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The US and Israel are attacking Iran's paramilitary forces. The strikes come as Iran is preparing a funeral for its former Supreme Leader. Israel says it will target whoever is chosen to succeed him.
I am Michelle Martin, that's Amartina's, and this is up first from NPR News.
[MUSIC] President Trump answered questions publicly for the first time about why the US attacked Iran. It was my opinion that they were going to attack first, they were going to attack if we didn't do it. His secretary of state gave a different rationale to reporters. And people in Arkansas, North Carolina and Texas cast their votes in the first primaries of the mid-terms.
Democrats in Texas chose James Talarico to try and flip the US Senate seat in a deep red state. One of the primaries also tells us about the mood heading into November.
“Stay with us, we've got all the news you need to start your day.”
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In the Middle East, Israel and the US continue striking targets across Iran, as Iran widens its retaliatory strikes in the region.
The US military central command says it has destroyed Iran's navy and Iran preparations for the funeral of Supreme Leader Ali Komenaii who was killed by Israel are set to begin tonight. The widespread fighting continues to disrupt air travel and shipping channels in the region. For more, we go to MPR's Kary Khan in Tel Aviv, Kary Israel and the US have continued their air campaign today. What's the situation now? The air strikes continue in cities throughout Iran.
On state TV, you see ruins of buildings in the capital, Tehran. Many of the targets are symbols of the regime, including hits on besieged command centers.
“And that's Iran's state-run paramilitary force that was crucial to the protestor crackdown earlier this year.”
As you said, US military sent comm said today that it has obliterated Iran's navy and they say not a single Iranian ship is left in the waterways, off Iran. And joint US and Israeli military strikes are focusing too on Western Iran's Kurdish areas, those are longtime anti-regime strongholds. According to Iran's red crescent society, the death toll there is near 800, and at least 175 of those killed were from the bombing of an elementary school at the start of the war. And all this is happening as Iran is planning a state funeral and a secession process for a new Supreme Leader.
Yes, Iranian officials have announced three days of mourning for the Supreme Leader who Israel killed last weekend. His body will lie in state and officials have called for mourners to come out in large numbers. The funeral is set to begin this evening, a new assembly of experts and another committee are convening to pick the next leader, and that's according to state media. Yesterday, Israel struck a site in the city of comb where the assembly was set to be convening. They were not there at the time, though, and that's according to Iran's far state news agency.
In a statement today, Israel's defense minister, Israel cats reiterated his country's pledges to kill any new leader pick to threatens to destroy Israel. He said today that person quote will be an unequivocal target for elimination.
“And this is all spreading to the intergal states. I mean, not just only Israel. I mean, where is all this headed possibly?”
Yes, we've seen Iranian drones and missiles hit targets in the Gulf yesterday. The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia was hit. And a drone sparked a fire at the U.S. consulate in Dubai last night. The U.S. State Department is advising U.S. citizens to leave more than a dozen countries throughout the Middle East. The state of Hormuz is still mostly close to traffic. Israel's pounding sites too in Lebanon after Hezbollah fired at Israel yesterday. Hezbollah was able to shoot missiles into central Israel.
Israel's defense minister says there is a plan ready for further advance of troops into Lebanon. While many fronts in the war appear to be opening up, we've actually seen a number of missiles and drones coming into Israel and the Gulf drops significantly in the last 24 hours. And so far, Gulf states have not retaliated, but for how long that will last? That's still an unony. That's NPR's carry con in Tel Aviv carry thank you. You're welcome. We also have new details from the Pentagon about four of the six soldiers killed by an Iranian
drone strike in Kuwait on Sunday. They were all in the army reserve.
Sergeant first class, Noah L. Tejans, 42 years old of Bellevue, Nebraska, 39 year old,
Sergeant first class Nicole M. Amour of White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Captain Cody, a cork, 35 years old of winter haven Florida, and 20 year old, Sergeant Declan J. Cody of West Des Moines, Iowa. The names of two other service members killed have not yet been made public. President Trump answered questions publicly for the first time Tuesday about the ongoing U.S. strikes in Iran.
He claimed that if the U.
But if we didn't do what we're doing right now, you would have had a nuclear war, and they would have taken out many countries. It's one of several shifting answers the President has given on why the U.S.
attacked Iran in the first place and what his ultimate goals are.
MPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram joins us now to discuss. So we've heard differing takes from the President to also from the Secretary of State over the last few days. So what's the
“latest that the White House is saying for why the U.S. struck Iran over the weekend?”
Yeah, you know, there has been a lot of mixed messaging here, A, and just to put this into context for a second, Trump said on Monday that the U.S. attacked Iran because Iran was developing nuclear capabilities and missile capabilities that would soon be able to hit the U.S. The previous government analysis says those capabilities were not imminent. But that seemed to counter what his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio said that the U.S. believed Israel was going to
strike Iran and Iranian counterattacks would have put the U.S. at risk, so the U.S. struck Iran
first. Yeah, so two different answers there. And then yesterday from Trump, another
different answer. Right, so Trump was asked yesterday if Israel forced the U.S. his hand. And the President said he might have forced Israel in attacking Iran after negotiations fizzled. You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics and it was my opinion that
“they were going to attack first. They were going to attack if we didn't do it. They were going to”
attack first. I felt strongly about that. And I want to emphasize there that Trump didn't cite any U.S. intelligence that Iran was going to strike. He said it was his opinion and that he felt Iran was going to strike the U.S. or Israel. What do people think about this non-alignment on answers from the administration? I mean, the public polling that's been conducted so far shows that Americans are not in favor of this war. And the majority think the U.S. will now
be in a long-term conflict with Iran. In response to all this, the White House in the last few days has been trying to realign their messaging here. Senior administration officials tried to explain in detail yesterday why the negotiations with Iran were breaking down later today. The Pentagon and the White House are holding more briefings. But five days into this war, I mean, questions remain. And a big one is timeline. And what's the end goal? Trump has said that he expects
“these strikes to last several more weeks. But what will define success here for the Trump administration?”
And what does the U.S. want for Iran after these strikes bent? And I guess one more thing a lot of people are worried about is the price of oil. Let's aside from just the horrible things that happen when there are missile strikes. I mean, has the President addressed that at all? Yeah, I mean, Trump said yesterday that oil prices might be high for a quote little while, but he said as soon as this conflict ends and again didn't provide a timeline there,
he said oil prices would be even lower than before. No real clarity on how the President plans to facilitate that. I will say the global price of crude oil has risen since this war began. And of course, you know, to put this in the domestic context, it comes as Americans at home, we're still really worried about affordability in the economy. There's a midterm election coming up later this year. Trump seems to have an eye on oil prices, though, because yesterday he announced
efforts to try and guarantee the safety of oil tankers traveling through the street of Hormuz that can pass the deliver the 20% of the world's oil that comes through that route. That's MPR's Deepa Shivram, thanks a lot. Thanks. Democrats in Texas have chosen the candidate they want to try and flip a U.S. Senate seat from Republicans, and that candidate is James Talariko. He beat Congressman Jasmine Crocket,
Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas all held primaries to state the first of the 2026 midterms. MPR senior political editor and correspondent, Dominical Montanar, was up late watching the returns and is up early with us, so we'll get to the Lone Star State in a second. Let's start with the tar heel state, North Carolina. What do we learn there? Well, the Senate race there is now said, you know, it's Republican Michael Wattley, who's a former Trump Republican national committee
chairman, and he's going against Democrat Roy Cooper, who's the state's former governor, Cooper getting in the race was seen as a really big get for Democrats. Last night, he focused his message on prices, but also said this. I'll be a strong independent senator who will work with this president when I can and stand up to him when the people need me to.
I will always, always put the people of North Carolina first before politics, before party.
So work with the president when he can, he said, and stand up to him when necessary, and you didn't hear a mention, he's a Democrat. That's a very fine line Cooper's trying to walk in trying to flip this seat. All right, deep in the heart of Texas, what do we learn from those results? Yeah, you mentioned the Taurico one. This was a really competitive primary, though he wound up winning by about seven points as of this taping. Here he was last night.
This is a people-powered movement to take on this broken, corrupt political s...
This is truly a campaign of buy and for the people. I mean, Democrats really hope that this populist message and a more measured tone from Taurico can help them win, but this is Texas. It won't be easy. No Democrat has one statewide since 1994. Yeah, and for the Republicans in this race in Texas, that thing's going to last a little bit longer. So tell us why that is. Yeah, no one broke 50%, so it's going to
May 26 run off. So Texas get ready for more money and more nasty attacks between incumbent Senator John Cornean and state attorney general Ken Paxson. And there's one person who's going to be
“key above all else in this race, neither of them is in the race. See if you can make out who it is”
and here's Cornean. The final two years are President Trump's agenda hangs in the balance. I'm proud to have supported President Trump and worked with him to help him achieve his goals in the Congress. Okay, and here's Paxson talking about Cornean. For too long, he stabbed our president in the back by trying to do you rail his presidential campaigns and supporting the Democrats law fair against the president. Get the drift here. You know, either candidate would
love President Trump's backing, but he is not endorsed anyone saying he liked all the candidates in this primary. If he eventually trouble getting involved, you know, I think it's possible that he does wind up putting his finger on the scale here. I mean, this has been a bitter and nasty
primary. $70 million poured in to help John Cornean another $100 million could be spent in the next
12 weeks of this runoff. So if you're Trump looking down the line here, do you really want to spend
“$100 million the party to do so on a Senate primary in a state you should win or maybe spend”
that money on some of those front line swing house races. MPR, senior political editor and correspondent, Dominican Montanaro, thanks a lot. You got it. And we have another story we're watching. An MPR review out today compiled dozens of accounts describing how the Department of Homeland Security is using sweeping surveillance tools to track people ice wants to deport and even monitor and intimidate U.S. citizens who criticize its policies. MPR's cat lawns door have
talked to a woman named Emily in Minneapolis. Now we're only using her first name because she
“fears retribution from the federal government. Their message was not subtle, right? They were”
in fact saying we see you, we can get to you whenever we want to and it didn't scare me. Here that reporting on our radio show morning edition, you can find it on your local MPR station or on the MPR app and you can read the full investigation at npr.org. And that's up first for Wednesday, March 4th, 2019. And I'm Michelle Martin. Today's episode
up first was edited by Hannah Block. We're back on Metzler, Dana Ferrington, Mohammed Elper D.C. and it was
wolfly. It was produced by Zayat Baj, Ana Perez, and Yaduma's. Our director's Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Heines. Our technical director is Carly Strange. Our supervising producer is Michael Lipkin and we hope you'll join us again tomorrow. [Music]
