Morning Joe - The Iran Attack: Trump’s Two Bad Choices

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Trump chose action over inaction as the UN determined Iran was racing toward enriching enough uranium for “several” nuclear weapons. Joe and the Morning Joe panel break down the consequences of the strikes and what dangers lie ahead.

Mr. Vice President, is the United States now at war with Iran? No, Kristen, we're not at war with Iran. We're at war with Iran's nuclear program. The president's been very clear, Kristen. We have no interest in a protracted conflict. We have no interest in boots on the ground. I don't like the regime, but we're not into the regime change business here. We're into the safety and security of the United States business.

We are not pursuing regime change. We're not trying to put any troops on the ground into Iran. We are trying to eliminate their nuclear weapons program. No, I don't think I see boots on the ground in our future, but I do see Israel not stopping. Some important distinctions being made yesterday by members of the Trump administration and Republicans in the U.S. Senate saying that there's no interest in regime change or putting boots on the ground in Iran. But President Trump isn't ruling out one of those possibilities.

We're going to have his latest comments in just a minute. Meanwhile, Iran is promising to retaliate for Saturday's strikes. We'll look into what possible options they have. It is a terribly shattered government right now. Plus, Democrats and at least one Republican lawmaker are calling the action in Iran unconstitutional. The question is, what can they actually do about it? The answer is about the same thing that members of Congress have been able to do since, well, the end of World War II. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe.

It's Monday, June 23rd. With us we have co-host of our fourth hour, contributing writer of the Atlantic, Jonathan LaMere, and U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Cady Kay. Jonathan, I know you have reporting from the White House, as do I, sharing notes yesterday. It does seem that what we heard on the shows yesterday from members of the administration or what the president is thinking directly, which is this is a one-off. He wanted to seriously degrade Iran's nuclear program and viewing this more of a Soleimani type act, a one and done unless,

of course, American troops are attacked by Iran. Right. And certainly the enemy gets a say here, and that's the old cliche, and Iran will have a vote as to the future of this war. But that is correct. From what I've been told from White House officials that this is a decision, a historic decision that President Trump reached in recent days. Then we had a bit of a faint, a bit of a misdirection where he said, well, we're going to wait two

weeks, his verbal crutch there, before making a decision to actually strike these sites in Iran when really he had already given the go order. Now he didn't, as always, these things can change the last minute. It didn't become official until minutes before the strikes were launched over the weekend. But now that it has happened, and U.S. officials still assessing the damage there in Iran, senior aides tell me the president does view this as a one-off, that Israel had weakened Iran and the U.S. with its pilots, its aircraft, its bombs, then went in to damage and potentially destroy these three nuclear sites.

Trump has now telegraphed that will be it, that the US does not look to escalate further, don't want boots on the ground, aren't looking to keep hitting them, the wild card being of course if Iran were to strike back we would almost certainly retaliate. Now Israel's a different matter, we'll see where they go from here. But Joe, they feel like this was a moment that the U.S., the president made a calculation, the U.S. wanted to step in. Certainly does violate his pledge for no larger wars, but he hopes this can be contained. He hopes this will be it for U.S. involvement, at least for now.

Well, obviously, growing concerns by the day before the attacks that Iran was speeding toward the possibility of moving toward a nuclear weapon. Obviously, growing concerns by the day before the attacks that Iran was speeding toward the possibility of moving toward a nuclear weapon. You know, Cady Kay, Henry Kissinger famously said that when you're sitting in the White House and trying to make a decision on foreign policy, the possibility of war, you're never handed a good decision and a bad decision. You're handed two very difficult choices. And the president made that choice. And then, as Jonathan said, you did a bit of a head fake talking about two weeks to

buy a little bit of operational security while those B2s sped toward Iran. Yeah. And now we have two big questions. How much damage was done and what are the Iranian options? So where are we on this Monday morning after this dramatic weekend? Well, President Trump now says that three key nuclear sites in Iran were completely and totally obliterated on Saturday after the United States joined Israel's offensive aimed at dismantling Iran's nuclear program.

The American strikes involved more than 125 military aircraft, including seven B-2 bombers, in a mission dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer. The aircraft dropped a series of 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs, the most powerful non-nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal. It was the first time that they'd ever been used in combat. American sailors also fired dozens of cruise missiles from a submarine. On social media yesterday, the president described the damage to the nuclear sites as monumental,

calling it an obliteration again. NBC News cannot independently verify, though, the level of damage. President Trump is now set to meet with his national security team this afternoon in the Oval Office. Iran, meanwhile, is warning that the US should expect heavy consequences for these actions. That threat came early this morning from a spokesperson for Iran's central military headquarters. In a recorded video statement, he called President Trump the gambler for joining the Israeli conflict with Iran, adding, quote, you may start this war, but we will be the ones to end it. Before Saturday's strikes, Iran had threatened to activate terrorist sleeper cells inside

the U.S. That message was reportedly delivered to President Trump last week through an intermediary at that G7 summit in Canada. The State Department has also warned that Iran could launch cyber attacks on US networks and target current and former US government officials whom it blames for the 2020 killing of Iran's top general. Saturday night, after the strikes, President Trump posted that any retaliation against the United States would be met with greater force.

Meanwhile, President Trump is floating the idea of a regime change in Iran. In a Truth Social post yesterday, the president wrote, If the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn't there be a regime change? This is the first time Trump's raised the possibility of changing the leadership in Iran since Israel launched that war 11 days ago. The president's comments also break from the restance of the rest of his administration that they've been taking, as they've been saying the intention of Saturday's strike was not to push for regime change, but to

prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. This mission was not and has not been about regime change. The president authorized a precision operation to neutralize the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear program and the collective self-defense of our troops and our ally Israel. Does the United States support Israel killing Iran's leader? Well, look, that's up to the Israelis, but our view has been very clear that we don't want a regime change. We do not want to protract this or build this out any more than it's already been built out.

We want to end their nuclear program, and then we want to talk to the Iranians about a long-term settlement here. This mission was a very precise mission. It had three objectives, three nuclear sites. It was not attack on Iran. It was not an attack on the Iranian people. This wasn't a regime change move. This was designed to degrade and or destroy three nuclear sites related to their nuclear weaponization

Ambitions and that was delivered on yesterday What happens next will now depend on what Iran chooses to do next if they choose the path of diplomacy We're ready. We can do a deal That's good for them the Iranian people and good for the world if they choose another route then there'll be consequences for that Let's bring right now columnist an associate editor for The Washington Post. David Ignatius also with us, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Karim Sajjapour.

He focuses on Iran and US foreign policy toward the Mideast. David Ignatius, let me begin with you. Obviously there is a lot of back and forth right now after the president's post yesterday, but I spoke to somebody that is very familiar with the president's thinking, and this is not about regime change. Just as everybody said yesterday on the Sunday shows, they wanted to seriously degrade the

nuclear weapon, the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, and they feel like they were successful. I'm curious what your reporting is showing you. So, we speak of the fog of war during conflict. I think two days after, there's a little bit of fog of intentions about just what the US and certainly what Iran intends to do. If President Trump isn't interested in regime change, then he shouldn't have a social media post late last night saying that he is.

That certainly muddied the water. I think the hope had been after the decisive and I have to say well planned strike by the seven B2s and their huge munitions that they might be able to enter a discussion with Iran about ending the war, in effect dictate a surrender. The talk that came from Vice President JD Vance about the eagerness to negotiate I think reflected the administration's hope that we could now move into the the peace negotiation phase. Trump from the beginning of this crisis back in February or so has been thinking about a negotiated way out. That

way out doesn't seem so obvious today. The Iranians have reacted, as you'd expect, angrily, beginning to suggest their options, promising retaliation. The reaction of the international community, similarly, has been pretty sharp. And there's some big questions that I hope we'll talk about this morning, like, for example, where is the 400 kilograms of highly enriched, enriched to 60% uranium that Iran had been keeping in a stockpile? There are reports that that stockpile was moved before the bombing. It was supposed to be in Isfahan, one of the three nuclear sites the US hit. Where is it now?

It's important to know that because that could be used as the fuel for some kind of follow-on weapon in coming months, years. So that's just one example of, as I said, the fog that exists two days after the action about what are the continuing consequences? Has the U.S. obliterated the program or not? David, let me read from your column that you posted yesterday. As the Iran crisis deepened over the past week, Russia and China could not play a decisive role. It failed to President Trump and he acted.

That will be noted in Beijing and Moscow and also among allies who worry about the US staying power. Talk about the importance of this strike, not just in what it may have done in degrading the weapons system there, but also to answer some of those concerns that so many US foreign policy makers and allies across the world had about this administration and whether they would stand up if something happened to Taiwan or if something happened to other allies across the Middle East? Well, Joe, not to be too cold-blooded about it, but a year or two ago, you would have said that actors in the world are not deterred by the threat that the U.S. will use force.

Russia invades Ukraine despite repeated warnings from the United States. Russia despite suffering big losses there doesn't back off, Russia mounts a range of attacks against NATO forces in Europe covertly for the most part, Iran threatens to assassinate people in the United States with little apparent US response. There have been a series of signs that people don't take the threat of U.S. retaliation seriously. And without over-crediting President Trump, by acting decisively in sending these powerful,

powerful munitions in a very well-organized strike, he reminded the world that the United States is very powerful and is prepared to use that military force. And if you're an ally of the United States, and I listed some, if you're the Japanese in Tokyo, entirely dependent on US power, if you're the Emiratis in Abu Dhabi who want to make a bet on the US but are sure tempted by China, or if you're the Taiwanese in Taipei, you think, gee, the United States is a little tougher and more willing to use its enormous power than I might have thought a year ago. So, Kareem, let's go to you now and your assessment of this action.

The Donald Trump, the president, America's first president, who said he didn't want to be the one to engage in a new foreign conflict, that he's the commander chief after decades. He's the one who didn't decide to make the decision to bomb these sites and Iran. Talk to us about that and also what you see could Iran's response be, a power that has been consistently weakened and degraded since October 7th with his proxies badly wounded, the regime really punished in the last week or so, to the point where the Supreme Leader has only so many options right now.

Well, it is a remarkable transformation for President Trump. It was just last month in Riyadh that he gave a speech in which he ridiculed those who have engaged in nation building, saying they destroyed more nations than they built, and interventionists who had no idea about the realities of the societies in which they were intervening. So had we been having this conversation two years ago, I would have said that President Trump's end goal is to reach a deal with Iran. He actually wanted a Nixon to China moment with Iran. But I think it was a combination of Benjamin Netanyahu's insistence and Ayatollah Khamenei's defiance which led to this transformation. And now, Iran's supreme leader, 86 years old, is in the most precarious position of his

life. He's under a bunker right now. Many of his top military commanders have been assassinated, and he's in this terrible predicament in which if he does not respond strongly, he loses face. But if he responds too strongly, he could lose his head. He could lose his life. He could lose his regime. And in my view, Iran doesn't have great near-term options for retaliation, but I want to emphasize

what David just said. In the medium term, what I think we should be very concerned about now is what happened with this nuclear fuel. Right. And I agree, Iran doesn't have a lot of good options right now. Cady, this is a regime that is just struggling to survive, to keep the Ayatollah alive right now. Their military hierarchy has been gutted at the top.

Their nuclear scientists killed. Politicians, those closest to the Ayatollah, also killed. I mean, it has been a savage 10 days for the Iranians, so their options seem limited at best. I do want to really quickly touch on, though, the efforts of diplomacy. They were given 60 days, and you get a feeling that they thought Donald Trump was bluffing. They feel like American presidents are always bluffing. They were given 60 days, and about 58, 59 days into that, Donald Trump talked to the

Israelis, to Netanyahu, and said they may not make the deadline. And so the strikes began. But then even this past week, word out of the White House was that Donald Trump would actually go to Turkey and meet with the Iranians if they were willing to do that. And they still were not willing to strike a deal. Yeah, so the diplomatic route ran out for the White House. The military route became the possibility

that previous presidents have ignored for the reasons that David and Kareem have just laid out. We don't exactly know where this ends. I was told over the weekend by a senior American general that there are two myths of war. One is that wars can be short, and the other is that war can be fought from a distance. So let's see where this actually goes, and let's look more now at the military consequences

of this and bring in retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General, Mike Mark Hurtling. His military career, of course, spans more than three decades of service, including as the commanding general of the U.S. Army Europe and the Seventh Army General. Thank you very much for joining us. I mean, let's just start. Now we are two days in. Obviously, we don't have all of the information. We're going to have to be assessing the damage. But what are you

looking at this morning in terms of the military component of this, how the operation went? And to Kareem's point, what are the things that you're worried about, including that uranium that we don't know where it is? Okay. I'll start off by saying, complimenting you on whoever you're talking to about wars can't be short or know what's going to happen. What I'd say is in any kind of military action, you're looking at three things. The action, the reaction by the enemy, and then the counteraction, what you're going

to do first. You and Jonathan Lemire both pointed out early this morning that this is, first of all, hope is not a method. I think you said that in international relations, and the enemy gets a vote. Jonathan said that. How much damage has been done? What will the Iranians do?

What is the next thing we will do in terms of our counteraction? Those are all the things that the military considers and should be part of the planning. What I'm very concerned about is it doesn't seem like this has been a long-term plan by the administration. Everyone is suggesting it's a one-and-done, that we didn't mean to start a war, this was not a war against Iran. It most definitely is by international law because you're

attacking another country with 125 aircraft and a bunch of Tomahawk missiles from submarines. That seems like an attack to me and it seems like the start of a war. So what we're seeing is the reaction phase from Iran. What will they do next? Will it be today or will it be next week or next year, as has been pointed out? They have many options. There are some that say Iran depends on missiles, militias, and terrorists. But they also have more in their kit bag, such as asymmetric attacks with cyber. That's my biggest concern. With sleeper cells.

That's also a big concern. With what they might do in the Gulf to the 40,000 U.S. troops positioned in various locations around the Gulf. What might they do with economic issues, turning ships around from the oil refineries? All of those things are options that Iran has. Not all of them are good options, but they can play them. And I'm not sure that the U.S. government has talked about the what-ifs. And what I mean by that is in the planning cycle you always say, what if this happens? What if they do this?

How do we then counteract to that? So with a lot of talk over the weekend after the strike, a pretty good strike, actually a very brilliant kinetic strike by a lot of forces, the question now becomes is do we use diplomacy, more military actions, more economic sanctions, more information warfare? How do we get allies involved that aren't going to be too readily available based on what the president has done to many of our allies in the past? And how do we bring the information on the world stage to counter

all of this? Those are all of my concerns right now. So, General, and we've talked about this before, I remember hearing your commentary as Russian troops were moving toward Ukraine, and you commented on what a ragtag operation it was, even moving their tanks and divisions into position going through towns in the lack of discipline. Now go to the other side of that coin, and you talked about what a brilliant strike it was.

Talk about the US military and how it really does. It stands, this is not cheerleading on my part. I think any military person in the world would say the same thing. The United States and its capabilities and its power and in its discipline right now certainly seems to be second to none. It is, Joe. It's awesome. The power of the military, the power of the people in the military is incredible.

We can do anything we're asked to do. The question then becomes, though, much like the Ukraine-Russian war that you just talked about is, what's the support for the military? Does the military trust the government? Do the people in the country trust the military? Those are the things that I'm concerned about right now. When you go to war, when you conduct an attack like this, Congress isn't involved. The vote of the individual congressman is not important.

What is important is that vote represents what the people feel and how they support a military action. So that combination of the so-called Claus Witzian trilogy of the strength of the military, the trust in the government, and the support of the people is a three-legged triangle, and all three of those legs have to be in place for great military operations. So yeah, we've got a great military. Are the people behind us, and is the government doing the right things, are the things that I'm looking at.

All right, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hurdling, as always, thank you so much. We greatly appreciate you being here. Thanks, Drew. All right. And, Kareem, we are rightfully asking, I think the right question to ask, the response, usually a response. Can you not hear me? I can hear you now.

Sorry. You can hear me now? Yeah. It is the right question to ask. What's Iran going to do now? How are they going to respond to the attacks? But let's have a clear-eyed view of Iran as well. Their government is shattered.

The top of their military infrastructure is shattered. Nuclear scientists have been killed. Other leaders killed. They have absolutely no air defenses. I certainly know they have other options. And there's no cheerleading going on here. They do have sleeper cells. They have proxies.

But just taking a cold-eyed view of Iran, how weakened are they right now? And would not another attack against the United States, would not attack against the United States, which would draw us back in militarily, would that not be an act of suicide for the government? Well, it's a great question, Joe, and absolutely this is a regime which has been humiliated. It's been emasculated over the last six months. As you mentioned, there are regional proxies, Lebanese Hezbollah, the Assad regime in Syria, Hamas, they've all been decimated. The remaining proxies, the Houthis in Yemen,

the Iraqi-Shia militias have been chasing. And that was, you know, a multi-billion dollar project for Ayatollah Khamenei. It's been decimated. His nuclear project has been probably upwards of about $500 billion in sunk costs and sanctions penalties. That's now been decimated. So he's a humiliated leader. He's fighting for his life. One of the concerns I have, to go back to the general's comments, is yes, Iran has a

lot of options for retaliation. They can go after US embassies and outposts. They can try to bomb oil installations throughout the Persian Gulf. They can try to rain missiles on Israel. Those, in many ways, are the tactical equivalent of a suicide bombing, right? Because they can do enormous damage to others,

but they may not survive the blowback. But what's important here, Joe, is that Iran recognized that there would be enormous costs for them to take those measures. And this wasn't simply a one-off where President Trump poked the bear and then retreated. And this is the concern of a lot of our friends in the Gulf countries, that they need the United States to continue to stay focused and stay focused on Iran's potential retaliation. Otherwise, they're the ones that really face the existential risks. Right. And David Ignatius, can we also circle back,

because this is our first show since the attacks, talk about the generals that President Trump had around him. Many people were worried that Pete Hegseth would be whispering to the presidents here and others, Tulsi Gabbard would be whispering to the presidents here during critical times. That was not the case. I mean he had General Krulak, he had the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he had the CIA Director. Talk about the team that the President had around him when he was making this decision. So Joe, one of the surprises and positive from the standpoint of thinking about U.S. military strength is how well this team functioned together and its ability to plan this operation without any leaks.

Indeed, if anything was going on in the week before the strike, it was deception, deliberate attempts to manipulate and deceive opinion. It turned out that the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Kane, not a lot of experience in senior command leadership positions. It turned out to be, from everything we can tell, a good commander and coordinator. The administration worked well with the veteran commander of CENTCOM, General Eric Corilla, who has been through rehearsals for an operation like this many, many times. The administration worked extremely well with Israel simply clearing the airspace, knowing

how to get those B-2s and the accompanying other ships and planes into the war zone, deconflicting as they went, do that safely. It looks easy in the aftermath, but those are complicated operations. So sometimes the Trump administration looks so chaotic that I thought having this snapshot of how that seemingly chaotic group led by Pete Hicks-Seth and the president himself can perform with

an unusual degree of precision. I think that the problem that I would note is that this action has walked the United States onto what I would say is the slipperiest slope in the world. You just don't know in the Middle East what chain of consequences is going to lead from actions. And so with this supremely well-planned act, they've now taken us into an unplanned future, where we're just guessing for the moment at how the Iranians will respond. Right.

But David, as I said, on Thursday or Friday, there were no...the president had no good options. What would Monday look like if he hadn't have moved, if Iran wasn't already at 60 percent and an ability to create nuclear weapons in a short matter of time, right? I mean, there, again, I'm not, this morning, I'm not championing either side of this, although I ask you, David, how difficult would it have been for any president to not take that shot if they knew that Iran was even being attacked by the United Nations? I find it hard to believe that Bush 41, Bush 43, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, you know,

go down the list. Any presidents wouldn't have felt compelled to take that strike. I'm curious your thought. So Joe, three previous presidents have considered precisely this scenario. They're the ones who developed the weapons and the battle plan. This was something inherited by President Trump, and each of them pulled back because of the uncertainties associated with the action. They decided it just wasn't worth doing.

If President Trump decided last Friday, there is no chance that the negotiated settlement that I want to resolve this is going to work. The Iranians are jamming me. They're just pushing me along. They're stonewalling, is the word that JD Vance used. He, in a sense, did have no choice but to move it onto a different terrain. Diplomacy wasn't working. The problem is, on that different terrain, we just don't know what's ahead.

But I take your point. His choices were debased at the moment he had to make the decision. Well, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,

and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and with Iran cornered, and with Iran actually even getting condemned by the United Nations for how quickly they were moving towards developing a nuclear weapon. Yeah, not just the past week, Jo. I mean, you look at the situation with Hezbollah being degraded, the situation with Syria and Assad falling, Hamas being degraded in Gaza, all around the region, Iran has suffered blows

over the past year, not just the past week. And so gave Donald Trump a different set of circumstances than those three previous presidents have faced. David Ignatius, Kareem Sajjapour, thank you both very much for coming in this morning. Thank you. Still ahead on Morning Joe,

we'll take a closer look at the attacks Iran is now launching in Israel. NBC's Rich Nengel will join us live from Tel Aviv with the latest. And we'll dig into the concerns that lawmakers are now raising about America's strike in Iran as some Democrats and at least one Republican say the president's move was unconstitutional. You're watching Morning Joe. Dozens of people were hurt in Israel yesterday morning again after Iran launched nearly 30 ballistic missiles into the country. Iran has kept up its strikes on civilian infrastructure into today, Jo.

So I mean, we've seen, of course, the constant barrage from Iran into Israel, and you can see that the damage is still being done. The Israelis are managing to deflect a lot of those missiles, but clearly still not all of them. Not all of them. And Jonathan Elmire, it's going to be fascinating to see how much longer the Iranians are able to keep this up and whether they do at some point decide they have to sue for peace.

I wanted to, we had talked about those that were advising the president, obviously Marco Rubio, Director Ratcliffe, General Corrella, General Cain. It seemed that, again, on Thursday, Friday, the president was talking about waiting two weeks. And then yesterday, we had the vice president go on saying, oh, well, no decision was made until the last moment. But your reporting, you wrote a column about it for the Atlantic also. What I picked up from my reporting over the weekend was that two weeks, that was a head

fake to give them the cloak of secrecy as the B2s were moving in a different direction, moving towards their targets in Iran. Talk about your reporting. Yeah, that's right. It was actually middle to late last week when the president signaled to his team that to give a go ahead on this operation. Now, inherently, the plug can be pulled, if you will,

up until the last minute. So yes, in some respects, the vice president technically right, that it wouldn't until the very end when those bombers are about to unleash their payloads, the mission could have been called off, but it had been greenlit days before. And indeed, there was a lot of deception here. In fact, some B two's were taken off were launched flying west and it was noted. In fact, even the Pentagon eventually confirmed

a new news outlets that some B two's were heading west towards Guam. What they didn't reveal was that earlier some B2s had taken off from Missouri East and in fact the only chatter about that was from a man in Missouri who posted on Twitter a few days ago saying oh hey I just saw some B2s over my house here in Missouri heading east. Turns out those were the real things not the head fake toward Guam. Same with the two weeks rhetoric. We know President Trump, this dates from his first term, when he is trying to kick the can on something, when he's trying to just delay a decision, his rhetorical is always,

well, I'll do it in two weeks. That's his verbal crutch. He did that again, this time knowingly, thinking that everyone would say, okay, this decision is being delayed. Iran will have perhaps go on less high alert. That's what happened. The mission already was underway. So for the latest on the ground in Tel Aviv now, let's bring in NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel. Richard, good to see you. So talk to us in the aftermath of this strike, what is the

latest on the ground in Israel? So this only seems to be intensifying. I've been listening to your conversation and before we get into where this is all going, just today Israel is carrying out more strikes according to Iranian media. The Israelis attacked Fordu again after the Americans attacked it. There have been several barrages of incoming Iranian missiles. I'm at a location in Tel Aviv right now. And let me tell you what it looks and feels like here.

This is what it looks and feels like for Israelis who are dealing with this and who feel that they are now entering into a new open conflict with Iran and not sure exactly where it is going to go, although most Israelis definitely do support these military strikes on Iran. But this was a location that was hit by an Iranian ballistic missile right after the American strike. I heard the impact and it came just a few hours, about five hours after the Americans dropped those bunker busters.

And the ballistic missile landed right here. This is a residential area, but it destroyed a lot of surrounding buildings. You could see here, these apartments, all of the facades were torn off and rescue workers, volunteers are here right now. They're salvaging what they can. The people are getting permission to come back,

to go into their own homes, to recover personal belongings. And, shockingly, when you look at all the damage here, no one was killed. And there is one anecdote that I think people might remember and I think reveals what it is like to experience one of these attacks. Since the beginning, we've talked about how almost all Israeli homes, or most Israeli homes have safe rooms built into them, or are close to bunkers. This is one of those reinforced safe rooms.

You can see it has the metal window, and if you look in closely you can see the concrete is reinforced. And even though the missile hit right where I'm standing, there were four people inside this safe room who survived. One woman, there was a husband, a wife, two children. The mother was slightly injured. And I was told by a military official here

that the only reason she was injured, just imagine it's a tiny little room, everything was destroyed, the four people inside survived. And the only reason she was injured is because you look at that little hole, the family, they shouldn't have done this according to the military official, drilled that hole to put in a washing machine so that they could have a drain for the washing machine. And that little hole, a mistake, allowed some of the blast to go in and injure this woman.

But these safe rooms do work. And this is something that Iran doesn't have. This is something that is really unique to Israel. NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel live from Tel Aviv. Richard, thank you. Some remarkable, remarkable that family survived. Coming up next, some of the president's base was against the military action in Iran before Saturday's strikes. We'll take you through that and how now many of them are praising the commander in chief for

what he did. We'll go through that major shift that's next on Morning Joe. Okay, 6.45 in the morning. Don't be fooled by that beautiful shot of Capitol Hill here in Washington. It is hot, humid and horrid outside. But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are reacting to the US military strikes against Iran, many Republicans defending President Trump's decision, with some also warning that the US needs to be prepared for Iran to now retaliate. There's no doubt that because of the president's decisive action, we have severely damaged Iran's critical nuclear infrastructure. I think we have to be prepared for Iran to retaliate.

And I joined the president in his warning to the Supreme Leader of Iran that if he targets Americans, the military force he will see will make last night look like child's play. There's no question Iran was working towards having a nuclear weapon that is without question. Everyone knows it that looks at the data on this. The question is, will they be allowed to be able to actually finish their work to be able

to do that? President Trump said, no, you cannot do that for the security of the entire world and of American citizens living in that region. I don't know how anybody could have been surprised at this. I think President Trump certainly telegraphed it. He said he's going to make his decision in a couple of weeks. I certainly understand why President Trump would not share that information with the Democrats in Congress. And again, the operational security is just so crucial to protect our servicemen and women. I didn't need notice. I've been saying for over a week, it'll be the President's decision. I will support that decision.

So that was generally the Republican reaction. Meanwhile, several Democratic lawmakers condemned the president's move as unconstitutional. It's not inconceivable that the Iranians, not being dumb people, might have put this stuff on a truck and taken it elsewhere, in which case we just, you know, closed a bunch of, you know, tunnels in a mountain. The worst case scenario is that, you know, the Iranians have a lot more missiles than we think they

do and we end up with dead soldiers and sailors in the region. There was no imminent threat to the United States from this nuclear program. It was an offensive war of choice by a president without consultation with Congress. I fear deeply we're being misled about this just as we were before we tragically got into a war with Congress. I fear deeply we're being misled about this just as we were before we tragically got into a war with Iraq. Let's bring in the managing editor at the Bullwork, Sam Stein, and politics, political bureau chief and senior political columnist for Politico, Jonathan Martin. Let's start, Sam, just by, you know, whenever I hear members of Congress saying that a president's

strike is unconstitutional, I go, okay, tell that to Harry Truman in Korea. You can tell that to...you just go down the list. 41 in Panama, and of course, post 9-11, we were having this debate every time I was in Congress. It's unconstitutional. Well, this continues. And presidents choose to strike without going to Congress first to notify. I think it would be hard, would it not, to notify 535 members of Congress before a strike on a nuclear site in Iran?

Yeah. I think there's a couple of distinctions to make here. One is notifying Congress and having the vote on a strike like this would be hard. And I don't think people are going to actually act on the idea that this is unconstitutional. You see some Democrats say, well, you should be impeached for this. You talk to other Democrats, and they said, he's obviously not going to be impeached for this. Second is there is a different type of notification.

And traditionally, the leaders of the Intel committees do get some advance notice. And certainly in leadership, do get some advance notice for things like this. What happened on Saturday was that did not happen. And so what you saw was Jim Himes there on ABC. He's the ranking member of the House Intel Committee. He's part of the Gang 8.

I talked to him yesterday about this. He found out that we had attacked Iran much in the same way I did, which is he was on the couch having a beer and was scrolling through Twitter. And that's not exactly, I would say, standard operating procedure. Now I will just add one other element here, which is in terms of notification, there's sort of the technical aspect of authorizing the strike. And I don't want to dismiss the constitutional concerns here, but I do think there's a larger

question about do you want to have congressional and bipartisan buy-in for an operation like this? And I think you can make the comprehensive case that yes, you do. You want to have leadership from both parties on board with the operation. You want to show United Front, because you don't know where this goes from here. You want to make sure that in the long term that the lawmakers feel included, that they feel consulted, and that if you need to go to them for things like additional funds or help politically, that they're there with you. But that's not really how this administration operates, and so I don't

think anyone is actually surprised that they did it this way. Right, I mean it obviously would seem the best-case scenario you would let the Gang of Eight know what was going on before the strikes began instead of having them sitting at home drinking a beer and learning about it the same way Sam Stein learned about it. Technically I was. No, no, no. Drinking a beer. So the story fills up. Drinking a beer. So, Jonathan Martin, before a lot of talk about the MAGA Civil War that was erupting over this, Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon and several other big MAGA influencers warning the president that his coalition would come crumbling down immediately.

They all seem to be falling in line. Talk about that. Well, this was a one-off strike until it's not. I mean, look, I think if this is a replay of what Trump did the first time around where he did do targeted airstrikes, Trump's fine with aerial assaults. He kind of likes keeping it that way. You do real damage, you have nifty technology, and you avoid boots on the ground.

It's a win-win for Trump. And by the way, it can't be overstated how much I think Trump was influenced by a week of Israeli success. Basically, unblemished air strikes over Israel. And Trump is taking that in, speaking of Israeli success, basically unblemished airstrikes over Israel. And Trump is taking that in, speaking of the couch, taking that in and watching the coverage of the Israelis.

And it feels, I think, emboldened by that. But look, Joe, I think the big question with MAGA going forward is, is this going to be something beyond what we saw on Saturday night, going after three nuclear facilities, or is there hopefully not some kind of reprisal that the Iranians take out on our interest, whether it's a base or an embassy or something else, and then a response to that by us on more Iranian assets. And if that's the case, then you

have a whole different conversation on congressional authorization and a broader conversation on what Trump's coalition at that point says. Trump's coalition can get behind him, salute and rally to the flag and the commander in chief on one Saturday night's successful B2 attacks from above. It's a different story if we're in a weeks longlong, months-long, tit for tat wider conflict with a major Iranian, a major Middle Eastern country. So I think that's the great question going forward. How much can the Trump base bear?

They can certainly do Saturday night. Outside of Tom Massey, there's not a lot of grumbling. Let's see what happens though here in the days ahead if there is further attacks. Well, I mean, if there's an Iranian strike and American troops are killed, obviously that will invite a response as well, and that's when there becomes a problem. And I suspect that may be, Jonathan O'Meara, one of the reasons why the president tweeted out what he did yesterday about regime change. Again, sort of a head fake also, telling the Iranians, be very careful about what you do because you're in such a weakened state.

That's right. And J-Mart is right. We talked about it at the top of the show, Joe, that the president hopes this is a one-off. And this is a warning here to Iran to let's keep it that way, because if Iran were to strike at U.S. assets, the president would feel compelled to hit back, even if there is anger in the MAGA base. We know Steve Bannon was in the White House at the end of last week in a last-ditch effort

to try to talk the president out of this strike. That obviously did not work. But we now know we have to deal with what comes next. And there's an increased security posture here in the United States. NBC reporting that Iran had communicated to President Trump when he was still at the G7 in Calgary last week, that if the US were to carry out a strike on its sites,

that it would be able to activate sleeper cells here in the United States. And, J-Mart, we're going to have to see whether that can happen. And that could be days, weeks, months, years from now. But this is something where US cities in particular are going to have to be on high alert. And I know you were just spent time in New York covering the mayor's race there, the Democratic primary, the closely contested Democratic primary set for tomorrow in scorching

heat. But also now this adds an 11th hour issue for anyone of voters go to the polls. One of the things they're going to have to think about is, well, are we going to have to live with, are we going to have to safeguard this city about what could come next? Yeah, and I look, I think that as the hours go by and certainly as the day goes by, I think it's going to be increasingly interesting to see what kind of reprisals the Iranians pursue. The regime's under pressure, obviously, the safe face now given what happened Saturday

night with basically no challenge from ground to air missiles, so we'll see what the Iranians do. You mentioned in New York, I wrote about the mayor's race. Thanks for that great segue there, Jonathan. Look, this is a fascinating race. It's a close race. Andrew Cuomo, I think, has had the lead for some time now, the former governor. But you have a 33-year-old member of the DSA who is coming on, who is making this thing

a real contest. Here's where it's incredibly fascinating. This is a ranked choice election. We're not going to know the results tomorrow. This is going to take a bit of time. And also, this could be a four-way race this fall. If Cuomo or Mondani loses tomorrow in the primary, both that have their own ballot lines as of New York, they can stay in the race in the general election. This race may not be over tomorrow. We could have a fascinating fall dynamic in Gotham City.

Yeah. And again, talking about Ron's responses, it's very hard to see what kind of response, Katty, they can actually, as battered as they are right now, what response they're capable of doing. But we will obviously, everyone in the US and certainly in New York, the police there will be on high alert. Yeah. One of the things that I've heard concern about some in the kind.S. and certainly in New York, the police there will be on high alert. Yeah, and one of the things that I've heard concern about from some in the kind of national security field is that capacity for striking, investigating terrorism in the U.S. has actually been downgraded in FBI because the units have been moved to deal with immigration on the

border. So we may not be in the strongest position for looking and investigating those sleeper cells either. Jonathan Martin from Politico, who can cover seamlessly Iran and the New York mayor's race. That was a really good segue. That was very good. We're going to all together, the weave. The weave.

As our commander-in-chief calls it. J-Mart with the weave, Sam Stein, thank you very much as well.