Rogue Commander News Today

President trump called off a retooaretaliatory strike sayinge loss of iranian lives would not be proportional. >> these measures represent a strong and proportionate response to irans actions. >> reporter: last week president trump suggested the shootdown maybe ordered by a rogue commander and that iranian leadership did not approve it. in addition, the treasury department slaps sanctions on eight iranian military leaders including the head of the navy. >> what we announced today indicates it wa...

>> harris: lets bring in john roberts for more on all of this. >> melissa, good afternoon to you, it was quite an extraordinary event, the first time we have had a briefing in well over 100 days. and it was the secretary of the treasury coming out today to announce these new sanctions against iran targeted at the supreme leader, the ayatollah human knee and his office, and it really is going for the top s time as opposed to intermediaries or a smaller fish, you go right to the top, the president...

Debris from that drone that they shot down. it was very small pieces of debris. they say they shot it down at about 50,000 feet so a very, very high altitude. the debris that they founding was swimming in their territorial waters. the iranians maintain it was violating iranian airspace when they shot it down. then they said something which was quite troubling. because the iranians were saying that they could have shot down, they were looking at shooting down a p-8 american spy plane that they sa...

Anderson. >> pamela brown, appreciate it. thank you. cnns fred pleitgen is the only western correspondent in tehran where its early in the morning right now. he joins us. so president trump is saying it could have been a general or somebody who made a mistake and decided to shoot down this drone. is that -- what exactly are the iranians saying? ? >> reporter: well, the iranians are pretty much saying the exact opposite of that. ive been looking for any sort of statements, any iranian commander, ...

President trump, the lead in, where he says this could have been some sort of rogue commander, someone making a mistake. the iranians are unequivocally saying this is not a mistake. they are saying they shot down the drone because it went into their air space. the u.s. says the drone was shot down outside of iranian air space about 20 miles off the iranian coast. however, irans foreign minister came out with a tweet and he even put coordinates in the tweet. we checked those out. those would put ...

Some curiosity, one can only assume, long before ten minutes about what the risk is to americans if he were to give that final thumbs up. so these tweets are interesting but not perhaps fully comprehensive about the briefings and the thinking that was going on at the white house last night. >> in some ways raising new questions. fred, what are we hearing from iran about all this? >> reporter: well, the iranians are continuing, erica, to dispel the notions that the president put out there yesterd...

Area. the pentagon is saying something different, but iranians are clearly say this was not a mistake. >> this drone, wolf, by the way was shot down by irans revolutionary guard corps, which we know is the most elite military under. allege just one last thing, also saying that they have recovered parts of that drone, so were expecting to see those here in tehran, possibly on iranian tv within the next couple hours, possibly within the next couple days. stand by, barbara, the pentagon suggested...

The gulf of oman. a source has told cnn the president privately down played the significance of the attacks because the tankers werent american. and deliberations continue tonight in the administration about iran. officials have said prior to the latest act that president trump has been resisting military engagement but now the president is facing growing pressure from allies like lindsey graham who said today the president risks looking like he is all talk if he doesnt take action. wolf? >> tha...

Mistake. what an interesting characterization from the president. it sounds like he is trying to de-escalate this, does not want to suggest this was an act of war that the united states needs to retaliate. >> but he is not willing to say it was in iranian air space. he is clearly saying it was in international. >> nbc correspondent hans nichols joins us live from the white house and we go also live to iran. hans, well start with you. you heard the president say youll find out about the respons...

What does that mean? >> there will be monetary damages and the other thing, i think, it has canceled air flights to ukraine. i think youll find a lot of airlines not be willing to fly tos moscow anymore because theyd have to go this way, and that will hurt them in addition to the sanctions, and i think since there will be most likely europeans than americans theyll get much tougher with the sanctions and theyre not going to go as far as we did just consider the. >> 233 people have been identifie...