Trump says downed U.S. jet won't affect Iran negotiations

Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Kristen Welker in Washington and we are following major breaking news in the war with Iran after an American F-15 fighter jet was shot down by Iran today deep inside Iranian airspace. It's believed the two pilots ejected from that aircraft. One pilot has been rescued and is alive and a search and rescue operation is underway right now for the second pilot. We're also just learning that two U.S. military helicopters involved in the F-15 search and rescue efforts were struck by Iranian fire, but the service members are safe, according to a U.S. official. Iran's state media released these images of what appear to be fragments of that downed fighter jet. A regional governor in southwest Iran is calling on Iranians to try to find the missing American, promising a substantial reward. This video appearing to show a U.S. C-130 tanker and two helicopters flying over southern Iran as the U.S. is conducting its search and rescue operation. The White House says the president has been briefed on the incident, which marks a significant escalation in the war. This is the first time that we know of that a U.S. aircraft has been shot down behind enemy lines since the conflict began almost five weeks ago. Now, all of this comes after President Trump has for several weeks now been touting the success of the U.S. military operations against Iran and claiming U.S. dominance over Iranian airspace. Here's just some of what he said, including during his primetime address to the nation just two days ago. In a certain sense, we've already won because we've knocked out their navy, we've knocked out their air force, and we knocked out all of their communications, their telecommunications, and very importantly, we knocked out their anti-aircraft apparatus. We are systematically dismantling the regime's ability to threaten America or project power outside of their borders. That means eliminating Iran's navy, which is now absolutely destroyed, hurting their air force and their missile program at levels never seen before. They have no anti-aircraft equipment. Their radar is 100 percent annihilated. We are unstoppable as a military force, and the country has been eviscerated and essentially is really no longer a threat. Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also claimed Iran's military has been significantly degraded. The upcoming days will be decisive. Iran knows that, and there's almost nothing they can militarily do about it. Yes, they will still shoot some missiles, but we will shoot them down. Joining me now is NBC News Senior White House Correspondent Garrett Haake, NBC News Senior Homeland Security Correspondent Courtney Kubi, NBC News Military Analyst, Retired Army Colonel Steve Warren, and NBC News International Correspondent Matt Bradley, who is in Tel Aviv. Courtney, I'm going to start with you. You have been tracking this since we first learned about it. What is the very latest? We don't have any huge developments in the last few hours anyway, and that is that the U.S. was able to find one of the individuals who's on this downed F-15 Strike Eagle, F-15E. An official tells us that it looks as if Iran was responsible for shooting down this aircraft the first time that we know of in this war, that Iran has actually been able to down a manned aircraft inside of Iran. One of the pilots or one of the individuals, airmen on board, was rescued. The other one, there is still an extensive search and rescue effort to find that person. It is urgent. It's dark now in Iran, and they are very concerned because Iranian officials are probably looking for the person as well. Colonel Warren, can you put all of this into perspective for us? How significant is this? Here we are five weeks into this war, and Iran has shot down this F-15 fighter jet. Sure. Losing an aircraft, having an aircraft shot down is always significant. It's a significant emotional event for all involved. I think some context is important. They've flown more than 13,000 sorties thus far without a plane being shot down. That in and of itself is remarkable. Those numbers are extraordinary. Now what we have is 100 or more American service members putting their lives at risk to bring that last pilot home. We know that they're working really hard to do that. Garrett Haake, let me go out to you at the White House. You just spoke with President Trump by phone. What did he say to you? What's the reaction been at the White House today, Garrett? Well, Kristen, the White House has been uncharacteristically quiet and extremely careful with their messaging around this shootdown. The president did not want to talk about the specifics of it with me at all. He even asked for a portion of the conversation to be off the record. He's clearly to some degree frustrated at the coverage, at the images, and the possibility that that might make finding this surviving pilot more difficult. But on the big picture, it doesn't appear to change anything about his view of the long term. I asked him whether the events of today would affect any negotiations that might be going on with Iran, and he said, no, not at all. And he said, this is notable, he said, this is war. It is war. And I think just the tone of that, you know, it wasn't an excursion. It wasn't a detour. I think the seriousness of this moment is not lost on this White House, you know, as we're in this sort of a bit of a holding pattern here, essentially, including the White House, everyone desperate to find out more information about that second aviator. Well, you had a short conversation, Garrett, but a significant one because he said that this doesn't necessarily impact negotiations and because he did call it a war. Matt Bradley, let me go out to you. You have been covering this in the region. What are you hearing about the reaction from Iran? Obviously, as Courtney just noted, Iranian officials are calling on people to try to locate this pilot. Not only that, and offering a reward, as you mentioned, about 60,000 U.S. dollars, which doesn't sound like that very much. But they are still fanning out. We're seeing some videos of Iranians looking for these two men, one of them, of course, already captured. Excuse me, one of them already recovered, one of them now entirely missing and whereabouts and status unknown. You know, this is something that we could actually see going on for the next couple of days. We know we've been hearing from experts who know about the U.S. military and their capabilities. These pilots have been trained to survive. But meanwhile, this really just goes to show that the Iranians are still able to punch back. Now, five weeks into this war, we've been hearing more reports of strikes against Gulf countries like Abu Dhabi, which got another death today. Five weeks into the war, we're still seeing the Iranians striking here in Israel, not only with their ballistic missiles, but also through their proxies, Hezbollah, in Lebanon, where the war, Israel's ground war against Hezbollah, is widening. So still, after what you had just played, all of those comments by Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, Donald Trump himself, saying that the U.S. now enjoys almost complete dominance and air superiority over Iran with four, excuse me, three now U.S. aircraft, at least, that have been struck today. It seems that it is a very strange moment for the Trump administration if they're going to continue to say that they enjoy this dominance, as Garret Haig has said. It sounds as though they are quieting a little bit at this moment. They're going to keep the boasting down until they can find this other soldier. Well, I think it's a really critical point, Matt, that you make. And Courtney, let me have you pick up on this, because President Trump addressed the nation this week on Wednesday. And part of his argument was the United States has established air dominance over Iran. How does the fact that Iran has just shot down this F-15 fighter jet impact those statements, those claims by President Trump? Does it undercut them? Absolutely. It also proves that, look, the U.S. can have air superiority over an area, but that doesn't mean that it's still not dangerous for U.S. aircraft to fly over there, unless they want to put constant combat air patrols up over, and unless they are confident that they have taken out every single air defense system on the ground, which we know they have not. Now, the U.S. military has really degraded their air defense capabilities in the last month or so. They've taken out a lot of their ballistic missiles, their drones, but the threat from every, every single threat that Iran had when this war began, they still have, just at a smaller scale. And what today is proving is that they still have the ability to really hold U.S. aircraft, U.S. troops in harm's way, in danger, if they're flying over the country. Colonel Warren, pick up on this point. What do you make of the air defense capability that Iran may still have based on this incident in which it shot down an F-15 fighter jet? Right, air superiority, air dominance, those do not mean threat completely eliminated, right? And we don't know yet if this aircraft was shot down by one of their more sophisticated systems, part of the integrated air defense, or if it was shot down by a guy with something on his shoulder, right? Or even just gunfire can do it, the old-fashioned 50-caliber machine gun shooting into the sky. They have those as well. So we don't know yet. What we do know is it's a high-threat environment. This is combat. Colonel Warren, how do pilots prepare for this type of a mission, not just to conduct it, but if the worst case happens, which it did, that your aircraft is shot down and that you have to try to survive? This is such a human thing, right? This is very human. And there's no way to fully prepare. These pilots are so well-trained, though. We send them to a three-week-long escape, evasion, resistance, and survival school. It's a very demanding school, very, very rigorous, where they are actually captured and put through the wringer, so to speak. They also learn terrain navigation, how to hide, how to run, how to call for help, how to survive in the wilderness. It's exceptional school. Not very many people go through it, and when they come out of it, they're ready. Courtney, take us inside your conversations with Pentagon defense officials today, the level of concern. Obviously, they prepare for this, and yet this is a potentially worst-case scenario. I think the thing that proves the level of concern is so high is the fact that we have not heard anything from President Trump today about this. The fact that they have been able to explain to President Trump the gravity of the situation, that there is an American behind enemy lines in direct danger right now. There is an urgent search to find this person, and that anything that is said publicly could potentially put that search at risk. And if you want to know the gravity of it, the president hasn't put anything on Truth Social or spoken publicly about it today, and I think that that in and of itself shows it. I mean, the one thing, Steve is so right about the fear school and how that is such an important capability and set of skills and knowledge that airmen have. It's not just that. The U.S., in advance of a big mission lower war, this is a war, right? The U.S. will put forward personnel recovery teams in the region really close, and they're on a constant state of readiness so that if something like this happens, they immediately deploy them to try to go and find these people. And it's the one thing that I always imagine, you know, Steve said this is so personal, and he's right. It's a very human thing. I always wonder what are these people thinking when they're on the ground, they're hiding, they're trying to evade. And the one thing that must give them a lot of comfort is knowing that there are highly trained combat search and rescue people who are very brave to go in and do what they're doing right now. And they are doing everything they can to find them for their life. It's extraordinary. It's extraordinary to think that they were able to rescue the one pilot who was there. Garrett, let me turn back to you. I want you to pick up on the point that Courtney is making the fact that we haven't heard from the president yet. Garrett, you can probably count on a few fingers the number of days that we have not heard from President Trump in the second administration. What are your conversations in terms of when we might hear from him and the strategy behind when he has decided to speak out like this Wednesday, for example? Yeah, the conversations are short because there's just not much information to be had at this point. And the White House knows that. I don't think they want the president out speculating on what might or might not be happening on the ground in Iran right now. I would never correct Courtney on anything related to military matters, but I will on a truth social because, in fact, the president has posted just within the last hour, keep the oil, anyone, a four word tweet about one of his favorite topics. And by the way, I do think this is related. He's been talking more about this idea in just the last couple of days. His preference, as he has stated it, that the U.S. should go up and seize the Strait of Hormuz and take whatever oil is available to be taken from Iran. It's a position he's been espousing for 20 plus years. It's fundamental to how he views armed conflict. And I think it also the fact that he's sharing it in this moment speaks to the idea that his risk tolerance may be greater than that of some of the other folks around him. He suggested in that Easter lunch event earlier this week that, you know, he would take the oil that he thinks the American people just want to win. The fact that he's still posting about it in this moment of peril here for U.S. forces, I think, is indicative of the big picture way in which he sees this conflict. Yeah. And also raises questions, Garrett, about whether he is open to and strongly considering sending in U.S. forces. Matt, let me turn to you. How are Gulf countries reacting to this moment? Are they bracing for the possibility of what could be an escalation in the wake of this? Well, I mean, the fact is, when we talk about Gulf countries, there's already been an escalation as far as Gulf countries are concerned. They have not seen anything change. The fact that an American Air Force ship was shot down probably won't change anything for the Gulf. We've already seen them taking sustained attacks by the Iranians now for several weeks. And we just had, as I mentioned, another fatality just today in Abu Dhabi. More Gulf states reporting that they've been receiving and shooting down, for the most part, Iranian projectiles. So the situation for the Gulf is probably unlikely to change just because of this. This is going to be seen, if anything, as an American defeat in the Middle East. So this is probably not going to inflame Iran anymore and cause it to lash out against American allies in the region. If it does anything, it will comfort Iran and its regime that they have done exactly what the president, President Trump and Pete Hegseth said they couldn't do, which is take down American planes over Iranian skies, showing that America and Israel do not have air dominance there. Colonel Warren, let me go back to you. There's been a lot of discussion about the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump in his Wednesday night address called on other countries that use the Strait of Hormuz to reopen it. Then in a post today, he said that if we have a little bit more time, the U.S. can reopen it effectively. Just how complicated is it to reopen this strait that is so significant to the world's energies? It's going to be a highly complicated mission, to put it simply, right? We'll need ships. We'll need air power. You'll need air power over top of that strait 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You'll need to position ships in various locations to keep anything from the sea from coming in. And you'll probably end up having to escort friendly ships through. So it is going to be a time intensive and a resource intensive operation to try to get that Strait of Hormuz open. Well, and Court, before we go, I do want to ask you about against the backdrop of this war, you reported on a shakeup within the Pentagon, Secretary Hegseth firing the top military officer at the DOD. Yeah, I mean, what's so shocking about this is exactly what we're talking about right now. The U.S. is in the middle of a war in Iran. And so it's unorthodox for a member of the joint chiefs, the army chief of staff, to be fired in the middle of the war. The officials we spoke with said it had nothing to do with the war in Iran. We have seen that in the past. You'll recall that there have been times where the head of General McKiernan, General McChrystal, they were fired when they were running the war in Afghanistan. The difference here is this appears to be because of a grudge. This is because Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had a grudge against General George, and he not only fired him, but two other senior generals in the U.S. military. And this all comes against the backdrop of some new reporting that we have about how Secretary Hegseth is reaching down into the personnel lists of these general officers and flag officers, the admirals. And he seems to be almost line item taking people out who are selected for promotion or selected for a new job. And what's concerning officials about it is he seems to be focusing on women and black men and taking them off the list. So, you know, the promotion and the personnel system at the Pentagon is definitely not running the way that we are used to seeing it. Well, it's a story that I know you'll continue to focus on, even as you continue to report on the war. We really appreciate it. Courtney, Colonel Warren, thank you so much. Garrett, as well as Matt, really appreciate you all starting us off today.