the israelis would give them some sort of a heads up today we just don't know exactly the level of detail that they provided at this point, lawrence. >> edquickly , running out of times here, what is the united states hoping for from israel on this one? >> or is it, there is a ds here, whether they say it publicly or whether it is something that they signal th privately to the iranians, we are not looking to escalate this further, this doesn't end the conflict, the proxy conflict between israel and iran but this kind of exchange of direct fire, this is over. one of the main u.s. interest since october 7th has been avoiding an all out war between israel and iran or even an escalation of the war that is in gaza to places like lebanon, kind of full-scale point i think that will continue to be the focus of the biden administration tomorrow is just trying to contain this. so that it doesn't continue to u

spark escalation. ar >> thank you all very much for guiding us through this breaking news story. could the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle starts right now. good evening, once again, i'm stephanie ruhle, we are st following breaking news this evening for a person familiar g tells nbc news that israel has carried out an operation in iran this evening. today israeli officials notified u.s. officials that the response was coming, the u.s. and its allies have been pressuring israel not to retaliate after it fended off a missile attack from iran last weekend. of course we also know that it is an incredibly tense time in b one of the most volatile parts of the world. leaders around the globe have s been hoping that the israel- hamas war would not spiral into a large conflict let's begin nbc news senior white house correspondent, gabe gutierrez. what can you tell us tonight? >> hi there, stephanie.

a person familiar telling abc news that israel has carried out an operation inside iran pick many questions we have at n this point, stephanie. right now there is no comment yet from the white house. the national security council, significantly, we are told, that israel did alert the u.s. for this operation was carried out. now, stephanie, it all comes te just days after the president came back over the weekend for an emergency meeting as iran retaliated against israel, you will remember that operation from israel and its partners were able to knock down hundreds of missiles and drones and that attack from iran to israel. now just earlier today, an interview in another network, the iranian foreign minister said that any attack by israel on iran would be met with maximum impact and the response from iran would be immediate so

that is the large question at this point, stephanie. if, indeed, this was an attack by israel inside iran, what will the iranians do next? national security officials here at the white house will be watching very closely, and again, this comes just days t after president biden told prime minister netanyahu to take the wheel because there were no casualties in that attack by iran on israel. now, though, it appears that israel has retaliated. the white house has consistently said that it does not want this to escalate into a wider war. >> the u.s. pulled together a coalition to shoot iran's missile down last week. is there concern in the white rn house tonight that we now could be pulled into what could be a much wider conflict? >> certainly, that is a big concern. that national security n officials here have been looking at. but we are told that when president biden had that conversation with prime minister netanyahu several days ago, he said that the united states would not be involved in

any offensive operations against iran. so the posture of the united states and the posture of the white house has been to help israel defend itself but to not get involved in these offenses operations. but again, there are so many unanswered questions at this point. we are hearing from iranian state media that flights have been diverted in the western part of the country. but as of now, with the sun coming up in that part of the world, we are just starting to get any damage assessments. again, we don't have any firm comment yet from officials here at the white house. a person familiar does tell nbc news as we have reported that israel has carried out some type of operation inside israel. >> gabe gutierrez, thank you so much. i want to bring in nbc news correspondent, courtney >>. what are you hearing right now? >> so we are trying to get any kind of details about this operation that israel carried

out inside of iran. all we know is iranian state media is saying that there were a number of explosions near issa hahn. of course, our viewers may be familiar with that city because there is a critical nuclear facility there. but at this point, we don't have any indications that that is, that there was any kind of specific a strike or attack on the nuclear facility, it just nu happens to be in the area around there. of course we are asking questions. but as of now we have no indication that this was actually an attack on the ly nuclear facility itself. now the u.s., as we heard from gabe, u.s. officials are not confirming any of this. we are hearing that the prime minister netanyahu's office is also not commenting on this. but steph, the reality is, we have been waiting for something like this to happen all week and that is for the israelis to respond to this massive volley of, massive attack that iran carried out on israel last weekend now, in advance of

iran's attack on israel last weekend, the israelis did brief u.s. officials on some possible response options. and those included both options to strike inside iran and to go after locations outside of iran where they could target uranian iranian proxy groups. that leads me to some of the reports that we are changing this evening. reports of explosions in syria and in iraq. again, we don't have any confirmation of what may have caused those. >> are still asking those questions but it all happens as we have been waiting for these sorts of potential activities ct to place now, also, i have to say, we have seen israel carry y out airstrikes in places like syria, going after these proxy groups. they rarely, if ever, . acknowledged their involvement in that. so the big question owhere is,

because they have been telegraphing a response to the p iranian attack last weekend, will israeli officials come outi on the record and talk about any thing that we have been seeing here go on tonight? we are still waiting to see that, steph. >> yes we were expecting some sort of retaliation but in terms of a true heads-up, do we know that we got anything like that? please so we have been told that the israeli officials did tell the u.s., today that they plan to carry out a response in short order. but without getting a very specific idea of exactly when it was going to happen. what we don't know, steph, is what kind of fidelity to give the u.s., do they give them specific targets, do they just talk about countries, we don't a yet know that. we are still working on more details on that but remember, when there are strikes that are carried out the u.s. military has, the u.s. has military and personnel inside a rock in multiple locations inside syria in several locations. when israel carries out a sligh strikes.

they give the u.s. military, they tend to give them a heads up, if nothing else, for the ng deconfliction. that is to make sure that there is no miscalculation when you n have militaries operating in close proximity and also to make sure that there is nothing that the u.s. has operating in the airspace that could get accidentally, get in the way of any kind of israeli strike one of the things that we heard after the april 1st strike by the israelis in damascus was that the u.s. did not get much of a heads up, it was sort of once the planes were in the s air, the israelis said oh, we are about to carry out a strike inside syria. that does not seem to be the case here. today they get more of a heads up what we often see is when israel is planning some sort of a mission or operation that could have a repercussions for u.s. personnel in the region, they will give the u.s. a heads up so that if there is any need to harden defenses or shore up any kind of defenses in the

area, the u.s. has some time to respond before the israelis carry that out. s that may be one of the reasons they gave the heads up. but remember, the u.s. has been er pretty firm, publicly, and presumably privately with israel in the recent days that they did not want any kind of response here that would lead to an escalation, steph. >> courtney, thank you so much.k please stay close. if you get any further updates, please join us, we will be on late this evening. let's bring in the conversation my colleague, matt bradley is joining us from beirut. what can you tell us where you are? is there any reaction on the ground to what has been reported? >> as you know, stephanie, we have precious little information. we are still trying to get so much more information. everybody here in beirut and yb really throughout the middle east is just waking up to this news and i think for a lot of folks here, the big question is going to be whether or not this whole thing spells out beyond iran's borders. because iran itself, his belligerency spills out beyond its borders, particularly here in lebanon where it has

dominated a lot of the politics, the military capabilities is dominated by hezbollah which is the main c.a.t.s. of iran against israel and they really are populating the area. far south of where i am, down the coast, near the israeli border can for the past six months, ever since hamas is , october 7th attack against israel, we have been seeing not really a low level but most sort of a simmering fight over that border between hezbollah and israel. that is one of the proxies, hezbollah, of iran. hamas, the houthis in yemen. the popular mobilization units in syria, also, back by the iranians. backed by the iranians. so we are talking about not just iran but all these other groups, military groups and in s some cases, nations that have

connections to iran that are really, as far as israel is concerned, legitimate targets. a lot of these groups may have been considering before today that they could have been struck because as courtney said, we have been waiting for this, the other shoe to drop for the better part of the past week, ever since we saw that missiles fired by the iranians at israel on saturday night. and this looks like it could be either the beginning or the end of some sort of israeli retaliation but the question is going to be whether or not these proxy groups like hezbollah get involved if that happens, in each case, in each of these countries, we are at the precipice of war, of masses conflagration that could really envelop the entire region and not just iran versus israel, countries like lebanon, which is suffering from a massive financial crisis for the past five years, countries like yemen, syria, all these places that have had serious political

instability and suffer from a lot of violence over the past couple of years. none of them, particularly not lebanon, are ready for a new dy round of war. and that is what we are facing right now. so this could be a deeply, deeply destabilizing move by the israelis. again, not just for the iranians but for the entire region. it could even draw in the united states. the united states said they are committed to defending israel's security. i spoke with the deputy chief of hezbollah just today. he said that they are committed to defending against israeli attacks against hamas and the gaza strip and against civilians there so they are ready and willing to fight, we are hearing a lot from different groups. so this is a very, very dangerous situation, stephanie. >> thank you so much for joining us. these very early hours, just 6:00 a.m. in beirut, thank you peer t, let's bring in chief foreign correspondent and andrea missile, she joins by phone picking of conflict well, you know this region well. this is the first time in four decades that israel and iran have attacked one another

directly. how concerning is this to see? please hugely concerning. it is something that president biden urged prime minister netanyahu on sunday not to. what he said, actually, saturday night, i guess, it is not:00, that conversation. he said that they should take the win, declare victory, they deterred the attack and even earlier today, the cia director was at the bush farm in texas saying a spectacular failure, the iranian attack. all the messaging from the u.s. had been, iran failed, very few of the missiles ever penetrated israeli airspace. the air defense was spectacular, and the words of one of the officials but tonight, a source tells me that indeed, the me strike has taken place that the

u.s. was warned, they were notified that it was going to happen. the u.s. did not participate as president biden said to netanyahu last saturday night. we will not participate in any offensive actions against iran. we will have your back and we, our commitment to you, hired to defend you. but we will not participate in anything offensive against iran. those messages were also sent by bentley through swiss channels, the intermediary that representsed i ran into ron because we don't have relations, formerly. and assent to other allies point just yesterday, i was interviewing the top diplomat in jordan he was in new york and with other officials. and i was acknowledging that jordan had participated.

this is one of those rare instances last week were jordan , with the largest palestinian population of any of the arab countries. in fact, participating in knocking down iranian drones or missiles coming toward israel. helping israel defend itself. an extraordinary coalition, the british, the french, the jordanians, saudi assistance in termsce of their overflights. so it was a lot of help and support the u.s., primarily, is helping. in operation of israeli air defense, air defenses. and then internally, for the drones that were coming closer to israel, using, of course, the iron dome. what has happened now, back to

your original question, is extraordinary, unprecedented exchange of attacks between iran and now territorially, by israel pick up until now, israel has, they have had the shadow war going on, through proxies, operations in the red sea. but also through israel's attack, inside iran on their nuclear facilities, taking out the top scientist a couple of years ago. the top nuclear scientist doing things like the attack on damascus, but never until now, and open attack inside iran by israel and now iran is against israel. this is exactly what the administration was warning against if it becomes a s -for-tat and if it escalates further, iran is now -- has to retaliate against israel again and as a keys escalating,

who else gets involved in this conflagration? again, the u.s. says it will come to israel's help in an offense of operation but if i ran a tax israel, committed helping defense. so this is clearly drawing the united states into something it wants no part of. >> andrea, thank you so much for joining us tonight. andrea mitchell. let's bring in our panel this evening, peter baker joins us. retired four-star u.s. army general, harry mccaffrey, a decorated combat veteran of vietnam and a former battlefield commander in the persian gulf. michael allen joins us, former special assistant to the president at the national security council peter, president biden urged israel not to escalate andrea just laid it out for us, what do you think the reaction is in the white house tonight?

>> that is a good question, they locked down the white house right now point the normal sources are keeping quiet because they want to see how this plays out. they want to see how far this goes. it will depend on the scope and the scale of this operation is this something that is of a ha restrained enough nature that potentially iran does not feel a the need to respond in kind or is the kind of overwhelming operation that will trigger that escalation that andrea talked about. this is exactly is than error that president biden was afraid of. on october 7th last year and every day since then, he did not want the war in gaza to spread beyond that enclave to the rest of the region and here we are now for the very first time in decades, israel and iran striking each other's home territory, not just the proxies in iraq and syria where they had a shadow war for years. this is their home territories, in a significant way. you are hearing the white house, jake sullivan, the national security advisor had al conversation earlier today with ron dermer, who is a member of

bibi netanyahu's or cabinet. we got a very minimal readout from the white house, we don't honestly know exactly what was t said but it makes sense to assume that the conversation was held then about what would israel's plans were for tonight ? the white house wants to keep quiet and see how things play out before it makes any comment. >> michael, the u.s. said it would not support israel in no attacking iran, what position does that leave us in if iran response to this attack? >> well, i think andrea had it correct, if iran replies, i still believe the united states would try and help with defensive systems, much in the way that we did saturday night when iran attacked the first time. i'll so think tonight the national security council is probably going through intelligence and asking the cia and the director of national intelligence for some sort of read about not only the bomb damage assessment, of course,

the pentagon has a lot to say about that, but also trying to forecast what iran's next moves will be. and if they are going to come out heavy again, against israel. i think the united states will feel like it needs to move more assets in even closer and get ready for a repeat performance for what happened last saturday night. >> general, iran the foreign minister gave an interview early today and he was asked what iran would do if israel attacked them. i'm going to show you that. >> translator: our response to the israeli regime was limited and stayed within a minimum of frameworks. whereas we could s have given a much harsher response to the israeli regime. following that, we announced that this response is within sp the framework of legitimate

defense, according to international laws. we will not continue. however, e in case the israeli regime embarks on that venture again and takes action against the interests of iran, the next response from us will be immediate and at a maximum level. it will be decisive. >> immediate maximum, decisive. general, what is the offramp here? is de-escalation even a possibility? what would that look like? ha >> we have to take him at his word and i think the senior iranian political leadership, they, we should assume they are going to respond to this attack in a maximum way. indeed, this was starting to look like the start of world

war i, with the assassination of archduke ferdinand, drawing in major nations into a world war that no one wanted. the iranians had an over-the- top reaction to the israeli elimination of officers, including two generals. but that was the spark that started this. this is no longer a -for-tat political messaging. we are on the brink of a significant war, the iranians have a considerable capability, about 1000 or more ballistic missiles that they can employ. they can trigger hezbollah with 150,000 rockets to attack israel. so this is a very dangerous bank coming up. it is impossible to foretell what will happen but i think the iranians do respond in a major way then israel will commend, the entire israeli air

force, knocking out their nuclear capability. this is going to be a tough week coming up. >> my goodness, michael, that it is what it would look like for the region. but for the world? if this conflict continues to escalate, what will that mean? >> well, we have our hands full, as you know, the house of representatives are struggling to make good on a promise that the president made to help ukraine against russia russia is starting to get a head of a steam up against ukraine, we have got certainly instability in the south china sea with the philippines and the middle east ascending into a conflagration i think is the last thing that president biden needs. i think the europeans and others, anyone who has any influence over the iranians are very likely going to work them all day today to try and de- escalate the situation. they may know if the iranians need

to strike back somehow, but i think they will want it to be considerably less than what happened last saturday night so that we can begin to see an offramp by the end of this week. >> peter, michael mentions the war in ukraine. you were once a moscow bureau chief. vladimir putin is watching this tonight, what is he thinking? >> i think he is happy, obviously the united states is distracted, it's divided, it is uncertain. he wants to see focus elsewhere on ukraine. they just fired their own barrage of rockets and missiles, sorry, missiles, not rockets.le and they killed plenty of ukrainians and we are talking about the middle east. so he is getting away with his war off the main screen and that is what he wants. i think that now he wants obviously be happy if that congress does pass the $60

billion by the end of the week, as speaker johnson is now er promising, that will make a big difference right now. ukrainians are having a hard in time just fighting back because they don't have ammunition. they don't have the basics to fight their war against the russians. they need assistance and the $60 billion, obviously, is a big, big ticket for them. so in that sense, obviously, a war in gaza, a war with iran is prompted, the republicans in ed the house, to finally get going with the security measures. it might not work out best for putin but he is more happy for the united states to be drawn into a middle east war where he thinks that we will therefore not be as focused on his actions in europe. >> general, as peter said, the white house, president biden does have his hands full, what could this escalation mean going forward for the relationship between president biden and prime minister netanyahu? >> obviously, there is a major threat to the region of war unbounded, taking place in the

next week or so. so i think you are going to see a maximum attempt, not just by the biden administration, but by most of the nations to step in and try and stop the iranians from retaliating again. if they do, i think this will l become uncontrollable. so diplomacy in the next 48 hours or a week would be of enormous importance. the other thing to take into account, the war in gaza isn't over, 60% of gaza's infrastructure has been destroyed or damaged. but the idf has pulled out, they were in there with 60,000 troops, four divisions, they are down to less than 10,000 troops now. oo so what is real is correctly worried about is an attack on the north from lebanon by hezbollah not just rockets and missiles, but a major ground combat operation of great intensity. again, i don't see anything

controlling this unless diplomacy in the coming 48 hours to a week can stop the iranian retaliation. >> general michael peter, please stay close, there is a lot more for us to discuss tonight. i just want to bring in nbc's chief foreign correspondent, richard engel, he joins us live from jerusalem where it is now just 46:30 a.m. richard, you have covered this region for a long time, you are there now. break down how serious this is. >> well, i think a lot is going to depend on the extent of this attack with a u.s. official telling nbc news that israel g did carry out some sort of strike iranian media reporting that the city of isfahan, which is one of the targets that has been mentioned repeatedly, is called, that there is not an ongoing battle. there have been reports of air

defenses in operation in numerous parts of iran. but at this stage, it does not seem that iran itself is at a state of siege or an attack. so we will see the extent of what is happening, what has happened over the last few hours. obviously, there is deep concern in this country, all across the region, that there could be an iranian response, perhaps imminently. iran's foreign minister said ifs there was any attack, that iran would strike back immediately. iran's president had said the same thing. so the city of isfahan houses nuclear facilities, one of the main nuclear facilities in iran, it also houses an airbase . but at this stage, iran, also we are hearing this from a iranian state television, says that its nuclear facilities are safe. so a lot itwill depend on the extent of what is apparently

just happened or is happening, if there are not casualties, if there is not major damage like there was not major damage in this country because iran's attacks were stopped . there is a possibility that it escalates but doesn't escalate to a point that it brings the region into a massive war you were just talking about concerns from lebanon, concerns from hezbollah in southern lebanon and in northern israel. their reports also that israel has gone on a higher state of alert with air right sirens in the north of this country. but, again, this is very much developing and a lot is going to depend on scale and proportionality. a but this country has been bracing for some sort of retaliation to israel's retaliation. but at this stage,

i can tell you, we are not hearing in jerusalem, any , sirens, we are not hearing any broadcasts on local television. no particular instructions have been given to people to take any particular action. a so still a developing story. but at this stage, no indications of military strikes coming toward this country and still trying to figure out exactly the extent of what is going on, military wise, in iran. >> is that surprising to you, richard, that nothing is happening on the ground there? not alerts, not instructions? >> not necessarily. i think we will hear those instructions and i think we ct will hear them quite quickly. also a report that the, israel informed the united states that it was carrying out a strike in shortly before this strike took

place. but i do expect that we will start to hear more instructions from the idf from the israeli military, giving to the population here. it is still early morning hours, it is still developing. but at this lo stage, there have not been any widespread reports, any air raid sirens, could be an indication that israel hopes that this is contained. but like i said, it is too early to draw those kinds of conclusions. >> richard, thank you so much, a privilege to speak to you this evening here, this morning where you are. i want to bring to the conversation, former editor in chief of the jerusalem post. he is now a senior fellow at the jewish people policy and institute and author of three hooks on the israeli military including one called israel versus iran, the shadow war what is your reaction to i israel's response to the iranian strike this weekend? >> i think israel didn't really

have much of a taurus, stephanie pick right after iran attacked with hundreds of missiles and drones and decided it wasn't going to hold by this policy of peace and needed to strike back there to basically not only undermine iran's nd ability in the future to attack israel once again but also to teach the iranians that it won't hold by this containment or appeasement policy. it is going to meet force with force the question, obviously now will be what will the iranians do when the ball is in their court? we are hearing some sirens up north in the galley along the border with lebanon, reports of possible drones that are being sent by hezbollah. more of the same of what we have seen in the last few weeks. but really, as richard was talking about, there have yet to be any civil defense measures imposed on the israeli public, as we know this weekend, and keep in mind, just before the passover holiday, so

you got millions of people who are actually taking off this weekend for the next few days of a vacation. >> how does this, tonight, impact israel's right against hamas and gaza? >> it really depends on where things go and that is going to be up to the iranians pick at this a really attack is limited in scope as it seems to has been. elisa hahn, let's mention one word about the city, central city any ron is known to have a significant complex that is part of the nuclear industry of the iranians pick it up got a couple of chinese research se reactors there. but more importantly, a fuel processing plant that is key in the enrichment of uranium that the iranians have been after for a long time as part of their plowing ahead toward nuclear weapon but it also has some significant literary basis what yet israel attacked, we don't know. israel is holding by what i would call it policy of ambiguity. it is not taking responsibilityi for anything that happened because it does want to leave, doesn't want the iranians to immediately respond so by not immediately taking credit, you're not giving the iranians

an immediate excuse. ns what happens to gaza, i think, will really depend on what irand does. if iran doesn't respond, israel will go back and gaza but instead it wants to continue d with the rafah operation, that is still important to take downa hamas there but if there's s going to be a wider response of the north, that is where israel's focus will have to be. >> you are in israel, how concerned are you personally for your family about retaliation and attacks in israel? >> you know, definitely i am concerned and i don't want to seem -- see more war. also, my analysis of it, and maybe i'm wrong, stephanie. in my analysis of it, i don't think that israel had a choice here. i think that had we contained this massive, unprecedented, historic, direct iranian attack from iranian territory against israel we would be setting ourselves up for this to happen again and again and again. it is basically almost like i going, imagine going back in time to when one of those first rockets was fired by hezbollah or by hamas from gaza into

israel point had israel, at that point, gone into those places and taken out that infrastructure and removed those terrorist organizations is not the best example, but that is where we kind of are right now with the iranians. t if we allow this to happen without a response, we are basically saying to them, you got the carte blanche to go ahead and do whatever you want and that is something that th israel cannot afford pixel actually think that the response has a greater chance se of minimizing the scope of in future war. >> but how? what would that look like? if israel had to make this move , what truly happens next in terms of de-escalation to quiet this? >> that is going to be up to the iranians. again, they started this. people tend to keep on going back in time, just at the beginning of april what israel took out an iranian general who was part of the islamic resolution or guard who was the main coordinator of terrorist activities in support of hezbollah and hamas in gaza and

of course, the liaison, which is why he was in damascus. israel taking him out, they say that is what instigated this pick no, it is not the iranians, through their proxies, since october 7th, launched thousands and thousands of missiles from lebanon into israel. they launched dozens if not hundreds of long range ballistic missiles from yemen, where they have the houthis into israel. the asad regime, which together with iran supports its militias in syria, has also been yr launching attacks this is it just yes, it is iran's first direct attack but they have been attacking israel for decades they started this, israel responded in self- defense and this is again, self- defense to that attack over the weekend it will be up to what the iranians do and let's hope, stephanie, that they decide that they have had enough and they don't want to escalate on things more because israel, after attacking in the center of iran has proven it has the ability to get there, has

proven it can bring munitions ni to iran and therefore, if i was the iranians i would be ir considering very carefully what i do next. >> but when you see -- say let's hope, be realistic, you really think iran is going to accept this and say okay, i'm going to back off, given his their history, who they are, what they just did five days ago? >> to some extent, yes, becauses from what i've heard last week, let's not remember, let's not forget, sorry, the iranians, they talk a very big talk and they do have capabilities. but as we saw sunday morning here in israel when that attack took place earlier this week, everything was intercepted. so why they have significant capabilities, israel together with its allies have the fi ability to shoot their things out of there. thankfully it was successful this past time pick will be successful again? i don't know. what israel has shown us it can defend itself can also bring ng the attack to the middle of iran and that is something that the iranians really need to think about.

do we want to gamble again? do they want to -- knowing that israel can also rain rockets come missiles to their key facilities wherever they might be that is going to be something that the iranians areh going to have to consider and i would also be very skeptical when the iranians boast and brag and play down reports. everything that they say should be looked at with a grain of salt at the moment. >> thank you for joining us tonight. this morning where you are. i appreciate it. glad i want to bring in my colleagues, nbc white house correspondent, he has covered president biden and his inner circle for many years. you know this president, michael, better than any other reporter i know. he urged israel to show rg restraint after the attack that took place last weekend. how worried is the president tonight? i know you haven't spoken yet or the white house about this thing escalating. this is not what he wanted to happen. >> well, stephanie, i think what the president is doing now is balancing two somewhat

competing interests, right? one is the fact that he has urged prime minister netanyahu, he has a very long relationship, as well, going back decades as they both have risen through the ranks with their respective countries politics it has been a good relationship and it has been one with points of conflict at times and this is certainly one of them. so he is certainly going to be regretful that they may have y taken this step against the guidance, the advice that this administration has offered at the same time her president sa biden has also been clear whatever disagreements he has with the israeli government, he is not going to step back from his deep support for the country, its right to defend itself, its continued support for israel point that is the nature of what is happening inside the white house right now. they are doing the same thing in the situation room and t elsewhere in the west wing that i am doing right now which is trying to gather information. we are hearing any usual level of silence from the administration right now. they are trying to do everything they can to speak yt with our allies, to speak through all the ranks and

levels of government here and with our allies to try to put together a picture of what exactly has transpired, what may still be transpiring, what might still be coming in the next few hours overseas and f putting together a picture for the president to begin making further calls himself a think it is interesting as we head close to midnight now that we consider the time zones and different positions across the world right now. it is worth flagging that tony blinken, the secretary of state, has been attending a meeting of g7 foreign ministers in italy. they are set to resume some of their meetings in just a few hours. and so that might be a time where, courtney at the pentagon , the white house, have been getting some information publicly from u.s. officials. we have been exciting to see tony blinken in just a matter of hours to be speaking as part of that foreign ministers brief meeting. so that might be our first opportunity to hear from a senior u.s. official about whatr

is happening also is a key opportunity with our closest allies gathered in one place for the work of diplomacy to be gone and ernest if it hasn't already begun, steph. >> do you know who is with the president right now? >> we know that the president, when he returned tonight from what has been a three day campaign swing in pennsylvania, he didn't go to the residence, he went straight to the west ht wing. some of the senior advisers who had been traveling with him. be we also know that jake sullivan was in the west wing this evening. it is likely that the president would have wanted to get a briefing directly from his national security team about a very important call that took place earlier today jake sullivan, the national security advisor had a meeting of what is known as the u.s.-israeli consulting group to discuss not just the situation in gaza but there was a smaller meeting of that group, just jake sullivan and his israeli counterpart as well as a senior minister in the israeli government, as well, to talk about the fallout from the attempted iranian attack over the weekend and the

potential next steps going forward not going beyond speculation to say that would have been an opportunity for the israeli investors to provide an update to potentially read in the u.s. government about what potentially their next steps were going to be taking place and so that would have been information that jake sullivan would have wanted to communicate to the president directly as soon as possible. now the white house situation room is a 24 seven operation. there are people in there working right now, gathering information. the president is in the white t house to see if he does have public events on his schedule tomorrow before he is scheduled to travel, as he often does, to delaware, for the weekend. but this is going to be now at the top of the agenda moving forward. >> michael, it is hard to believe you and i were on the phone with one another just a few hours ago talking campaigns, talking the trump trial, talking politics and now here we are 11:42 p.m. and you are back outside the white house covering some

pretty! neri news. thank you so much, e please com back again if you hear of anything else from the west wing. and, again, for those of you who are just tuning in, we are following breaking news overseas tonight gave person familiar with the matter tells r nbc that israel carried out an operation in iran this evening. today is really officials notified u.s. officials that the response was coming. the u.s. and its allies have been pressuring, urging israel not to retaliate after it fended off a missile attack over the weekend. i want to bring our panel back into the discussion. peter baker, mccaffrey, and michael allen still with us. general, knowing the capabilities of these two countries, what are your biggest concerns at this moment? >> well, i think the bottom line is, that iran has a major attack capability with elastic missiles, cruise missiles, and unmanned drones, which if we take the foreign minister at his word, presumably will be unleashed on israel israel has

a tremendous attack capability of their own, after strike fighters, that can, without question, penetrate iranian airspace and go after strategic targets. the two hammers are out. tw the question is, what will the iranian student! one can only hope the biden admin, sector blinken, and others, they will be on the phone wanting to back off what looks like an impending major escalation of the war, which will devastate iran and possibly draw in other belligerents at the same time. >> hi how if a hurdle is that for secretary blinken to try to do something like that, given the tensions between these two countries? the actions they have taken in the last week, general. >> well, you know, there is no logic to the scale of violence

that we saw unfold when iran went after israel. most folks were sure going ol after a single embassy, single military target, it would be quite restrained. they did suffer an embarrassment by having their embassy hit and eliminating many of their good force senior leadership way, all of whom deserved elimination. but at the end of the day, i tell people, killing generals is highly provocative. it doesn't change the capability of them. so officers were replaced two hours later. the only get credit when you knock out committee control systems so i think the israelis made a mistake and didn't anticipate the scale of the iranian response now, because find some way to allow the iranians to walk back this over- the-top threat by the iranian foreign minister i wouldn't be

too optimistic if i was in the white house tonight. >> michael, just today, the u.s. announced sanctions on iran over there strike over the weekend. what other leverage does the u.s. have over iran moving forward? >> moving forward, you know, i think it would be right for the biden administration to begin to rethink their iran policy. they wanted very badly to w return to the obama era , joint plan, which limited certain aspects of the iranian nuclear program. but that is obviously not in the offing, especially now. i think the only way for them to create leverage is honestly to go back to oil sanctions and to enforce the sanctions that are on the books. now some of the people will say so quickly that the last thing the world economy and the united states inflationary numbers need is less oil on the

market and its might be tumultuous economically but i think that is truly the only way , over time, to build more leverage up so that the iranians might begin to change their threat calculus and what they think they can get away with in the region >> peter, how complicated is that when it comes to oil production? we just heard about it, just yesterday, furthering halting oil production until june. this is a tumultuous situation i and it is something that people are very sensitive to around the world, including here. >> that's right, michael sort ha of alludes to that timing would be very precarious, as well. er the president is in a middle of a campaign, he doesn't like gas prices to go up. you heard the national economic adviser tele for him just today that they were going to possibly even, she said the possibility they would tap into the strategic petroleum reserve just to keep gas prices from rising this summer, even aside e

from further restrictions on the supply of oil. so you're right that that is a very precarious idea. but as michael says, it is the one thing perhaps that gets attention. so puts the president an awkward position where he has d to make a decision on something that may be against his own political interest at home in order to decide what may be the best strategic decision overseas. we will see how they receive at this point but that is obviously a tough calculation. >> with 201 days to go before the election, extraordinarily tough. peter, what else can you tell us about the conversation? the situation within the biden administration, between israel's attack over the weekend , excuse me, between the israel attack tonight and iran's attack over the weekend, what o is going on inside this white house? >> yeah, we don't know for sure because they are not talking e right now, so we have got to be careful about assuming but i think emily basically alluded to this earlier, too. in the situation room,

obviously monitor reports. they want to see just how expensive this attack really is. what kind of damage it does, what does actually do and how far, therefore, will it provoke iran. we have seen in the past, when the united states killed under president trump in 2020 there was a big expedition of a big iranian response. in fact, it was a relatively limited response against the he american bases in the region that didn't cause huge amounts of damage and that was the end of it. president trump did it retaliate at that point because everybody assumed they had gotten what they wanted out of it. we don't know whether or not the israelis have done something here that will force the iranians to feel like they have to do something back in order to save face or whether they have done something that the iranians can shrug off and say, well, i didn't really hurt us, we are going to keep going. you heard the threat, abc, from the foreign minister of iran yesterday. what the biden admin's point of this point in the evening is

starting to cackle late what are the odds of a response? how would that work? and the involvement with the american forces have with that? they're not participating in this event action tonight but they have committed to continuing to participate in defense of actions to protect israel that involved a lot of ed diplomacy over these last two weeks to happen last weekend because they had to work with the europeans and the arabs to make sure everybody's on the same page. share intelligence, airspace and all that. so that is on their minds, as well, tonight. >> why is this spilling out into the open now? >> that is an excellent question. i mean, on the base of it, what the iranians said was the idf attack on their embassy in damascus, killed mike two generals and five other senior figures with an attack on their home soil. but there may be larger things at stake. internally, in iraq, obviously

they're having an enormous economic and political difficulties, half the population is utterly sick of ti the restrictive dictatorial and corrupt regime that governs them and have a notion that if they focus attention on gaza, focus attention on israel, it will allow them to quiet their own population. but clearly, that was a triggering event to kill those four senior leaders and the iranian response was hard to as explain how they got to that answer. many of the pundits we are hearing on the air will say well, the iranians really don't want to hurt anybody, this was a -for-tat attack. that is utter nonsense that was 120 ballistic missiles with enormous warheads. with a 12 minute flying time from iran into israel. should have caused considerable damage to the israeli f-35, and

also casualties and military targets. it didn't, to the astonishment of even those who have watched them with great admiration, a multilayered air defenses israel has put together point either way, the united states navy and air to air fighters. principle to the u.s. but also france, the uk, and jordan. so it is hard to understand where this is going. tonight, the situation looks extremely threatening, in my judgment >> then michael, if the situation that, as the general put it, looks extremely threatening, and keeps going back and forth, where does it end? >> i think the last shoe to drop would be if the iranians truly unleashed hezbollah. hezbollah, another genocidal terrorist organization right on the northern border of israel,

i think israel has gone through an enormous transformation since october 7th. i think they are doubting their ability to successfully estimate what the intent of their adversaries is. i think they are going to look more closely at capability and when they look at capability, they see a very active and able has below. they are shooting medium range rockets over the border and holding it for israelis that sort of live in the northern part of their country. but if the iranians truly unleashed them to rain rockets down on tel aviv or elsewhere, i think then you would see a spectacular fight and we would really, really be in a calamity. >> michael, peter, general mccaffrey, thank you so much ff for joining us on this very

important night. i would like to bring in former cia director, john brennan. thank you for joining us. c you know our intelligence agencies, as well as anyone out there. what is their top priority at this moment? >> well, stephanie, finding out what the facts are we are just a few hours from the strikes and there is a lot that we don't know at this point. t and i tend to much agree with peter baker and mitch engel, that a lot will depend on how much damage was done and, inside of iran by these israeli strikes. hezbollah is a very sort of target rich environment there is a large air base, there's a missile production facility, the iranian nuclear chemical facility is there, also an underground base. so it is clear that israel deliberated over where they would strike over the past several days. probably getting updated intelligent including satellite imagery. the strikes took place in the middle of the night so the question is, how many casualties were there? what type of damage was there?

and so i think with the intelligence agency, the cia is doing is trying to determine exactly what that damages and trying to then see how the iranians are going to react. we may know whether or not we are going to get into this very dangerous escalatory spiral by some of the initial statements that will be coming out of tehran, whether or not they're going to say this was an effective, whether the iranian defense forces were able to repel some of the strikes even if they didn't. or whether or not the iranians are going to claim that there were large numbers of civilian casualties will certainly stoket the broadsides that could in fact proceed a follow-on strike. again, still early, the intelligence agencies are trying to determine exactly what is happening on the ground. the sun just came up about an hour and a half or so ago. so i think we will be getting some damage assessments that are going to be going to the white house. so they can better understand the situation there. >> they deliberated over the last few days and then they made a definitive decision,

just today, the, cia director, william burns, called iran's attack on israel over the weekend a spectacular failure . given that, do you believe israel made a mistake by responding in this fashion? >> israel makes its calculations based on what he at believes it has to do and the unprecedented nature of this iranian assault on israel, over 300 missiles and drones that came after israelis, as though they had responded somehow in kind. unfortunately in the middle east, and i for an argument retaliatory mind-set is very strong. so president biden was hoping that the israelis would go into, as you say, take the win and pocket it and not do something that could, in fact, lead to a dangerous escalation point i do not believe, at this

point, that i ran once a major war because it will lose that and will lose it in a big way. at the same time, the iranian leadership also has to face it domestic political pressure and if it can't be seen as just laying down to israel, israel's offensive capabilities. but it is clear that israel was sending a message to iran, you were not able to get through our air defenses but clearly something got through because of these explosions. >> were you surprised by this move? >> well, there recent comments that are coming out of israel that said that they are going to respond in a very sort of major way led me to believe that they were not just going to be satisfied with strikes again ie iranian revolutionary guard corps or even drone bases, that they felt that they had to go after somewhere in iran. i was hoping it would be some kind of infrastructure and that there would be a minimal loss of life because i think if there is a lot of blood that was shed in the strikes, the iranians are going to feel compelled to be able to respond somehow to israel could be with

terrorist attacks, could be with more missile assault could be, as was mentioned, unleashing hezbollah in a major way. i don't think iran wants to take on israel and the united states at this time and i don't think they have the capability point they certainly could do some damage with their standoff capabilities that they could launch, including the gulf states but they will lose a war in a major way if they decide to go after israel with all of their military might. clean it aside considered themselves the aggressor. they both have continued to say they are just defending themselves. but if this for tat continues , what will actually stop it? >> that is a good question, stephanie. this is the history of the middle east. over the course of the last 75 years or so, we have seen back and forth and they continue to point fingers at each other. t unfortunately, on both sides, that are unwilling to compromise on some of these core and key issues.

and so obviously what happened with the hamas atrocities that were perpetrated against the israelis on october 7th triggered then the israeli military operations in gaza, which then triggered a lot of these attacks that were taking place from the houthis, the hezbollah, and others. so this is just this cycle that continues to go on. so it is hard to say how this is going to end. we have made some progress on the last several decades. but in many respects, the palestinian issue frequently is at the core of some of these events, that tend to spiral out of control and just hoping that this is not going to be one that will lead to a large regional conflagration, that is ringing and not just israel but iran but also other states and the united states direct military conflict. >> in the days ahead, we are going to see a lot of official statements and news conferences from a multitude of world

leaders. what are you going to be watching for when they speak? >> i'm going to be watching for how are they going to try to tamp down these tensions? there are some players that do have an important role. turkey could play an important role here in terms of counseling restraint on the part of both israel and iran. russia also could play a role with iran given the burgeoning military relationship between moscow and toronto. china also pick a thing more voices on the world stage really need to be counseling, as much restraint as possible. but unfortunately, as frequently as the extremist insult of these countries come inside of the occupied territories, these are the ones that will tend to inflame tensions and try to make the conflict even worse. but this is where leadership is so incredibly important and i know the biden administration, all the folks at the white house, the ones that are