Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

U.S. And Israel Attack Iran, Tehran Retaliates Across Middle East; Israel: 89 People "Lightly Injured" In Iran's Retaliatory Attacks. U.S. and Israel Attack Iran; Trump Calls for Regime Change; Iranian Source: Government is Prepared "for a Long War"; Iran Launches Strikes Against Seven Countries with U.S. Military Bases. Aired 1-2p ET

Aired February 28, 2026 - 13:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:00:58]

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: And the breaking news this hour as we are following the major attack happening right now in Iran as the United States and Israel have carried out strikes across the country with President Trump calling for the Iranian people to overthrow their government.

There's new video that purportedly shows the aftermath of a strike in a western part of Iran. The country right now is in a near total Internet blackout according to Internet monitoring experts. So it's not clear completely what's happening on the ground.

This also comes as the Israeli military says that they have launched a new set of strikes targeting Iran's missile launchers and their aerial defense systems. In response, Iran has been launching its own unprecedented wave of strikes toward Israel and across the Middle East. That includes the United Arab Emirates, along with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language)

(BOMB EXPLOSION)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: That's a missile hitting near a U.S. Navy base in Bahrain. It reportedly struck the service center for the Navy's Fifth Fleet. Meanwhile, in Iran's capital of Tehran, there's new images that show the compound of the country's supreme leader, the Ayatollah, after before and after strikes is what you're looking at here.

As an Israeli military official says that they do believe several senior Iranian figures have been killed as a result of these strikes. But right now, we're still waiting to learn who exactly. The foreign minister in Iran has told NBC that the supreme leader is still alive as far as he knows. That's not really clear at this point.

But one thing that is also being asked here in the United States is for why all of this is happening. That's a major question left unanswered by the Trump administration. A video that was posted to his social media site at around 2:30 a.m. showed the President making his argument that the goal here is not only to eliminate Iran's nuclear capability, which he said was obliterated about seven months ago, but also to destroy Iran's Navy and bring about regime change.

Here's part of what the President said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people. Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world.

For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder targeting the United States, our troops, and the innocent people in many, many countries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: I want to go live to the ground in the Middle East, where CNN's Paula Hancocks is in Abu Dhabi. And Paula, obviously, we've been watching Iran retaliate pretty quickly here in several different locations across the region. What have you been hearing from your sources?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kaitlan, it's really been an unprecedented response here, particularly in the Gulf nations, when it comes to what Iran has done in its retaliation. We have been seeing U.S. military bases across the Middle East being targeted, and those retaliatory attacks are still ongoing this evening.

Now, here in the UAE, in Abu Dhabi, we have heard a number of interceptions, one person being killed by falling debris. And interestingly, in Dubai, which is a commercial and tourist hub, it isn't home, as far as we know, to any U.S. military infrastructure. But we saw, for example, a Shaheed drone hitting just outside an international hotel on the Palm.

We saw an explosion and fire. We are seeing images of parts of Dubai with smoke, not what you expect on that skyline, and certainly not a military target. We've seen similar in Qatar, in Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait, in Bahrain. And we, of course, have been seeing significant missile attacks against Israel.

[13:05:06]

Now, we have been seeing many air raid sirens, residents going down into the shelters. According to officials, they say dozens have been likely injured at this point, but it's not clear if there has been any significant damage. We do know that many of those missiles and drones are being intercepted.

There is significant air raid -- air defense systems in Israel. We know that it has been beefed up by the U.S. military in recent days and weeks as well. But certainly, what we are seeing at this point is a continued response from Iran. They are still able to retaliate.

Israel is saying they're carrying out further strikes on Iran. They're trying to target missile launchers. They're trying to target areas, we understand, where they would be able to continue this retaliation.

And we also know our Fred Pleitgen just spoke to the foreign ministry spokesperson. And within that interview, the spokesperson said that this is an egregious act of aggression the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, also accusing President Trump of being dragged into the conflict by Israel.

So, certainly, things are very much in flux in this region at this point. Worth pointing out that all those in the Gulf nations, even though they didn't want to see this attack against Iran, they are very angry that Iran has retaliated against them. Kaitlan?

COLLINS: Yes, a lot of them have spent the entire day sheltering as a result of this.

Paula Hancocks, thank you for that update from the UAE. We'll check back in with you as more develops in the region.

And we heard from President Trump overnight in that eight-minute video that I talked about on Truth Social, basically laying out the rationale for these strikes and what's taking place. We just also heard from his Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem. She said on social media that she's in direct coordination with our federal intelligence and law enforcement partners as we continue to closely monitor and thwart any potential threats to the homeland.

Our Senior White House Correspondent, Kristen Holmes, joins me now from Washington. And, obviously, Kristen, this is something that is not a complete surprise. We've seen the military buildup. The President's comments about this are pretty clear, where his thinking on this was.

But I want you to listen to something the President said on the campaign trail that may raise questions overall about this action that the President has taken.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm proud to be the only president in decades who did not start a new war. Everyone said, oh, he's going to start. He's going to start a new war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: You know, Kristen, there's a lot of people in his administration that also -- believe that and have argued that. I wonder what they're going to say in light of what we're seeing in Iran now.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, Tulsi Gabbard, for one, the director of National Intelligence. But, a, there are a number of people not just in the administration, but people who voted for him in part for that reason. And he has called himself not only, you know, the president that would not start a new forever war, but also the peace president.

Now, I did talk to one hawkish Republican lawmaker who argued that this actually made him more of the peace president. Yes, I understand what it is that I'm saying. But this lawmaker said that he was cutting off the head of the beast, the head of the snake there that funded all the terrorism so he could actually bring peace to the Middle East.

Of course, this is spin on what happened, which is an attack on Iran with the United States and Israel in a joint attack. Now, we have just learned that the White House is working to schedule two full briefings, one for the Senate, one for the House.

Next week, I spoke to two lawmakers who said that they'd been told that there was going to be these briefings next week. As we've reported, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, called and gave a heads up. That's how it was described to the Gang of Eight. He reached seven of them.

But we were told by sources that he didn't lay out the full legal justification for this in these calls, that instead it was just kind of this heads up, this strike, this attack is happening. So there's going to be questions there from lawmakers really on both sides of the aisle.

And the other big question is, yes, President Trump gave this eight- minute video where he kind of laid out why the United States had to be part of this attack in Iran, and saying there was an imminent threat. But there are still questions as to why now and what that imminent threat was.

As you noted, President Trump has spent a majority of his campaign and really his first term in office talking about how he didn't want to go into some sort of forever war. And we have heard from a number of military officials and Republicans versed in this that say that there really is no option to just go in and quickly strike, that this is going to be at least days long and likely longer.

So we're still waiting to see some kind of explanation from the White House on what this means for Americans and what a timeline here would look like. And again, there is still this overarching question as to why now, why did this have to happen, and why did the U.S. have to be involved.

[13:10:04]

COLLINS: Yes, those are all good questions, and we will see what the White House says about that.

Kristen Holmes, thank you so much for joining us. Someone who knows a great deal about this region is joining me now, having served in senior national security positions under George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Our CNN Global Affairs Analyst Brett McGurk is here with me.

And Brett, what the Pentagon is calling this is Operation Epic Fury. We've obviously been waiting to see if the President would move ahead with this. What do you make of what you're seeing so far from your vantage point?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think, Kaitlan, a key question here in the early hours is the success of that leadership strike. And I mean, if I'm kind of reading the tea leaves, clearly there was some intelligence the Iranian leaders were gathering, and the U.S. and the Israeli side decided to carry through with the strike at a moment of opportunity.

If that succeeded, and if Supreme Leader Khamenei is no longer around, I just can't overstate the significance of that development. And I think first and foremost in our minds, you know, the number of Americans who have been killed by Iranian terrorism over decades. And Khamenei himself, he had a doctrine, Kaitlan, of, you know, get the Americans out of the Middle East, but keep it below the level that it might blow back into Iran. I think he's just totally miscalculated.

Second, if the supreme leader is gone, we don't know, but if that's the case, the secession issue in Iran is not totally well-defined. And that could open up a real fissures and succession crisis. And then you get into the possibility of some sort of regime change scenario. So I don't want to get ahead of things, but that is a key question for me, the success of that leadership strike.

Secondly, on the tactical side, it's missiles. How many missiles does Iran have left? Really, how many launchers? You can have 1,000 missiles if you only have 10 launchers. You can't get that many into the air. That's a key question. I know that was a main focus in these early waves of strikes.

And so far what we're seeing from the Iranians are smaller volleys than we might have seen, say, last -- back in June. So, look, this is a ways to go, Kaitlan. I was a little surprised, frankly, that the President laid out a regime change objective. That is a, you know, an infinite objective that is very difficult to achieve militarily from the air.

I think the military objectives here would be degrade the missile capabilities, degrade what's left of the nuclear program, and then the regime targets, including responding to the protests and the crackdown we saw earlier this year, which kind of triggered this chain of events that have unfolded over the last two months.

COLLINS: Yes, and I want to note, we're about to hear from the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. We'll obviously have everyone listen to that when we hear it. But you make a great point, which is I just think the key question that no one really knows right now, which is if they were successful, and we do not know, but if they were successful in killing the supreme leader here, what does that mean next?

I mean, the IRGC is still there. Potentially, they could take out senior leadership there. But, I mean, that raises just so many questions about what exactly is going to come next for Iran.

MCGURK: Kaitlan, nobody knows. So, if you have had that event, that the leadership cadre of Iran is gone, what comes next, nobody knows. But I'll say one thing. In Iran, and we've seen this unfold over the last two months, the guns are owned by the most hardline elements of the besieged militias, the internal security apparatus, and the Revolutionary Guards.

And so they will surely work to ensure power, seize power, probably in a very brutal way. So, you know, this has a ways to go. I just -- a key inflection point is just what happened in that leadership strike. Now, if Khamenei survived, Kaitlan, he will claim divine intervention and, I think, you know, further harden down on Iran's positions here.

But, look, it's leadership and it's missiles. How can Iran really respond here? They're terrorists. They still have asymmetrical ways to respond. Those have been significantly degraded over the last few years. It's really the missiles. The missiles are the main threat. And I know that is a key focus now of our military planners and operators who are carrying out these strikes.

COLLINS: We've seen Iran use limited military responses before when they wanted to respond to something, but maybe not provoke further escalation from the United States or from Israel. I mean, right now they're striking by the Fairmont in Dubai. They're striking heavily populated areas in other parts of the Middle East. What does that say to you about where their thinking is?

MCGURK: It's a great question, Kaitlan. And one thing I've been a little surprised by are those strikes. I mean, again, Iran's strategic doctrine, what would they be thinking strategically that they want to do? They want to keep the Arab states kind of on the sidelines and basically to isolate the U.S. and Israel, which is carrying out this operation.

[13:15:15]

Targeting U.S. military facilities in the Gulf is one thing. Targeting civilian areas, Dubai, the Kuwait airport, which has been reported, that immediately unites the Gulf states, first of all, together, and we've seen that over just the last few hours, and also against Iran.

So the fact that they are striking civilian areas of the Gulf suggests to me, and I don't want to get ahead of things, that there is some division within the leadership or maybe not clear command and control because they gain nothing from those strikes other than, again, uniting the Arab states kind of behind this operation in some ways, which is the last thing the Iranians want.

So I am not surprised we see some missiles heading to Israel. I am not surprised we see some missiles heading to U.S. facilities in the Gulf. I'm pleased to see I think our defenses have been fairly effective. I am surprised to see Iran in the immediate hours hitting civilian areas and cities of the Gulf.

COLLINS: Yes.

MCGURK: That is not something I think they strategically would have said that they should do, again, because it then unites the Arabs against the Iranians. So that suggests some disarray in the command and control in Iran. But, again, Kaitlan, we have to see. It's early.

First reports are often wrong. And we just have to kind of wait until really confirmation comes in here over the coming hours.

COLLINS: Yes, we're waiting to see what exactly that looks like.

Brett McGurk, it's so excellent to have you. Thank you for joining us.

MCGURK: Thank you.

COLLINS: And our breaking news of these airstrikes is going to continue as we wait for that confirmation and new details of what we're learning. Iran has launched these attacks in retaliation. What is the United States military doing to prepare for what could be the next phase, as there is warning this could go on for days?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:21:12]

COLLINS: Welcome back to our breaking news coverage of the United States strikes on Iran and Iran's subsequent retaliation. As the foreign minister in Iran is now saying that as far as he knows, and this should obviously be taken with a lot of skepticism, Iran's supreme leader is still alive. He also says that its political and military leadership is still largely intact.

Obviously, that is something that we are waiting to get confirmation of and waiting for this as we are now just hours into this strike that the President ordered overnight. In a video posted to Truth Social, the President argued that the goal here is not just to eliminate Iran's nuclear capability that he argued last summer was obliterated after the U.S. strikes there in June, but also the President said in this new video that he wanted to be able to destroy its navy and also bring about regime change.

I'm joined now by CNN's National Security Correspondent Natasha Bertrand. And, Natasha, obviously, there was a lot of military planning that went into this attack. We saw the preparation happening in real time in the region. What have you been hearing so far today from the Pentagon?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kaitlan, we actually just got a new statement from U.S. Central Command which provided a bit more detail about what exactly was struck in the early morning hours of this operation by U.S. Central Command forces. According to the commander of U.S. Central Command, U.S. and partner forces began striking targets at 1:15 a.m. this morning to dismantle the Iranian regime's security apparatus, making clear there that they were hitting kind of military targets.

And they said they prioritized locations that posed an imminent threat likely to U.S. and Israeli forces in the region. They said that targets included Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and military airfields.

So making it very clear, again, that these are military targets, not necessarily those political leaders, Iranian political leaders that we saw, the Israelis say that they were targeting during this operation. Now, CENTCOM also said in this statement that following this initial wave of strikes, they also defended against hundreds of Iranian attacks, retaliatory attacks, saying that there have been no reports as a result of those Iranian attacks that we have seen all over the region of U.S. casualties or any damage, amazingly, to U.S. facilities and installations.

Even though we saw an Iranian drone appear to hit a naval station, a naval support activity station in Bahrain, which is a major naval base there for the U.S. But, you know, the first hours of the operations, according to U.S. Central Command, said there were precision munitions used, land, sea, and air. And, interestingly, CENTCOM says that they employed one-way attack drones for the first time ever in combat.

So a little bit more visibility there into what exactly the U.S. military did this morning. Again, seems to be focusing more on military targets and less on those senior Iranian regime leaders, Kaitlan.

COLLINS: Well, Natasha, can I ask you just how do you think -- how do you square that and what you're hearing from them with the President in his video where he's talking about, you know, not only the nuclear capability, the Navy, but also, I mean, he's very clearly calling for regime change in his video. I mean, how do you square that with them saying, well, we're not targeting the leadership there?

BERTRAND: It seems like the American operation to take out these very high-level military targets was in support of the Israeli objective, which was to target senior Iranian leaders. And so one kind of made way for the other. And we heard from the Israeli military just this morning that they waited until there were meetings of senior Iranian officials at one place before they struck. And that is, importantly, one of the reasons why they actually struck during daytime, which is not usual at all.

[13:25:00]

COLLINS: Yes. Natasha Bertrand, keep us updated on what else you're hearing. Thank you for that report.

And for everyone else, stay here with us. We do have continued coverage of what we are learning, new details about these U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. We've got the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committee member, Congresswoman Sara Jacobs, who's going to join me live here next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: And we are following breaking news out of the Middle East. As the United States and Israel are carrying out a major military operation, some have described it as Rahm Emanuel did earlier, war against Iran. Iran has already hit back with a wave of retaliatory attacks against countries with United States military bases and U.S. forces there.

Multiple sources tell us that the Secretary of State Marco Rubio notified seven of the gang of eight members before the strikes happened. That is, of course, the top leaders in Congress. And the White House says he was able to reach and brief seven of those eight, ultimately. But Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate both want the administration to brief all of Congress. And they also want to hold a vote on whether or not to authorize war.

I want to bring in Democratic Congresswoman Sara Jacobs, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee. And thank you for being here. First off, when it comes to this, we've heard from some of your colleagues who say there should be a yes or no vote on this in Congress as soon as possible. Do you agree?

REP. SARA JACOBS (D-CA), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: I absolutely agree. And I actually think that Speaker Johnson should call the House back into session immediately. We should all come back to D.C. We should get briefed, and we should have a War Powers Resolution vote, because even the president himself has called this war. I think this is one of, if not the biggest blunder in American foreign policy. This is going to have huge ramifications, and it should not be up to the whims of the president. The Constitution is very clear. Congress is the only one who gets to declare war and peace.

COLLINS: The president posted an eight-minute video overnight basically laying out what exactly he hopes to achieve here. Do you want to hear from the president more? Do you want to hear from him at all today, now that this is actually playing out, as to what exactly his vision is for what happens next in Iran?

JACOBS: Yes, absolutely. Look, I represent San Diego, the biggest military community in the country, as you know, Kaitlan. And my constituents are literally the ones who are paying the price when we go to war. And we've seen this before in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I'm very concerned that, so far, we have seen absolutely no plan for what comes next, absolutely no real strategy around this.

We know that the U.S. actually is very bad at military adventurism in the Middle East. We're very bad at regime change and at predicting what trying to do regime change will lead to. And we don't even have to look to other countries, right? Like, it's the U.S.'s own history of the CIA coup in Iran in the '50s that is, in part, what led us to this very brutal Iranian regime today.

And so, I definitely want to hear more about what this administration is planning and thinking. But, you know, I believe that, even if this was authorized, this is a strategic mistake. This is a strategic blunder. And we're going to have very real national security implications for a long time that do not make Americans any safer.

COLLINS: Iran regimes, their regime is brutal, as you noted there. I mean, obviously, we've seen the crackdown on protesters that just happened and people pleading for help from the United States, the president saying he would offer it. We didn't really see it materialize then. We're now seeing this. If it does ultimately lead to regime change, do you think that there is potential good that could come out of this?

JACOBS: Look, there are a lot of really bad regimes all over the world. It doesn't mean the United States should be in the business of doing regime change everywhere and taking them out. And we often don't know the long-lasting implications and unintended consequences. Iran is a huge country and a strategically important place. Will there be a civil war? Will we just get someone even more hardline, as some reporting has said that the CIA says? We don't know what will happen.

A failed state in that part of the world in such a big place would be catastrophic for regional security implications. And that's why it should be up to the Iranian people who lead them. It shouldn't be American military interventionism. We have never actually been able to export democracy at the end of a barrel of a gun or the bottom of a bomb being dropped.

COLLINS: A lot of the president's supporters had heard no more regime change, no more endless wars. The vice president, J.D. Vance, I asked him about this and what exactly the argument was here, given they said seven months ago that they had obliterated Iran's nuclear arsenal. I just asked him this this week, what he would say to the American people who might want to know why what is happening is happening. I want you to listen to what the vice president said to me this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Can you explain to the American people why the United States would need to strike Iran to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon if the United States obliterated their enrichment program last summer?

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I'm not going to make any news on Iran today, Kaitlan. I'll let the president make those announcements. As you know, he is sending two of his best negotiators to Geneva tomorrow in order to continue to try to strike the best deal possible for the American people. But the principle is very simple. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. If they try to rebuild the nuclear weapon, that's that causes problems for us. And in fact, we've seen evidence that they have tried to do exactly that.

[13:35:00]

So, the president sending those negotiators to try to address that problem, as the president has said repeatedly, he wants to address that problem diplomatically. But of course, the president has other options as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COLLINS: Congresswoman, do you understand how the United States can go from having obliterated Iran's nuclear program, as the White House insisted last summer, to now saying that part of the justification for these strikes is to ensure that they cannot have a nuclear weapon?

JACOBS: I think this just goes to show how completely incoherent their strategy is or lack thereof. And look, I know a lot of my colleagues are also trying to justify this, saying that Iran shouldn't have a nuclear weapon. I agree. Iran should never be allowed to get a nuclear weapon. We had a deal that, while imperfect, was actually working towards getting there. And instead, Donald Trump pulled us out of that deal. Then he didn't like the world that that created, and he -- instead of actually engaging in real diplomatic negotiations, he decided to bomb instead.

The Omani foreign minister has said that even as of -- as recently as yesterday, they were making progress on the negotiations. And instead, President Trump has decided to go forward on this bombing campaign instead. This is not actually about making sure Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons. The diplomatic approach is the only way to do that, because if, in fact, they did obliterate the weapons last year, when they did these strikes, which I don't believe they did.

This just shows that even if they did, you can't actually eliminate a nuclear program by military. It requires a diplomatic solution, because -- or else you're going to have to keep going back over and over time as they try and rebuild. And look, Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to get presidents from both parties to go along with him on a regime change operation in Iran for decades. And, you know, Donald Trump is just the first one stupid enough to actually do it.

COLLINS: Congresswoman Sara Jacobs, thank you for joining me.

JACOBS: Thanks for having me.

COLLINS: And these attacks and the retaliation that we're seeing could also disrupt oil production and gas production worldwide. There are sanctions against Iran. It's still a significant exporter of oil, though. So, how do these attacks impact the world's supply of oil? What does it mean for the markets? CNN's Matt Egan is here. Matt, obviously, that is a key question as to how the markets are looking and what they woke up to this morning.

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, absolutely, Kaitlan. Look, this is a big moment, obviously, a big moment for security, but also for the energy market and, frankly, for the world economy. Anytime you're talking about a military conflict in the Middle East, the most critical place on the planet for energy supplies, the fear is always a big oil price spike.

And look, Iran is a significant oil player despite those sanctions, right? It remains an OPEC member. Each day it produces 3.4 million barrels of oil. That's around the same amount as Iraq and the UAE, not as much as Saudi Arabia and the United States. But Iran is an oil-rich country. In theory, it could produce a lot more. It's got the third most oil reserves on the planet, more than the United States and Russia combined.

But look, at this point, it's hard to say exactly what the oil market response will be. Obviously, the situation is evolving. It's ongoing. Oil markets are not open until tomorrow night. But some of the oil analysts that I'm in touch with, they are saying that we should brace for a potential spike, possibly a significant one.

I talked to Bob McNally, the former George W. Bush energy advisor, and he said, look, if this situation is over by tomorrow, then maybe the reaction from the oil market is limited. But he said, on the other hand, if Iran really fights back and shows that it can stay in this fight, he said we could be looking at a full-blown energy crisis, the likes of which we have not seen in modern times.

COLLINS: OK. So, they're looking to see how long this could go on for. The other question is about, you know, the Strait of Hormuz, huge global shipping lane, critical role of what's going in and out of the Gulf. What is happening -- what do we know about what's happening there right now?

EGAN: Yes. Well, Kaitlan, that's certainly the focus right now, because the Strait of Hormuz, right off the coast of Iran, it's the most critical choke point for oil in the world. Major Gulf oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, rely on the Strait to get oil out to the market. Each day, around a fifth of what the world consumes in oil goes through the Strait of Hormuz.

And so, if you saw Iran successfully shut down the Strait of Hormuz for a significant amount of time, oil analysts estimate that you could see prices go from around $65 a barrel now to possibly above $90 or even $100 a barrel. A lot of it would depend on just how long it was shut down. That is the big fear.

[13:40:00]

But there's also an even bigger worry, which is that Iran retaliates by successfully striking Saudi oil facilities, because Saudi Arabia is the biggest oil exporter in the world. And that could be something that could be even harder to unwind, and it could send oil prices even higher.

I would note, though, Kaitlan, and you know this as well, President Trump, he's well aware of the risks around higher energy prices. He's been laser-focused on trying to keep prices down. I suspect he's going to try to do what he can to prevent this from spiraling out of control in the energy markets.

I mean, look at what happened just four years ago, right, after Russia invaded Ukraine. You had oil prices go to $120 a barrel, $5 a gallon gas in the U.S. That was a nightmare. I think the last thing the president wants is to have the economy get crushed by an oil price spike. But that may not be up to him. There's obviously the risk, Kaitlan, of miscalculations here.

COLLINS: Yes. And he was with the energy secretary, Chris Wright, just yesterday in Texas. You've got to think that this came up, obviously, as he was also traveling with lawmakers in support of this strike. Matt Egan, thank you for that. We'll see what the markets say.

Our coverage is going to continue as we are getting breaking news in this hour, with the president calling outright for regime change in Iran. Let's closer look at what could happen next to the Iranian leadership, to the Iranian people. That's right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:45:00]

COLLINS: This is our breaking news coverage of the U.S. strikes on Iran, with an Iranian source telling CNN that Tehran is prepared for what they described as a, quote, "long war." That's a source who also says Iran intends to continue its offensive that is playing out the retaliation that we've seen until, quote, "the aggressor is punished." Our senior international correspondent looks back at how we got to this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The current confrontation between the United States and Iran essentially kicked off during that crackdown on protests that had turned violent in Iran at the beginning of this year, specifically starting on January 8th, January 9th and January 10th of this year.

Now, we recall that President Trump back then claimed that help was on the way for Iranians and started putting U.S. assets into the region, first the carrier strike group around the Abraham Lincoln, then later the Gerald Ford, but, of course, other assets as well, including a lot of U.S. fighter jets and tanker aircraft.

At the same time, a diplomatic process was also kicked off, led by U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and also Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, mostly meeting with Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister of Iran. Those talks centered around Iran's nuclear program, obviously the U.S. wanting Iran to stop nuclear enrichment, the Iranians saying that they have a right to enrichment.

In the end, both sides acknowledged that there was some progress in those talks, but it didn't seem as though that was enough for President Trump. In the past couple of days, President Trump has been quite negative about how those talks were going and then launched the attacks in the early hours of this morning.

The Iranians are now saying that their retaliation is in full swing, that while they were in this diplomatic process, at the same time, they were also preparing for war. And it certainly seems as though they were a lot better prepared this time than in June, when they faced off with the Israelis, with a lot of Iranian retaliation coming not just against Israel, but against states in the Gulf and specifically U.S. military installations in the Gulf region as well.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.

(END VIDEOTAPE) COLLINS: Our thanks to Fred Pleitgen. We'll continue to check in with him, his sources in Iran. We also have more breaking news on the U.S. and Israeli attacks in Iran and what this means, why the United States is there. We also have more on the diplomatic fallout and how this could reshape what's happening in the region.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:50:00]

COLLINS: And we're back with our breaking news coverage of the United States strikes in Iran and Iran's subsequent retaliation. I'm joined now by one of the best voices on this, Beth Sander, our national security analyst, but also the former deputy director of national intelligence.

And, Beth, it's great to have you here because I think so many people are looking at this today. And a key question I've been texted by a bunch of people is why is this happening? How did we get here in this moment?

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST AND FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Fred really led us into this conversation so well. I do think that, you know, my line on this is that I think we got here partly by accident and partly by just kind of incrementalism.

I -- you know, I went to the National War College where we talked about ends, ways, and means. You start with the ends. What are you trying to achieve? And then you decide, am I going to use military, diplomatic? And then you build up your ability to do that. That's like the forces we have in the region right now.

Well, we kind of started, I think, in the opposite because we move these forces into the region to respond to the demonstrations, to create leverage and negotiations. And now, we're using them because we threw up our hands and said, oh, this isn't working. Let's try regime change. So, it's kind of backwards. And I understand why we got here in a way from frustration, but it is filled with peril when you go backwards.

COLLINS: Well, and the buildup had been happening. We know there was a range of options. It could have been smaller and more limited. The president seems to have gone for the maximalist position here by calling for not only destroying their nuclear capability, I guess even more so than when he said it was obliterated last summer, but also their Navy regime change.

When you look at that and the options that he ultimately decided to go with here, do you believe it's justified when we're hearing from the United States that they were worried that this posed a threat to the United States, that their missiles could soon hit the homeland, something that we were told intelligence doesn't back up?

SANNER: Yes, I think there are two questions there. One is, is there a justification for doing this now based on imminent threat? I think the answer is probably no. But we have seen that Secretary Rubio has been laying the groundwork for this for weeks.

You'll probably recall when he testified before the Senate several weeks ago, mainly about Venezuela, but he also talked about this idea that we may have to do a preemptive strike in order to prevent Iran from hurting us or our allies. And then we've seen this repeated a little bit, sprinkled in some of the comments, but I don't think that there's really any rationale for that. I mean, the latest report is that that leaked out, true or not, I do not know, is that, you know, Iran could have an ICBM by 2035.

But of course, that's it's like you straight line everything and that we don't actually do anything to stop that from happening in the interim. And it's kind of theoretical, but that's not imminent, is it?

COLLINS: Right. And that's what we had been told. I mean, as the deputy national, as the deputy DNI, you're briefing the president at times, if you're briefing the president right now, if you're watching how this is playing out and how Iran's responding, I mean, what would be your biggest concern?

SANNER: I think one thing I really am concerned about right now is that this strategy has a number of underlying assumptions, right? And if you don't understand your assumptions, then you're kind of doomed. But we're assuming that decapitation of the regime, in other words, killing Khamenei and other leaders will lead to regime change. That is that is not a great assumption, right? We're assuming that air power can achieve strategic aims, regime change.

In our history, we've seen that air power can be very effective for limited objectives, wiping out the missile force, for example, obliterating what exists of fizzle material enrichment capabilities. But this idea, the third assumption is that if you just keep yourself to air power, then if some bad things happen inside or if there are ramifications, that somehow, we won't own it because we don't have troops on the ground and we're not committed to nation building. And I think that's a terrible assumption as well.

And so, all of these things need to be planned out and mitigated. And I'm worried that because we got here kind of incrementally, none of that has been discussed or planned.

COLLINS: Beth Saner, stand by, because the Israeli prime minister is speaking right now.

[13:55:00]

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAEL PRIME MINISTER (through translator): It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, because soon there's going to be a moment that you'll have to go to the streets to complete this act and to topple this regime. This help that you were wishing for, help has arrived, and this is the time to go together for this mission.

Citizens of Iran, the Azeris, the Baluchis, all of you, it's your time to unite and to topple this regime. The citizens of Israel, all through the Gaza War, I took strength from your resilience. You didn't fall for desperation. You stood and rising. You gave backup to the government and to me to lead this war. This is how people should behave.

In the next few days, we should stand together with this resilience and following the instructions of their own front. There is a symbolic -- this is the 11th of Adar, a Jewish calendar. Trumpeldor fell in the Tel Hai battle. His bravery is remembered. In his memorial, there is a lion statue. I visited there many times, and I looked at it, and I saw you. This is how I see us.

In the help of God, the roaring lion of our pilots, of our citizens, is being heard in the entire world. The whole world knows the people of Israel are alive.

COLLINS: You've been listening to the Israeli prime minister talking about what we are watching play out, this joint operation between the United States and Israel.

Beth Sander, you're still here with me. When you're listening to what the prime minister is saying there, what stood out to you from his comments?

SANNER: Right. So, I think that this is very clear that this strategy's success relies on the Iranian people having a new revolution, right? That they are -- because air power does not guarantee regime change, the people of Iran are going to have to rise up.

And, you know, look, I think that there is a lot of -- I mean, this is a high-risk but high-reward scenario, and we can all understand the high reward. You know, if we could really see change in Iran, it would change everything, and it would be so much better. But the idea that the Iranian people are going to be able to depose this regime -- it's such a big country, 91 million people, so diverse, and there isn't one single -- you know, there isn't a cohesive opposition.

There are, as Holly Dagres, one of the people that we often have on here, talks about, there are lots of Nelson Mandelas, but they're in jail or in exile. There is no uniting force. Now, it's not impossible that this happens, and gosh, I wish it would, but it is a long shot.

COLLINS: And for the people there, I mean, we just saw major protests happening there. We've seen them time and time again. We just saw that playing out, people risking their lives by going into the street. You know, I think when the president is delivering his message to them, saying, now's your time, there's also a real question of if they're hearing that message. I mean, there's a huge Internet blackout underway in Iran, and so it's not even really clear in terms of that. John Bolton was saying earlier, he's worried that there hasn't been enough coordination, basically, in terms of this.

SANNER: Yes. So, that gets back to, like, the planning. Where was the planning for this? It just feels so backwards in that. Like, you would have wanted to be seeding the ground. There's -- you know, we've sent in some Starlink terminals, for example, but I, you know, I don't think that that's really reached critical mass yet, and the VPNs aren't working. And, you know, so I don't know. Now, we do know that the students have continued to protest over the past week, despite the threat, and it's actually quite smart of them, because during negotiations with us, they kind of knew that the regime wouldn't crack down on them really hard.

But, you know --

[14:00:00]