Tonight on 360, President Trump gives a dire warning to people in Tehran, leave the city immediately as he ends a visit to Canada early to fly back to Washington. Israel widens the air campaign and Iranian state TV feels the impact. And Minnesota, with a suspect in court, two people dead and two more wounded authorities detail how much worse the alleged plot to kill Democratic lawmakers might have been. Good evening, we are getting new reports of explosions and heavy air defense activity in Tehran right now.
This is a new video. You'll see a brief burst of what appears to be anti-aircraft artillery at the beginning, what exactly it is or may signal is not yet known. It caps a day that saw a ninth wave of Iranian counter-strikes on targets in Israel and Israel expanding the scope of its airstrikes, including that strike on a TV studio in Tehran. These are military confirmed and hit the studio, saying, but not offering evidence that it contained a communications center being used for military purposes.
This is what it looked like from the outside. That's the outside of the building. Iran says one person was killed. Late today, two semi-official Iranian news outlets reported that Tehran had warned Israelis to evacuate from the headquarters of two of their own TV channels.
That warning, though, pales next to what came from President Trump just before seven tonight, disposing on social media reads, Iran should have signed the deal. I told them to sign what a shame and waste of human life simply stated Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I said it over and over again. Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran.
About 45 minutes later, seen as Caitlyn Collins, who's in Canada with the president, got word that he's cutting his trip short there from the G7 and returning to Washington tonight further amplifying the notion that the U.S. may be getting involved in the fight. We don't know for sure yet. In addition to all of that, there was this today from Israel's Prime Minister, saying he would not rule out a strike on Iran's Supreme Leader, Aetollah Khamenei.
So are you going to target the Supreme Leader? Look, we're doing what we need to do. I'm not going to get into the details. But we've targeted their top nuclear scientists.
It's basically Hitler's nuclear team. But U.S. officials tell us that the president flatly rejected a plan, an opportunity that the Israelis had to take out the Supreme Leader. Do you understand his concern?
My understanding is his concern is that this would escalate the conflict beyond where it is already. It's not going to escalate the conflict. It's going to end the conflict. The conflict so far has taken at least 24 lives in Israel, 224 in Iran, according to authorities in each country.
But it's that evacuation warning from the president tonight, and what it could mean, which starts us off, and then Chief White House correspondent Caitlyn Collins is in Canada, has some new reporting on it. She joins us from Calgary, Alberta. What is the White House saying about President Trump's declaration that everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran, and then the word that he's coming back to the White House? Yeah, I understand.
It's hard to see how those are not tied together, because the White House specifically cited what is happening in the Middle East for why President Trump is cutting his trip here in Canada short. I flew with President Trump on Air Force One yesterday. He arrived late last night in Calgary to head to the summit with world leaders. He had an entire day of meeting scheduled for tomorrow, including a meeting I should know with the Ukrainian president, a lot of years of Linsky as well, on that list of everything that these leaders were going to talk about.
But the White House has decided to cut the strip short so the president can return to Washington tonight, citing exactly what is happening inside the Middle East. We've talked to officials about the president's post on Truth Social earlier that everyone who lives in Tehran should evacuate. Obviously, that is millions of people Anderson and a quite urgent warning from the president of the United States. One official said it just reflected the reality of the situation of trying to get Iran to the table as they were trying to sort this out with the president still voicing confidence that some kind of deal with Iran could be made after obviously those talks kind of fell apart or entirely fell apart after Israel first struck Iran late last week.
And so Anderson, we're still talking to people and trying to figure out what this means and why there is this new fountain of urgency to the president returning to Washington to go and meet with his team. I see several of his national security members who were there in Washington earlier. That includes the vice president, the Joint Chiefs Chairman, who were meeting at the White House in addition to announcements from the defense secretary Pete Hagg set about some aircraft carrier movement as they're basically posturing to make sure they're protecting the U.S. forces who are in the region right now.
I will know one person who's here on the trip with President Trump is the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. I'm told he's been breathing him throughout the day on the latest and the updates that we've been seeing. And the president has also had several conversations with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And so everyone is watching obviously what is happening in the Middle East and also why the president's cutting his trip short, his trip here early short is making such a difference.
What that means about what's next. Okay, Lynn, we'll see you at the top of the hour on the source coming up next right now, seeing an international correspondent, Clarissa Ward in Israel. She's the Tel Aviv's largest hospital clerk. How are Israel's defenses first of all holding up against the latest Iranian retaliation?
Well there have been the expectation that tonight was going to see some heavy activity because we had heard from Iranian state media that there were waves and waves of drones and missiles heading this way. Earlier, the alert did go off. The sirens went off very shortly afterwards. Everyone here at this hospital where we are gathered in a secured shelter area inside.
Those missiles did not really seem to materialize. There were reports of potentially a couple of intercepts but no impacts that we have heard of so far. And it has actually been pretty quiet. Up until this point, I will say though, just based on the patterns that we've been observing over the last couple of nights, that the majority of the heavy strikes seem to happen around four, four, 30 in the morning.
That's still a couple of hours away. But obviously right now, a huge question mark over what is happening in Tehran, what may be happening shortly in Tehran based on President Trump's somewhat ominous posts. We are hearing reports of thousands and thousands of people in that city of 10 million taking into the streets and trying to go in their cars and get out of the city reports of heavy traffic jams clogging up the streets. But very little clarity as to what exactly is going on and all of that also being fueled, as you mentioned earlier in the show, by these comments from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where he really would not rule out the possibility that regime change is, if not the stated objective, certainly the desired outcome of these attacks against Iran.
Anderson. That is the thing, the situation that Israel finds itself in. If there is not regime change, the knowledge of how to manufacture a nuclear device or the nuclear material that they're working with, that remains. And unless the US is involved, it's a real question of whether or not they can actually take out both of these Iranian nuclear facilities.
And it's interesting, Anderson, you know, when you talk to people here about the possibility of, okay, look, it looks like Iran has made some signals that maybe they're ready to talk, that maybe they're ready to go back to the negotiating table. The attitude here is that there's no interest in that. There's no time for talking now. The objectives of this operation have to be achieved, but there's still a lot of ambiguity as to what exactly those objectives are.
Is the objective simply to dismantle or at least delay Iran's nuclear process? Again, earlier on, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to indicate that significant processes, that progress has already been made in that endeavor. But if the objective is to completely dismantle it, to ensure that it can never be resurrected, that seems to indicate that regime change is really the desired outcome here, not clear how that would transpire or what that would look like. And certainly that is raising a lot of anxiety, Anderson, across this entire region.
Yeah, of course, thank you very much. We're going to check back with you later on in this hour. I want to get back from the Global Affairs, Annals Brett McGurk, former Middle East and North Africa coordinator for the National Security Council, also retired US Army Colonel Pete Montsour, senior fellow at the Merced Center for International Security Studies at Ohio State University. Colonel, first of all, what's your read on the President's social media post calling for the evacuation of Tehran?
Do you think that is an indication that the United States is going to get directly involved in this? It certainly seems that way. You know, I didn't really think the United States would get involved unless it was attacked in the region by Iran, but with the President returning a day early from the G7, there's really no reason for him to do that if he's just monitoring the situation. He can do that up in Calgary.
So I think this may be tipping the hand that the United States might weigh in with in a military sense to complete the job that the Israelis have started. Brett, do you agree with that? That this seems to be an indication of something? I think there's two things going on here, Anderson, and both are linked.
I think we are moving our military assets into place to be able to do a strike into Iran, particularly to take out that four-dough facility deeply underground, something really only the US can do. But secondly, there's still an off-ramp on diplomacy. This is coercive diplomacy, what you're seeing. Basically, the White House believes they put a deal down to the Iranians about six weeks ago.
That's a good, fair deal. The Iranians really never responded to that. In fact, they escalated the program in response to that. And basically, I think the view is if a bus, a rachi, the four minutes of Iran calls Steve Wickoff, who is President Trump's ongoing, and says, you know what, I re-looked at the deal you put down, I'm ready to take it, that's the off-ramp.
If Iran does not do that, I think where actually it seems like the US is putting everything in place to get directly involved militarily. One way or the other is very clear here. I think Iran cannot be left at the end of this with that enrichment program in place at Fordot. As the other one, the Israelis have hit that, and then you have the conversion facility.
This is part of the fuel cycle at S.Fahan, which has also been hit. But Fordot, Fordot, Fordot, that is the key. And if you don't dismantle Fordot at the end of this, as you said, Anderson, not only does Iran have the know-how, they have an underground facility with about 10 cascades of very advanced centrifuges, and then you're in an even worse position. So this is really coming to head fast.
It's unprecedented. If anybody says they know where this is going, they don't know what they're talking about. But I see putting military pieces in place, that's smart, as you have a diplomatic off-ramp. So let's hope Iran decides to take that off-ramp.
Otherwise, I think we're possibly looking to an American strike at Fordot. Colonel, do you have a sense of how long it takes to get U.S. assets in place? I mean, we're talking about battleships and other assets.
Well, we're really talking B2 bombers and other aircraft, like the B1, that can carry the kind of weapons that could penetrate the mountain at Fordot and destroy it. Some of those systems are already in place. They're at the Ego-Garcia and the Indian Ocean. They can fly from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri for that matter.
So we have the capability now to strike Fordot. It's just a matter of giving the word. Brad, as we said, Tehran is home to more than 9 million people. The complete evacuation of a city of 9 million people is a difficult thing, particularly if there's an incoming fire.
And at the same time, we heard from Israel, from Netanyahu, the idea of Iranian's rising up and overthrowing this regime. That seems a difficult... I mean, obviously, we've seen demonstrations before. There's clearly a lot of animists toward the regime, a lot of dissatisfaction.
There's a lot of different ethnic groups as well. But rising up, while under bombardment, that seems a contradictory thing. Now, if I were the president, if I were the president, I would say, you've got to keep the Israelis avoid mission creepier. The declared objectives of the Israelis are the nuclear program and the missile program.
If by taking those out, you wind up with a regime change scenario, that's one thing. But trying to militarily impose regime change. I'm looking at P on the screen. We've a lot of experience in this.
I would not try to go down that road. Keep the mission focused, align your ends and means. It's the nuclear program and the missile program. If you really start to get into a mission creep scenario, you get into massive unintended consequences.
Don't know where that's going. I think you want to have an endpoint. Again, align the military resources, have a diplomatic off-ramp. I can see that's what the White House here is trying to do.
But it's very unclear where this is heading tonight. Colonel, you would agree with that given experiences in Iraq and other places. Regime change should not be in your estimation part of the calculate? Regime change is going to take a long time.
It's clear to me that Prime Minister Netanyahu wants the Iranian people to rise up, but they're leaving the one city that matters. If they're going to rise up, it's going to take months or years before that happens. If there's to be regime change in Iran today, it's going to have to come from within in some sort of coup. I don't think the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are going to assassinate the Ayatollah.
So I agree with Ambassador McGurk. Stay on target. Destroy the nuclear program and the missile program. And then you've defanged Iran.
And you've already defanged its proxies around the region. And then the region is in a much better position going forward. Peter, Monstor, thank you very much, Brett McGurk. As well, more now on the kind of day this has been, or seen in a nitpick wash with that.
Mid-broadcast, the conflict came to the studio. Israel said without evidence the state broadcast of buildings being used by Iran's armed forces. A shockwave of a different kind, too, fueling panic in Tehran. The blast in District 3, an area the IDF, told Iranians on social media to flee hours earlier.
And these blasts hitting the hills to the capital's west, showing the firepower now in use. Israel says it controls the skies over Tehran. And this is what that feels like. Screens on ordinary streets.
Sunday night many fled the capital. The roads out apparently hit on Monday, too. Nothing like this in recent memory. In the western city of Kalimashar, state media posted images of the intensive care unit of the hospital damaged.
The IDF told CNN they were, quote, not aware of any attack that happened on a hospital in Iran, end quote. And it's unclear if anyone was hurt. Over 200 dead, though 90% civilians since Friday, Iran's health ministry said. But each number, its own story, many from the youth.
But the west sees as the hope for Iran's post-I of Tala future. This is Tara Hajmiri, dancing at the dentist, killed alongside her family, said state media. Also, Nilafar, Galavand, big in gyms and social media, aged 31, killed alongside her parents, Parnia Abbasi, a poet, aged 23, killed with her parents and brother. Her poem, The Extinguish Star, reads, You and I will come to an end somewhere.
The most beautiful poem in the world falls quiet. And I think the concerns possibly are now that Israel says it has air superiority over the capital, and it may have a substantial list of military and other infrastructure. It wants to hit in the days ahead, increasing horror and anxiety in Tehran, Anson. And Walsh, thanks very much.
We're going to have more on this throughout the hour. A moment ago, we learned that President Trump has directed his national security staff and Washington to convene in the situation room. We're just getting this in while I have more on that after a short break. We're joined next by Connecticut Congressman Jim Himes, who's the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.
Also, the Alleged Minnesota Political Assassin's First Court appearance, charges against him and how authorities say it could all have been so much worse. I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast, In terms of service, the idea of writing in a car with no driver can feel daunting. And this technology raises questions about safety and the future of transportation.
That's why I'm here with Nicole Gable, head of business development and strategic partnerships at WeMo. We've always been about safety, no distracted driving, no drunk driving. We've always been about safety, no wrong. Why do they start taking on economic targets?
Again, my own opinion is that Netanyahu went into this hoping and maybe intending for regime change. That's a very tough bet to make. But I think Donald Trump's post today is partly about that. The argument for those who support regime change in Iran is, look, you can, first of all, the US doesn't get involved.
Israel's not going to be able to destroy the Fordot facility. You know, Natanz, they can damage perhaps, but not wipe it out entirely. And therefore, you have a regime which still has the desire to, if what Israel in the West is saying, to get a nuclear weapon, you still have that in place. Yeah, that's exactly right.
I mean, the reality is I heard you saying, and quoted somebody saying that the program has been set back significantly. I don't think that's true. The enriched uranium is unreachable under Fordot right now and some tunnels associated with the Natanz facility. No reason to believe that that uranium has actually been in any way destroyed.
Now the Israelis, of course, can close tunnel entrances and stuff. You can fix that quickly. The Iranian nuclear scientists who have been killed, the reality is that you can replace that know how Pakistan and India, who Pakistan in particular are not known for their nuclear scientists, they can, right now Iran, if they were left alone, can reconstitute their program very quickly. Do you think the United States will ultimately enter this conflict?
Well, remember, we're in this conflict, right? You know, our naval assets and other assets are knocking down Iranian missiles right now. I mean, in an offensive way against striking. In an offensive way.
So, I mean, that's an interesting question. It's sort of a Donald Trump question and MAGA question, right? Because Donald Trump and MAGA, the sort of article of faith is that you don't get involved in foreign wars, much less regime change wars in the Middle East, which I think we all understand are problematic. But, you know, maybe Netanyahu is a very, very smart and strategic guy.
So, you know, at some point does the Prime Minister convince the President to give him the bunker boss, busting bombs and the aircraft that are necessarily delivered? I could certainly see that. And I don't think the infrastructure has been all that damaged so far. On the other extreme, do I think American troops are on the ground in Iran?
No, I do not. I think that that is probably 10 steps too far for President Trump. In terms of, I mean, Netanyahu has talked about regime change. If you used to rule out targeting Iran's Supreme Leader, there's reporting and we've been told that the President several days ago rejected the idea of actually targeting the Supreme Leader.
What kind of an impact do you think that would have? Because Iran is in a uniquely vulnerable position compared to where they have been over the last 10 years, at the very least. Hezbollah has been badly weakened by Israel. We also have those pager explosions.
Obviously, Houthis still have capabilities. Syria, the regime has changed. It's a lot different situation for Iran. Yeah, no doubt about that.
Look, from a military standpoint, they are not nearly what we feared they would. And the Prime Minister, the actions he took against Hezbollah and, you know, no question. No question. However, regime change is a totally different thing for two reasons.
Number one, and again, it's really hard to know how the Iranian people are feeling right now. But, you know, history shows that when you bomb people, it tends, think of the British, you know, in the 1940s, or in the other examples, it both rattles people, but it tends to rally people around their country. So, whether the Iranian regime can make that happen is unclear. But then, of course, you have a whole other question, which is, let's just imagine, best case scenario for being in Netanyahu is that the regime falls tomorrow morning.
Then, of course, in the Middle East, the question is, and what replaces it? We don't have a great track record on regime change. No, no, I mean, let's not use euphemisms here. You know, attempting regime change in the Middle East almost always ends brutally and tragic.
No, Congressman Himes, thank you very much. Appreciate it. We're going to continue to follow the latest on the Middle East and come back next to our other breaking news tonight. The suspected Minnesota assassin in court for the first time, his prosecutor revealed how his alleged plot could have been far worse.
I'll also talk with Senator Mark Kelly, husband and former congressman Gabby Giffords, who is the president of the United States. We are going to go back to Israel and Iran shortly as President Trump gets ready to fly back to Washington, D.C. We're also following developments out of Minnesota where the suspect in the shootings of two Democratic state lawmakers over the weekend appeared in court today. He's facing first to be murder charges, or what officials have referred to as a political assassination, the type of violence that one seemed unthinkable in this country, but tragically seems to be happening all too frequently.
Details are chilling. The suspect arrived outside the homes of multiple state lawmakers early Saturday morning, looking like this, dressed as a police officer in mass. State Representative Melissa Hortenman and her husband were killed. State Senator John Hoffman and his wife were critically wounded at their home.
This is the stuff of nightmares. The photo captures the end of the largest manhunt in Minnesota history. Police say 57 year old Vance Belter started his rampage around 2 a.m. Saturday.
Belter went to the homes of four Minnesota state politicians with the intent to kill them. He had a list of other elected officials and their home addresses. Belter stalked his victims like prey. The U.S.
attorney says the terrifying plot began much earlier detailing the planning, surveillance and internet searches. Belter allegedly made it to organize his attacks. He says the key to Belter's plan was dressing in uniform to imitate a police officer. He arrived in a black SUV with emergency lights turned on and with a license plate that read police.
He carried a flashlight and a Beretta 9mm handgun. He also wore a hyper realistic silicon mask. Authorities say Belter began his shooting spree at the home of state Senator John Hoffman banging on the door and shouting, this is the police. Then opened fire.
The two survived and are still hospitalized. After the attack, Belter went to perform a wellness check on several lawmakers. According to a federal complaint, Belter headed to the home of an elected official in nearby Maple Grove, but the family was away. He left and then traveled to the home of a state senator where a local law enforcement officer was on the way to perform a wellness check and found Belter sitting in a black SUV nearby.
The officer says she thought Belter was law enforcement, but when she stopped to speak with him, he continued staring straight ahead and didn't respond. That officer then headed to the senator's home to do a wellness check and Belter left the area. Officers went to the home of state representative Melissa Horton to check on her as well. When they arrived, they say Belter was standing outside.
He drew his weapon and began firing. He rushed into the house through the front door, firing into it. He repeatedly fired into the house and when he entered, he murdered Representative Horton and her husband, Mark. This officer say they began shooting at the gunman, but he escaped.
He left behind his car where police say they found multiple weapons, including semiautomatic weapons and ammunition, passports and about $10,000 in cash. He was captured Sunday night in the woods after a massive manhunt. A resident saw him on a trail camera and contacted police. This was a political assassination, which is not a word we use very often.
It's a chilling attack on our democracy, on our way of life. Belter allegedly texted his family shortly after the shootings, according to a federal complaint saying, dad went to war last night. I don't want to say more because I don't want to implicate anybody. Officials say there is still no clear motive for the attacks.
I've seen nothing like a man of Festo in his writings. Obviously, his primary motive was to go out and murder people. They were all elected officials. They were all Democrats.
Anderson, the major question here is why. And our CNN investigative team has done a deep dive into his background and this is what is so strange. We reviewed a social media post. They do not express particularly strong political views.
We reviewed his sermons and there's just one anti-LGBT comment in their Anderson. And then finally, a friend says that he was not known to be particularly political. Anderson? All right, we do well.
Thanks very much. My next guest news is all too well. The danger is political violence. That makes our country stand out in absolutely the worst of ways.
I mean, the gun violence in our nation today is not like any other developed nation. And now it's political. I mean, Gabby was assassinated or there was an attempt of an assassination in her life because she was a member of Congress. With Melissa Horton and her husband and John Hoffman, you know, those and his spouse, those were attempts to because they were serving in the legislature in Minnesota.
And this kind of violence has to stop. And there are things that we can do about it as legislators, both at the federal and state level. It's a horrific, horrific act. We're learning more about the shooter's fair and hit list.
We mentioned it included other potential targets at the national level for neighboring states. Does the scope of this plot surprise you? Yeah, it does. The sophistication of it as well.
What we previously seen, well, certainly in Gabby's case, the guy planned it for about a year. This was an extensive plan. I mean, he has a fake police car and he's got the uniform. And I think we're really fortunate.
And I think we need to be really thankful to the law enforcement, the guys that had the cops that had the presence of mind to try to get ahead of this to try to go to the next place that they assume might be a target. I think they saved a lot of lives. Your Republican colleague Senator Mike Lee, you taught, posted a photo on social media after the murder, showing a mass gunman outside one of Lawmaker's homes, certainly captioned it, Nightmarron Walt Street, and referenced the fact that Minister of government in Walt's head back in 2019, appointed a gunman to an unpaid position on an external business advisory board. Other far right figures have spread conspiracy theories.
What does that say about, again, just kind of where we are as in our body politic? Well, I think it says a lot about Mike Lee. You know, he assumes this is something to make light up to him. I mean, he should realize there is a dead representative and her husband in Minnesota, John Hoffman, and his wife seriously injured.
There are orphans and likely thinks this is some kind of a joke. It's incredibly irresponsible, especially for United States Senator. I want to turn to what is happening in the Middle East. What's your reaction to the breaking news of President Trump's leaving the G7 Summit early in the term of the White House or the after you posted online?
Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran. Well, this is a dangerous time. I mean, it's I think it's important that we think about how do we get here. President Obama passed the JCPOA.
It stopped the development of nuclear weapons in Iran. President Trump in his first term canceled that nuclear weapon planned the JCPOA to stop them enriching uranium-235 got them much closer. I mean, they were really close. And Israel has a right to defend itself and has always said, and I agree with this, that the Iranians cannot possess a nuclear weapon.
So they took actions here to stop that. I would have hoped that we could have continued to have a discussion with them, maybe get them back to something like the nuclear deal that we previously had before the current president canceled it. That didn't happen. What we are today is rather it's incredibly dangerous.
And you know, caution, you know, the Iranians should not try to draw us into this. We need and we will and we should protect our people on bases across the Middle East and our military assets. Would you support if the U.S. decided to strike Iran directly, even if U.S.
forces have not been attacked in order to try to actually eliminate the planted fordow and your not tons? I mean, you know, I would like to see Iran's nuclear capability to be completely disarmed. It is a tough problem. You would have to hit those facilities, the underground facilities with G.D.U.
57. You know, the massive ordinance penetrator, it's a 5,000 pound weapon. The Israelis, not only do they not have a weapon, they don't have the ability to deliver it, even if they did have it, you know, at this point. So Anderson, this is a complicated problem.
I think it's going to be hard. Even once you try to strike something that's underground, they can rebuild it. You know, my view on this is ultimately if you wanted to completely eliminate the ability for them to get to someday down the line, get to a nuclear weapon, you'd have to remove the uranium 235, the uranium hexafluorite gas, which is what you put into the centrifuges, you'd have to destroy all the centrifuges. That would take a capability that in my view, the Israelis currently do not have.
I don't want to see this escalate. I think maybe there's a scenario, you know, here in the next couple days, or maybe in a week or so, that the Iranians would agree to come to some sort of negotiated settlement to get us back to a point where they are not going to continue to develop a nuclear weapon, and we can do it in a way that's verifiable. Senator Morelle, I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you.
Thank you, Anderson. I have an action to do strikes by Israel and Iran tonight. Also President Trump has been said leaving the G7 Summit early heading back to the White House where he'll meet with his national security team by conversation with Beni Gantz, the Chairman of Israel's National Unity Party and a former Defense Minister coming up. More on the breaking news, a new exchange of strikes between Israel and Iran tonight, and President Trump is leaving the G7 Summit in Canada a day early.
The White House says it is due to what's going on in the Middle East. This comes just after the President said on social media that residents of Tehran should evacuate. There are a lot of questions about if the U.S. is going to get involved in the fighting between Israel and Iran.
Earlier, I spoke with Beni Gantz, Chairman of Israel's National Unity Party and a former Defense Minister. Minister Gantz, to actually illuminate the nuclear threat posed by Iran, to actually destroy the Natanz facility, the Fordot facility, can Israel do that alone, or does it need the United States fire power bunker busting bombs to actually destroy the Fordot facility in particular? Yes. Well, obviously we are very strong and we are very sophisticated.
I think we have surprised many people around the world and specifically in Iran with our capabilities that we have built over the last, I would say, two decades probably that we are following this issue. And obviously I cannot dispose here all our operational capabilities or plans. So I think we have achieved a lot and we can achieve more. Having said that, I do remember that the United States is much stronger than us than it has capabilities that we don't possess, but I'm not in a position to recommend the President of the United States what to do.
I think President of the United States, President Trump, not just a great friend of the state of Israel, but he's a world leader and he understands the interests of the United States. He understands the interests of the region. He understands the interests of the global community, whether those are in this region or in Western Europe or you see those UAVs exploding in Kiev. So I'm sure that United States, if it decides to act, it will do it for its own interest and not for our interest only.
President Trump posted on social media on Sunday saying, and I quote, Iran and Israel should make a deal and will make a deal just like I got Indian Pakistan to make. Can this end with diplomacy or is there no way to end this except militarily at this point? Well, obviously there are two tracks. There is the military track that we are now seeing inactive and I think we must continue with it because once we are there, the more we distract, it's very important.
But let me say this, Anderson. We have nothing, nothing against the Iranian people. It's all about the regime. It's all about its strategic capabilities and it is all against its intent, whether those are against us or what we have seen two years before in Saudi or what we have seen in Ukraine and other places.
So we are focusing on the capabilities. That's what's important for us and I'm telling you as a man of peace. I would like to have peace with the Iranian people as we had before. Just between them and us, there is this fundamentalistic regime that we cannot take the risk of letting him possess those capabilities and I hope that we can achieve it.
You've talked in the past saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu in the past has put his own political calculations ahead of sound decision-making in regards to Israel's war against Hamas. There are some who believe maybe domestic politics may be behind some of this. What do you think? Anderson, this is a very serious issue to fight against the Iranians.
This is something that Israel have not done anything like that before in those kind of long distances all around us. On the Iranian issue, there is no right or left. There is right or wrong and we are right. And just finally, what is your message to President Trump in terms of you as a member?
I want to thank President Trump. Yes, yes, I want to thank President Trump. I want to thank the American people and the American administration for many, many years of partnership and it's definitely the same values but also the very, very same interest. It's true that for us, Iran, Iranian issue, it's an issue with existential potential threat for us.
So the United States, for the American people in the region, in the Middle East, in Saudi, in the Arab countries around the Gulf, everywhere you look at, it's a major interest. And if you ask the people of Qube, it's a major interest for them as well. So I'm sure President Trump understanding the importance of him being a global leader and probably the most important person on the world in terms of political leadership. I'm sure that he will direct the right thing for him, for the world and for the region.
And of course, I'm sure he cares about Israel very much but it's their decisions. We are always here for the United States and the United States is always here for us and I'm sure that this will be in the future as well. Mr. Gant, I appreciate your time.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Next morning, our breaking news out of the Middle East, we had to tell Aviv and curse a ward for a live report on the ground there. More on our breaking news in the Middle East, let's go to curse a ward who is in Tel Aviv.
Anderson, you know, shortly after we were on air with you last time, the sirens started wailing again. Interestingly, there was no pre-alert, which is very unusual, usually of about 15 minutes or so to try to get to a shelter. This time sirens started, that means you've got 90 seconds. We went down to the operation center where the hospital prepares to receive any possible injuries or casualties that may be coming in.
And for the second time tonight, Anderson, interestingly enough, there were no actual reports of missile strikes despite that siren going off. This is a unusual situation in the past. Any time we hear those sirens almost within minutes afterwards, we hear intercepts from the Iron Dome, but also we hear impacts, landfalls. Tonight, so far, none of those.
And all of this, I think, really adding to this sense of anxiety and slight confusion. Things feeling a little bit different this evening from what we've seen previously, but for the doctors here in this hospital, they are still prepared. They are waiting, they understand that it could still be a long night ahead, Anderson. Clercer Warren, thanks very much.
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