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President Trump Takes Questions on Iran War. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 16, 2026 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:00]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have some great Middle Eastern countries there, Israel there. So we did it for a lot of reasons.

But it always amazed me that we did it. We never asked for reimbursement. And it was really there to serve other countries, not us. And, by the way, we have the sugar king. Same story. Look at that.

Alfy Fanjul. Alfy, thank you both very much. Huh? That's Pepe here. Pepe. Hi, Pepe. How are you? How are you? Is Alfy in the backstage? Is he sitting back there waiting for you? No? You doing all right? Pepe is a great friend of all of us, I think, in the room. Tremendous.

And we appreciate you being here. Great, great to have you. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, honored.

TRUMP: That's great. Both of you, thank you very much.

So, go ahead, please.

QUESTION: Mr. President, you have said that Iran does want to make a deal. Now in the third week of this bombing campaign, what would that deal look like? What are the asks that you're making of the government in Tehran?

TRUMP: They want to make a deal. They're talking to our people. I don't know if they say that to you. Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. Don't forget, they are a country that, for years -- I didn't know this until recently. They're a country based on disinformation.

And now they're using disinformation plus A.I. And that's a terrible situation. That's a terrible situation. They showed all sorts of things happening in the last two weeks that never happened, between the kamikaze boats that don't exist, between blowing up the aircraft carrier, one of the great ships in the world, the Abraham Lincoln on fire.

They showed it on fire. I called the general. I said: "General, what's with the Abraham Lincoln? Looks like it's burning down."

"No, it's not burning down. Not a bullet was ever fired at it, sir. They know better." I said, this is my first glimpse of A.I. and what they have done with it. They showed buildings in Tel Aviv burning to the ground, high- rises burning. They showed buildings in Qatar. They showed buildings in Saudi Arabia burning. And they weren't burning. They weren't hit.

It was all A.I., A.I.-based. Terrible. It's terrible. And that's their only -- that's their only -- I think that's the only thing they do well. They're negotiating. And we always talk. Somebody said, what would you talk -- why would you even talk to them?

I talk to everybody, because sometimes good things come out of it, but I don't know if they're ready yet. They're taking a pounding. I don't know if they're ready yet. And we don't even know their leaders. Look, all of their leaders are dead, as far as we know. But they're all dead.

We don't know who we're dealing with. We knocked out the first group. Then the second group met -- 88 met to pick the leader, because the first group was all dead, and the second group got knocked out. They're all dead. Then a third group met. I would think they're a little nervous about meeting. I don't know if they're nervous.

Maybe they're not. Maybe they're crazy, they're not nervous and they're crazy. But we met with the next group. And -- but we don't know who their leader is. We have people wanting to negotiate. We have no idea who they are.

Yes, please, Peter.

QUESTION: Thanks, President Trump.

What are your advisers telling you about the ayatollah's son, the new supreme leader? What are they telling you?

TRUMP: Well, it's not only them. It's you people. I mean, a lot of people are saying that he's badly disfigured. They're saying that he lost his leg, the one leg, and he's been hurt very badly. Other people are saying he's dead. Nobody is saying he's 100 percent healthy.

And he hasn't he hasn't spoken, because the ayatollah would sit and he'd spew hate from a form of a throne, not as nice as a throne. I like the English throne much better. But it was just -- it was a fancy chair. But he'd spew hate from his chair. But you would see him a lot, right?

This one, we haven't seen at all. So that could be for a lot of different reasons. We don't know, Peter, if he's dead or not.

QUESTION: Now that you have announced...

TRUMP: Nobody -- I will say this. Nobody has seen him, which is unusual.

QUESTION: Something else. Now that you have announced that the U.S. has destroyed all of Iran's mindlaying ships, why can't the U.S. just immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz? TRUMP: Well, we could, but it takes two to tango.

[13:05:01]

We have to get people to take their billion-dollar ship and drive it up. If -- when Pepe has his big sugar ships coming around, and they cost a billion dollars, and we say, I think it's OK now, Pepe, take your ship, drive it through the Strait of Hormuz, he may say, let me wait a little while, because it takes ship owners.

And these ships are very expensive. They can cost up to $2 billion. So they don't want to take a chance that, gee, I think we will -- I think you will be OK. They got to know it. So they don't have to set -- we don't know if they even set any mines.

But the thought that they may have is enough to keep people from saying, we don't need it. Now, we are pounding that area, that coast, as you know, left side. We're pounding it, like really pounding it hard. And, again, they may have no mines set.

We hit every one of their mine droppers. They call it the minelayers, right, the ships. They're pretty sophisticated ships. Every one of them is gone. But it only takes one. So it's a little unfair. You know, you win a war. But they have no right to be doing what they're doing. But we're hitting them very hard.

And today is a big day. We're pounding a certain area that has very much to do with the strait. And I think we will get it going very soon. In addition, we do have other nations coming in. You need people to watch and people to see. We have other nations coming in.

Yes, please.

QUESTION: If the United States is working to secure the Strait of Hormuz for the benefit of other countries like China and our allies aren't yet stepping up to your standard, is the United States getting back to being the world's policeman?

TRUMP: Look, the United States should not be very much involved.

They can on a certain basis. They have been doing it for a long time. But I have always said, I said, if you look back years ago, I said, why aren't we being reimbursed? These are the richest countries in the world. Why aren't we being reimbursed for maintaining the Hormuz Strait?

And why aren't we being reimbursed for that? I have said that for years. You can look. Go back -- they reported on it yesterday. I have been saying a lot of things about the straits. Number one, I said it's the one advantage they have, but that's a suicidal advantage because they kill themselves more than they kill the rest of the world.

And there are things you can do. With time, there are other things you can do. But I think that -- I think we're going to have the situation straightened out pretty quickly. And I think we're going to have some good help. And I think we're going to be disappointed in some nations too. And I will let who those nations are.

QUESTION: One of your advisers, David Sacks, said the other week that the U.S. should -- quote -- "declare victory and get out of the Iran war."

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: He also warned that, if the conflict escalates, Israel may contemplate the use of a nuclear weapon. Has he shared that assessment with you?

TRUMP: No, he hasn't. Israel wouldn't do that. Israel would never use -- do that.

And, yes, there's -- no, there's a theory. You have pounded them to hell, and you can just leave now. And it'll take 10 years for them to build back, not nearly what they have right now. And I guess that's another theory.

But we want to have it ended so that another president doesn't have -- look, for 47 years, no president was willing to do what I'm doing. And they should have done it a long time ago. It would have been a lot easier. There's no president that wanted to do it. And yet every president knew.

I have spoken to a certain president who I like, actually, a past president, former president. He said, I wish I did it. I wish I did. But they didn't do it. I'm doing it.

Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I can't tell you that. I don't want to embarrass him. It would be very bad for his career, even though he's got no career.

Go ahead, please.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: How about the man right there.

QUESTION: Thank you, sir.

Mr. President, you mentioned that you're not entirely sure who you're dealing with, who the leadership is in Iran. Do you see a viable opposition movement still in that country following all of the protests that we had seen before the airstrikes and kind of an opposition movement that could become a viable leader in Iran?

TRUMP: The biggest problem -- and we have brave people in this room, but the biggest problem that I see is that they put out a warning.

And we have the warning. We get everything they get. And it said any protester that goes onto the street will be immediately shot and killed. This is a little tougher than the American way. This is not quite as tough as -- nobody can believe it.

So, I can't imagine. They don't have guns. And the other ones have guns, highly sophisticated machine guns and AK-47s and other kinds of guns. And they did that with the women. So the women had 250,000, even 500 people protesting a year ago.

[13:10:17]

And they shot women right through the middle of the forehead with snipers. And they didn't have to do many. About 10 went down bleeding profusely. And 250,000 to 500,000 women went running in the other direction, because they can be brave, but they're not stupid.

And they have no gun. And you have snipers in buildings specifically for this reason. So a woman goes down falling, bleeding from the head. And it doesn't take long for that to spread. And when that spreads, that crowd dispenses.

And nobody else has been able to do that to the extent that these people -- these people are violent. They killed a minimum two weeks ago 32,000 people. So, and they put out, actually, a notice two days ago, if you protest, if you protest, you will be shot and killed.

So, I don't know. I would say Mike Johnson's the only person I know who has the courage to go out in that kind of an atmosphere. I don't think so. I don't think so.

Yes.

QUESTION: Have your advisers told you anything in terms of how long we can expect gas prices as high as they are right now?

TRUMP: I don't need advisers to tell me that. I know what it is.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

TRUMP: The prime minister of U.K., United Kingdom, yesterday told me, I'm meeting with my team to make a determination. I said, you don't need to meet it with the team. You're the prime minister. You can make your own.

Why do you have to meet with your team to find out whether or not you're going to send some mine sweepers to us or to send some boats? I said, you don't have to meet with your team. It's the same thing here. I can tell you that, when this is over, oil prices are going to go down very, very rapidly.

So is inflation. So is everything else. But, frankly, much more important than short-term, even long-term oil prices, you can't let the most violent, vicious country in the last 50 years have a nuclear weapon, because the Middle East will be gone. Israel will go first, without question.

And they will certainly take a shot at us before we get our act together and say we have got to take them out. You can't let Iran, who's truly the -- a nation of great terror and power. Look what happened. In the last two weeks, they weren't supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East.

Those missiles were set to go after them. So they hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait. Nobody expected that. We were shocked. And the other one -- they fought back. They could have yielded. But think of it. If we weren't around, they have tremendous -- they had tremendous power.

They had thousands of missiles, most of which we have terminated. They had thousands of drones. They were making drones and missiles all over the place. We have knocked out most of those factories. I mean, now they're sending out two or three missiles.

Now, they have still got some. They might have 8 percent left. But mostly they have been eliminated. They have been terminated by what we did and what Israel did too.

Yes, please.

QUESTION: Israel is expected to expand its ground offensive in Southern Lebanon to go after Hezbollah. Have you discussed that with Israeli leaders?

TRUMP: Yes.

QUESTION: And does the United States support a potential Israeli invasion of Lebanon?

TRUMP: Yes. No, I did. And I know the -- look, Hezbollah is a problem. It's been a problem for a long time, not just now.

And it's a certain area, because I was with the other night a person whose parents live in Lebanon. This is a very substantial person, a wealthy person, whose parents live in Lebanon. I said, really? How do you live in Lebanon? Your parents are living. Oh, yes, they live there. And over the years, they have gotten used to the fact that it's being bombed.

But they explained to me that it's really a different section of Lebanon. It's a section where Hezbollah is. And they get used to it, I guess. I don't know. I mean, people live in Ukraine. You would think they wouldn't live in Ukraine, but they live in Ukraine. I don't know that I'd do that. But they live in Ukraine. They live in Lebanon.

Hezbollah is a big problem. And they're rapidly being eliminated.

Thank you very much, everybody. Appreciate it.

[13:15:05]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: All right, we are listening to President Trump there at the Trump Kennedy Center, and as we are entering this third week of the war with Iran.

He was really all over the place as he was kind of describing it there. He said Iran wants to make a deal. Then, a little later, we don't know who we're dealing with. He said he doesn't know if Iran is ready to make a deal. We have no idea who they are.

But the bottom line is, where we are at in this moment is that the president is very dismayed with American allies. He's putting a lot of pressure on them.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: Yes.

KEILAR: He wants help from them when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran essentially has at a standstill to oil traffic going through there, oil traffic that doesn't really pertain to the U.S.

But it does because that's how oil is priced. It's a global pricing system, obviously, and it's affecting the U.S. But he's frustrated with American allies.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

Yes, and on that dynamic, he was talking about his frustration specifically to some of these countries, including China and Japan and East Asia, that have a little bit more of a reliance on the oil that comes out of the Strait of Hormuz than the United States, that, why is the United States helping here and not getting sort of reimbursement?

That was the line that he seemed to really stick with there. And then the other thing too is, he really did stress that he thinks that this will be over quickly and, when it is over, that oil prices are going to go down very, very rapidly. But, of course, the question is when.

We have got a team of reporters lined up as well.

But I just want you to listen a little bit of what the president has said here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Numerous countries have told me they're on the way. Some are very enthusiastic about it, and some aren't. Some are countries that we have helped for many, many years. We have protected them from horrible outside sources.

And they weren't that enthusiastic. I just want the fake news media and everybody else to remember that that was said because, when -- and I have been a big critic of all of the protecting of countries, because I know that we will protect them and, if ever needed, if we ever needed help, they won't be there for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: All right.

Our reporters are at the White House, Tel Aviv and New York. They have been listening to the president's remarks. They're covering all different angles of this.

I want to bring in CNN's Alayna Treene first at the White House. Alayna, what stood out to you based on what we heard there?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, I think really touching on exactly what you just played from the president was really the most notable to me, this idea of his disappointment. And he used that word specifically, Omar and Brianna, to describe the countries, and particularly the NATO allies, that he says are not coming to the United States' aid here and trying to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

I thought you know what we heard of him actually yesterday is very much the same kind of threat we're hearing today. It's almost this ominous warning to countries who do not get involved here to send warships to escort these tankers, which is very dangerous, I should point out. We have heard that now from many top military commanders and whatnot, but this dangerous -- helping in this dangerous mission of trying to send these warships to escort these tankers through that very critical Strait of Hormuz.

At one point he said: "I think we're going to have some very good help and I think we're going to be disappointed with some countries," again getting back to that point.

But one thing that very much was clear, and it was a bit clear from that clip you played, is that he continued to talk about this idea of how he's always thought of the NATO alliance almost as being more beneficial for other members than it is for the United States.

At one point, he said, I have said for years that we -- why aren't we being reimbursed for what the United States is doing in the Strait of Hormuz. He's kept saying, I have been saying that for years. He brought up this point that he believes that, when these countries need help from the U.S, the U.S. is willing to help them, not necessarily other way around.

One thing I do want to be clear on, though, and just some context to all of this, is, what has been so interesting about the president calling on these countries to send these warships to help reopen the straight is that this is the first time really that we have heard the president be so eager to involve other countries in this war.

I'd remind you that, when the U.S. first struck Iran, of course, with Israel as well, a lot of these countries said that they were surprised and that they were kind of caught off guard when that first happened. So I'd keep that in mind here as well.

But, really, I think this enormous pressure we have seen from President Trump and I should note as well someone who was repeatedly mused openly about this idea of withdrawing support from the NATO alliance, this pressure that continues to build, even so, we still haven't seen a lot of these allies who the president said he wouldn't name, but a lot of these allies come out and say that they would actually send warships.

You look at Germany, the U.K., Japan, who I should note whose prime minister will be here later at the White House, later this week, all of them so far being very cautious about heeding the president's urges here right now -- Omar, Brianna.

[13:20:06]

KEILAR: Yes, it was Pete Hegseth, who said it was a breath of fresh air fighting with Israel, seeming to almost kind of take a jab at American allies and not having them involved in this conflict compared to other past ones in recent history.

Alayna Treene, thank you so much for that report from the White House.

CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich is here with more on the crisis in the strait.

And Omar was highlighting that really interesting promise the president made, Vanessa, which was, when this is over, oil prices are going to go down very, very rapidly, which is generally not how it works. And if the president believes that, someone might have a Strait of Hormuz they want to sell him.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely.

Unfortunately, things move up really, really quickly in price, but it takes a while for those prices to come down. But the Strait of Hormuz has been in the conversation for weeks now. And I just want to point out why it is so critical for the -- for the U.S., but also for the entire world.

That is that tiny passageway right here on your screen. Vessels carrying oil petroleum, they actually come into this area. They do pickups. They do drop-offs. And then they come back out again. But the issue here is that many of these vessels are stalled, they are stuck.

And this passageway, as we reported, account for 20 million barrels a day. That's 20 percent of the world's oil, Brianna,. The world consumes 100 million barrels of oil a day. So when you take that much offline and you have ships stuck all throughout this area, that presents a problem for the entire global economy, Brianna.

JIMENEZ: Well, and, Vanessa, just can you put in perspective which countries rely the most on oil exports from this strait? And if it isn't the U.S., why is this having such an impact on gas prices here?

YURKEVICH: Yes, so, Omar, if you look at the major -- excuse me. Let me go back to this one.

If you go back to the major importers of oil from the Strait of Hormuz region here, look at these countries. It is India, it is China, it is South Korea, and it is Japan. So these are the top four countries that import oil from this region, notably, the U.S. not on this list. The U.S. imports actually half-a-million barrels a day of oil. That's not that much. That's about 7 percent of the oil that we import here into the U.S.

And that is because the U.S. produces a ton of oil. So supply is not the issue; 22 percent of the world's -- of the U.S. -- excuse me -- 22 percent of the world's oil is produced by the U.S., making us the number one producer in the entire world, so supply not the issue. As you mentioned, it is price.

JIMENEZ: Vanessa Yurkevich, appreciate the perspective, as always.

I want to bring in -- I want to go to the region now and bring in CNN's Jeremy Diamond live in Tel Aviv, Israel, for us.

Now, Jeremy, the president was talking about, in terms of potential negotiations versus Iran not being ready for negotiations, saying that he didn't even know who the leaders of the country were. I mean, obviously, we have got Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen, at least publicly, to this point.

But I wonder, Jeremy, what is the reaction right now to this crisis in the region, both on the diplomatic side, but also can you just paint a reality for what we're actually seeing on the ground there?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, I think the Iranians have indicated that they are not interested in cease-fire negotiations at this stage, despite what the president said, so contradictory messages there.

The Iranians are very clearly kind of playing a tactic of a war of attrition here, using the power of asymmetric warfare to kind of continue to exert a huge financial cost on the United States and Israel and really the global economy in order to try and bring this war to an end.

We are watching, despite the fact that, yes, much of their military, their navy has been obliterated by U.S. and Israeli strikes, they still retain enough capacity to be able to keep the Strait of Hormuz shut down, to continue attacking nations in the Gulf and firing ballistic missiles here at Israel, very few missiles per day, but nonetheless using these cluster munitions now to get through Israel's air defenses, which aren't causing many casualties, but are nonetheless causing damage, forcing millions of people to go into bomb shelters.

So, Iran is playing for time here, and they are finding ways to continue to exert those costs on the United States. Now, as it relates to the Strait of Hormuz, we heard President Trump talking about his effort to get other countries to join in, in this effort to open up the Strait of Hormuz.

It was kind of interesting. You heard the president say on the one hand that he's trying to get all these countries to participate in this effort, and yet also saying that he doesn't really need them, he just wants to gauge their reaction. But the reality is that he does need them, that this is not something that the U.S. Navy can handle on its own, at least not with the number of forces that they currently have in the region.

[13:25:02]

And, in addition to that, the president talked about this notion of the mines, the potential that Iran has mined parts of the Strait of Hormuz. But the danger to cargo ships and tanker ships that would pass through that strait goes far beyond mines.

It could simply involve an Iranian boat with a couple of people with a shoulder-fired missile or the ability to put an IED on one of these ships. So there's a lot of risk here in terms of getting that strait back open without a significant force to actually be able to protect those commercial ships.

And, for now, there's no evidence that that significant force is materializing as of yet.

KEILAR: Yes. So, he's not asking for help because he doesn't need it. That is certainly true. Normally, though, when the U.S. has gone to war, certainly in recent years, they try to build a coalition to go along with it on the front end, not in the middle of it.

Jeremy Diamond, thank you so much. Really appreciate the reporting from Tel Aviv.

Still to come: Will American allies give in to pressure from the president to help reopen that critical oil route? We're going to talk about that.

JIMENEZ: Plus, CEOs of the nation's top airlines here in the United States accuse Congress of treating air travel as a political football, as hundreds of TSA agents are quitting during the partial government shutdown.

We will talk about it coming up.

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