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Trump: Iran's Supreme Leader Is Dead; Interview With Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired February 28, 2026 - 17:00   ET

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

[16:59:26]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And welcome to this special edition of "THE LEAD". I'm Jake Tapper. And we are following major breaking news.

Just moments ago, President Trump announcing officially that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead, killed in the massive U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.

[16:59:41]

TAPPER: The president writing, quote, "Khamenei, one of the most evil people in history, is dead. This is not only justice for the people of Iran, but for all great Americans and those people from many countries throughout the world that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty thugs.

Barak Ravid, the journalist of Axios who is also a CNN analyst reporting a short while ago that the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Council, Ali Larijani, now seems to be running Iran, running the country.

Iranian state media says that more than 200 people have died so far in the campaign, killed in the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes.

Iran quickly retaliating after today's strikes unleashing attacks on U.S. military bases, on Israel and on lots of targets across the Middle East, including densely-populated areas, all of which is disrupting air travel and oil shipments in the region.

Iran's network of proxy groups across the Middle East condemned the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, but they have not joined Tehran in any retaliatory strikes, at least not as of now.

The Pentagon is reporting no combat related casualties for the U.S., and only minimal damage to U.S. bases at this hour.

The White House just released these photos of President Trump and his national security team monitoring the Iranian strikes from Mar-a-Lago. The president telling NBC News moments ago that, quote, "a large amount", unquote, of the leadership of Iran has been killed.

The president announced today's strikes in a video message that he posted on social media, calling the move the beginning of major combat operations. And the president told the Iranian people that they should mobilize to overthrow their government

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, 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. This terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon.

To the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Of course, overthrowing a repressive and brutal government is much easier said than done. There are so many unknowns about what happens next in Iran. We don't know who will lead the country next or whether they will be better, whether they'll allow the people of Iran the freedom -- that freedom they deserve.

There also remain a lot of questions about how this joint operation between the U.S. and Israel was conducted, as well as whether the intelligence that President Trump claims shows Iran post, quote, imminent threats to the American people, whether that intelligence is accurate.

Another key question is how the world will feel about a second major military action from the U.S. to remove a foreign leader, regime change.

The second such move in two months after, of course, January's U.S. capture of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro.

And on the home front, there remain questions, of course. Has President Trump done enough to explain to the American people the reason for this military strike against Iran?

We're going to be digging into all these questions over the next few hours.

Last hour, sirens sounding, missiles soaring above Tel Aviv in Israel. And that's where we find CNN's Jeremy Diamond.

Let's also bring in CNN's Kristen Holmes who's at the White House for us.

Jeremy, tell us what you're seeing and hearing on the ground amid these developments

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, we are currently at the scene of a missile strike here in the heart of Tel Aviv. Just over an hour ago, an Iranian ballistic missile slammed into a series of buildings in the center of Tel Aviv.

You can see some of the damage that's already on the scene here. Cars that have been severely damaged, windows broken, completely blown out by the power of this blast.

I just spoke with one of the paramedics who arrived on scene, and he said that he found more than 20 people who were injured. One of those individuals was rushed to the hospital (AUDIO GAP) --

TAPPER: Ok.

DIAMOND: -- in severe condition according to those paramedics, Jake.

And as you can see on the scene here, there are still rescue officials who are working to extinguish the flames and also searching through buildings to try and get a sense of whether or not there is anybody else who may still be trapped in these buildings, or trapped in the rubble.

I want to have my cameraman Cyril (ph) just show one of the buildings here that appears to be right where this ballistic missile made impact. If you look at the right side of that building, you can see the side of it appears to be somewhat caved in, and that is likely the point of impact here of where this ballistic missile actually struck.

But there are dozens, if not a couple of hundred police officials, military officials and paramedics on the scene right now assessing the damage of this latest Iranian ballistic missile strike.

[17:04:41]

DIAMOND: And this is notable because the majority of the Iranian ballistic missiles that have been fired at Israel today have been intercepted by Israel's air defenses with the assistance of the United States which also put a lot of air defense assets in place.

But tonight was the largest barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles that we've seen all day. And one of those missiles made it through that air defense system, struck right here in the heart of Tel Aviv, alongside residential buildings. And we know that at least 20 people were injured, one of whom is in critical condition, according to paramedics, Jake.

TAPPER: Thank you, Jeremy.

Kristen, we have just heard from President Trump on Truth Social, his social media venue.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right Jake, I know you read part of this talking about how Khamenei was one of the most evil people in history and announcing his death. But I do want to read two other parts of this that I think are critical here. You can pull up the Truth Social.

It says, "This point, this is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country." That is something that he and the administration have been pushing since last night when he first gave those remarks.

And the second part of this that is incredibly interesting to note, "The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue uninterrupted throughout the week or as long as necessary to achieve our objective of peace throughout the Middle East and indeed the world."

The reason why this is so crucial is because this is the first time we're getting any sort of a timeline here. We had heard from U.S. officials on background who had said it would likely take days. They were gearing up for days of bombing. But we hadn't actually heard from somebody on the record stating how long it was going to take.

Now, President Trump did a series of short interviews. In one of them he said that he could get out in two days, or they could be there for an extended period of time. But saying what he has always said in these kind of scenarios, that they've almost completely decimated Iran at this time, that it would be impossible to build back.

Of course, we don't know. We haven't seen our own assessments on this. Right now Iran is under a near blackout, which might, of course, also raise the question as to how Iranians are getting this message from President Trump.

We did hear earlier today that the U.S. Agency of Global Media has been ramping up their efforts in terms of the Persian version of "Voice of America". And they were trying to get to the Iranians through satellite.

Of course, we still don't know if they're actually achieving that, but that's how they're trying to get this message from President Trump to the Iranians there.

As you noted, there are still an enormous amount of questions from lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans. And we do know the White House is working on setting up briefings for next week.

TAPPER: All right. Kristen Holmes at the White House, Jeremy Diamond in Tel Aviv, thanks so much to both of you.

Stand by, we're going to keep coming back to you throughout the -- throughout the show.

I want to bring in retired Admiral James Stavridis. He's a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander.

Admiral, thank you for joining us.

So, President Trump just moments ago confirmed that the strikes on Iran by the U.S. and Israel did kill the Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. That's obviously a massive development. Its significance cannot be overstated. Give us your analysis of what this now means.

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET), FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: Henry Kissinger said once that the solution to every problem is merely the key to open the door to the next challenge. And that's kind of what I feel about this.

Look, taking that particular chess piece that you're showing off the board is a good thing. He was going to die soon anyway, 86, ill health. But what it does is it presents some opening, a crack in the top of the infrastructure into which we may be able to move some of our own capability.

What I mean by that is clearly, Jake, we're trying to do this with air power, sea power and air power. We're not going to put boots on the ground by all accounts.

So it really is up to the people of Iran. President Trump's making those points.

The loss of the Supreme Leader, I think, opens some cracks at the top and we had General H.R. McMaster, my good friend on a few moments ago, talking about some of the options for maneuver with, for example, the conventional armed forces could split off from the revolutionary guard.

But you used the word "so many unknowns" at the beginning, and that's what we're in right now.

TAPPER: Yes. President Trump spoke with Axios this afternoon for a five-minute interview about where this operation could go forward. He told reporter Barak Ravid, quote, "I can go long and take over the whole thing or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians see you again in a few years, if you start rebuilding," unquote. Referring to the Iran rebuilding its nuclear program.

It's an interesting comment about the nuclear program, but this is obviously not just about the nuclear program if they killed the Supreme Leader and are calling for the Iranian people to take control of their own government, right.

I mean, this is obviously an action of regime change, not just against the nuclear weapons program.

STAVRIDIS: It is. And I think if you're going to follow through on that impulse to change the regime, and there's a lot of goodness in doing that, let's face it.

But we're at the beginning. We're at the very hard part. And it's going to take more than simply exhorting (ph) the people of Iran to come out into the streets.

I think we have got to provide some level of organization, communication, weapons. I hope the Mossad and the CIA are on the ground there. I'm sure they are gathering intelligence, but are they prepared to take that next step of organizing a resistance so that you don't have, in the best case, millions of completely unarmed people coming into the streets?

In that scenario, I think the bitter-enders in this government who probably believe they're on their death ground, are going to be unrelenting in shooting them down.

So, if we want to push the people forward, we have got to do more than simply say, hey, the door is open, go take the government. Final thought, Jake. This reminds me a bit of something I was involved

in just over a decade ago, the fall of the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. And in that case, NATO did kind of like this air power, sea power service, 25,000 targets. But we had boots on the ground.

The rebels, they were armed, they were relatively organized. They were able to ultimately overthrow Gaddafi. I don't see that element here at least yet.

TAPPER: Admiral James Stavridis, thank you so much for your insights, sir.

More on the major breaking news ahead. President Trump confirming that the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, has been killed in these joint U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran.

We're going to talk with former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett next.

Plus, the strikes stirring major debate in Congress, many lawmakers pushing for a war powers vote to curb President Trump's unilateral military authority.

Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth, a veteran from Illinois, will join us next.

[17:12:02]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Those are celebrations heard in Tehran.

And we're back with our breaking news coverage as you hear the cheers in parts of Tehran following reports of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's death.

Moments ago on Truth Social, President Trump said this. The Supreme Leader had been killed in the joint U.S.-Israeli operations, writing on Truth Social quote, "This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country," unquote.

Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett joins us now live from Israel. Prime Minister Bennett, Israel is also saying that Iran's Supreme Leader is dead. What is the proof of this?

NAFTALI BENNETT, FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Well, I understand there's a photo/photos of his body that have been shown. I'm still waiting for internal confirmation, but certainly President Trump has announced Khamenei's death. And that's a great thing for Iran, for the Middle East and for all of us.

TAPPER: How confident are you that whoever comes next will be better? I mean, it doesn't always happen that way.

BENNETT: Well look, this regime is just a regime that murdered so many Americans, so many Israelis, so many Iranians. Just over the past few months they murdered 32,000 protesters that went out to demonstrate.

This regime is a genocidal, maniacal regime that made a decision to resume rebuilding their nuclear program. They were already moving centrifuges under a big mountain called Pickax Mountain, which is way deeper than Fordow and this would have brought them into immunity zone, where we could no longer hit them.

So this action of preventing this regime from acquiring nuclear weapons, acquiring massive amounts of ballistic missiles is vital.

TAPPER: It's been a rough few years for Israeli citizens, as I don't need to tell you, the October 7th Hamas terrorist attack, lingering tensions in Gaza, Israels attack on Iran and the exchange of gunfire and such, missile fire back and forth in June. Now this. What are you hearing from Israeli citizens about this military operation?

BENNET: Israelis are strong. And we are paying a huge price. I mean, just now a bunch of missiles hit Israel, including in Tel Aviv. And unfortunately, it was announced that a 40-year-old woman has died. And we'll see what's going on later on this night.

But Israelis understand that if we had procrastinated, if we had kicked the can down the road yet again we'd meet an Iran that already has nuclear weapons and has thousands of ballistic missiles.

So we had to seize the opportunity now otherwise later on, we couldn't act anymore.

They made a bad decision to continue being a terror state. They had an option to stop that, and they decided to continue.

[17:19:42]

TAPPER: Is there anyone in the Iranian government who is still alive that you think could be a leader, that engages in some sort of peace process, not only with Israel, but with the Sunni countries in the region.

Somebody who might embrace an opportunity to join the rest of the world in having maybe nuclear power but not nuclear weapons.

BENNETT: Well, anyone who's part of this ideology -- of the radical Shiite ideology of this regime it's unlikely they will want to become a moderate and reasonable.

But I believe Iran itself has a tremendous amount of people, you know, people and leaders that want a different future. Look, the Iranian people are an amazing nation. And the Jewish and Iranian people also have a millennia-old relationship. We owe them debt from 2,500 years ago.

And I believe that we have an amazing future ahead of us if they seize the moment. And it's not going to be easy. But you know we can weaken the chains of oppression, but it's theirs to remove the chains. They're going to be the people who have to go out and turn over this horrible regime. TAPPER: But how is that done? Does the next leader of Iran, does the

leader of whatever resistance movement takes control, need to come from inside the government itself? Not in the -- not as part of the ayatollahs, but as part of the government.

Because obviously I think it's accepted and I know that President Trump thinks that the de-Baathification after the Iraq war was -- after Saddam fell was a huge mistake because it didn't -- it left no one to run the country, and the country disintegrated into chaos. And I'm sure you don't want that to happen in Iran.

BENNETT: Yes. What you typically do is you find the technocrats who aren't so imbued with the ideology, but they know how to govern. Right now the main focus of America and Israel should be to continue hitting the regime apparatus, especially the Basij terror police that's terrorizing the people because that's the main block towards this uprising of the people.

I hope we continue doing this. I know that we have the bandwidth to do it. And the Israelis are strong and willing to go through this process to remove this huge, huge shadow of a nuclear nightmare that was over the entire Middle East.

TAPPER: Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, thank you so much. Obviously, we're all praying for peace and praying for the Iranian people.

A major split in Congress over President Trump ordering these strikes -- Iran strikes that he says killed that country's Supreme Leader.

Up next, I'm going to be joined by a Democratic senator who says this entire operation is illegal and that President Trump is breaking his promise to the American people.

[17:22:48]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Back with the big, big breaking news.

President Trump confirms that Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in these ongoing joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.

A senior administration official tells CNN that President Trump made the decision to go ahead with these strikes after coming to the conclusion that Iran's current leadership structure would never give up its nuclear enrichment program.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They've rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can't take it anymore. Instead, they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long-range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas and could soon reach the American homeland. (END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Soon. He's doing a lot of heavy lifting in that line.

CNN senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen joins us now. Fred, what more are you learning?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi Jake. Well, I was covering those talks in Geneva last Thursday between the United States and the Iranians. And afterwards, the Iranians told me they actually believed that things were moving towards a deal. and they believed that a deal could be reached very quickly.

it was quite interesting because one senior Iranian official said that there were still some pretty tough issues between the United States and the Iranian negotiating teams. However, they did say that enrichment, nuclear enrichment was actually not one of those big issues. They believed that a deal could be reached in that regard. \

As you can imagine, there's many within the Iranian power structure who are quite angry at the fact that these strikes are now taking place.

A couple of hours ago, I was actually able to speak to the spokesman of Iran's foreign ministry, and I asked him about this current situation as the United States and Israel have launched this military campaign.

Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ESMAIL BAGHAEL, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESMAN: Do we have any other choice other than defending ourselves against this unjust war?

We didn't welcome this war threat. It was imposed on us. We were in the diplomatic process and we were there with all good faith and seriousness. But this was -- it was the American side that decided to be tempted to be dragged by Israel into another war, which seems to be another unending war in our region. The only beneficiary of this war would be Israel.

PLEITGEN: How long can Iran keep fighting this war?

BAGHAEL: We have to defend ourselves, and I think it is for our military people, for our brave armed forces, to decide how to respond.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: That's the spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, Esmail Baghael, speaking to me earlier today.

[17:29:44]

PLEITGEN: The Iranians obviously saying their retaliation, Jake, is in full swing. One of the things they did say is they believe, at least militarily, as far as their response was concerned, they were better prepared than the last time in June of the past year when, of course, they were confronted by the Israelis and then later by the United States.

[17:30:01]

Obviously, some of the strikes that have been happening in the region, in the Gulf region, certainly, they say, shows the fact that a lot of their missiles certainly are reaching their targets, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Fred Pleitgen, thank you so much. Appreciated.

CNN global affairs analyst Brett McGurk joins us now. He's worked for several administrations Democrats and Republicans in this area.

All right. Let's start with who Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was. Give us just a broad view of the significance of this man.

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: So, the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979 has had two leaders. He is the second. He is been ruling for 36, almost 37 years. He is committed to, he says, death to Israel, death to America. He means it. He is been committed to fighting the United States and getting us out of the region for decades. He is responsible for thousands of American deaths, American hostages, maiming Americans.

So, I think we have to keep that in mind here as this news unfolds. We just --

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: And also, just to interrupt one sec, a big proponent of the funding of these terrorist proxies: Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and on and on.

MCGURK: You know, Jake, I worked on the October 7th crisis on. And there is a lot of critique and introspection about, what did America do, what did Israel do rightly so? Not enough. Of every decision Iran made throughout that crisis, they gave a green light to Hezbollah to open a front against Israel. They gave a green light to all their militias in the region start attacking us. They killed Americans during this crisis.

TAPPER: In Iraq.

MCGURK: In Iraq. In Jordan, we had three Americans killed in early 2024. The Houthis firing at our ships. If not for the skill of our sailors, who would have had dozens of Americans killed. This was their policy. When Joe Biden laid out a hostage deal and cease fire deal in May, about a week later, Khamenei gave a speech from Tehran, basically calling on Hamas to continue the resistance because the end of Israel is coming.

He has made mistake after mistake after mistake, and this is really blowback on all those disastrous decisions that he has made. Now, that said, Jake, nobody knows where this is heading. OK. So -- (CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Well, that's what I wanted to say. So, he is gone.

MCGURK: Yes.

TAPPER: The spokesman for the Israeli army just posted this. I don't know if you've seen this.

Eliminated. The defense minister of Iran, head of the Intelligence director, secretary of the Iranian Security Council, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and on -- and on -- and on, head of the military bureau of Khamenei. Chairman.

I mean, who is left around the country?

(CROSSTALK)

MCGURK: That is a --

TAPPER: A, and as Robert Redford said at the end of the candidate, what do we do now?

I mean, you can't have the country just descend into chaos like it did in Libya after Gaddafi died, right?

MCGURK: Again, Iran has had one secession in its -- since the revolution 1979. I think they are going to have a bit of a secession crisis here. They have a process in their basic law. You have to have a -- there is an interim government with the president. I think he might be dead as well, a chief justice and the assembly of experts meets and chooses a cleric, who that will be? This is going to go on for some time. That --

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: But if they choose a cleric, we are going to have the same thing. It's just a new --

MCGURK: Well, I don't think they -- I don't know who it's going to be, Jake. So, this is -- nobody knows what's coming.

If you have another cleric and another Islamic jurisprudence, could they answer -- they pretend to answer to God and speak for God. Or do you have a regime taken over by the Revolutionary Guards Corps, more kind of nationalist hardline regime, or do you have the Iranian people rising up in the streets, and then, the decision is whether those security forces crack down like they did earlier? Now that this regime has really come apart at the top. We don't know. We don't know. It is -- it is really unknown.

The Colin Powell Doctrine, remember, you break it, you own it. Trump doctrine here seems to be, we break it and --

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: You.

MCGURK: It's up to the Iranian people what comes next. So, that's where this is going.

But, I mean, it's clear why this started. I think overnight, the fact that the Iranian leadership had this meeting, apparently, and clearly good intelligence. I think, the decision was made to take advantage of that, and it is extraordinary intelligence work. And again, ineptitude on the part of the Iranian leadership to get together like that. But we'll have to see.

I'm watching very closely. One inflection point was whether the strike against Khamenei was successful. We now know it seems have been successful. A second are the missiles. That's the one that really what can Iran do? Their asymmetrical capabilities are significantly degraded, but their missiles are real, a real threat. I know our military commanders are focused on trying to degrade those missile capabilities.

And so, we will see over the coming days whether they're able to get off the significant volleys like we saw in June that really test the air defenses.

So, the missiles are really cue (PH) right now.

TAPPER: The justification for this from President Trump was that they were not going to agree to anything when it came to the nuclear deal, and they were, you know, I think he said days away from being able to build a nuclear weapon.

I don't know that that's true. And also, soon, they would be able to fire a ballistic missile at the United States. I guess it depends on what you mean by soon.

[17:35:01]

Soon could mean in two years, but it certainly wasn't imminent to imminent.

MCGURK: Let's -- what really led to this. The protests in late December and January. President Trump drew a line. He said help is on the way. The supreme leader gave an order to crack down and kill thousands, perhaps, tens of thousands of people. That led to this military deployment.

And then, as this unfolded, everything came together, the missile issue, the nuclear issue, you had these nuclear talks. So, everything kind of came together. But this immediate crisis trigger. And why do we deploy this force? You can trace it back to those protests and that massacre, which, again, the supreme leader ordered.

And I think President Trump was hoping, I think, he was hoping that through the deployment of this force, he might have a diplomatic off ramp if Iran was prepared to give up its nuclear enrichment program. But as you and I have been discussing over the last month, that was highly unlikely. Iran is not going to give up that program. It sees -- it's critical to its own survival, but now, its survival is at stake.

Has a ways to go, Jake. We just -- there's a lot of unknowns.

TAPPER: All right. I'm sure we are going to keep having lots of conversations about this. Brett McGurk, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

And we are hearing growing calls from Democrats and a handful of Republicans for a vote on the president's power to use unilateral military force against Iran without any congressional authorization.

We are going to have a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who calls the strikes illegal on the show next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:40:51]

TAPPER: Welcome back to our "BREAKING NEWS" coverage. President Trump now says that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the massive strikes carried out by the U.S. and Israel overnight.

As the Trump administration defends the operation, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are furious that the strikes were launched without any congressional approval.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was able to notify seven of the eight Gang of Eight members before the strikes.

Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, described the operation to CNN this way.

"It's a slap in the face of the United States Congress. The president has launched an illegal war when there is no imminent threat. He did not consult with Congress or allow for a debate in Congress, which even George W. Bush did."

It is not just Democrats who are expressing anger. Republican Congressman Warren Davidson, a former Army Ranger who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, posted on X or Twitter, "No. War requires congressional authorization.

Let's bring in Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois. She sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee and on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And is also an Iraq war veteran and was among the first handful of army women to fly combat operations during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Senator, what is your reaction to President Trump announcing the death of Iran's Supreme Leader?

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-IL): Well, listen, I'm glad that Khamenei is dead. He ordered the massacre and murder of thousands of people. Protesters are protesting for democracy. My problem with this whole thing is how President Trump has gone about doing this. He promised Americans that he would get us out of forever wars, and yet, here he is on his own, launching an attack on Iran without congressional oversight when there appears to be no imminent threat.

So, he is really in violation of the War Powers Act. And frankly, we need to come to -- he needs to come to Congress, or send his representatives, the secretary of state, secretary of defense, and explain, justify to us why it is that he was able -- he should have been able to do this.

And if there is no justification, then we should have a vote in the Senate on the War Powers Act.

TAPPER: So, in reference to what you just said about an imminent threat, senior administration officials claimed that the U.S. had indicators that the Iranian regime was planning to potentially launch preemptive missile strikes.

Now, there is another source that CNN spoke with who is familiar with the intelligence who contradicts those claims and says there were actually no indications that the Iranians plan to strike any U.S., forces or assets first.

Did your committees have any intelligence that would back up any claim of an imminent threat or a preemptive strike by the Iranians?

DUCKWORTH: No. There is no -- there is no evidence of any imminent threat presented by the Iranians. And in fact, they don't have the capabilities to launch a ballistic missile at the United States. They have short and medium range missiles. They don't have anything that can reach the United States of America.

And frankly, it was President Trump himself who said that Operation Midnight Hammer annihilated the Iran nuclear program. So, which is it? Did they annihilate their nuclear program, or are they imminently about to launch a nuclear attack on the United States?

Their arguments doesn't hold water, and frankly, I'm deeply concerned that the American taxpayers, and in particular, our men and women in uniform, are going to be paying the price for Donald Trump's recklessness here.

TAPPER: You posted on X today, "By illegally striking Iran, Trump made a choice, one he did not have to make, that puts American lives and national security at risk while threatening to draw us into yet another expensive, taxpayer funded forever war without congressional approval. He owes it to the American people. He promised he would always put first to immediately come before Congress and attempt to justify how this illegal war will serve their interests."

Now, President Trump might say to that, this is not a forever war. We are striking and we're not putting boots on the ground, and the war will end when we want it to end. How would you respond to that?

[17:45:06] DUCKWORTH: Well, what I would respond to that is that, OK, what's your next plan of action? You have not presented what happens next? You know, if you are going to take out the leadership of Iran, what is next? How -- there should be a power of action there? And in fact, he signaled to Islamic terrorist groups all around the world that it's OK now to attack U.S. forces and Americans all around the world.

And frankly, I think what he's done is similar to what happened in Iraq when we went in there without a plan to what we were going to do after the initial couple of weeks. And we ended up being in there for 20 years, and Americans became the target of terrorist organizations all around the world. I am deeply concerned that, that is where we are when the precipice of that.

Alternatively, is he going to do what he did in Venezuela, where he decapitated a terrible regime, but then, turn around and started working with the vice president of that same terrible regime? Is he now going to turn around and work with what remains of the Ayatollah's functionaries who are still in Iran? What is next? He needs to come to Congress, present to us his evidence for that imminent danger. We will take the vote. We will have those discussions the way that American people voted for us, empowered us with the -- with the responsibility of having that vote. But the administration needs to come forward and tell us what exactly is their next steps.

TAPPER: Army veteran and Illinois Democratic senator, Tammy Duckworth, thank you so much for your time tonight. We appreciate it.

President Trump says he can play a long game with Iran or keep operation epic fury to just a few days. A general who commanded U.S. forces in the Middle East joins us now to discuss.

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[17:51:07]

TAPPER: "BREAKING NEWS" right now on CNN. The U.S. State Department just announced that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will no longer be traveling to Israel on Monday. This, following President Trump's announcement of the death of Iran's supreme leader in that massive wave of airstrikes by U.S. and Israeli forces.

The Iranians retaliating with drone and missile attacks on sites across the region and what could be the most significant conflict in the Middle East since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

I'm joined now by retired Army General David Petraeus, who led U.S. Central Command and later served as CIA Director. General, good to see you.

In Sunday, in an interview on WABC, you predicted that U.S. strikes in Iran, "will not bring about regime change, sadly."

Regime change is something that numerous presidents have weighed and that the CIA surely has gained out. And obviously, the death of Khamenei doesn't necessarily suggest regime change. It might just suggest a new head of the regime.

Are there more moderate forces within the rank of Ayatollahs, the mullahs, or within the Iranian government, who not only could run the country, but who could lead it to a more -- less aggressive stance when it comes to the world?

GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS (RET), FORMER UNITED STATES AND NATO COMMANDER: Yes, I think there are probably. In fact, Karim Sadjadpour, one of the sagest Iranian experts, was remarking that the regime used to be 80 percent hardliners and 20 percent charlatans. He termed these are the pragmatists, really, if they are just along for the ride to get what they can get. And now, it's 80 percent charlatans and 20 percent hard liners.

So, surely in there, there are some who recognize that a country with the second largest natural gas reserves in the world and the third largest oil reserves and educated population, quite a secular population too, compared to others in the region, that surely there is someone there who might see that death to Israel and death to America has not produced particularly good results.

In fact, their proxies are all degraded very heavily. Hezbollah's a shadow of its former self, hasn't even really done much so far. And the Syria is no longer an ally. Others are degraded also. So, there surely is someone. The question is, can that be the person who actually grabs the reins of power?

I must say that when I offered that assessment a week or so ago, that I certainly didn't assume that we would have this stunning achievement today, which is to take out the supreme leader, or apparently, the defense minister, and the head of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, and maybe the president as well, and some others, which also is just a reflection of stunning arrogance on the part of the Iranian leadership.

I think they really were -- they thought they were in the clear for another period of daylight, because we didn't go during the normal time. Almost all of our operations begin in the early hours of the morning. And in this case, they apparently came out, and they were even gathering and meeting, discussing various topics. And that's how the Israeli precise intelligence enabled their superb military strikes along with our military actions to achieve this really extraordinary and truly historical achievement.

But --

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TAPPER: Yes.

PETRAEUS: Again, who will follow? That's the question. And then, also, is there a large number defecting, and could someone then take leadership of that? The challenge here is there is no Ahmed al-Sharaa figure, as in Syria, who had a military force, who is able to take down the hollow regime forces of the murderous Bashar al-Assad in Syria, when Hezbollah and the Iranians and Russians couldn't come to the rescue.

TAPPER: Yes, I read an analysis today or yesterday, in which, it was -- it was about the view of Iranians, which is how much the Iranian people hate their oppressive regime.

PETRAEUS: Yes.

TAPPER: But also, how worried they are about U.S. intervention because they have seen the chaos that presided after Iraq, Libya. Syria, and on -- and on.

[17:55:12]

So, you could understand that President Trump does not seem to be suggesting that the U.S., -- and now, he wouldn't, even if we did have CIA forces on the ground. I have no idea. But he doesn't seem to be suggesting that the U.S. or the West is playing any sort of role in trying to help organize the next leader.

PETRAEUS: Well, we don't know. What we do know is that Mossad, for decades, has had extraordinary intelligence and penetration inside Iran.

The first time I ever met with an Israeli defense force chief of staff, it was in the Pentagon, because they were not part of central command at that time. They are now, and we really could not go and go there officially. And he laid out photos of the inside of the most sensitive facilities in Iran.

They went on, of course, later to steal the nuclear records right out of Tehran. They, of course, had intelligence that led to the ability to take out over a dozen nuclear scientists and many of the senior leaders with precise drone activity from a base they established inside Iran.

So, I think there's a big question about, do they have something in the mix? Can they find some leaders, and then, enough guys with guns? Because the problem is that the people that usually prevail in situations like this are not the Democrats on a white horse here, the George Washington figures. These are the guys with the most guns and the most ruthless willingness to use those weapons.

TAPPER: Yes. General David Petraeus, always good to have you on. Thank you so much, sir.

The "BREAKING NEWS" tonight, Iran's supreme leader dead, killed by U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.

President Trump now calling on the Iranian people to rise up and take their country back. We'll take you live to the Middle East next.

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