NPR’s Steve Inskeep asks CNN’s Fred Pleitzen for takeaways from his recent reporting trip to Iran.
Steve Inskip, Host:
One of the few international journalists reporting from inside Iran during the war is CNN Senior International Correspondent Fred Pleitzen. He has left Iran and has joined us now from Berlin, where communications are a little better. good morning
Fred Pletzen: Good morning.
INSKEEP: Just…
Pleitzen: Thanks for having me.
INSKEEP: Yes. Glad you are with us. tell me a story How did you get in?
Plitzen: Yes. So we – we had visas approved by the Iranian government and then obviously nothing was flying into Iran now, at least no civilian aircraft, we took the underground route. It was me and my camerawoman and producer, Claudia Otto, who did an absolutely amazing job, you know, taking care of the logistics, getting us there. And I’m obviously filming everything and I’m forever indebted to her…
INSKEEP: Yes.
Pleitzen: …for going with me. But we took the land route. We flew into Yerevan, Armenia and had to drive about nine hours to the border with Iran. When we arrived at the border, the border guards told us that the border was closed. We are not going to enter. So we had to negotiate our way out. They finally let us. And then I’d say we have about a 12-hour drive from the border to Tehran, where we’ve already seen some damage from the airstrikes. We actually saw some airstrikes, even the immediate aftermath. So you can really feel like you’re on the ground in a war-torn country.
INSKEEP: Yes. Really dramatic pictures. I saw some of them as your report unfolded. I would like to mention, here is my experience in Iran in the past. You have to move carefully. You will obviously be monitored in various ways, but you can move around. You can talk to people and people are surprisingly clear about their opinions. That is past experience. What about this time?
Plitzen: Yes. Well, first of all, people are not clear with their opinions, especially if they are against the government. As you know, there were very few people to speak openly. However, people were very honest if they were in favor of the government. And we were able to talk to a greater number of people, but it was more restricted than it had been before. Basically, what we did was when we wanted to go somewhere and film something, we talked to the Ministry of Culture and see, we wanted to go there and there. And then, is that okay with you? And then we went there. We have initiative. He suggested things once in a while, but it was really up to us – whether we wanted to go there or not. So we managed to do all the things we wanted to do. But, of course, right now, when the security situation is like this, if you have an airstrike somewhere and the security forces surround the area, it can be a problem. So we definitely have to organize things more than we have in the past.
INSKEEP: Right. In the end, though, you were able to report what you found. You didn’t have a restriction on that, did you?
Pleitzen: No. We have fully reported what we found. We went where we needed to go. For example, an oil storage facility is hit and we have…
INSKEEP: Yes.
Pleitzen: …to negotiate with them whether or not we can go there, because that’s obviously critical infrastructure. Security forces are also around. But eventually they agreed to it too and let us go there and shoot it.
INSKEEP: One of the things about War Zone is that the story comes to you. And I remember the day you were in Tehran and the Israelis hit that oil storage facility, and the sky over Tehran was black and it looked like it was raining oil. What was it like in the city where it was raining oil?
Pleitzen: I’ll tell you, it was probably one of the most unusual experiences I’ve ever had there because we – at night, we already saw that there were big airstrikes going on. And one of the things about the situation in Tehran right now is that you don’t feel safe anywhere because you constantly hear the airstrikes and the ammunition that falls there is so heavy that you know that the building you’re in, even if it’s a residential building, will be completely leveled. So it’s — it’s a constant thing. And then we saw a plume of smoke over those oil installations south of Tehran, especially west of Tehran.
And the morning after that, I woke up and saw that the whole sky was black and it was raining. And I went out on our roof terrace, and I saw soot or oil mixed with the rainwater falling down. And one thing I felt was that my lungs got really heavy after going there that day. So I don’t know if it was, you know, what was in the air there. I got a headache after which you know the air is quite polluted.
INSKEEP: I guess your laundry must be something, and millions of people’s laundry…
Pleitzen: Yes.
INSKEEP: …there must be something after that. You said nowhere is safe and I wonder about the specifics of that. At least once you went and spoke to a senior Iranian official. You are going to government offices and you know very well that the Israelis are targeting government offices in the United States. how was it
Pleitzen: Yes. That’s – it’s interesting that you said that because that was definitely one of those moments where I felt, you know, you want to get the interview over with as quickly as possible. You want to be there. Obviously, you should be there. The official I spoke to was the Supreme Leader’s foreign policy advisor. So certainly the most important figure right now is shaping the way the Iranians respond to US and Israeli bombings. So a really important person to talk to. But, yeah, I mean, staying in that building for a long period of time felt a bit distasteful, especially after seeing so many other government buildings that had already been removed.
INSKEEP: And that’s one of the main reasons to go to a country that’s on the other side of the war. You want to know how Iranian decision makers are thinking about the situation. American officials should know this. So what have you learned from the way Iranian officials view this war?
Pleitzen: So from my point of view, from what I’ve seen, I think what you have in Iran right now is really a consolidation of power around much tougher things. A slight attempt to escalate matters was made when Iran’s president apologized to neighboring countries for firing towards their territory. But obviously, President Trump rejected it immediately. And since then you can really see the hard-liners consolidating. With the new supreme leader that you have in place now, I think he is very much in line with the security apparatus with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
And if you look at the people who are texting more publicly right now, it’s also a tough liner. It is the head of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, the head of the Parliament, Mohammad Bagar Ghalibaf. The real hardliners are saying that the Iranians are going to continue this war. So it seems to me that the decision has been made that they have consolidated their power base in Tehran for the time being. The military feels they are on a much firmer footing now than they were perhaps initially when those initial attacks occurred.
INSKEEP: Wow.
Pleitzen: They think they can still put pressure on the region. They think they can still fire missiles and now they are going to continue to do so. They say they cannot negotiate. And obviously, one thing that they think is their main tool in their toolbox is the Strait of Hormuz and it will be closed to shipping unless the Iranians allow it to go through. The thing is that they think they can put pressure on the international community to try and end the war. But again, the Iranians are now saying they are willing to go ahead with it.
INSKEEP: There’s only a few seconds left, but President Trump at one point talked about encouraging the Iranians to stand up. Wali Nasr, an analyst who attended the event, said people are now more wedded to their government because of the attacks. In just a few seconds, do you feel revolted?
Pletzen: I didn’t see any of that. It’s obviously very difficult for us to really penetrate society, but it certainly seems to me, given the amount of security forces on the ground, that the government is definitely trying to show that they’re very much in control.
INSKEEP: Fred Pleitzen is CNN’s senior international correspondent and he has left Iran. Thank you very much for your report.
Pleitzen: Thank you.
(musical soundbite)
Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. For more information visit our Website Terms of Use and Permissions pages at www.npr.org.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or accommodate updates to the audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The official record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
