What Trump's latest news conference revealed about state of Iran war

[0:00] I am not going to wade into the entire F-bomb thing that played out over the weekend. [0:05] We have long grown accustomed to, and some of us, not my, not me, but some of us, [0:10] have grown wary of President Trump's caustic relationship to the English language. [0:15] That caustic relationship to the English language is, by several orders of magnitude, [0:21] more profane this second term than it was President Trump's first term. [0:26] So it matters. [0:26] What matters is the president, attached to this language, [0:31] leads the world's most powerful military and has at his disposal [0:35] the largest arsenal of the most lethal weapons, conventional and nuclear, on Earth. [0:42] And though the president said today Iran has presented a significant offer to end the war, [0:48] that offer is not enough. [0:50] And the president said if Iran does not meet his still unspecified terms [0:54] by 8 p.m. Eastern tomorrow, [0:57] he will unleash waves of bombing runs to inflict maximum damage on Iranian civilian populations. [1:07] We have a plan, because of the power of our military, [1:12] where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o'clock tomorrow night, [1:20] where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, [1:25] burning, exploding, and never to be used again. [1:28] I mean, complete devastation. [1:29] Demolition by 12 o'clock, and it'll happen over a period of four hours. [1:35] That could be an exaggeration. [1:37] It could be a glimpse of destruction to come. [1:40] Or it could be hardball negotiating. [1:43] On that last item, negotiation, [1:45] the president, for whom exaggeration is tactical and distracting sometimes both, [1:51] said something quite curious about the state of actual dialogue with Iran. [1:56] The biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can't communicate. [2:00] They have no method of communication. [2:02] So we're doing, we're communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago [2:07] with children, bringing a note back and forth. [2:11] A note back and forth? [2:14] Carried by a child? [2:15] Seriously? [2:16] Well, probably not. [2:18] Then why say it? [2:19] Who the... [2:21] knows. [2:23] What we did learn was important today. [2:25] The Strait of Hormuz. [2:26] Quick reminder, that's the oil and natural gas shipment route from Iran to the Arabian Sea [2:30] and from there to energy markets east and west became much clearer today [2:35] thanks to this question. [2:36] Posed by my colleague, Weijia Jiang. [2:40] Just to clarify, in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow, [2:44] do they have to make a deal, open the Strait, or both? [2:48] We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me. [2:51] And part of that deal is going to be, we want free traffic of oil and everything else. [2:56] We begin tonight at the White House with the aforementioned Weijia Jiang. [3:01] Weijia, great to have you. [3:03] Lots of ground covered in the press conference this afternoon. [3:07] We're going to talk to Aaron McClain in a moment about what we're going to talk about. [3:09] What we learned tactically about the rescue operations. [3:11] I want to talk to you about other things that came up. [3:13] First of all, the president made reference to this regime change in Iran. [3:17] Smarter, sharper, more reasonable. [3:21] Is that something he really believes? [3:25] Well, it's something that he has been publicly messaging, Major. [3:28] But to be frank with you, one of my questions on my list that was not answered during this briefing [3:34] is who are you talking about? [3:36] Can we get a name? [3:38] Can we get a person? [3:39] Because he has referred to... [3:41] The president of Iran's new regime, saying that person was the one who asked for a ceasefire last week. [3:48] He has said that they are far more reasonable than the previous regime [3:52] and that he is much more optimistic that they'll be able to reach some kind of deal. [3:57] But we have no idea who he is talking about, Major. [4:02] And so it's unclear why he is expressing this optimism. [4:07] There is a speaker of Iran's parliamentary that [4:11] could be the person. [4:13] But that person has been very vocal, too, pushing back on Trump's rhetoric and saying, [4:19] you know, we're waiting for you, essentially. [4:21] If you escalate this war, we are here. [4:24] So that is a great question, Major, one that unfortunately was not answered today. [4:28] But an important one, because whether they are trading paper notes or, you know, using a tin can, [4:37] they are talking to somebody, right? [4:39] And that matters. [4:41] Because the clock is ticking on that deal that the president wants by tomorrow, 8 p.m. Eastern. [4:47] And, Weijia, it was also asked of the president, what about the civilian population in Iran? [4:55] He said he wasn't concerned about committing war crimes by hitting civilian targets, [4:59] like power plants or bridges or desalinization plants. [5:03] But he also said that the Iranian people, through intercepts the United States has, [5:09] wants the United States to bomb the country more. [5:12] This was... [5:14] This is a remarkable moment, Major, because, obviously, in his threat that he issued online [5:18] and that profane, laced tweet, and verbally today about bombing power plants and bridges [5:27] back to the Stone Ages, that would hurt the very people, the Iranian people, [5:32] who the president has claimed repeatedly he wants to help. [5:37] He wants them to rise up, to overthrow the regime, to have a chance at a better life. [5:44] And, of course, he's going to have to do it. [5:45] He's going to have to do it with a clear conscience. [5:47] He's going to have to do it in a very strong way. [5:48] And, I mean, the president asked specifically, what about these people? [5:52] Why would they want you to bomb the civilian infrastructure? [5:56] And you're right, Major, he said they would be willing to suffer in order to have freedom. [6:02] The Iranians, we've had numerous intercepts, please keep bombing, they are begging for, he says. [6:08] So, that's according to the president, that they're willing to make that sacrifice, to endure, [6:12] in order to ultimately have some kind of peace. [6:16] That's what he's claiming. [6:18] Many things are unprecedented in this particular era. [6:21] Civilians saying bomb us more [6:23] might be near the very top of that list. [6:26] Weijia Jiang, North Lowell, the White House, [6:27] thank you very much. [6:28] Gonna move around the set here [6:29] as I walk over to our CBS News National Security Analyst, [6:33] columnist for the pre-pest, Aaron McLean, [6:35] also host, School of War podcast. [6:37] We learned a lot today about this amazing, [6:41] risky, tactically sound, I mean like really sound, [6:46] rescue operation. [6:47] What did we learn? [6:48] A bunch of extraordinary detail, Major, [6:51] about the two rescue operations [6:53] that were mounted between Friday and today. [6:56] The first, a broad daylight, hasty, preloaded, [7:00] sort of sprung loaded operation, [7:02] apparently led by Central Command, [7:04] authorized by the president in the middle of the night, [7:06] that flew into Iran with helicopters and C-130s [7:09] taking fire along the way. [7:11] The actual shoot down now, [7:13] we can't go into too much detail here [7:15] because CBS News is still working [7:16] on confirming some of these details, [7:17] but it does appear that the plane went down [7:19] further into the center of Iran than we thought on Friday. [7:23] On Friday, there was a lot of discussion [7:24] and speculation in this area, [7:25] kind of closer to the border with Iraq, [7:28] because a lot of the footage that you saw on Friday [7:31] of helicopters and C-130s in the air was in this area, [7:34] but I think that's kind of explainable [7:35] if you consider where those planes might have flown from, [7:38] say from Kuwait to the center of the country, [7:40] or if you're coming up from Qatar, [7:41] but you don't want to fly all the way over Iran, [7:43] you want to trace the Gulf and go there. [7:44] I think you can see then [7:45] why you end up with a lot of footage from this region. [7:48] A quick reminder that what you see initially on social media [7:50] may not be the full picture. [7:52] That's right. [7:52] Keep that in mind for a lot of different reasons. [7:55] A very true thing. [7:56] So you have that first very bold daylight rescue operation, [7:59] which swiftly gets the pilot, [8:01] but then a long day on Saturday [8:03] as we think somewhere in the hills [8:05] in the vicinity of Isfahan. [8:06] We've spoken about Isfahan before. [8:08] You'll remember Isfahan [8:08] because it's the site of one of the principal [8:10] nuclear sites in Iran [8:12] that we speculated a great deal [8:13] could be a potential target for a raid. [8:16] The pilot seems to have gone down [8:18] in the terrain around Isfahan [8:19] very close to this site. [8:21] And this Ford base that was built [8:23] by the United States Special Operations Command, [8:26] Joint Special Operations Command, [8:27] in the night Saturday into Sunday, [8:30] I think it's not crazy to imagine [8:33] that that's a site that was pre-identified [8:35] for other special operations [8:37] we might execute in that region. [8:39] Yes. [8:40] And we, [8:40] we ended up using it for this. [8:41] Right. [8:41] And so they create this small base of operations. [8:44] And what happened there? [8:45] We learned some amazing stuff [8:46] about what happened in a nan, [8:48] not a nanosecond, [8:49] but pretty quick. [8:50] Yeah. [8:50] General Kane spoke very movingly [8:52] about these Sandy missions [8:54] that the A-10s and other aircraft [8:56] run ahead to stay above the pilot [8:58] and keep them safe [8:59] while the rescue gets set up. [9:00] At this Ford refueling point [9:02] out here in the desert of Iran, [9:04] these planes landed. [9:06] The president gave this vivid description [9:07] of these helicopters. [9:09] We can imagine these MH6 Little Birds, [9:10] getting offloaded from the C-130s, [9:13] assembled rapidly [9:14] and then flown out into the night [9:16] to go to the top of the mountain [9:17] where this air crew member, [9:18] this colonel, [9:19] was hiding from the Iranians. [9:21] Also, other air missions occurring [9:23] in the vicinity [9:23] to confuse the Iranians [9:24] about the location [9:25] of our airmen on the ground. [9:27] And then, of course, [9:27] disaster very nearly striking [9:29] when the C-130s can't take off again. [9:31] They're basically stuck in the mud [9:32] at the site, [9:33] thus leading to the launch [9:34] of this second contingency operation, [9:37] this plan B, [9:38] where new aircraft have to fly in, [9:39] pick up our people, [9:40] and we destroy the C-130s on the ground. [9:44] There is, just listening to you [9:45] and from the briefing, [9:47] there's like three movies in this. [9:50] Yeah. [9:50] I mean, seriously. [9:51] Maybe a limited series. [9:52] Because, just very quickly, [9:54] the colonel, [9:55] he followed procedure, [9:58] bails out, [9:59] lands, [9:59] and then gets to the highest point he can, [10:01] waits a while [10:02] before activating his transponder, [10:05] all of that according to the training [10:07] that that backseater received. [10:09] That's right. [10:10] And there's also this mysterious thread [10:12] that we have to the briefing today [10:14] that we don't have every detail yet, [10:16] but the president said a lot about it. [10:18] The CIA director alluded to it, [10:20] that the CIA played a big role in this operation, [10:22] that there were human resources [10:24] and technological resources employed. [10:26] And just judging from the context [10:28] of what the president said, [10:29] it had to do with locating the pilot, [10:31] or excuse me, the air crew member, [10:32] at a great distance, [10:33] being able to find this needle in a haystack. [10:35] So I don't know if we're talking about [10:36] a very high quality, high resolution optic, [10:39] but something in that neighborhood [10:40] where we were having trouble finding the guys, [10:42] we didn't get them on Friday night. [10:43] It took until Saturday night. [10:44] Indeed, he wasn't flying out until dawn Sunday [10:47] because of the trouble with the aircraft. [10:48] That's training, that's technology, [10:50] that's personnel, [10:50] and that's orders from the commander in chief [10:52] all came together to pull this off. [10:54] Amazing stuff. [10:55] Aaron McClain, thank you so much.