Iran launched surprise attack on US forces: CENTCOM

We have video just in of air defense crews targeting incoming fire from Iran.A statement from Central Command says it happened a bit more than two hours ago.Multiple ballistic missiles aimed, CENCOM says, at U .S.forces in the Middle East.Now, where in the Middle East was left unsaid, but Barak Ravid from Axios says it was a U .

S.base in Jordan.Now, this comes about 10 hours after the president spoke positively about negotiations that he said were underway with Tehran, which Iran was denying.

We hear that you're talking right now with leaders on Iran, but Iran has come out publicly and said, we're not talking to the U .S.

Well, they just came out and said we are talking a little while ago because.

So could you tell me who you're talking to, Mr. President?

For some reason, for some reason, we can be in the midst of a beautiful discussion.And they'll come out and say, we're not talking or we didn't discuss nuclear.Well, that's all we discussed because they'll never have a nuclear weapon.

They understand that.Now, during that same interview, the president also renewed his threats against draining infrastructure if talks went nowhere.

If they don't make a deal, then I go back and I finish the job.But that's going to take them forever to rebuild.If I go back and finish up the job, as some people would like with the bridges, with the very easy, I could take out most of their bridges in less than an hour.Less than an hour.But, you know, it takes them 10 years to build a bridge.Bridges take the longest and power plants are second.

I can knock out the power plants within one day.All of their power plants would be gone.And I let them know that, you know, with negotiations, they said, look, people want me to do that.

So tonight, he has an answer from Iran.Is this their final word?That's one question.The more pressing one tonight is, what will the president do about it?CNN's Caitlin Collins, chief White House correspondent, anchor of The Source, and award -winning journalist, joins us tonight.Caitlin, what are you hearing from the administration on this tonight?

You know, John, we're still waiting to see a reaction from the president himself, because obviously CENTCOM has confirmed that, yes, Iran fired these missiles at Jordan.CENTCOM says they were successfully intercepted and hailed that, obviously, as a success.But it does speak to the broader conflict that is very much still underway here, as we've heard varying message from the president himself about whether or not talks are happening, whether he believes that they could be fruitful or whether or not there is a chance of a return to all -out war here.And I thought it was interesting today that he was talking about hitting those desalination plants and others in Iran and was saying that that is something that would affect the civilians there.And he did not want to take that step of doing so, even though he himself has previously threatened to do so.And the fact that this comes as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is still here in Washington right now.

He's staying just a few feet away from the White House at the guest residence known as the Blair House here in Washington.And so we'll see how the president responds.Sometimes he is quite angry with a move like this by Iran.Iran, sometimes he dismisses it as action in the region while the two sides are trying to work things out and talk.But what it also speaks to is what you noted, the fact that this conflict has now been going on, this war, for five months now.And right now, there is no clear end in sight for the president, despite the fact that he predicted initially that this would only go on for a couple of weeks, and now finds himself in this very difficult position of trying to navigate and negotiate a way out of this.

And I think one thing tonight, even though it was we were sitting here in Washington in this moment as they were paying tribute to Lindsey Graham during his funeral today, talking about his support for these wars, for action in the Middle East, particularly in terms of what the president has done here.It's still not really clear, John, how the president is going to respond to this or what he is going to do next in Iran.

Yeah, look, this came right in the middleof the president basically saying how great and how positive talks were going.Any sense, Caitlin, of when we might hear from the president next in terms of what response he could give here?

You know, John, one of the biggest thing that stood out to me was two world leaders came to the White House today, and we did not hear from the president sitting next to them.I mean, obviously, we saw him at the funeral today, and he spoke and gave tribute to his longtime friend, Lindsey Graham.But for two world leaders to come to the White House, to come to the Oval Office, and for cameras not to be called into the room, as they so are often for moments like these, is pretty rare and pretty remarkable.And yes, these two world leaders were only in town because of the funeral for Lindsey Graham, but we're seeing Zelensky, who was on Capitol Hill tonight, working on trying to get that Russian sanctions package passed and get enough support for it.And Netanyahu obviously meeting behind closed doors to the president to talk about Iran.The fact that they did not have reporters in the room for a president who relishes having reporters come in the Oval Office, ask questions, and for world leaders who certainly do the same using those moments, it does say a lot.

Sure does.It's a great point.Caitlin Collins, thank you very much.We're going to see you at the top of the hour for The Source.Among Caitlin's guests tonight, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.Thanks so much, Caitlin.

All right, with us now, retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Layton and CNN Global Affairs Analyst Kareem Sajipur.Kareem, let me just start with you here.So as we said, the president's been speaking positively about these discussions with Iran at the same time as he is threatening them with destroying their bridges and power plants if they do anything, yet they still did something.So what does it tell you about the way Iran's thinking?

John, there's unfortunately no correlation between the president's positive, upbeat words about the war and the state of negotiations and Iranian conduct.This is a regime which no longer is deterred by President Trump's threats or his words.They're continuing to be in attack mode.I think they want to continue to humiliate President Trump.and continue to try to push the United States out of the Middle East.I was watching an interview, re -watching an interview, John, earlier today with Ali Larijani, a senior Iranian official in the first week of the war who was assassinated.

And he said words that were quite prophetic.He said, We're not going to let the United States go.Don't think that you can start this war and end it quickly.We're not going to let go.And those words indeed turned out to be prophetic.

Colonel Leighton, what did you make of the timing here and the target?

Yeah, very interesting timing, John.And what I saw with that is the fact that Netanyahu is in D .C.right now.And that, I think, was one of the key things what Iran was doing, you know, to piggyback off of Karim's points, is that they're basically saying if Iran and the U .S.

, in essence, get back together again, the Iranians see, or if Israel and the U .S.get back together again, the Iranians see this as being a major issue in Kareem, what does this tell you about Iran's appetite for risk and also their appetite to change the status quo?

think we've talked about this before, John.I used to say before the war that the Iranian regime was a zombie regime because it had a dying ideology with dying legitimacy and a dying leader.And I think it's been transformed for now into a gangster regime, a regime which has a huge appetite for risk.And it's been taught the wrong lesson from this war, which is that you don't gain concessions by compromising.You actually gain concessions by compromising.attacking the United States and the region by attacking your neighbors and continuing to close the Strait of Hormuz.

And I think that is Iran's new mode.That's the new era we're in right now with this Iranian regime.

It doesn't sound like, Karim, you think there's any appetite for them to change anything anytime soon.In other words, reach some kind of a deal.

I don't see any correlation as of now between the negotiations and Vice President Vance and some of the U .S.negotiating team and President Trump, of course, have said those negotiations are going positively and the conduct of the regime, which remains very aggressive.

Cedric, what do you think the likely response is for the United States?What are the range of options here?And also just the fact that Iran continues to strike at U .S.

targets with ballistic missiles, which President Trump has more or less said have been destroyed.the U .region.I don't think they will use, the U .S.will use this as a pretext for an all -out attack like we had at the beginning of this conflict, but it is certainly a possibility.

It's an option that is on the table, but that would certainly derail any type of peace talks or any other negotiations that are going on, at least in the short term.