Iran responds to Trump's address with new missile attacks | KTVU

Tehran is responding to the threats and timeline issued last night by President Trump. Trump said the U.S. military is on track to complete its objectives in the next two to three weeks. Tehran dismissed Trump's assessment of its capabilities and responded with new missile attacks targeting Israel and Gulf nations. The Iranian military also issued its own warning, claiming it still has stockpiles of missiles

and drones, which it says the U.S. does not know about.

The centers you believe you have targeted are insignificant and our strategic military production takes place in locations you are completely unaware of.

Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz, preventing oil tankers from passing through and causing gas prices globally to spike. Trump says if Iran does not reopen the strait by Monday, he'll target the country's energy facilities. And for more on the war in Iran, we went to bring in Hal Kemfer, national security expert and also former Marine Intelligence Officer. Hal, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Jenna. So I want to start with a little

bit of breaking news. The Pentagon just announced today that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked the Army's top officer, General Randy George, to step down. This was done without any reason. What is your assessment of this move?

Well, it happens. And you've seen this administration has changed over a number of flag and general officers. You know, CQ Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, when the administration stopped, he was replaced, as was Lisa Franchetti, who was the chief of Naval Operations,

and then a variety of three stars were replaced as well. And frankly, they want to basically build a senior cadre of military officers, I think, that they know and understand. And in the case of Randy George, he came in under the Biden administration.

He took on that position. And Christopher Neve, who's replacing him, was actually the senior military advisor to Pete Higseth as the secretary. So Secretary Higgs that knows him understands and they know each

other and that and when you're doing with policy matters certainly things is. As you know tense is a war. You want to have people you understand communicate with so it's not a

real shock this has happened. And it does happen it's happened in other ministrations as well.

And coming just after those comments by President Trump. Now, U.S. forces today struck a major bridge in Iran, eliminating a planned military supply route for sustaining Iran's ballistic missiles, their attack drones, which we heard about earlier. How much longer is this sustainable for Iran?

Well, Iran's got to probably has more problems and while it on you know rhetorically you think well we can take everything throughout us and you were fine we're doing good reality as their Navy is shot their Air Force is gone. Their ability to to launch ballistic missiles and drones at the rate they used to build to is vastly diminished and of course

they've lost a lot of leadership figure solar command control communications everything's down. And now you're seeing us going after something which is a vital line of communication and ability for them to logistically support these forces. And we're saying, look, and if you really don't negotiate or come up with a solution, we're going to literally turn off the lights and go out for power stations.

So Iran's got a lot of problems. I think we're kind of incrementally moving into what we could target in the future.

And the president recently has said that Iran's leadership has been weakened. But we did see the son of the previous supreme leader appointed and he's considered even more hardline. So do you think the diplomatic solution is as feasible as it was before? What needs to happen here.

Well what we've seen is you know, but most of the community doesn't really have he hasn't really assert himself at all know he's not really sure what his actual physical condition is and it's widely believed he was severely injured in that same strike to kill his father. So what you've seen is the Revolutionary Guard Corps, a lot of hardcore

generals, not the senior guys who were there before, senior guys were taken out, but more junior guys, but very ideological, are trying to assert their influence. At the same time, we're starting to see some stress fractures within the regime. Maybe not apparent to everybody, but you're starting to see that the president and others are feeling that this IRGC takeover, if you will, is really undoing the regime itself. So you might see that.

We focus on the opposition, but you could see, and it's always been predicted at some point that you could see a split happen between the more secular side of the government and this more ideological, religious side of the government.

Yes, and that ideological side really controlling the military as you mentioned. Now Iran did say today that they plan to retain control of the Strait of Hormuz. That has been a big pressure point here with that squeeze on oil shipping. We also saw an effort in the United Nations today to try and authorize some military action there but but 3 countries, Russia, China and France are opposed. If this goes to a vote on Friday, what do you think could

happen.

I don't think anything to get past and the security Council in the U.N. it's possible, but I find it very difficult, you know Russia fully supports Iran and so they might use or be to authority and and China is moving some oil and some other ships through the Strait of Hormuz, so they might veto it or just abstain. But it only takes one veto in the Security Council to stop anything from moving forward.

But what we are seeing is we have 40 countries, the U.S. is not part of this, did a big virtual conference around the world talking about, they their all stakeholders in the Strait of Hormuz, talking about what they might do, where they might be able to help. I think that's that's progress, if you will. And then, of course, you're seeing this two to three week

sort of maximum effort thing that the U.S. is going to be doing, certainly along with Israel. And we might see some changes in what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz. You know, the potential, certainly the forces are there to take some islands that could put the, you know, change who controls the Strait. That's a potential, don't know if it's gonna be done,

but it's certainly being talked about a lot.

A lot of discussion around military action there. A lot of discussion around military action there. We're gonna have to leave it for now, but Hal Kempfer,