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This is CNN Breaking News. This is CNN This Morning's breaking news coverage of the situation in the Middle East. Good morning, everybody. I'm Adi Cornish. I want to thank you for waking up with me. And we are now just hours into an announced ceasefire between Israel and Iran. How is it holding? Well, President Trump touted the deal on social media, writing around midnight Eastern Time, quote, the ceasefire is now in effect. Please do not violate it.
Just a few hours later, however, Israel accused Iran of doing just that with reports of Iranian missiles flying towards northern Israel. The IDF says two of them were intercepted after the ceasefire deadline. Israel's defense minister says his country will, quote, respond with force to Iran's utter violation. Iran denies they violated the deal.
And just before the ceasefire went into effect, another of Iran's missile attacks killed at least four people in southern Israel. Israel had issued alerts for six total waves of Iranian attacks in the past several hours of fighting. Its strikes against Iran also continued until moments before the deadline. So while it appears that this fragile ceasefire is in effect, it might be hanging on by a thread. We've got CNN's Fred Plicken here joining us from Tehran.
Fred, to start, can you give us some sense of what Iranian officials are saying about these accusations from Israel that they may have potentially violated the ceasefire?
Hi there, Adi. I talked to a senior Iranian security official actually just, I would say about an hour ago, and he flat out denied the Iranians had launched any sort of missiles towards Israeli territory. He says so far no missiles have been fired since the ceasefire went into effect. The Iranians are also warning the Israelis from striking Iranian territory, saying that then all of Israeli territory would become a target.
for the Iranians. So certainly the Iranians flat out denying that that was the case. And actually, just a couple of minutes ago, we also got a statement from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claiming that the Israelis had violated what the Iranians call Iranian soil three times since the ceasefire went into effect. It's unclear whether they're accusing them of any sort of strikes, but certainly they are saying that in some way, shape or form, their territory was violated by the Israelis. And this comes
the audi after you're absolutely right it was really a night where we saw a lot of kinetic activity here over the iranian capital especially in the hours leading up to that ceasefire going into effect there were a lot of airstrikes that took place we ourselves were in this position on a rooftop where we heard jets flying past here
and then pretty big explosions in the near vicinity. Also a lot of Iranian anti-aircraft fire outgoing as well. This morning, though, everything here is quiet. I've been on the streets of Tehran. There's a lot of cars that are now coming back to the streets. Shops are opening, as of course people here in Tehran also hope that the ceasefire will somehow hold
despite the fact that, as we've been mentioning, Iran and Israel already trading accusations that there could have been violations of the ceasefire audio. Fred, I know it's been hard for people in Iran to get information, the Internet obviously going out here and there. Can you talk about what they are saying about the ceasefire, how they understand it and what their hopes are?
Well, of course, a lot of people or most people hope that this ceasefire is going to hold. It's been quite interesting to see over the past couple of days that we've been on the ground here. At the beginning, there were a lot of people when Israel started its aerial campaign who left the Iranian capital, but many of them came back.
in the past couple of days. You can see, especially during the daylight hours, there's a lot more traffic on the streets, a lot more shops opening as people have sort of gotten used to that situation. They are, however, saying that they hope all of this will end. There is a lot of public anger here against the Israelis, against President Trump. We were at several rallies where we saw people chanting against the United States, especially after those strikes took place on those Iranian nuclear facilities.
So the Iranian government, Adi, I think, believes it's in a situation right now where its support among the population here has increased dramatically since these bombing campaigns took place. And it's also something that the military leadership of Iran has said as well. But on the ground, what we're hearing, seeing from people is that they want to get back to their daily lives. They certainly...
want to be able to conduct their daily business. And I think what we've been seeing also here is more and more people coming back here to the capital, more and more people trying to get back into some sort of normalcy in the face of this aerial campaign that had been taking place, Avi.
It's Fred Pluckin, CNN senior international correspondent in Iran. Okay, so we've heard a little bit about what is happening on the streets, how people in Iran are talking about this. Now we're going to bring in retired Army Brigadier General Steve Anderson. General, thank you for being with us this morning. Great to be here.
I want to start with just the immediate reporting. A few hours ago, Israel saying that they detected an incoming barrage of missiles from Iran. That would be two hours after the ceasefire took effect. We heard from Fred there, Iran denying this. Can you talk about how significant this is or is it just too early after a ceasefire is announced?
Well, it's probably a little bit too early. There's a lot of coordination required. I've never seen a ceasefire quite like this where one side starts before another. Usually it's at the same time, which obviously makes it a lot easier.
But I mean, you know, we've got to take our hats off to Qatar for evidently being the key moderator here. Both sides clearly want to go to ceasefire. I believe that the Israeli campaign has pretty much reached a culmination point, so it's only natural that they would seek a ceasefire.
And of course, Iran is fighting for its survival. You just heard Fred's reporting. I mean, there's a lot of unrest in the street. They definitely it's in their best interest to do a tactical pause. So, you know, without a doubt, this is probably a good idea. But I got to tell you, there's two major problems right now. First, there is no long term agreement that Iran will not seek nuclear weapons, which is why we started this all in the first place.
And the second is there's no accounting for the 400 kilograms of the 60% highly enriched uranium that could have been moved. You know, we've heard reports that perhaps 15 trucks were seen leaving on Wednesday from the Isfahan facility. And there could be highly enriched uranium out there somewhere on the eastern part of the country that we've got to find. So until they solve those two problems, we've got some major problems out there.
And in the meantime, do you expect to hear any, people have been talking about kind of battle damage assessments, to get any better understanding about what has been accomplished militarily against Iran's nuclear arsenal?
Yes, I mean absolutely. It's going to take probably a couple more days. I mean, you know, in order to do appropriate battle damage, you've got to use not only satellite imagery, which we seem to have plenty of so far, but you've got to have signals intelligence, you know, in which you're monitoring traffic that's going on, you know, communications between key leaders within the Iranian government, etc. Of course, and then you need to have human intelligence.
And of course the Israelis seem to have really good human intelligence. They've had pretty much what we call intelligence dominance throughout this entire period. But until all those things come together, can you really tell what really happens? I mean, the satellite imagery is great, but it just shows one level. These mines, particularly in Fardou, are perhaps 300 feet deep, so it's going to be pretty much impossible to know what
Damage actually occurred unless you have human intelligence that can provide you that assessment. Retired Army Brigadier General Steve Anderson, thank you.
Now our breaking news coverage continues next. President Trump shedding new light on the ceasefire deal between Israel and Iran, how the deal was brokered. Plus, any moment now, President Trump will be wheels up heading to the NATO summit. Will the situation in the Middle East overshadow that meeting? And a new poll out just more than an hour ago, it shows that Americans, how Americans feel about the decision to bomb Iran.
People need to rise up and say enough is enough and we don't want any more endless wars.
Breaking news this morning. The announced ceasefire between Israel and Iran is now just a few hours old. So we want to talk about how this all came together. President Trump says that both Israel and Iran reached out to him to broker it. In a Truth Social post, he congratulated both sides and called the conflict a 12-day war that could have gone on for years and destroyed the entire Middle East.
But Iranian state television offered a different version of events, saying a ceasefire was imposed only after President Trump begged for one following Iran's attack on a U.S. base in Qatar. Now, as for Israel, they claim to have achieved all the objectives of their operation and removed what they call the immediate threat of a nuclear Iran.
Despite the agreement, there is some concern from lawmakers over the president's initial decision to bypass Congress to launch strikes on Iran. It's unconstitutional. And so for me, while the president is...
posting something about a ceasefire, I think what he also posted was an official acknowledgement that this was war. And I think that is something that should be taken into very serious consideration. President Trump acted within his constitutional powers. He did his job protecting our allies and American citizens. And that's that. And now we have a ceasefire.
Joining me now to discuss Isaac Dover, CNN senior reporter, Chuck Rocha, Democratic strategist, and Ashley Davis, former George W. Bush White House official. Isaac, can I just start with you with the president saying look and calling it a 12-day war, kind of putting a
a timeline around it, so in terms of how it's discussed. What do you see in how they approach this moment? - What we have seen in American politics for the last bunch of years is Donald Trump trying to impose his own vision and his own version of reality on everybody. And that is what he is trying to do here with this, including saying that there is a ceasefire and here's how it's gonna work. We're going to find out whether Israel and Iran and other countries, especially as he heads to NATO now,
follow that and we continue living in Donald Trump's world. Maybe we are and maybe we're not. Yeah, and he's tried to do a couple of deals in the last couple of months with mixed results. Chuck, I want to come to you, but Ashley, can I come to you first? Because you hear lawmakers there talking about
on the War Powers Act, I think from 1973, and the idea that you have to come to Congress. But it was during the Bush era when you had an open-ended military authorization that I think we're still living with today. What do you see in this moment that Republican and Democratic lawmakers are starting to raise a question?
Well, I think there's really just one, which is Congressman Massey on the Republican side that really thinks that he potentially broke the War Powers Act. In the House. In the Senate, there is legislation now they might be taking up a vote. And Rand Paul is the Republican in the Senate.
I think from what I understand, Tim Kaine, who is running this effort in the Senate on the Democrat side, said he's going to listen to the briefing today and then decide if he's going to bring up the legislation tomorrow. I think you will see- An intelligence briefing? Yes, intelligence briefing by the administration on kind of what has happened. So I think that the House will not bring something up if they do at all until July. And I don't see that this is passing. Obviously, this is a political statement. Going back to your
point about what happened under Bush, that is still in effect. However, it has been said that that's mainly to deal with terrorists. And it has been said several times that this situation does not fit into that.
But according to Article 2 of the Constitution, under the commander-in-chief, he does have the ability to do airstrikes. We have not declared war on Iran. Obviously, Biden's done it. Obama's done it. Bush has done it. So I think that this is just an argument. But you hear people looking, right, with AOC saying, hey, you mentioned war there. Chuck, can I talk to you about how Democrats are responding in this moment? Because...
At the end of the day, the president has done real damage to Iran's nuclear ambitions, and now he's talking a ceasefire today. So it is a moment for the White House to feel like, look, we have accomplished something. It's an interesting time to be a Democrat and to watch how they're reacting to this. It was something really telling in the statement that the president put out.
on his truth social. He specifically was like, this was an 11-day war because he knows that there's no, nobody pilots a war. He got elected by being an anti-war candidate, I remind everybody. So it's important for him to say, I had to do this. They're not going to have it, and it's over. Don't worry about anything. I took care of this. I'm strong. There's not going to be anything else you have to worry about because he's worried about repercussions as you've already seen within his own party of fighting about should we go to war or shouldn't we? I would draw your attention to Marjorie Taylor Greene or
Ted Cruz or other ones there that there's fighting amongst it because a lot of folks didn't want any war. What we don't know, and again, this is how much of Donald Trump's vision of reality is reality, is how much was Iran's nuclear program set back? What damage was actually done? And what will be the continuing fallout from this? But what a statement about everything that even on this, the partisan divide, it's not just partisan, it's tribal, and it's people who were
completely opposed to any of this, who are Trump supporters and then now that he's done it say it's great, and Democrats who are opposed to any move here, even if it's attacking Iran with its nuclear facilities and all the threats that all across the world people have been concerned about. And even that
falls for a lot of people into the yes even as as we're going to learn today the dust is literally settling you have the president heading to a nato summit of course will this ceasefire hold even in these hours group chat please stay with me we've got a lot to talk about we're going to continue to monitor breaking news developments out of the middle east any moment now as you can see president trump heading to the nato summit
and how will his typical kind of go-it-alone approach fare among the allies? Plus, can the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran hold? We're going to be going live to Tel Aviv where that ceasefire is now in effect. CNN this morning's breaking news coverage continues after this.
President Donald Trump heads to a summit with NATO. You can see his plane standing by. This is just days after launching airstrikes against Iran. And at this hour, he is departing Washington en route to the Netherlands for this year's meeting. So this will be President Trump's second visit with world leaders just this month after he suddenly departed the G7 summit in Canada a little more than a week ago.
as the war between Israel and Iran was breaking out. Now he returns in the midst of a fragile ceasefire with diplomatic relations also on thin ice. Joining me now from the Netherlands is CNN's chief international anchor, Christiane Amanpour. And Christiane, thanks for being here. It's great to be here because this is going to be the big topic of conversation. Some leaders are already here. I've just spoken to the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, who has...
really passed the Oval Office test and is doing pretty well in his relationship with President Trump. And he has said that the Iranian response to those big bombings of the nuclear sites, he believes that they match what President Trump says, that it was calibrated and potentially gives way for diplomacy. Take a listen.
I would lean towards President Trump's interpretation of it. The military action was also a diplomatic move by Iran. It was, I mean, we never welcome, obviously, hostilities and reactions, but it was proportionate. It was de-escalatory. It appears to have been previewed, which allowed, and there are Canadian soldiers at the Qatari base as well. So...
They were out of harm's way, yes. It gives an opening for diplomacy. I think that's the right way to put it. And the question is, does that diplomacy really get traction and move to ending this risk of nuclear proliferation? And does it lead as well to a broader ceasefire in the Middle East, including in Gaza?
And, Audi, that is the question. What are the other things that could lead from this? But on Iran, of course, many do not understand the timing because their intelligence did not show that Iran was imminently about to use or weaponize. But he does say that Iran's enrichment to 60 percent was imminent.
really a provocation and that it caused potentially Iran to miscalculate. It was trying to prove its capability and negotiate at the same time with President Trump. But at this time, that was no longer acceptable. And so Israel and the United States took that action.
Christiane, NATO leaders have for so long leaned on kind of nuclear sort of ending proliferation through diplomacy. Are they on the same page with the president? Can we expect any kind of unified statement about this issue from the summit?
Well, I'm not sure whether this NATO summit will do that, but they are on board. They all want diplomacy. All of them had called on all sides to de-escalate, you know, until yesterday when President Trump announced after the Iranian calibrated response, proportional response as they all call it,
uh... that there is a ceasefire israel and iran have declared a ceasefire although there is some trading of fire right now we understand we don't know where this will lead but on the other big issues he said for instance he's going to try to and many of the other european leaders are going to try to persuade president trump to keep up the support of ukraine that's one thing and on the other
you know, encourage President Trump to leverage what he did to help Israel in its setback of Iran's nuclear program to get Israel to get to a negotiating, you know, situation again over the war in Gaza and to
to get a ceasefire there, to end the horrors that are happening in Gaza, to get the hostages back, and to eventually lead to the only thing that will end the Middle East, as he puts it, the Middle East crisis, and that is an eventual path to statehood for the Palestinians. So that's what they're hoping Trump will take away from this action that he took in Iran. Ori? That's CNN's chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour. Thank you.
So our breaking news coverage of the ceasefire between Israel and Iran continues. There's new polling out, came out in just the last hour, about how Americans feel about the president's decision to bomb nuclear sites in Iran. And there may be a ceasefire in place, but is Iran's retaliation against the U.S. and Israel over, or is there more to come? This is CNN Breaking News.
Welcome back to CNN This Morning's breaking news coverage of the ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Good morning, everybody. I'm Adi Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on CNN This Morning. It's now half past the hour here on the East Coast. The Israeli defense minister says they will, quote, respond with force following claims that Iran violated the ceasefire declared by President Trump.
So the IDF says they intercepted two missiles after the ceasefire went into effect. Iran denies those claims. What we do know is that Iran and Israel continued deadly strikes just moments before the ceasefire deadline. Joining me now to discuss CNN correspondent Paula Hancocks. Paula, good morning. And I just want to start with where things stand now. What do you know?
Well, Audi, we know that Israel claims there were missiles. We know that Iran is claiming it did not fire those missiles. So the next few hours are really going to be key to see whether this ceasefire can hold or not. But what we saw in just the hours before that ceasefire
came into effect was significant strikes from both sides. This often happens just before a ceasefire. The U.S. president gave both sides approximately six hours, he said, before it came into effect. We know that Israel carried out a number of strikes on Tehran. Our team in the capital there said that they were seeing those air defense systems kicking in to act.
And we also saw at least half a dozen barrages of missiles hitting in Israel. Both sides say they had loss of life in Israel. They had five people killed when a residential building was hit in the southern part of Israel. In Tehran, officials say some nine were killed in the western part.
the country. So this is what we expect as the final hours tick down towards a ceasefire, that the activity does pick up. We're hearing from the Israeli side, though, that they believe they have achieved what they needed to believe, to achieve. They say that they have...
There was an existential threat to them. They have managed to surpass that. They have managed to rectify that, not just with the nuclear program, but also when it comes to the ballistic missile program. They say that they have weakened the military leadership. They say they've weakened the nuclear program. And so as far as they are concerned, they have achieved what they set out to achieve. Now, the latest we have heard from the Israeli defense minister is that, quote, we will respond with force.
force. And this is after they say that they had to intercept two missiles after the ceasefire. This has happened in the past with ceasefires. It happened, for example, with Hezbollah and Israel after their ceasefire. There were flurries of violence on both sides. So the hope is that this ceasefire, though, will still hold.
Okay, Paula Hancock, CNN correspondent. Now, if Iran has agreed to a ceasefire, it's not entirely clear that it's done, striking back as we just heard. And missiles aren't the only ammo in their arsenal. The Department of Homeland Security warns of potential low-level cyber attacks against U.S. networks by pro-Iranian hackers.
And while federal officials have warned of potential lone wolf attacks, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has even raised concerns over Iranian sleeper cells being activated. They're part of what military analysts are calling asymmetric measures Iran could use to retaliate against the U.S. Joining me now to discuss this is CNN Global Affairs Analyst Kim Dozier. Good morning, Kim.
I want to just start with what we just heard Paula kind of refer to as flurries, this kind of thing that can happen at the edge of a ceasefire. Is there any chance, however, that we're witnessing any kind of strategic deception? Is there any chance that this is an indication Iran is not committed to the ceasefire?
Well, of course, Iran is denying that it fired missiles. The problem with ceasefires in the beginning, especially in situations like this, is there's no trust in either side, and they don't exactly have a red phone hotline to check with each other to see what's going on. Is that a rogue unit that fired something? Did you intend to fire that? They're going through intermediaries. So with slow reaction time, that can lead to this kind of
back and forth. Hopefully this is just what happens when ceasefires are implemented. They can be rough at the start and the Qataris will step in, speak to each side and smooth this out. We'll probably know in about 24 hours if this is going to hold. The Israelis have shot most of the things that they say they wanted to shoot.
but they've also promised to respond to whatever aggression they perceive, which also raises a question for me. Iranian officials today have sworn to rebuild their nuclear program. What happens when Israel watches equipment start moving back into some of the locations that have been hit or sees a new location being set up? Now that they've sort of crossed the Rubicon of attacking Iran,
will they just pepper the country with airstrikes in future when they feel threatened? You know, you had Iran's foreign minister meeting with Russian President Putin, but it did sort of underscore whether or not Iran really has any allies at this point that would come to its support in any way. What's your read of sort of the response either by Russia or China or just in the region?
I think that Russia will provide, at the very least, moral support, support at the UN. Russia, of course, is fighting its own resource-intensive war against Ukraine, war of aggression. So while Iran has asked for some weaponry in the past to refill stocks that
Israel attacked, Russia was unable to help at that point. But I think they'll continue to back them up in the court of world opinion and at bodies like the UN. I think China will quietly start helping re-industrialize. And North Korea has apparently always been willing to sell some technology to Iran of nuclear flavors. So it
Iran does have this combination of the axis of, well, upheaval, as some people call it, that's willing to step in and help it rebuild and help it economically as well. That's Kimberly Dozier, CNN Global Affairs Analyst. Thank you.
And we've also got some new polling out just an hour ago. It shows how Americans feel about the president's decision to attack those nuclear sites in Iran. So here's what we know. 56% of Americans surveyed here disapprove of the military action in Iran, while 44% approve it. When asked if they think the strikes will make Iran more of a threat to the U.S. or less, more than half said more. Now President Trump has announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, of course.
But some Americans are skeptical about the president's motivations. I think it's important to remember that there has been a repeated pattern of using diplomacy and negotiations to try to catch Iran off guard and launch sneak attacks on Iran.
ISAAC DEVERE, CHUCK BROCHA AND ASHLEY DAVIS ARE JOINING ME AGAIN. I'M KIND OF CAUTIOUSLY READING THESE NUMBERS BECAUSE THINGS HAVE JUST MOVED SO QUICKLY SINCE THE INITIAL STRIKES. BUT I ALWAYS LOOK AT THE NUMBER OF INDEPENDENTS. AND I WAS SURPRISED THERE TO SEE THAT NUMBER BE 60% OVER 40. YOU'RE NODDING. YEAH, BECAUSE THAT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECE. WE EXPECT DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS TO RUN TO THEIR CORNER NO MATTER ALMOST WHAT THE ISSUE IS. OVERALL IN ALL THE POLLING I'VE EVER DONE, MOST FOLKS ARE
AGAINST WAR, AGAINST SENDING TROOPS TO WAR. BUT WATCH THE INDEPENDENT NUMBER BECAUSE AS WE MOVE INTO THE MIDTERMS, THERE'S ONLY A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE. IT'S NOT A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AND IT'S THOSE MOST ENGAGED AND IT'S THOSE INDEPENDENTS IN SWING DISTRICTS THAT WILL HAVE THE BIGGEST IMPACT. WHAT DO YOU SEE IN THIS? YOU SEE THAT THERE IS NOT AN APPETITE FOR FOREIGN ENGAGEMENTS AND THAT INCLUDES, I THINK, YES, LOOK AT THE INDEPENDENTS, BUT EVEN AMONG REPUBLICANS THERE IS A SPLIT THAT'S THERE.
We don't know over, given how quickly things are moving and also given how for so many issues the Republican base and Republican officials just snap back into whatever Donald Trump is saying to do and with no opposition in Congress coming, whether that will hold. But it does show that there is an issue here of people
people not wanting this to happen, even as a lot of people who are thinking seriously about what's going on in Iran think that stopping Iran from having a nuclear weapon is a good thing. And what happens next is obviously going to color this view. You know, when we're looking at the numbers, do you trust Trump to make the right decisions?
on use of force in Iran? Again, 55% no. That's very different from just are these strikes okay or not. Ashley, what do you hear in that doubt? Well, first I want to say, and I should have said this at the beginning, that we should be thanking our United States military for what they did. What was accomplished with no lives lost was an amazing feat. In my lifetime, Iran and the nuclear weapons have always been
a horrible threat to this country and they support terrorists more than any other country in the world. So I think we can't lose sight of that. I do think that people are tired of war, obviously, and the same people on the Democrat side that are saying we shouldn't do Iran, then we probably shouldn't do Ukraine either. I mean, it's the same argument. And so there is a, if this ends, like you say, and we're not in this for another year or two years or even six months,
what was accomplished by most likely destroying at least the most of their nuclear capability is a win. - And what happens if there's some sort of retaliation or that would change all this and hopefully nothing like that will happen. - Absolutely, absolutely. And if we have to send troops and all of that is a whole different story.
Okay, you guys stay with me. We've got more to talk about and we've got some updates here. We're going to continue to monitor what we're just talking about as a kind of shaky ceasefire agreement between Israel and Iran. There's still, of course, some unanswered questions about the U.S.'s attack on Iran. So did the U.S. really wipe out their nuclear program? Plus, President Trump will make his first appearance at NATO since returning to office. We're going to tell you how his actions on Iran could impact the meeting.
So at the heart of Iran's nuclear capabilities is enriched uranium. But when asked to pinpoint where that uranium could be, Vice President J.D. Vance deflected.
Do you know for sure where all the highly enriched uranium is? Well, Brett, I think that's actually not the question before us. The question before us is can Iran enrich the uranium to a weapons-grade level, and can they convert that fuel to a nuclear weapon? Our goal was to bury the uranium, and I do think the uranium is buried, but our goal was to eliminate the enrichment and eliminate their ability to convert that enriched fuel into a nuclear weapon.
Without a full accounting of where that uranium is, the threat of a nuclear Iran does remain. And experts suggest that a full assessment of damage to uranium enrichment halls could take some time. We're going to talk to former U.N. nuclear weapons inspector David Albright. Good morning. Thank you for being with us. Good morning.
We just heard the Vice President say, look, you're all asking the wrong question. Our goal was to bury this. You have actually been doing some assessments, I understand, in the last day or two. What are you looking for?
Yeah, I know we've been looking, pulling over satellite imagery and talking to our sources since this started. And what we see is Iran's centrifuge program is destroyed. I mean, it's amazing how much damage has been done to that program. And so I think that part of the mission has been accomplished. But there's things I would call residuals. And these stocks of enriched uranium are one of them. I mean, I wish those stocks were buried, but...
Our understanding is that some of them were taken away by Iran and we don't know where they are. And there's remaining centrifuges that are unaccounted for. So this problem isn't over yet, but it is a manageable problem, partly because turning that centrifuge
enriched uranium into weapon grade uranium is not going to be a slow process, a fast process. They have to turn that weapon grade uranium into a bomb. And the bombing campaign has done serious damage to Iran's capability to build a nuclear weapon itself. And you can see that in the sites attacked. Fortunately, from our point of view, the scientists killed. And so you, if it moved to try to reconstitute Iran,
and build into a core weapon. It's going to take a good year or two, I think is our current assessment.
And also I should add that we've looked very carefully at the Fordow plant and we have designs of the plant from other work we do. And these bunker busters went through, hit parts of the mountain that are vulnerable. One was a ventilation shaft that's absolutely critical to the operation and goes all the way down to the enrichment facility. Another is positioned over the caps where the centrifuges are.
And basically what they designed was two explosive forces to go down, hit the enrichment floor, and then basically cover the entire floor space or area of this enrichment plant. And so it...
It looks like it was destroyed, but again, you want to know for sure. You want, in a sense, you want insider information to tell you that. But it was a well-designed, very precise strike. And so I think overall, this program has really been successful.
major parts of it have been destroyed, but these residuals have to be dealt with. Yeah. David, we've talked so much kind of about, as you said, the residuals, the material itself. There have been so many Iranian scientists, people involved with the nuclear program who were assassinated. Can you talk about that destruction in terms of manpower, the brains literally behind their operations? How much has that set back Iran, so to speak?
Well, it set them back. I mean, these were top flight scientists, many linked to the nuclear weapons program, which we see as a kind of a preparatory program, not a program to actually build, but they're so close that it's becoming a problem.
that itself is becoming a problem. But not all of them were killed. In the long term, they can be replaced, but in the short term, it's incredibly disruptive. And they killed another one last night from the reporting I've seen who was a high explosive expert, sort of initiating high explosives, which is a critical aspect of starting the nuclear weapons. So I think the loss of personnel has been very important.
in terms of degrading the program, although I find that not a very nice strategy or acceptable strategy. But Israel's tough, as we all know. David Albright, former UN nuclear weapons inspector. Thank you. Hope to see you again soon. It's now 53 minutes past the hour. Want to give you your morning roundup.
The Supreme Court grants President Trump permission to deport undocumented immigrants to countries other than their homeland. The ruling clears the way for the Trump administration to send those people to places like South Sudan and Panama and Costa Rica with little notice.
And Sean Diddy Combs will not testify in his criminal trial. That's according to a source who tells CNN that decision was made recently. It's not likely Combs would change his mind. The case could go to the jury as soon as this Friday.
And polls opened up just about 50 minutes ago this morning in the final day of voting in New York City's mayoral primary. Former Governor Chris Cuomo and Socialist Zoran Mamdani are the top contenders for the Democratic ballot. This primary will be determined by rank choice voting. The winner will run against independent nominee and current Mayor Eric Adams and Republican candidate
Curtis, Silwa, and Isaac, I know you've actually been following this, and it's kind of a wild primary, and even if you get past it, will probably be a wild general. Is there someone people are talking about as being in the lead, or is this quite close? Well, we are heading into primary day today with Andrew Cuomo, the former governor, looking like he...
continues to be strong but a lot less strong than people thought he would be and Zoran Mamdani, a 33 year old Assemblyman, democratic socialist, he's been in office for three years surging in a way that has surprised everybody in New York. We don't know how this is going to go. When I talk to people in New York about it involved both campaigns they agree this is jump all today. But I think what is really striking about this race is that you know most
campaigns are about who do you believe in who you support this is really being decided meant for a lot of people like who who is completely unacceptable to get it right now good to Cuomo people I'm Donnie is completely unacceptable to a lot of them Donnie and other candidate supporters Cuomo is completely unacceptable but it goes to rank choice voting we're gonna have some numbers tonight and we won't then hear anything else until that starts get tabulated and reallocated July 1st so whole week okay it
Any moment now, I want to turn to the tarmac here. President Trump about to leave for the Netherlands for that annual meeting of NATO leaders. It's a summit which was originally going to be all about defense spending levels by NATO members. Instead, Trump is arriving on the heels of a head-spinning weekend where in just a matter of days, the U.S. launched airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. It also repelled an Iranian attack on a U.S. air base in Qatar.
Now that we have this tentative ceasefire and put all the fighting between Israel and Iran at least on hold for the moment, a result that NATO allies, like let's say Germany's chancellor, now seem to be okay with.
There is no reason for us, nor for me personally, to criticize what Israel started a week ago. Nor is there any reason to criticize what America did last weekend. It is not without risk, but leaving things as they were was not an option either. My guests are back. I feel like you can't say something more direct than that.
What the chancellor said, where everyone's kind of like, whelp if it worked. He did say something more direct. He said Israel is doing the world's dirty work. That was his initial response to the Israel strike. Using that phrase. Yes. Yeah. So the imperative to stop the Iranian nuclear program is one that is shared by a lot of people around the world, even those who don't agree with Donald Trump on a lot of things. Yeah, even if they're not saying it publicly because they can't, a lot of countries are happy that Iran does not have a nuclear, potentially does not have a nuclear weapon anymore.
Yeah. So and does this effectively shut down those voices, especially on the further right, who said, look, what's what's happening? This shouldn't be happening at all. I want you guys to listen to Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's been very vocal about her disapproval of those attacks.
because at the time when we were kind of asking her about this, we were seeing wide support, right, in the numbers of average people and then this very visceral reaction by MAGA voices online.
I think what you're seeing is a very big divide in the MAGA base. And I think that's also something important to talk about. And I think it's generational. We've been lied to too many times. And I think it's right to be skeptical. But I think you're seeing a major divide in Republican voters.
we don't know the answer to that yet look at your face as soon as you heard generational divide i'm sure you were like i've seen this movie before if this goes away and this stops at the water's edge right here and this thing simmers down then they can all survive this but if anything goes on beyond this the midterm elections are coming up in about a year and four months and
Only folks who really are engaged will show up, and I think this could cause folks staying at home who are frustrated, who gave him a chance to be that person. I mean, it's just a political imperative. I mean, it's interesting. Sometimes, I think, hold on, wait, now. Right now, we've got some information. Here's President Trump moments ago. Mr. President, it feels like...
I don't think so, but I'm not happy that Israel is going out now. There was one rocket that I guess was fired overboard. It was after the time limit and it missed its target.
And now Israel is going out. These guys got to calm down. Ridiculous. The Press: How are you going to be calm if you keep firing fires? The President: I didn't like plenty of things I saw yesterday. I didn't like the fact that Israel unloaded right after we made the deal. They didn't have to unload. And I didn't like the fact that the retaliation was very strong. But in all fairness, Israel unloaded a lot.
And now I hear Israel just went out because they felt it was violated by one rocket that didn't land anywhere. That's not what we want, I'll tell you. And I'm telling you, I'm not happy about that, Israel, either. All I do is play both sides. I'm going now, as you know, to NATO. Some of you are going with me, and I think it's going to be
The President: Look, you're asking me about women in the Middle East?
It's getting a lot better. Things are happening at a high level. As you know, Saudi Arabia has done a really good job. It's coming out far faster than I thought. So we're very happy about what's happening with women in the Middle East. The Press: No, I'm talking about a new dawn in the Middle East that you managed to achieve last night. The President: Yeah. The Press: You know, the region is going to a new place with the -- The President: That's true.
Can you tell us what your future plans are for Gaza, for the hostages? The President: It's a new dawn. I appreciate the question. You're very nice. Who are you? The Press: Thank you. I'm Nerea Kraus from Israeli Channel 13 News. The President: Well, we have to have Israel calm down because they went on a mission this morning. I got to get Israel to calm down now.
You urge both sides not to violate the ceasefire, but reports coming from the region suggest that
The Press:
Hi, I'm Omar Jimenez, correspondent for CNN, and we believe that to understand the world, you need the truth. It's why we follow the facts every day, wherever they may lead. Follow CNN and subscribe at cnn.com forward slash subscription.