Iran’s New Supreme Leader

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Visit BetterHelp.com/StartHere to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. It's Monday, March 9th. If the intent was to install a new leader, Iran says it's already taken care of. We start here. Iran's clerics choose a new Ayatollah. Here's the son of Ali Khamenei who was killed on the first day of this war. Another American service member is dead so could this all signal a longer conflict? Meanwhile, US officials are pressed on a lethal strike. This is an investigation that's getting a lot of attention because it is clearly a very tragic event. A girl's school has become ground zero for the debate about civilian deaths. And the New York protest ends with explosives being thrown. This is a worrying moment for the country. It's a worrying moment for law enforcement. Our demonstrations over religion, race and war already turning toxic. From ABC News, this is Start Here. I'm Brad Milke. Since the first missiles dropped in Iran, everyone in Washington has been pretty clear about one thing. There will be American casualties. In effort of this scope, we'll include casualties. We expect to take additional losses. And sadly, there will likely be more. Iran's not a military superpower, but it is a power in the Middle East. It has a vast military apparatus. As the US and Israel blanket parts of Iran with weapons, Iran has continued to launch counter strikes at its Middle Eastern neighbors, among them Saudi Arabia. The US has had military ties with the Saudis for generations. And in one of these strikes, an American service member was killed. That is now the seventh American fatality from Iranian strikes so far. Another died Saturday in Kuwait from a medical emergency. President Trump stated dream scenario is that Iranian people see this regime weekend and then seize on that moment to topple power structures and build a new government. The regime obviously does not want that to happen. So far, it appears to have suppressed widespread dissidents in the streets. And as of this morning, they're already announcing they have a new leader in place. Let's start today with ABC's Chief International Correspondent James Longman who joins us from Iraq. James, is there a new leader in Iran? What are we learning? Yeah, Brad Iranian State TV now says Moshetaba Hamine has been named the new Supreme Leader. He is the son of Ali Hamine who was, of course, killed on the first day of this war. Moshetaba Hamine is 56 years old. He's also a cleric part of the Council of Experts who gathered to choose a successor. They're being very careful and you can understand why because Israel has already said whoever they choose, they will kill. Wow. It's not clear whether or not this will really change the direction of the war anyway because this man is thought to be a hardliner like his father. There was a suggestion on the first day of the war that he was in the compound when it was struck. He was one of the targets. There's a suggestion perhaps that family members of his have been killed. Maybe he was even injured. Would it be a moment that would dramatically change the course of this war? Unlikely. One President Trump has said he wanted to be part of the process of selecting a new leader. He seemed to be with Venezuela. Clearly that didn't happen here. And so, I mean, the war rages on. These bombing campaigns from the US and Israel continue. What are we seeing so far as kind of strategy and targets here? Yeah, huge attacks from the Israelis actually on energy infrastructure. I mean, the pictures are just jaw-dropping. Huge plumes of black smoke up into the sky. Fire ripping through multiple oil depots in Tehran. A warning about acid rain and toxins coming down on people. And look, this raises serious questions, right? Not just about the immediate impact that will have to civilians, but about the long-term viability of an Iranian state. If Israel is indeed just going to go after infrastructure more broadly, because they say these are terror targets. And Iran is hitting just anything they can possibly hit. I mean, we've seen an office building in Kuwait go up in flames. A desalination plant in Bahrain was hit. The Dubai airport over the weekend was hit yet again. Over a week of this war, we've been assured by the US and Israel that the drone capability is down more than, I think, 70% at the last reading, more than 90% of ballistic missile capability. And yet, every single day, Iran launches drones and missiles at their neighbors. I mean, they're sending it much less, much less drones. They're being decimated now. And we've been getting some quite interesting, a good understanding of the impact here. ABC has been examining satellite imagery of the bases that have been hit. US bases from Qatar to Jordan to Saudi Arabia, really important defense missile systems and radars have been hit. They are important, not just because they keep Gulf allies safe and US bases safe, but they cost billions of dollars. We're pressing the offensive every single day, creating all the leverage the President needs for the outcome he wants. And so the question is how much more damage can the United States sustain and be able to defend the Gulf and the bases? Last question, James, because the big question is a bit about next steps from the US and from Israel. And at what point would ground troops be considered? Necessary, we talked with you last week about President Trump potentially considering Kurdish fighters to assist on the ground. Yesterday, he actually seemed to potentially back away from that idea. We're not looking to the Kurds going in. We're very friendly with the Kurds, as you know. But we don't want to make the war any more complex than it already is. But then James, he almost seemed to go a step further describing the possibility of American ground troops in Iran. He said there would have to be very good reasons for it, but what would a very good reason be? Well, the very good reason might just be nuclear disarmament. We know that has been the goal from the very beginning from both the United States and Israel. And according to Axias and I think the New York Times, the US and Israel are looking at deploying special forces inside Iran to secure what remains of the country's stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Now, it's thought that they moved it after the 12-day war last year when those nuclear facilities were hit. These stockpiles apparently have been moved to a facility in Isfahan. And there is a concern that it could be moved out of this facility. So we're talking about about 970 pounds of uranium, which has been enriched to 60% at this Isfahan site. Now, people may know they've been listening to this debate for a long time. You need 90% to get to weapons grade. But if they've got centrifuges that are working, it means that they could actually make a weapon. And they think they've got enough uranium to make something like 11 nuclear weapons. Do you need ground troops to secure the enriched uranium at the nuclear sites? We find out about that. We haven't talked about it, but it was a total obliteration. They haven't been able to get to it. And at some point, maybe we will. So there are two scenarios where the US might go in. One is to get into that facility in Isfahan and remove it from Iranian territory. The other one is a little bit more on the lines of sending nuclear specialists along with special forces to go in and dilute this material. Wow. And then basically it means it just can't be used for a weapon. And so it might be that the Israelis have convinced the United States that they have the intelligence or they need is the boots on the ground and they can get this stuff out. But again, you don't have to be a military specialist to see that this would be very, very difficult to do. It does look like something at least that the administration is thinking about. Marco Rubio told a congressional hearing, I think last week, someone will have to go get it. And there is no way in the world that this terrorist regime was going to get nuclear weapons, not under Donald Trump's watch. And we know that Donald Trump has been talking about a very good reason to need to go in. I am thinking about that extraordinary operation to go and take out Maduro. If Donald Trump thinks, well, that was possible. Why not this? Well, who knows? I mean, that's the thing. I mean, I think there can be a reasonable debate about like, to do this right, you need to send in qualified people, specialized people to remove the stuff that the US was so concerned about in the first place. And yet the moment you send people in on the ground, you have to make it safe for them to work. And that usually requires some sort of overwhelming force, especially if you're going into the heart of the country or any where near its capital, usually takes a sizable military ground force. All right, James Longman in Iran. right next to Iran right now. Thank you. Thanks, bro. Next up on Start here, if the US is hoping to get Iranians on its side, a strike on a school isn't gonna help. We're back in a bit. This show is brought to you by Framer. If you've ever built a website, you probably know that most so-called free-site building tools require a whole suite of paid add-ons to design and publish your page. That ends now with Framer. With Framer's design pages, you get a full-featured professional design experience, including vector workflows, 3D transforms, image exporting, and more, all completely free. Framer already built the fastest way to publish beautiful production-ready websites, and now it's redefining how we design for the web. 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With any Iran, one of the most tragic events so far has been what appears to be the death of more than 160 people at a girls' elementary school. This has been getting more and more attention across the Middle East. Now, US officials are responding. Let's go to ABC's Cheek Global Affairs correspondent Martha Raditz, who's in Jerusalem right now. Martha, first off, can you just describe the bare bones of how this initially, apparently, unfolded? This was, Brad, in the very first hours of the war on that Saturday and this girl's school, say the Iranians and their images coming out of there, was hit by some sort of projectile, a missile, presumably, given the amount of damage to that school and the amount of deaths. So in those very first hours, the US was actually bombing in that area. The Israelis were north of there, so people immediately did start blaming the US and asking questions. So days later, I mean, have we gotten to the bottom of what could have actually happened here? Was this the US? Was this Israel? Was this something else? We've talked to some sources on this and some officials about it. Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, has said there is an investigation going on. All I can say is that we're investigating that. We, of course, never target civilian targets, but we're taking a look at investigating that. On the other hand, the administration has been very defensive about this. We don't bomb schools, the Iranians would kill their own people. What is clear is that the United States would not target, deliberately target a school. They are, on the other hand, deliberately targeting civilians, as you've seen, because you know why? They are a terrorist regime. But no one is accusing the US of bombing this knowingly. They are not certainly saying they went after a school, but the location of this school, which is near an IRGC compound. But separate from that compound has really raised questions about it. The biggest event that happened over the weekend was President Trump saying he believed Iran did it. We think it was done by Iran. It's very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever who was done by Iran. And yet even Pete Hegseth, who was standing right by his side, said that they are basically still looking at it. I ask the US ambassador to the UN about it as well. As Secretary Hegseth said, it's under investigation. No one wanted to blame Iran point blank. They went back to these points that the United States would not bomb a school, would not go after civilians. I could tell you as a veteran in no uncertain terms, the United States does everything it can to avoid civilian casualties. We know that. We know that is not supposed to happen. But because they were in the area, because people who have looked at that damage meticulously say it looks like the kind of damage that would come from a missile. Sometimes, of course, tragic mistakes occur. Remember, this is in the very early moments of that war when Iran was really back on its heels. And so this is an investigation that's getting a lot of attention because it is clearly a very tragic event. Well, you've covered so many conflicts. I'm wondering, this is the sort of thing that can kind of paint the legacy of an attacking force or even an occupying force in some conflicts, right? And that's when you start straining not just your relationship with the people you mean to be "liberating" but also like it strains your alliances around the region. It gets less people on your side of the long term. How does the US kind of deal with that reality if in fact this was us, even if it wasn't accident? I have covered a lot of events where the US accidentally killed someone they didn't mean to kill. I'm thinking back even to the withdrawal in Afghanistan when a drone strike hit a man in his car and his compound there who they thought might be a suicide bomber. Right. And said it was a righteous strike and days later there was a New York Times investigation of that, a visual verification and they found that that was not the case. The US immediately said that they were sorry. We'll have to see what happens in this case if there is absolute evidence that the US did it because the US in the past has taken responsibility if it is proven they probably did something like this accidentally. But we've already got the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief saying it was Iran. So I think the questions about this, if this investigation is completed and they find the US did it, we'll go back to President Trump and we'll have to see what he says. Right. And like how every administration kind of balances the ideas of like we're taking a very solemn investigative look at everything we don't want to get out in front of ourselves versus they also don't want to be inviting more criticism. Martha Raditz in the Middle East right now. Thank you so much. Thank you Brad. This weekend there was a protest in New York City which what else is new there are lots of demonstrations here all the time. This one took place near the home of the new mayor Zoran Mamdani which again is a popular place for political speech. But this protest was led by a far right activist who took part in the January 6th riots. He was pardoned by President Trump and was leading a group outside the home of the city's first Muslim mayor to in his words stop the Islamic takeover of New York City. Well with the Iran war looming over everything is got heated. When counter protesters showed up it got chaotic. Then people started throwing objects which police have now declared to be IEDs. The word terrorism is being invoked. It's going to ABC's chief investigative correspondent, Amar Katerzky. Aaron a lot of competing groups here. What happened exactly? As you say Brad this all begins on Saturday with an anti-Muslim protest led by Jake Lang this far right provocateur right outside Gracie Mansion the mayor's official residence and quickly turns chaotic as a counter protest takes form and during that counter protest two devices are thrown. A counter protestor identified as a mere balatt and 18 year old man lit and through an ignited device toward the protest area landing in the crosswalk of East 87th Street and East End Avenue. At first the police thought they were smoke bombs but further testing the NYPD said at least one of the devices was confirmed to have been an improvised explosive based on preliminary examination and x-ray imaging the devices which were a bit smaller than a football appeared to be a jar wrapped in black tape importantly with nuts bolts and screws along with a hobby fuse that could be lit. Once that occurred this now turned from just a protest into a counter terrorism investigation. Also then Jake Lang is holding the protests were like derosing a pig it was overtly Islamophobic but police say these potential weapons came from counter protesters what do we know about them? That's right these are two men from Bucks County, Pennsylvania that are accused of throwing these devices. The FBI is now searching their homes for bomb-making materials, according to law enforcement sources. And the feds are considering possible terrorism charges because when the two men were interviewed by law enforcement, the sources told us, Brad, they had mentioned watching ISIS propaganda videos and said they had come to defend Muslims. Now this appeared to have nothing to do at least the counter protest with Mayor Mamdani. He said the original protest by Jake Lang was rooted in bigotry and racism, but the use of devices that were hurled during the protest he called criminal and reprehensible. Hey, Aaron, more broadly, how concerned are police right now, not just in New York, but around the country about this moment and this conflict in Iran leading to violence here at home? Because we saw this with the Israel-Hamas war, right? It's like one thing to debate armed conflicts, but when it becomes about identity and race and religion, you are more liable to see things get out of control, I imagine. And that is really the worry, Brad. And in this particular case, it's not so much the protest itself, but that possibly viable devices were thrown this close to the mayor of New York City. It's a worrying moment for law enforcement because they say the most likely scenario is just the one that unfolded. In this case, two young men, not on anyone's radar. They have not yet been formally charged, but the idea that possibly viable devices could be brought so close to elected leaders, so close to a frankly swanky upper east side neighborhood. All of that is really worrying for law enforcement right now. Yes, especially if these things were sort of armed to perhaps injure as many people in the nearby areas possible. All right, Eric Tursky here in New York. Thank you so much. Thank you, Brad. Okay, one more quick break. When we come back, well, you had a good run. Should you get a medal for it? One last thing is next. This show is sponsored by Duck.ai, a new product from Duck.go. Have you ever caught yourself typing something into an AI chat and then wondered, do I really want this conversation or this question to be saved somewhere forever? Like does everyone need to know that I was trying to figure out what the stinkiest cheese is? No, if that sounds familiar, then Duck.ai is here for you. When you get a Duck.ai, you can chat privately with the same AI as you might already be using, like chat GPT or Claude or the other ones. It protects your info from hackers, scammers, and data hungry companies. 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Watch the new Hulu original series Friends Like These, the murder of Skyler Nase, on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. There's a reason I've never won a marathon and really have no plans to. The reason? It's too far, but maybe that's actually less of a problem than I thought. Yesterday, Los Angeles played host to the most competitive LA marathon ever, with American Nathan Martin overtaking the race favorite in literally the final inches for first place. Here's how it sounded on NBC. Wow, it is a photo finish. The bigger drama though, was 6.2 miles behind them, because this year organizers declared anyone who passed the 18 mile mark was eligible to get a finisher's medal. See yesterday, Los Angeles was under a heat advisory. Temperatures topped out at 88 degrees. Organizers were told you could have runners hitting their red zone and suffering serious health risks. So they announced this year only if you made it to the 18 mile mark, there's no shame in calling it quits. You'd still get a medal. This decision divided the running community, while some sought as a smart way to prevent people from pushing themselves to heat exhaustion, potentially saving lives. Others sought as well soft. If you take the mile 18 finisher medal at the LA marathon, come on. Social media was flooded with marathoners, like this guy take the stairs one on Instagram, saying, "Yeah, marathons are hard." That's the point. There's no shame in calling it quits, but you also shouldn't get credit for doing something you didn't. It's not a participation trophy problem, because that's not what it is. It's a finisher medal. It's worse, because it says finisher. It's stolen valor. In fact, one quirk of the Los Angeles course is that at mile 18, you actually go right past the finishing line. There's eventually a U-turn further west, meaning for a few miles, every step you take, you do it knowing you're going to have to take another step coming right back. That psychological wall, many athletes say, is the thing that often separates finishers from non-finishers. A marathon is literally about pushing yourself beyond what we think we're capable of. What if it's hot next year? Are we seriously going to start pretending marathons are only 18 miles to say people's pride? Doctors, though, say good runners should and do ask themselves if they should drop out. Doll aches are one thing. Sharp pains, though, are another. Chest pains in particular should get immediate attention, as well as confusion or dizziness at the risk of heat stroke or even organ failure. But this is the whole problem organizers are trying to address. It's tough to diagnose yourself while running. Maybe it seems like it's worth it in the moment, or not reliable narrators. In fact, in the origin story of the original marathon a couple thousand years ago, there's one detail many forget, in one version of the story, at least, when Fidipity's completed his heroic 26.2 mile run, he immediately dropped dead from exhaustion. Then again, he never asked for a medal. Now, I don't have to worry about 18 miles, 13 miles, none of them. So you runners can figure this dilemma out among yourself. By the way, I'm always saying tell your friends about the show, tell your friends about the podcast. That includes smart speakers, by the way. You Alexa stands out there. I see you. Don't forget to tell your friends you can ask her to play the news, set us to default, wake up every day with a quick rundown. I'm Brad Milky. I'll see you tomorrow. Today, I want to tell you about our friends at Icebox. Now, I'm not talking about a freezer full of frozen pizzas. Icebox stands for in case of emergency box. 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