a vd good morning to you. i'm richard lui. we have breaking news out of the middle east. they're reporting that iran's president was killed in a helicopter crash sunday. the president was traveling back from the visit to the iranian

border when the helicopter he was traveling in made a crash landing. fur hours rescue workers were searching for the wreckage and any survivors. there were no survivors. bad weather impeded the search. u.s. majority senate leader chuck schumer says intelligence authorities informed him there was no evidence of foul play and looks like an accident, but it's still being viewed as an accident. the death comes at a volatile time in this region. iran and israel have exchanged attacks on each other and militant groups attacked israel as well as ships in the red sea. the country's supreme leader still remains in control over iran after this unfortunate news. let's go to nbc chief

correspondent richard engel. richard, as you have been following this story, what is the right way to look at this, summarize it, and what are the reactions that you're looking for from the region? >> reporter: so this was a shocking turn of events. a helicopter crash. i also am hearing from sources that foul weather, not foul play are believed to be responsible. the fact that the president was traveling in this area in high fog does indicate that -- and dense fog does indicate that weather was most likely the factor and that is presumed to have been the factor. he was traveling in a three-helicopter convoy. one of the helicopters crashed. woe first learned about this about 12 hours ago and that

meant the period of darkness in iran. search parties, mountaineers all dispatched to the area, other aircraft as well, drones, but according to iranians after a 12-hour search -- more or less, longer, but that's how long this has been in the public domain -- we have been speculating what this meant. there was a presumption he did not survive the helicopter crash because of where it went down in dense forests, a mountainous area between iran and azerbaijan. there are two questions. what happens in the short term. how does iran find a new president? how does it find new leadership? and what happens to the future of iran as the islamic theocracy, revolutionary theocracy that has been in place

since 1979 because ricy was the presum active successor. he was only one of two names. talking about the leader is a taboo subject. this is not a situation like in the united states and on cable television, we have almost endless speculation of what will happen and who comes up. it's not allowed, considered too highly sensitive. but now this private conversation has been forced out into the open because of the unexpected death of the president, and those two questions will be who takes over immediately, according to their constitution? it should be the vice president. he would have an election within 50 days. he may not do that because these are uncharted times. they may hold off larger and try

to work it out. the larger issue is who is going to replace the supreme leader. so this is something the united states will be watching extraordinarily closely, something that israel will be watching extraordinarily closely because we are in the middle of a hot war in the middle east, a hot war that just last month had the potential of breaking out into a regional war with the united states and with iran because of the tensions. he did not direct the october 7th attack, but certainly has been supportive of it, certainly has celebrated it, certainly has been championing hamas, and it seems quite likely, according to analysts and intelligence sources that i've been talking to, that iran's external positions are not going to change. but in the immediate shorm term,

they may have to be slightly more focused on domestic affairs, and it could be a period in the very short term in which they are not as interested in having a new escalatory round with israel, a new escalatory round with hezbollah potentially just in the short term because they have to sort out these very significant leadership questions at home. >> richard, let's bring in nbc chief national correspondent keir simmons who's in the region of this very recent breaking news story. keir, as we were looking at some of the video before, which you were reporting on earlier sunday, the thickness of this fog, as well as, according to iran's state media, that many of these 40 or more rescue teams were on foot for two kilometers trying to get to the site. what were some of the conditions on the lead-up? and, of okay, the question that

remains for many just joining us is why and how. >> reporter: well, it was clearly a very, very difficult effort, and given that there were those on board, it was a combined effort to try to search for the helicopter and see if there were in survivors. you can see from the pictures, president ricy was there to inaugurate a dance. i can tell you a little bit about the area. it's near the iranian border, and it was foggy. as richard said, it was foggy, absolutely foggy. keep in mind, this is a region where conspiracy theory pictures

are the norm. we've had iranian officials talk about the weather as the cause. now we'll wait to see. it's now morning time, breakfast time. the gulf just across the water from iran, so people will be taking this in. for many people, they'll be waking up to this news right now. how iran framed it, the blame that iran talks about, whether it be the weather, whether they talk about issues with the helicopter or make other kinds of accusations, keep in mind, no matter what the reality, any of those are possible depending upon the politics in iran. and what the supreme leader thinks is expeditious for him

and iran, that's going to be the primary focus. they just lost the president and the prime minister. they'll try to stow stability in their own country, their own domestic concerns. already actually you heard the supreme leader even prior to the announcement that president ricy has died, making a statement, saying we pray to god he will be found, but also saying to the iran ian people -- i'm essentially paraphrasing -- don't worry, this will not be affecting the politics of the country. i think these hours, despite the clear evidence of what is likely to have caused it, these hours will be unpredictable, and instability will be the guiding force, frankly, in these coming hours, and that will be worrying

leaders here in the gulf where i am all the way to with us. you heard the breaking news that the iranian president was killed in a helicopter crash, and we just got this in over the knights, what else do we nobody this? it was not only the president on this helicopter but the prime minister also unfortunately. >> no, that's right. the foreign minister as well as the governor of east azerbaijan. of course, there's security

detail. two most important have died, the president and the foreign minister. that means there will be a major shakeup on the government of iran following the next few days and, of course, leading up to that election. what we are going to see over the next few nights are the news. the president lost his life and it will be announced officially. they were praying out, asking for prayers for them. they were showing a large group of -- images of people praying. what we expect state media to do in the next few hour will be to show the outpouring of mourning

by the iranian people, perhaps praying for ricy. what the general feeling across iran is, we don't know. the way state media operates, they will concentrate in particular on that. now, as richard and keir were saying, we know that it was very bad weather and foggy conditions because we've seen the rescuers on foot, trying to reach the region of the crash, and you could basically make out the people there because there was short visibility a few meters. state media said when they reached that site about a couple of hours ago, we got confirmation from state media there was no sign of life, and only an hour later with anchors on one channel, state media in

iran, wearing black in sign of clear mourning, anticipating that the news was something we were waiting to hear. it will be very interesting to hear how this plays out. today what we'll see, we'll see the iranian people mourning. we'll see leaders reacting from around the world. but it will be interesting to see whether the ayatollah and other leaders will take this opportunity perhaps to stir emotions and blame intervention or influence or foreign agents from, for instance, israel or the united states, or whether they will stick through what is most likely the cause for the crash, what we know now is bad weather or perhaps a combination of bad weather and the condition of the helicopter that the president and foreign minister were flying in.

>> claudio lavanga, keir simmons, and richard engel, stand by. we're going to take a short break. now what will the united states do with this latest development? we'll a3r0e67 that subject when we return on the breaking news of the death of iran's president right after this. of the death of iran's president right after this

we continue to follow the breaking news out of iran, iran state tv announcing the country's president ebrahim raisi killed in a helicopter crash on sunday. again, iran tv confirming that the president of iran was killed in a helicopter crash. if you're just joining us on msnbc, leading up to this news was the word or terms of a hard crash, lost, unknown in terms of where this helicopter was, that the president, iran state tv had boarded, along with two other

helicopters, a total of three, according to, again, iran state media. we now know, according to iran state media, that in the crash site you see on the screen in the upper left in the north of iran, that the helicopter of iran's president had indeed crashed, and no signs of life were found at this crash site. some of the video you see on the left side that we received from iran state media as well as is very clear here, that the fog, according to the story line up to today is consistent with, if this video is close to the location of the crash site. claudio lavanga is still with us, international correspondent. claudio, as we look at what might the reactions coming forward from this news, what should we be looking out for, not only from the region, also from europe as well as the

united states as in this region as we've been discussing at least at the start of this hour, the level of instability to begin with was of quite a notable level >> of course, richard, we received the first -- or at least i just received the first reaction as you would expect coming from hamas. as you know, of course, iran and hamas were strongly linked. iran has been supporting the cause for a long time and has supported hamas financially and also with training, and there was a lot of speculation how involved it could have been or how much it could have helped hamas during the october 7th day tacks, even though iran has always denied direct involve management. hamas has sent out a direct statement in the last few minutes saying that it offers its sincere condolences to the

iranian people and to the ayatollah. i says, we are confident the republic of iran will be able to overcome the repercussion of this loss. the dear iranian people have ancient institutions capable of dealing with this severe ordeal. now, again, this is an official statement from hamas. you would expect them to be one of the first to react. now, it is about 7:20 in the morning here in rome and in the rest of continental europe, a bit earlier, of course, in london and the eastern parts of europe. so we're still awaiting reaction from leaders from across here to come in. it will be very interesting to see what they are. but, this statement from hamas is interesting because it will say that the ancient institution is capable of dealing with a

severe ordeal. what that means is that clearly as richard was saying earlier, the president -- the death of the president of iran doesn't really create the major issues in the way iran is run simply because the main leader of iran is the supreme leader, the ayatollah khamenei. and one of the major impacts is that president raisi was one of the -- if not the front-runner to replace ali khamenei as supreme leader. now, really iran still has a supreme leader. that is the supreme leader that the iranian people answers to, the iranian government answers to, the iranian president

answers to the supreme leader, so this will only be a matter of, let's say, of finding a new president with the same, perhaps, hard-line policies of raisi so as not to create any problems, confusion in a way that this country is being run. but the one immediate thing that, of course, we are interested in is the reactions from around the world. we just got the reaction from hamas, and we're awaiting for reactions as leaders across europe especially because here they're just waking up to this news. richard? >> yeah, well, that reaction of the news from hamas, let's go back to richard engel. this is something you've covered very deeply. as you look at the reaction of hamas, what does it mean to lose one of the key operational leaders, the president of iran, to the very proxy wars that iran has engaged in in the area, the

militant groups they have supported? does it get a hiccup for the moment? probably does not. iran -- hamas is correct in one sense in saying that iran does have institutions, but that you're not instant institutions. theocracy in iran is relatively recent, is relatively new. you had systems of kings and shahs that ran iran for years. the entire system was abolished in 1979 when you had the arrival of the iranian revolutionary system, and there's only been two supreme leader. the first one, ayatollah khamenei and the new one.

this is a new theocracy. if you remember there was the iran/american war and the radical movement where there was a student takeover. iranians decided with protests on the street and a quick takeover by the theocracy was the way to go forward in iran was to have a state controlled system with clerics in charge, a state of the theocracy. you have someone who is the shadow of god who is the interpreter of god's will for the people of iran. he doesn't manage the day-to-day affairs, he's not in charge of building bridges and collecting trash, but he sets the guidance of the country, all major

decisions. all appointments go through the supreme leader, and the supreme leader has held the country under a tight grip in terms of moral policy. all of this is related because of theocracy. what kind of clothing women can wear, roads that are closed off. the current leader is 85 years old. he's only the second supreme leader in the country, and president raisi was the leading successor to take it over. the loss for iran is a double blow. one, it creates a short-term crisis that i think hamas is right about, they will be able to get through this. don't expect any change of policy from iran that's suddenly going to cut off support for

iran and the palestinian people. iran has ruled through proxies. that's something they did before -- through proxies in the region. they have hezbollah, iran, the houthis. that's something they did before raisi and something they're likely to do after him as well, but the fundamental shift that i think people will be watching is this a moment when the clerics, though those who dress in religious garb wear the turban who are the ultimate interpreters at the very top of the system, will this shape their leadership role? do we now see iran transitioning from a pew pure theocracy or is this an opportunity for the revolution air guard to assert itself and take over? i've been thinking about this for the last 12 hours or so, and in many ways we could be at a

yeltsin/putin moment. yeltsin was toward the end of his career v sick s seen as an alcoholic, someone who couldn't hold the country together, and went to someone from the security services, went to someone who was an unknown factor, and we saw transition away from the soviet leadership, away from the bureau, away from big established names, and moving toward the lesser known figures, apper ratch nicks who take over and start to propose a more military dictatorship, perhaps with the same covers of the ayatollah -- a supreme leader. but who would ultimately have the supreme power? would it be the supreme leader

and the religious circle around him who look for religious text, or will it be the revolutionary guard who carry out the day-to-day powers? will they now assume more of a greater leadership low with perhaps a fig leaf religious leader? i think that's the potential inflection point that iran is at right now. does it continue as it wering, being guided by clerics who commune with god who then carry it out through the rev guard, or does the rev guard see this opportunity, step up, take power for itself, around change the structure of the rule where the clerics now would potentially in that scenario be more of a symbolic role, we will see. but i think that's the fundamental power struggle that's playing out behind the scenes. in terms of international reaction, i think the statements will be very short.

if you hear statements from european leaders or president biden or others, they're not going to say we extend our great condolences and our heartfelt thoughts and prayers to this man. i think they'll keep it very short to the lines of we're following the events very shortly and following the trend. something like that. you'll hear supportive groups like hezbollah and others come out with long effusive statements. but i think european leaders are now going to be meeting with their intelligence services quite closely and try to do a little bit of criminology or iranology and looking at this dark opaque system and say, okay, what does this mean for succession and what does it mean for iran and everyone else. >> india's prime minister talking about it with his

reaction. posting on social media, deeply saddened and shocked by the tragic demise of dr. seyed ebrahim raisi, president of the islamic republican of iran. his contribution to strengthening india/iran's relationship. india will always be supportive of iran. there was an operator at the time who was taking advantage of that particular context who is now the leader of russia, vladimir putin. and as you were mentioning the possibility of the hard right military, are there certain actors that could take action, if you will, of the current instability, and do have the ears of certain people that could actually make this happen?

who might we watch, if that should be the case? >> quite a few. that reaction from modi, more emotional than i expected. i don't believe we're going to hear president biden going that far or most european leaders going that far. that's quite interesting. that's a symbol from india they want to reach out and get engaged in the same way as putin. the most praise will come from vladimir putin because iran under raisi has been shoring up the russian military campaign against ukraine. iran has been providing a great number of drones that iran has been using -- that russia has been using very effectively in its attacks along the front line. also sometimes you see the attacks on cities in ukraine including odessa and even kyiv.

in terms of other players who might emerge and where is that power struggle going to be, the other name, the other two -- there were two names that were always talked about in private, one being raisi and no longer in consideration because of this helicopter crash, which, my understanding is also foul weather, not foul play, but the other was the son of the supreme leader. he is the son of the current supreme leader. he is someone who the supreme leader at some stage wanted to replace him, but there was opposition to that. there were people who -- that's why raisi had effectively emerged as a consensus candidate in these closed circles because -- by the way, very little is

known about his son. he's not someone who gives interviews. i don't think i've ever heard his voice. i've seen a few pictures of him. iran operates very much in the shadows when it comes to its leadership. they have elections, but the elections are generally not legitimate and are a bit of an electoral and democratic theater. but behind the scenes, the move to replace the supreme leader, there were always these two names. the supreme leader's current son and raisi. this helicopter crash eliminates raisi, so it takes him out of the running, but it doesn't mean that the world lead're's son is the front-runner now. one would think that is about po, but, again, in the environment in iran where you have deep suspicions, you have

power plays, you have a mysterious crash in the fog in the midst of a war, it would be difficult now for the supreme leader and those around him to suddenly appoint the supreme leader's son. many people would view that with even more suspicion. they'd say, oh, this was some sort of assassination lead, this was the supreme leader trying to orchestrate a situation where he could put his son into power. so i think this unexpected crash makes it more testify for him to try and put in his son because it would -- it would look -- it would look bad. it would look conspiratorial at this stage. meaning, going back to what i was saying, we have a potential yeltsin/putin scenario. you reach into the crowd for faces that are not public, not

known outside of inner circles, much like vladimir putin was seen at the timing someone seen as a steady set of hands but someone who can drive the ship. keep it moving without emerging himself as that type of personality. it didn't work in russia, that's what yeltsin had in mind, the system would keep moving on. what, instead, we saw was a state takeover of security services, and i think that's possible what we're going to see in iran as well, a takeover of the security services, vis-a-vis, the clerical rules, vis-a-vis, the actually theocracy that's been in power since 1979. it could be a historic turning point, a shift. but we're talking about eternal shifts in iran, that i don't think those interacting with iran outside the united states

and others you're going to necessarily see great changes in policy, but a profound stone in the road that could -- stone in the river that could change the course of the water for iranian politics. >> by a process that's expected now with the breaking news of iran's president dying in a helicopter crash, according to iran state tv, it's expecting that the vice president of iran would now step in. who is mohammed music bar? we'll have that right after a short break. t right after a short break.

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welcome back. iran state tv just announcing the connecticut's president ebrahim raisi was killed in a helicopter crash on sunday. he was travelinging to the iranian border when the helicopter he was traveling in made a crash landing. for hours, rescue workers were searching for the wreckage and any survivors. they found the crash site. there were no survivors, according to iran state tv. bad weather contributing to the crash and it slowed down search-and-rescue efforts on the way. senate majority leader chuck

schumer said he was informed there was no foul evidence suggested in this crash. let's go to keir simmons throughout our breaking news coverage. get us back up to date as to what we know as we pass the bottom of the hour on this breaking news this day. >> reporter: the state media making the announcement that president ebrahim raisi was killed along with the country's foreign minister in the helicopter crash. as you mentioned, it happened at the border of iran and azerbaijan. they had been there to inaugurate a dam. it took them many hours to get there, and that is the primary reason it appears for this crash where so far it seems nobody

survived. now, mr. raisi was a conservative leader. he crushed dissent. he was seen as a possible successor to ayatollah ali khamenei, the supreme leader of iran who is now 85. the question now who will replace the supreme leader has been looming for a long time. now that question gets even larger, but the question of how it will impact iran's foreign policy will clearly be on the minds of leaders around the world and in washington. remember that he burst out onto the scene. they supported hamas through this fight with hamas.

that is still an open question. there are also in the past few months been a confrontation between israel and iran, the likelihood of what we haven't seen in recent history. so all of these things are one context, and then just locally, domestically if you'd like in i rehab, there is corruption, damage to the economy. we've seen the uprising over the death of a 22-year-old woman and the uprising crushed by mr. raisi's government, by his leadership. so this news, this black swan event, this news will bring more

instability to a region that already reeling. >> richard engel also still with us. we have reporting that the u.s. has again messaging iran. tell us more about that and the revolutionary guard and what that means now that they have the news that iran's president has died. >> i wouldn't say has begun. this has been playing out now for the last 12 hours or so when word first came out there was this helicopter in a mountain/forest region near azerbaijan. i've been talking to u.s. government sources, u.s. intelligence sources. u.s. and iran don't communicate directly. the iranians and americans don't have foreign diplomatic

relations, but they are able to send messages to each other. that i are able to de-escalate when necessary, and it would be very important for the united states to send iran a message to say effectively, we didn't do this, we didn't shoot down that helicopter, de-escalate, we're not intending to take over iran. if you remember several years ago after the senior leader, one was executed in a drone attack. the iranians at the time were very worried that this was the first move in a takeover that the americans were going to be coming, that president trump had ordered a coup, and iran killed

hundreds of people, many of them iranians. that gave them a moment of pause and averting a major war between the united states and iran because they were in such a frenzy after this assassination that they had not anticipated. so in an effort to reassure the iranians -- not that the u.s. and iran are suddenly friends here, but in order for the u.s. to say we didn't do this, calm down, there has been quite a bit of messaging, my understanding. not just now in the last few minutes, but since this -- since this began. and in terms of the rev guard, what was your question? >> yeah, the revolutionary guard that you were talking about before the break, this could be an opening for the leaders of the guard. what might that mean and what are you looking for as we go

forward? >> it means we could be seeing iran shifting more toward a military dictatorship run by the revolutionary guard and less of a pure theocracy that is backed up by the revolutionary guard, and the theocracy in place in iran has been in place since 1979. before that you had shahs and kings of kings. that all changed in 1979 with a street revolution, student revolution, violent revolution led by ayatollah khamenei.

he returned from paris. the u.s. embassy was sieged. there was a long hostage crisis between the united states and iran. they've never recovered since then. after the takeover by the revolutionary guards in 1979 you've had the clerics running the country. and they decided in this move when they toppled thousands of years of hereditary rule that the ohm way forward was islam, the ohm solution was to have the clerics at the top guiding the country in this system that's the rule of jurisprudence, rule of islamic law, and that they would make all top decisions in the country in order to prevent it from going down a path of corruption and deprivation again and they would be backed up by the revolutionary guard and backed up by other security systems. over the decades, the security

services have gotten stronger. the revolutionary guard now operate as -- operate as the main power players in iran. they control the military. they control military production. they control life on the streets in a way that the clerics who tend to be isolated in the city of calm, reading and writing their religious manifestos and trying to come up with general policy are not connected with the day-to-day workings of the govgt and we've been seeing this tension play out behind the scenes in iran for quite a while, and the question now is this moment at a moment where the supreme leader, 85 years old, was looking to succession and was looking to raisi to be his replacement? is this now a moment where you see the revolutionary guard move from the active power force on

the ground to one that also controls the levers of power at the very top, and i think that question is something that the united states, u.s. intelligence services, european, israeli intelligence services are going to be watching very closely. it wouldn't make much of a difference for russia and for hezbollah, for iran's proxies because they're already working with the -- with the rev forward. if anything, maybe it makes those relationships even stronger because the revolutionary guard already manages what's called the access of resistance, this army of proxies who operate outside the borders of iran. that is their portfolio. that is their power base, which they have used. also with military production and other businesses in the country to make themselves armed, rich, and powerful.

>> keir, what might this mean to the relationship as we look farther east to russia and vladimir putin? what might that mean with the loss of the president of iran as, again, we were talking earlier how iran has been supporting russia and its efforts in ukraine? >> well, it's a good question. i think, you know, the overriding message here is that we don't know. it is instability. that is, i think going to be the primary source that we'll see for a while here because, frankly, as richard was laying out there, we don't know what will happen internally, domestically in iran, but it does vacations, as you say, for iran foreign policy, for its policy of confronting the usz, confronting the u.s. not directly but through proxies to have kind of a shadow war with the u.s. efforts. that policy, the same toward

israel, its growing partnership with russia, with china. what's been described by some in washington as an axis of evil, iran, china, north korea, how it will impact all of that. as richard points out, if the revolutionary guard becomes stronger as a result of this and they have been lurching more and more toward the authoritarians, toward the hard line, then you can imagine that you would see those relationships with those countries growing and iran becoming more threatening. we don't know how in an event like this as they describe it as a black swan event, how that might change things because you shouldn't underestimate at the

same time the resistance of iran. you don't always see it. we saw it a couple of years ago with the protest of the killing of that 22-year-old woman. you saw it then, people rising up. it was brutally crushed under president raisi. but how will this now impact that? people are -- inflation is huge in iran. many people are very dissatisfied. there are those forces, those counter vailing forces, if you'd like, to the clerical view in iran. will it be instability that we might see. so longer than just these days. will that have an impact on the way that the people on the streets of iran think? these things we don't know. that's why, you know, sometimes

historians talk about things that you can't prevent but have impact. that's why we simply -- it's very, very difficult to predict, and that's -- yet predict is exactly what intelligence officials and leaders in washington will be racing to do right now, to try to get a grip on what happens next because it does matter. >> richard, we expect that the vice president of iran is now going to take on the job of interim president. who is the vice president? >> well, he's someone that maybe 3% of iranians even know his name. the foreign minister died as well in this crash according to iranian state media, not a significant figure, seen as a ridicule inside of iran. so you don't have a system where you have well-known figures

stepping into the -- stepping into power. the vice president was, again, seen as someone who was just keeping the machine running, and the much bigger decisions take place in secret in iran. this is a country that has a public side, it has meetings in parliament, some official protests, and every friday they get together and do chants of death to america, sometimes quite lackluster events like that. i've attended some. but the real decisions are made behind closed doors, and i think that's where you're going to have to watch right now. so the president trump coming in, this is a caretaker or who most likely is expected to be a caretaker, that the real question will be who becomes the next president, again, an indication of who becomes the next in line for the supreme leader, and these are now overlapping, and they've become urgent because of this plane

crash. >> chief foreign correspondent richard engel. chief international correspondent keir simmons, international correspondent claudio lavanga. thank you, all three, for our breaking news coverage. again, that breaking news is from iran state tv. iran's president killed in a helicopter crash, this in the northern region of iran. that will do it for us this hour. we'll continue to follow this breaking news story coming out of the region right here on msnbc. again, the death of iran's president and what that means next for the region, a region that has been very unstable in recent times. i'm richard lui in new york. stay with us here on msnbc. our special coverage continues right after a short break. conts right after a short break.

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breaking news overnight, iran state media confirms the death of the country's president and its foreign minister in a helicopter crash. we'll have a live report for the latest details and get expert analysis on the geopolitical implications. also