The nation’s largest television news stations were in full force Saturday morning to cover the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran.
After weeks of threats by President Donald Trump, the United States and Israel launched major attacks early Saturday against at least nine major targets, including Tehran, Tabriz, Urmia, Kermanshah, Qom, Isfahan, Shiraz, Minab and Chabahar, according to the New York Times. The newspaper also reported that Israel was targeting rallies of Iranian leaders. President Trump posted a video on Truth Social on Saturday morning claiming that negotiations to curb Iran’s nuclear capabilities and avoid war have broken down, forcing countries to get involved.
Caitlan Collins, Wolf Blitzer and others led CNN’s coverage at various times during the day. In a conversation with local correspondent Jeremy Diamond, Collins explained that the United States is “primarily focused on military sites and military locations.” Israel also said it had targeted key military assets but had “clearly taken responsibility for the attack on senior Iranian leaders.”
Diamond added: “I have not heard that the United States is taking any responsibility or credit for that effort.” “If, for example, an announcement is made that the supreme leader of Iran has been killed, we will see if that changes, but at this stage we don’t know yet. We know that he was targeted, and so far it has been explained to us that these attacks are purely on the Israeli side, rather than the United States, which has so far emphasized its focus on military organizations inside Iran.”
Fox News hired Bret Baier and others to cover the walkout Saturday morning. He met with Democratic Representative Adam Smith to discuss the Trump administration’s intentions for the latest attack and what the conflict will look like in the coming days. Congressman Smith described the situation as a “full-blown Middle East war” that could last “a few more days.” He also said it was “not clear” what President Trump’s intentions were with the latest attack.
“Most of the talks were about Iran’s nuclear program,” said Congressman Smith. “That raises all kinds of concerns about why they’re taking this approach to their nuclear program. But the president has also talked about Iran’s ballistic missile program, and he’s been outspoken about regime change. So I don’t know if the president has specifically said that this is an all-out war for regime change, but it certainly seems that way.”
Rachel Maddow fronted an hour of coverage on MS Now following her stint with the Morning Joe team. Mr. Maddow has primarily criticized President Trump, warning that “Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps is not a force to be fooled around with.”
“What would happen if they killed the supreme leader, which is probably what they tried to do today?” Maddow said. “So this isn’t Venezuela. There’s no unscrupulous Ayatollah to take over the top job, except to get a call from Marco Rubio. So what happens then? If you believe the hype and vote for Donald Trump as president, he’s America first, he’s against foreign wars, he’s absolutely against regime change, foreign wars. Well, again, good morning. I wish I could sleep in.” Well. ”
Tom Lamas anchored a special edition of “NBC Nightly News,” while Peter Alexander and Laura Jarrett led NBC’s morning coverage of the strike. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also participated, saying the situation in Iran was “under control” and that the United States and Israel had “failed to achieve their goals.” He also accused the United States of starting negotiations to avoid conflict and “launching attacks in the middle of negotiations.”
“Two days ago we made great progress,” he said. “On Thursday, we had a very good meeting in Geneva with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, and we were able to discuss serious issues related to Iran’s nuclear program. We obviously have differences, but we were able to resolve some of those differences.”
