next for us, breaking news out of the Middle East, Israel has struck Iran and is racing now for a retaliation. Stay with us.

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