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President Trump Holds News Conference. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired April 06, 2026 - 13:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We have breaking news.

President Trump about to speak from the White House after doubling down on his threat to destroy key infrastructure in Iran and warning there are even worse options at his disposal.

Plus, new details of the daring rescue of a downed U.S. airman behind enemy lines.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And going the record-breaking distance, the Artemis II crew just minutes away from making history, going further than any human being ever has before.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: The president is about to take the podium at a critical moment in his war with Iran as he pushes for Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz by tomorrow or face devastating strikes.

Earlier today, the president, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the annual White House Easter egg roll, had this new warning for the Iranian regime:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They will have no bridges. They will have no power plants. They will have no anything. I want to go -- I won't go further because there are other things that are worse than those two.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: We're also standing by for details on that and the daring rescue of an F-15E crew member whose jet was downed behind enemy lines.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is live for us at the White House.

Kristen, what can you tell us? What are we looking toward at this briefing coming up?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now, I'm not sure you can tell what's going on here. You can hear how loud it is.

It is absolute chaos in this Briefing Room. I'm told we have other angles of it to show how big the crowd is here. There is infighting among reporters who are trying to get a seat. They are shouting at each other. So that's what's going on in the background here.

Clearly, everybody wants to hear from President Trump when he takes the podium in just a few minutes. Now,he did give someone of a rolling press conference earlier during the Easter egg roll. He talked about that 45-day proposal, saying it was a significant step, but it wasn't good enough.

He wouldn't say what about it wasn't good enough. He did mention the possibility of Vice President J.D. Vance while he's overseas already going to Hungary potentially being involved in some of these chats with Iranian officials. He mentioned that he didn't believe that blowing up the civilian infrastructure was any kind of war crime, saying instead the war crime is actually letting Iran have a nuclear weapon.

And there are still an enormous amount of questions, one, about that heroic rescue, which, of course, we heard President Trump talk about. It does seem as though that's what he wants to lead off with. But there's also a number of questions about where we go from here.

Where are those diplomatic talks. We are coming up on that deadline, 8:00 p.m. tomorrow night. And President Trump was asked specifically, is there anything that could potentially have you delay that deadline? He said he wouldn't get into it at this time.

So, a lot of questions as to what exactly he's looking for and the role of the Strait of Hormuz. We know that it was just last week that he was saying that it didn't matter what happened to the Strait of Hormuz, it would automatically open.

And then, of course, we have all seen that TRUTH Social post with the expletive talking about opening up the Strait of Hormuz. So which is it here? What exactly is he looking for? What would constitute a deal for President Trump?

Those are all the questions we're going to try to get to the bottom of when he comes out here.

KEILAR: All right, Kristen Holmes, we will be looking toward that.

Yes, we can tell it is quite busy there in the Briefing Room. Thank you very much.

And no doubt the president, Boris, is going to take a bit of a victory lap for what truly was an amazing rescue of this airman.

SANCHEZ: Yes, no doubt. Some of the details that are coming in are just unreal, almost out of a movie.

CNN military analyst Colonel Cedric Leighton joins us now with those details.

Let's start with how this all unfolded. The pilots of that F-15 -- the pilot, I should say, was rescued within hours. The airman, obviously,it took almost two days. Where exactly were they shot down?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: So, as far as we can tell, Boris, what you're looking at is a -- we will look at southern Isfahan province.

And this is the area right here. It's right next to the area where we originally thought it would be, so in Southwestern Iran. But this is a very mountainous area, very wild area. And, in fact, you can see where the F-15 actually crashed into this area.

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And then what they ended up doing was making sure that they ended up hitting in -- a runway, so that it couldn't be used. But this is the crater right here. And that crater is where the F-15 actually went down, so very arid countryside, a countryside that is really inhospitable and difficult to hide in if you're not -- if you don't know what you're doing.

SANCHEZ: So, both rescues of the pilot and the weapons specialist included hundreds of American military and intelligence personnel. Take us through how they pulled this off.

LEIGHTON: So, one of the key things that they -- that they ended up doing is really figuring out exactly where this wreckage had occurred, and then where the pilot and the weapons systems officer were actually located.

So the pilot was easier to find. So, when they ended up doing this, they ended up looking in this general area right here. And they were able to pick up the beacons from both of them. And that was key. The pilot was easier to get because they could actually go in very quickly and then come in up through these areas right up here and grab the pilot and take him out and move him into one of the areas here in the Persian Gulf region, in the southern Persian Gulf region.

But then, when it came to the weapons systems officer, that required a bit more planning because they were separated when they ejected from the aircraft. And after being ejected from the aircraft, the distance can be quite large if there are two people or more involved in that.

So, in this particular case, he was the one, the weapons systems officer was the one that needed to be picked up later. And that's where the big effort was mounted to get a multiagency effort using not only the rescue forces from the Air Force, but also SEAL Team Six, as well as intelligence resources, including the CIA, as well as NSA and NGA. SANCHEZ: Yes, all of this happening as Tehran put a bounty on this

crew member's head. And people on the ground, ostensibly were looking for him.

Talk to us about the training from the crew member's perspective that goes into preparing for a situation like this, one that you hope never takes place.

LEIGHTON: So, one of the things that you want to avoid is having that -- the particular mission fail and look like this.

Now, this is actually the result of something else, but the debris field would look something like this. So you want to make sure that you understand exactly what's going on. But when it comes to the actual mission here, what they ended up doing was, they were able to -- in terms of their training, they are taught to evade capture.

And with all the people looking for them, they knew that they had to find a way into different areas, so that they couldn't be found. In the case of the weapons systems officer, we know that he found a crevasse that was basically in the mountain range. He was up at a -- on -- along a 7,000-foot-or-so ridge along this area right in here.

And because of that, he was able to actually hide, basically, we think, during the day, couldn't be found, for whatever reason. And that particular effort was a success, because he was able to not only be successful in this case in terms of evading them, but he was also successfully transmitting using a beacon and other means of communication to the rescuers, so that they knew exactly where he was.

And that was going to be critical in this case.

SANCHEZ: A spectacular result in that operation.

Colonel, if you could stay with us, because we're standing by for President Trump, who is set to enter the podium in the Press Briefing Room at the White House momentarily.

Take us through what you're anticipating we're going to hear from the president. He set out this deadline for 8:00 p.m. Tuesday night for attacks on energy infrastructure in Iran if the Strait of Hormuz isn't reopened. He said that the talks were still ongoing this morning, despite reports from state media in Iran that the cease-fire proposal put out by Pakistan was not something that they were going to pursue.

What do you think we're going to hear from the president momentarily?

LEIGHTON: So I think that he's hopefully going to outline exactly what the next steps are.

In this particular case right here, we have the nuclear sites. And one of his key efforts is to make sure that Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon or it doesn't produce that.

SANCHEZ: Colonel Leighton, I'm so sorry to interrupt, but here we have the president of the United States, Donald Trump, in the Press Briefing Room. Let's listen in.

TRUMP: It's a great honor to be with you, and happy Easter.

We had a great Easter. This is one of our better Easters, I think, in a lot of different ways. I can say, militarily, it's been one of the best. So good afternoon. We have quite a bit to discuss. We're going to do it pretty good detail.

And we have the people that are most involved will give you exactitude. And we're here today to celebrate the success of one of the largest, most complex, most harrowing combat searches. I guess you would call it a search-and-rescue mission ever attempted by the military.

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Generally, when planes are knocked down in war, especially when you're fighting a strong group, an evil group, you can't really do this, because you send in 200 men to pick up one. And it's something that's usually not attempted as much as you want to attempt.

And bad things happen to that one or two. And, in this case, we did two, and might not have been attempted before, but we did. And we got -- we had great talent. We got a little luck too, I would say. And we were helped by a lot of people, a lot of great people.

And it was an honor to be involved with it. It's very historic. This is a rescue that's very historic. It'll go down in the books.

Late Thursday night, an American F-15 fighter jet went down deep inside enemy territory in Iran while participating in Operation Epic Fury, where we're doing unbelievably well, well at a level that nobody's ever seen before. The entire country could be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night.

Both members of the crew ejected from the aircraft and landed alive on Iranian soil. I immediately was asked to make a decision. I ordered the U.S. armed forces to do whatever was necessary to bring our brave warriors back home, a risky decision, because we could have ended up with 100 dead, as opposed to one or two.

It's a hard decision to make. But in the United States military, we leave no American behind. We don't do it. Within hours, our armed forces deployed 21 military aircraft into hostile airspace, many flying at very low altitude, being shot by bullets. You bring rifles into play when you go in that low.

But there are also certain advantages. And in broad daylight over Iran for seven hours, at times facing very, very heavy enemy fire -- we have a helicopter that's got a lot of bullets in it. It's amazing. We just realized how good those weapons are, those -- our machines are.

Nobody has -- nobody has the equipment that we have. And nobody has the military that we have, not even close, the most powerful military anywhere in the world by far. The flight crews and war fighters aboard those aircraft took

extraordinary risks to rescue their fellow service members. This first wave of search-and-rescue forces successfully located the pilot of the F-15. And he was extracted from enemy territory by an HH-60 Jolly Green II helicopter, a fabulous machine, as our warriors faced gunfire at very close range.

It's amazing that, when you look at the machinery, what happened, that nobody was even injured. Meanwhile, the second crew member, a weapon system officer, a highly respected colonel, had landed a significant distance away from the pilot. When you're going at those speeds, even if you go out two or three seconds later, it's miles. It's miles and miles away, because you're going fast.

He was injured quite badly and stranded in an area teeming with terrorists from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a rough group, as well as Basij military -- militia and local authorities.

Many -- on top of everything else, they told the communities actually with -- inside of Iran, the people of Iran, they were given a tremendous incentive to find this pilot. Despite the peril, the officer followed his training and climbed into the treacherous mountain terrain and started climbing toward a higher altitude, something they were trained to do in order to evade capture.

They want to always go as far away from the site of the shoot-down. They want to go as far away, because they all head right to that site. You want to be as far away as you can. And he was injured. And he was an amazing, amazing thing.

He scaled cliff faces, bleeding rather profusely, treated his own wounds, and contacted American forces to transmit his location. They have a very sophisticated beeper-type apparatus that is on them at all times. And when they go out on these missions, they make sure they have lots of battery space and they're in good shape. And this one worked really well, amazingly, saved his life.

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We immediately mobilized a massive operation to retrieve him from the mountain holdout. And he kept going higher and higher. The mountain kept getting rougher and rougher and really very, very hard to find. The second rescue mission involved 155 aircraft, including four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers, 13 rescue aircraft, and more.

We were bringing them all over, and a lot of it was subterfuge. We wanted to have them think he was in a different location, because they had a vast military force out there. Thousands, thousands of people were looking.

So we wanted them to look in different areas. So we were scattered all over like we were right on top of them. We had seven different locations where they thought -- and they were very confused. They said, well, wait a minute. They have got groups here. They have got groups there. It's an amazing thing. I was listening to these great people, these great generals. General

Razin Caine was amazing, and Pete Hegseth was amazing. But I listened to the whole thing. It was pretty amazing. So they had all these different sites where everybody thought he was located. We think we have them over there because they have nine planes circling a little area that's 25 miles down the coast.

So, in a breathtaking show of skill and precision, lethality and force, America's military descended on the area, the real area, engaged the enemy, rescued the stranded officer, destroyed all threats, and exited Iranian territory while taking no casualties of any kind.

The heroic F-15 weapon system officer had evaded capture on the ground in Iran for almost 48 hours. That's a long time when you're in tough shape and when you're bleeding. It's a long time. When we left, as you probably know, we had two large planes, old -- pretty old planes. It carried a lot.

We needed a lot more equipment going in than coming out, obviously, because, going in, we needed to be able to scale mountains. And we had a lot of equipment. But the sand was -- it was sandy, wet sand. So we thought there may be a problem taking off because of the weight of the plane.

And then we also had all the men jumping back onto the planes. And they got pretty well bogged down. And we had a contingency plan, which was unbelievable, where lighter, faster aircraft came in, and they took them out. We blew up the old planes. We blew them up to smithereens because we had equipment on the planes that, frankly, we'd like to take.

But I don't think it was worthwhile spending another four hours there taking it off. So we didn't want anybody to have -- we have the best -- best equipment anywhere in the world. We didn't want anybody examining our anti-aircraft and other equipment.

So these were large planes that were old and pretty old. And we blew them up. And we had faster, lighter planes come in, and they were able to land on the sand. We needed the bigger planes because we had so much equipment that we needed. We took three helicopters over there, which were very strongly used, and couldn't have lived without them.

They did -- they performed unbelievably well. And if you would see it, you wouldn't believe it. They came off the plane. And these guys had them. The rotors were off. They rebuilt these helicopters in less than 10 minutes.

And that was one of the more amazing things they -- these are helicopters, small, unbelievably powerful, but small heli -- very small, so it can get into certain areas. And they got them off the plane, and they rebuilt all three of them in a matter of less than -- I would say less than 10 minutes. It's pretty amazing, what -- the genius of these people.

Who would think that? You would think it would take five days to build them. And in some companies, it would take five days. And they wouldn't do it well. But they served us well. As commander in chief, I never forget the extraordinary risk taken by the warriors that we send into battle and the genius.

I mean, think of it, having a contingency of three planes waiting because we think the sand is so bad, they probably won't be able to take off. And the planes really got bogged. The sand was -- this was not much of a runway. This was a farm, not a runway. It was a farm, but it did the trick.

But to have a contingency, as opposed to having to wait two days. Can you imagine right in the middle? This was central -- this was right -- you would call it central casting if you were doing a movie for location, and probably the toughest area of Iran, where we would be sitting there.

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So these planes came in, those pilots came in so fast and so quick and got out of there. Everybody got aboard and just got 15-minute intervals, one load out, one load out, one load out that they -- it happened. And we were watching. And we said, that's amazing.

It's -- in many ways, I was -- I was almost more impressed by the contingency that we had than the fact that, you know, if we would have had a runway or decent soil, but it was an amazing thing.

But we thank God for every single one of them and the talent, the genius. It's not even talent. It's genius. It's the whole ball game, every one of them.

If you look at what we did with Maduro, we went into a military compound, a massive, with thousands and thousands of soldiers and, within a matter of minutes, and he lived behind iron doors. There were steel doors, broke them down so quickly. And within almost minutes, he was in the back of these planes.

It was a similar group, incredible. We have incredibly talented people. And if the time comes, we move heaven and earth to bring them home safely. We're going to bring our people home safely.

I want to thank every member of the U.S. armed forces involved in these historic operations. They really were historic. It's just not something that's done. And you would understand it, not that they don't want to do it, but when you're going into areas, when you look at these helicopters, when you look at the amount of bullets and everything else that they took, when you go into these areas, you don't come out like we came out.

God was watching us, I'll tell you. Well, it was the Easter -- we were in the Easter territory, I guess, but God was watching us. Amazing, because, when you look at the machinery, they took -- they took damage. It tells you -- first thing I said is, these are unbelievable machines, how they flew back and not even much of a problem.

But these two extraordinary rescues, because it was two -- and, as you probably know, we didn't talk about the first one for an hour. Then somebody leaked something, which we will hopefully find that leaker. We're looking very hard to find that leaker, and talked about there's somebody missing.

They basically said that we have one and there's somebody missing. Well, they didn't know there was somebody missing until this leaker gave the information. So whoever it was, we think we will be able to find it out, because we're going to go to the media company that released it, and we're going to say, national security, give it up or go to jail.

And we know who and you know who we're talking about, because, some things, you can't do, because, when they did that, all of a sudden, the entire country of Iran knew that there was a pilot that was somewhere on their land that was fighting for his life.

And it also made it much more difficult for the pilots and for the people going in to search for him. All of a sudden, they know that there's somebody out there. They see all these planes coming in, and it became a much more difficult operation, because a leaker leaked that we have one, we have rescued one, but there's another one out there that we're trying to get.

So, actually, the country, Iran, put out a major notice, you all saw it, offering a very big award for anybody that captures the pilot. So, in addition to a hostile, very talented, very good, very evil military, we had millions of people trying to get an award.

So, when you add that to it -- but we have to find that leaker, because that's a sick person. Probably didn't realize the extent of how bad it was. I can't imagine that the person did. But we're going to find out. It's national security. And the person that did the story will go to jail if he doesn't say, and that doesn't last long.

And I think everybody would understand that they put this mission at great risk. They put that man at great risk, and they put the hundreds of people that went in looking for him, because everyone now knows that we're going in.

Over the past 37 days, America's armed forces have carried out more than 10,000 combat flights over Iran, unheard of, striking more than 13,000 targets. The F-15 we lost last week was the first manned aircraft downed by the enemy in this entire operation with thousands and thousands of flights.

They got lucky. It was a lucky hit. Eventually, you get lucky. But we got lucky too because we got both of them back. But it's a record that is unparalleled in the history of military air operations. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. It's such an honor to be involved with it.

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We were up late at night, and then we were waiting for those contingent planes to come in. And we said, come on. Let's go. Get in. Because they're waiting out on this farm without a runway with wet, crummy soil, sand, mostly sand, wet sand, and it eats planes alive. And we're waiting, and we're saying, I hope that one can land and take

off. And they came in like magic, boom, boom, boom, one after another. It was like genius. I'm so impressed by that, because we were a little concerned. We said, boy, if they don't get in and get out fast, we're sitting in the -- and that's called Iran prime, right, General?

That's -- that's where the whole bed is. And here we are sitting there waiting for a plane. But they came in so fast and so hard, and these guys knew exactly what to -- let's go, come on, get in. Let's go. Pwah. They came one right after another, not at the same time.

They don't want to come at the same time. They had to come right after each other. They didn't have any room. There was barely any room to land, tiny little patch of very wet earth and sand. So I just -- I'm so proud of the people that I have standing up here with me and many others that worked, I mean, so many.

Steve Witkoff's over here. He's doing fantastically, Jared Kushner. But the people that are here, the job they did is amazing. And I think I'm going to introduce the head of the CIA, and he is a man who -- he's central casting, OK?

If we cast a movie, he's going to play the head of the CIA. He's one of the few.

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TRUMP: John Ratcliffe, he -- he did a phenomenal job that night. He did something that I don't know if you want to talk about it. If you want, you can. I'm not sure you're supposed to. I'm not going to talk about it.

But he really -- the CIA was very responsible for finding this little speck. It's like they used an expression on one of the shows. The general was talking about it's like finding a needle in a haystack finding this pilot.

And the CIA was unbelievable. And you may -- if you can, you will talk. It might be classified, in which case I'd have to put him in jail if he talks about it.

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TRUMP: And I don't want to put him in jail. He doesn't deserve that.

So, John, do you want to say a few words? Thank you.

JOHN RATCLIFFE, CIA DIRECTOR: Thank you, Mr. President.

It's a privilege to be here with you today to share what we can about this exceptional mission and to recognize the ingenuity and bravery of those who executed it, as well as the leadership and resolve of the president who ordered it.

One thing that has been clear to me in this role is that the flawless military operations that the Department of War is known for are hostage to flawless intelligence. We saw that in the skies over Iran in Operation Midnight Hammer last summer.

We witnessed it in Venezuela during Operation Absolute Resolve. We have seen it against the cartels in the Western Hemisphere, and we're seeing it every day in Operation Epic Fury, including this mission to rescue an aviator buried deep behind enemy lines.

Because it is the unique tradition of the U.S. armed forces that we leave no man or woman behind, this was a no-fail mission. That was the spirit in which the president put us to work, and we were determined not to let him down or our airmen down.

As an agency, the CIA possesses unique capabilities that only the president can deploy. Some of these capabilities fall under covert action authorities. And because covert means exactly that, I'm not going to be able to tell you everything that you want to know.

At the president's direction, we deployed both human assets and exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service in the world possesses to a daunting challenge comparable to hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert.

This was also a race against the clock, as it was critical that we locate the downed aviator as quickly as possible, while at the same time keeping our enemies misdirected.

For that reason, in addition to the human and technical assets deployed by the president to find our airman, the CIA executed a deception campaign to confuse the Iranians, who were desperately hunting for our airmen.

On Saturday morning, we achieved our primary objective by finding and providing confirmation that one of America's best and bravest was alive and concealed in a mountain crevice, still invisible to the enemy, but not to the CIA. That confirmation was relayed by Secretary Hegseth to the president.