Atlanta and erin burnett outfront starts right now aviv, the breaking news in the dark. Top state department official telling cnn the biden administration jim has been given no assurances from israel that it will not target iran's nuclear facilities as concerns grow tonight, that israel could launch a devastating retaliatory strike against iran any moment. Plus warning of violence. President biden tonight saying he's concerned that the upcoming election won't be peaceful and playing nice for president trump appearing next to the variable very popular governor that he wants called a bad disloyal guy what's he saying now? let's go outfront i'm erin burnett live from tel aviv and outfront tonight. The breaking news in the dark. Cnn is learning tonight that the u. S. Is in the dark as to whether israel plans to strike iran's nuclear facilities as a top us state department official tells cnn, quote, this is on the edge that top official telling us exclusively that israelis are so far keeping their plans to retaliate, which could happen at any moment extremely close to the vest, saying, quote, we hope and expect to see some wisdom as well as strength. But as you guys know no guarantees well, israel is at war and more strikes against tehran could change the ark of history. I mean, these are many of irans known and most important nuclear sites, places where the country assembles and spin centrifuges enriches nuclear weapons grade uranium, and stores that highly enriched uranium, often hundreds of feet under the ground striking any of them could have massive and unstoppable consequences. And that is why president biden has said publicly he does not support israel targeting iran's nuclear program. But today he went even further than saying no nukes. He actually tried to take energy and oil off the table be thinking about other alternatives that strike you appear to be falling on deaf ears. I mean, again, that top state department official says israel has not sharing its plans close to the vest, even with its closest ally and the country which will be called upon to defend israel and deal with the consequences the united states, this isn't a war far away from the u. S. Not even now. It isn't just that it could spread with disastrous consequences. It is also that tonight as we speak, american troops, lives are on the line. There, there 40,000 posen in the middle east where we are right now, and they are targets right now, just listened to the chants that broke out when the ayatollah i look, committee was leading friday prayers in tehran today before tens of thousands of people my bad ourselves and tehran, tens of thousands of people though chanting it now, that is the tone and the mood, the iranian supreme leader in that rare address today, pounding the war drums and he praised the october 7 terrorist attack on israel. It's one thing he did he backed further strikes from tehran on tel aviv, like the one days ago here. And as the situation is quote, on the edge israel tonight is also pounding the drums, continuing to bombard the 2. 5 million person city of beirut, a city home to half the population of lebanon and that's where we want to begin tonight with ben wedeman. He is there and ben, you have been seeing and hearing an experiencing the being under siege, the worry and the fear that so many there have i know there was a strike in southern beirut just a short time ago. What is happening there and what are you expecting in these next hours? erin, within the last hour and ten minutes, we've had two warnings from the arabic spokesman for the israeli military published on twitter or x, and the following, just a few minutes later, one of those strikes happened on the southern suburbs of beirut, and another happened a few minutes it's later and now we're waiting for the other shoe to drop for the strike to follow the latest warning. Came in just about ten minutes ago, and this has been the pattern night after night. Now, i was in the southern suburbs the other day. I can tell you most of the inhabitants have already evacuated. There's still a lot of young men whose really task is just to keep an eye on people's apartments in houses and whatnot. But what we're seeing is that hezbollah, when i went to the southern suburbs, they were actually conducting a tour of various strike sites where israelis had hit. And i spoke to one of their senior spokesman and he told me that despite the recent assassinations of hassan nasrallah and so many other senior officials that they still have all of their missile arsenal intact he said they still have their leadership intact. We don't know who that leadership isn't this point because they haven't officially announced new leader. But what we are seeing is that despite several days of intense israeli strikes on the south of lebanon that hezbollah is still functioning there. They're still firing rockets into israel and their fighters on the ground who are experienced a guerrilla fighters who fought the israelis in the 2006 war they foreign in syria alongside the regime of bashar al asad, they are putting up some stiff resistance against the israelis and we are hearing initial reports that there are more clashes on the border. This evening. Apparently, what's being described as a serious incident down there. We don't have the details yet, but certainly indicates that hezbollah, despite taking a beating is certainly still able to give some back to israel. Aaron all right. Ben wedeman. Thank you very much. In beirut and and exhausted city, where are you getting warnings just to be clear eyed, everybody, it's 2:00 in the morning. If you're looking at twitter for warning saying to evacuate, you can understand the situation and how difficult that is where ben is jim sciutto is with me here in tel lviv, obviously, south of beirut, general mark hertling also joins us jim, let me just start with you. When we talk about this imminent strike that. Israel is determining its targets and keeping very close to the vest even from its closest ally there are a lot of strikes possible strikes that israel could hit inside iran, nuclear stray, nuclear locations oil installations, the actual regime itself, which a lot of people in this country have been pounding the table saying this is our moment to dip ahead. The monster as they see it. Can you walk us through what these targets could be perhaps? combination of some of these targets. Let, let's begin with nuclear and there are multiple nuclear sites around there, around iran. And by the way, that's deliberate because they don't want them all in one place because they don't want it easy to be taken out. Their facilities to be taken out in one blow let's zero in on one of them in particular, is for khan this is a nuclear research facility production facility is for in the central part of iran. They produce uranium metal key to the production of nuclear warheads. If, if iran were to go that path also centrifuge parts, what you need to produce the uranium enriched uranium produce a nuclear weapon. What's notable about this is that in april following iran's last major missile barrage on israel, when israel did retaliate, it was isfahan, not the nuclear site, but a air defense installation around isfahan that was israel's retaliation at that point. And that was deliberate because they were showing we can reach out and touch you there right. In the event that we were to decide that it's a big place, but we can be very specific. So to show that point, they can, they can pick and choose within the range to do so. And by the way, to carry out an attack on a site like that, you would have to take out the air defenses let's first another option is to go after oil oil facilities, oil refineries, et cetera. I want to talk about one in particularly that is cargo island. Cargo is an oil export facility. This is where 90 90% of iran's oil is exported through here. So this would be an enormous blow to what is around number one source of revenue around sends out about 3% of world's oil. That's 2 million barrels of oil a day. It's not the entire market to sliver of the market, but you know, oil markets well, if you take out that percentage that's going to have an impact on oil prices. So, so certainly an impact on, on world oil markets, but also potentially the world economy and the u. S. Economy and both of those sorts of strikes would certainly move the line forward and change the game in terms of what's on the table. You talk about escalation in general, hertling. That's the big question was if you're prime minister netanyahu and his war cabinet tonight making these these final decisions, what do you do for targets like jim just laid out what kind of force, what kind of weaponry will israel use in these potential strikes look at the target package and jim and i talked about this earlier today. What will israel go after a variety of target packages you've named a couple. I would name a couple more about weapons, construction facilities, places where they build ballistic missiles and even the drones that are becoming oh, prevalent. And not only the attacks on israel, but also the sale of drones by our ran to russia for the attacks on ukraine. Would it be hurtful to ukraine to not worry so much about the energy production facilities. But in fact a hit their main weapons facilities to places that build the weapons and that's why it's think that the president said what he said today. You can hit an energy facility, either oil or a nuclear power plant, or some of the other storage facilities that iran has but what would be more damaging in terms of iranian potential in the future? there to maine he proxy groups, hamas and hezbollah have been very damaged. Base the israelis have basically destroyed hamas. They've taken out 20, 25 of 27 battalions in the gaza strip. They're now going after hezbollah. They know they have a lot of missiles. There. They don't want the resupply of those weapons so when you get back to your question was, what would the strike package looked like? it depends. It depends on what they're going after if its weapons facilities, those are strike fighters going in with a lot more than just aircraft that are dropping bombs, you have to have fuels, you have to have intelligence gathers, jammers and electronic warfare aircraft to pave the path for a bunch of fighters to go in and bomb the locations you're talking about. And depending on the target if it's a soft target, if you will. Like jim said, cargo ireland, it's very easy to bomb a storage plant or a storage facility for oil. It's much tougher to strike some of the nuclear capabilities that iran has had in the past because they are mostly deeply buried in the mountains and they are very well read a part it takes a much bigger package right? i mean, and that's, that's the thing. All this has to be planned out, right? isn't doesn't just, you know, what ron did that when they fired the missiles here was you know, pick a missile package, put your targets and go, i'm not saying that's simple, but israel is going to be combination of different fighters in different planes and different bombs and missiles. I mean, it's a more complicated products. What are those flight? crews at risk as well, right? well, as you got to get those assets there and get him back safely, write that affect. Now, when you talk about oil facilities, nuclear facilities, there's also been and we referenced this a lot of talk in this country about what they believe is a once in a generational or more opportunity to take out the leadership of iran for regime change. They've shown they can do it with hezbollah. They've shown they can do it with hamas. And they want to do it with the leadership of the iranian government itself and that's, of course the most extreme option would be regime change and by the way, part of a public discussion in this country, whether the leadership decides to go that way. That's certainly part of the public discussion here. But, but there were options short of regime change, which has not even clear they could accomplish, which would be to go after military command and control, specifically the irgc, the iranian revolutionary guard corps, which is essentially the regimes military arm, right? and this is one of the right. Tehran heard headquarters, right? into iran, a heavily populated area. But of course, israel has not hesitated to go after targets inside heavily populated areas. We're seeing in beirut now, we've certainly seen it in gaza one could make a connection here if you're israel to the attacks that took place a couple of days ago here, that that center is it is a command and control center for those very strikes. So you could draw a direct line between the strikes on tuesday and that as a potential retaliatory. Incredible. Though, a strike within in the heart of tehran itself and certainly something they're capable of doing. But again completely changing the game. General in that context, the top state department official today telling cnn that israel's not assuring the u. S. They won't strike nukes that they're keeping their plans close to the vest obviously, the u. S. Is on the hook for whatever israel does for the repercussions of it, the u. S. Is expected to be there. Are you surprised that they're not more sharing? does it say anything to you at this point that there is not it does says says to me that our allies are being increasingly wary of sharing intelligence with some of the officials in government. And it's not just the united states is across world, operational security is critically important in these kind of strikes. As soon as you tell someone the potential of a leak that would damage the potential for targeting just rises exponentially. And i think that's what a lot of our allies are doing. You know, we've seen the ukrainians go into kursk. They didn't people whether they're gone, we've seen strikes inside of beirut by the israelis and then now the incursion and then the southern beirut. It's probably best if military plans and operations are not shared by governments with other governments until you really have a trustful i i believed that there are some in our government that know exactly what's going on and they have inside information, but they're certainly not sharing it with others all right. Thank you both very much. Obviously, as that top official said, on the edge tonight here next, trump has never been