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Trump Speaks to Reporters After Announcing Ceasefire Deal Between Israel and Lebanon; Trump on Iran Ceasefire Says, if There's No Deal, Fighting Resumes; Artemis II Crew to Discuss Historic Moon Mission. Aired 2-2:30p ET
Aired April 16, 2026 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:00:00]
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: -- there's no 20-year limit.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who are you looking out for Attorney General? Anyone interesting? Can you please give us more information on (inaudible)?
TRUMP: I think that Todd Blanche is doing a very good job from what I'm seeing. All I can say thus far, I think Todd Blanche is doing a very good job.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If there's no deal, would you be willing to extend the ceasefire, or will the fighting resume, Mr. President?
TRUMP: I would say the fighting -- if there's no deal, fighting resumes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. And then on gas prices, how much longer will Americans continue to see these high gas prices?
TRUMP: Well, they're not very high. If you look at what they were supposed to be in order to get rid of a nuclear weapon, with the danger that entails. So the gas prices have come down very much over the last three to four days.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) still?
TRUMP: TRUMP: I know, you know, that's what ABC says. But the fact is that if you look at -- the stock market is up, everything is doing really well. And the big thing we have to do is we have to make sure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, because if they do, you want to talk about problems, you'd have problems.
So very important is that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, and they've agreed to that. Iran has agreed to that, and they've agreed to it very powerfully. They've agreed to give us back the nuclear dust that's way underground because of the attack we made with the B-2 bombers.
So we have a lot of agreement with Iran, and I think something is going to happen very positively.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, (inaudible) what are you waiting for?
TRUMP: Very complicated subject. It's -- I don't think we're waiting. I think we're moving very fast. It could happen pretty quickly.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Say it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) blockade on the Strait of Hormuz?
TRUMP: The what?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How long you could sustain the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz?
TRUMP: We're doing very well with the blockade. It's very routine for us. The Navy is incredible, and I think the blockade is doing very well. No ship is even thinking about entering. No ship is going past our Navy.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why are you fighting with the Pope? And are you worried it's upsetting your image of the (inaudible)?
TRUMP: No, no. I don't -- I have to do what's right. The Pope has to understand that -- very simple, I have nothing against the Pope. His brother is MAGA all the way. I like his brother, Lewis.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why are you fighting with him?
TRUMP: I'm not fighting with him. The Pope made a statement. He says Iran can have a nuclear weapon. I say Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And if the Pope looked at the 42,000 people that were killed over the last two or three months as a protester with no weapons, no nothing -- I mean, you take a look at that. So I can disagree with the Pope. I have a right to disagree. I have a right to disagree with the Pope.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do you say to people who see that -- who see your criticism of the Pope?
TRUMP: You can't have -- look, nothing -- I have no disagreement with the fact. The Pope can say what he wants, and I want him to say what he wants, but I can disagree. I think that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. If they do, the whole world would be in jeopardy. The Middle East will be blown up, and the whole world will be in jeopardy. We're very close to making a deal. That'll be a great thing. The Pope has to understand Iran has killed more than 42,000 people over the last few months. Think of it. Protesters without guns, without anything. They were totally unarmed protesters. The Pope has to understand that. This is the real world. It's a nasty world. But as far as the Pope and saying what he wants, he can do that. Now, I know the Pope's brother. He is a big MAGA person. He's got MAGA all over his house. His name is Lewis. He's actually a great guy. And I'm sure the Pope is a great guy. I haven't met him. But I disagree with the Pope. If the Pope would allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, you can't do that.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: What?
ANTHONY MERCHAK, MTV: Anthony Merchak from MTV, Lebanon. I would like to ask you regarding, congratulations for the 10th war (inaudible).
TRUMP: Yeah. It's very exciting. With Lebanon, it's very exciting. I think we're going to have a deal where we're going to have a meeting first time in 44 years. And Lebanon will be meeting with Israel, and they're probably going to do it at the White House.
MERCHAK: When do you think?
TRUMP: Over the next week or two.
MERCHAK: And do you think this agreement can reach without Hezbollah agreeing to the ceasefire?
TRUMP: I do. I think we will have an agreement between Lebanon, and they're going to take care of Hezbollah. But they're going to be working on Hezbollah right now. But we'll have an agreement between Israel, very importantly, and Lebanon.
MERCHAK: Will you support our Lebanese army as well in order to stop Hezbollah?
TRUMP: I would.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will Hezbollah agree to the ceasefire? I mean, how do you even (inaudible).
TRUMP: They're all agreeing. It's a very nice little package for about a week, and we're not going to have lots of bombs dropping. And we're going to see if we can make peace between Lebanon and Israel.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And just one more on the Pope, Mr. President, because there was a group of bishops that did put out a statement saying the Pope isn't merely exercising his opinion, he's preaching the gospel. I mean, what do you say to people that view this as an attack on the Catholic Church?
TRUMP: Well, I want him to preach the gospel. I'm all about the gospel. But I also know that you cannot let a certain country, which is a very mean-spirited country, have a nuclear weapon.
[14:05:00]
If they did, they would use it, and I think they'd use it quickly, and they would kill many millions of people. So, you know, the Pope could disagree with me on that, but certainly we're allowed to have that. I'm all about the Gospel. I'm about it as much as anybody can be. But I can't allow, as President of the United States of America, I can't allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
And here's the story, they won't have. They've already agreed not to have. That's good news, and I think the Pope will be very happy.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Iran is going to execute four more people, sir, including a woman.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He said the Federal Reserve should wait and see about this Iran War before lowering interest rates. Do you agree with that?
TRUMP: No, I don't agree. I think we should have lower interest rates.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Iran is going to execute four more protesters, accordingly, including the first woman protester. What do you tell Iran?
TRUMP: Well, tell that to the Pope. What do you say? Tell that to the Pope.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You want to patch things up with the Pope, sir?
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: That Iran is going to -- is that -- did you just hear that? Iran is going to execute four people, including one?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).
TRUMP: I don't know if we're going to have to, but if we need to, I would do that.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are telling the airlines and oil companies about (inaudible) open up the Strait of Hormuz?
TRUMP: So if you look at the oil and if you look at the price we're paying, it's about half what people thought it would be if you did what I had to do. We had to take this journey to the Middle East in order to get rid of a nuclear weapon. If we didn't hit them with the B-2 bombers, or if I didn't kill the Barack Hussein Obama deal, the nuclear deal which was a disaster, we would have had nuclear weapons exploding in the Middle East and beyond.
I believe I've been able to stop that. I think we have a very successful negotiation going on right now. And I think if it happens, it'll be announced fairly soon. And that'll give us free oil, free Hormuz Strait. Everything will be nice. And I think your oil price will go down to lower than what it was before. And I think a lot of good things will happen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just for clarity, you're willing to extend the ceasefire?
TRUMP: We'll see. I don't know if we'll have to. Ideally, we will. But if I needed to, I would do it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Lebanese people love you so much. What's your message for them? And you will visit Lebanon after this deal?
TRUMP: Yeah. I will do that. At the right time, I would certainly go there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think this war in Ukraine -- you know, Putin doesn't want to stop it, apparently. He keeps bombing Ukraine. Do you think this war has the potential to go on for years more?
TRUMP: Well, it should have been -- it should have never started. If I were president, the war in Ukraine never would have started with Russia. But it's going on. Hopefully, it'll get over soon.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The First Lady came out last week and said she had no links with Jeffrey Epstein.
TRUMP: Who did?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The First Lady, Melania Trump.
TRUMP: She had none.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why did she come out and say that last week?
TRUMP: Because the fake news was saying she did. And she had none. And I think that's been proven. It bothered her that the fake news was being fake news. So she just wanted to clarify that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, who's taking care of Hezbollah? Do you think that they are destroying the deal that you're trying to make?
TRUMP: We're going to see how it all works out. But they'll be working and coordinating. If you know, you know Lebanon, right? So they'll be working with Hezbollah.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you still interested in acquiring Iranian oil? TRUMP: What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you still interested in acquiring Iranian oil?
TRUMP: Well, we'll see. I mean, we have a very good relationship with Iran right now, as hard as it is to believe. And I think it's a combination of about four weeks of bombing and a very powerful blockade. The blockade is maybe more powerful than the bombing, if you want to know the truth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you going to make the Arab countries pay a portion of all of the costs?
TRUMP: I think they'll make that. I think they're going to make that contribution. I think the Arab countries, because we've done a lot, I think they'd make a contribution toward the cost.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Nothing at all.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) without any conditions, would you make a deal?
TRUMP: We're going to see what happens. But I think we're very close to making a deal with Iran. You'll be the first to know. But I think we have a chance. And if that happens, oil goes way down. Prices go way down. Inflation goes way down.
And you're going to have, much more importantly than even that, you won't have a nuclear holocaust.
(CROSSTALK)
[14:10:00]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": President Trump on the South Lawn of the White House getting set to depart shortly to Las Vegas. The president speaking to reporters but he's just far enough away from our microphones that we actually can't pick up exactly what he's saying at this moment.
Having been there on the South Lawn myself during these gaggles, he likes to move around and interact with different reporters. Some notable headlines from what the president has said thus far, he said, quote, "We have a very good relationship with Iran right now." Trump saying that he's not sure that the ceasefire, which expires in less than a week, is going to need to be extended.
He argues that the new regime in Tehran is willing to do things that they weren't two months ago, including something we'd not heard before. He says that Iran has agreed to give the U.S. the nuclear dust that's buried way underground. This is near-weapons-grade enriched uranium that the U.S. targeted in last summer's strikes. That is believed to be hundreds of feet underground.
The president there saying that Tehran apparently has made the concession that they are willing to relinquish that to the United States. Something again that we had not heard before.
JESSICA DEAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Yeah. And that is the key to so much of this, is that enriched uranium. Also hearing from him that he thought that perhaps those negotiations to extend or to get a deal on the Iran War between the U.S. and Iran would happen over the weekend and we heard from Karoline Leavitt yesterday saying that when those do happen again, she expects they would be with Pakistan again mediating and likely in the same place where they were previously, which was in Islamabad.
One interesting note too, and then I want to get to Jeremy Diamond in Jerusalem, was he was talking about gas prices obviously correlated to this war in Iran and he said he doesn't think they're very high. I don't know that a lot of Americans would agree with him on that, but the president saying he doesn't think they're very high in exchange for what he says the U.S. and the world is going to get, which is no nuclear weapon from Iran.
So with that, let's bring in CNN's Jeremy Diamond, who is in Jerusalem, who has been following along. And while we were listening to that, Jeremy, we also were getting a new statement from the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on this ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. What more can you tell us?
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's right. The Israeli Prime Minister releasing a video statement tonight, confirming for the first time that Israel has indeed agreed to a temporary 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon that will pause Israeli strikes and the fighting against Hezbollah, its bombardment of Lebanon that we have been witnessing over the course of the last several weeks.
But the main purpose of this video statement from the prime minister was to sell this ceasefire agreement to the Israeli public, to an Israeli public that by and large wanted to see Israel continue its strikes in Lebanon, continue to fight Hezbollah. And the prime minister framed it this way. He said that he has agreed to this temporary ceasefire because he believes there is a "historic chance," a chance to make a historic peace agreement with Lebanon.
He also credited what Israel has accomplished in the region through its military power, saying that it has effectively changed things in such a way that he said Lebanon is now calling us to make peace. The prime minister also made clear that this ceasefire with Hezbollah is in order to allow the space for these negotiations with Lebanon.
And that is an acknowledgement of the fact that the Lebanese government said it would only enter into substantive negotiations with Israel about disarming Hezbollah, about reaching a peace agreement with Israel if there was a ceasefire in place.
But there was a major caveat from the Israeli prime minister, and that's the fact that Israeli troops are going to remain in southern Lebanon. He said that Israeli troops are as deep as 10 kilometers into Lebanese territory and that they will remain there, hold a security presence there as these negotiations continue and amid this temporary ceasefire.
Now, the prime minister also welcomed the possibility of meeting with the Lebanese President, Joseph Aoun, at the White House as President Trump has suggested. But I think there's going to be some big caveats to that from the Lebanese side, who has not yet confirmed that they are willing to have such a meeting.
The Lebanese have repeatedly insisted on the removal of Israeli troops from Lebanese territory in order to be able to move forward towards more substantive relations. And of course, since we are not seeing that yet, that could be an impediment to future negotiations.
We also haven't heard officially from Hezbollah yet about whether they will abide to the ceasefire. Hezbollah, a member of the Lebanese parliament, did say, however, that if Israel ceases fire, then Hezbollah will as well. And of course, Iran will ultimately have to bring some of its pressure to bear on Hezbollah.
Iran has been pushing for this ceasefire agreement in Lebanon, insisting that it be tied to the broader U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement. So presumably, Iran would also have an interest in getting Hezbollah on board and making sure that both sides abide by the ceasefire.
SANCHEZ: Jeremy, thank you so much for that update from Jerusalem. Let's actually go back to the South Lawn right now. President Trump, our producer tells us, said that he might actually travel to Pakistan, to Islamabad, where these talks between Tehran and the United States delegation have been taking place.
[14:15:00]
Let's see if we could listen and hear the president.
TRUMP: (Inaudible) I'm OK with it, but I understand that the women didn't want to go under oath. That's what I heard, that the women, the victims or whatever, they refused to go under oath, which was a little surprising.
So Melania felt strongly about it because she was accused of -- that I met her through Epstein but it turned out to be totally false. It was a (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Should the ceasefire also include Iraq region?
TRUMP: Are we talking about the one with Lebanon?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lebanon, Iraq.
TRUMP: OK. So we just made a deal with Lebanon as of two hours from now. We have ceasefire with Israel and Lebanon and that will be great. And they will be meeting, probably coming to the White House over the next four or five days. That will be the first time they've met in 44 years, which is pretty unneighborly when considering they are neighbors.
But there's a really good chance that that'll work out with Lebanon and Israel. I met with -- through the telephone, with the president of Lebanon, who's a really good guy, highly respected, and with Bibi. And I think there's a chance we'll be meeting right here in the not too distant future.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Israel and Lebanon have tried to make peace before. What's going to the difference this time?
TRUMP: Me. I'm the difference.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) New York, Democratic states, they are raising taxes. Is that going to take away from the tax cuts that you have --
TRUMP: No, because no tax on tips. I'm going over no tax on tips today. That's why I'm going to Nevada, I'm going to Arizona. But this is part of no tax on tips. What's happening is people are finding out that in their tax return, they are getting a big refund, much bigger than they thought. So it is no tax on tips, no tax on social security, no tax on overtime.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Wait, wait, wait. I think it is going to be amazing. But if you look at what they are doing in New York, in California, they are raising taxes and they are driving people out into (ph) cities.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Australia just announced that it is raising its defense spending to three percent. You've been asking for 3.5 percent. Are you satisfied?
TRUMP: No, we are going to see what happens. But on defense spending, look, we built the greatest military anywhere in the world. There's nobody even close. All you have to do is take a look at the blockade. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. That blockade is the best thing.
And I'll tell you something, I think the blockade has been more powerful than the bombs. The bombs were powerful, and it weakened them. They have no Navy. They have no Air Force. They have no anything. They have no leaders. But their new leaders, the ones that have replaced them, it's a regime change. They are much more, I think, frankly, more intelligent and more moderate.
But we have a real chance to make a deal very soon with Iraq. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On Australia, Mr. President, you asked for 3.5 percent increase like 5 percent you did with NATO. Australia has only gone to 3 percent. Are you satisfied with that decision? (Inaudible).
TRUMP: Well, I'm not happy with Australia because they were not there when we asked them to be there. So Australia was another one. They were not there, having to do with Hormuz.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: I'm not happy. I'm not happy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But why specifically? Do you still have a good relationship with the Australian prime minister? What message do you think the ceasefire with Lebanon sends to the U.K. and other European allies who chose not to get involved in the war?
TRUMP: Well, you know, we spent trillions and trillions of dollars on NATO. And when I asked them to get involved in a much smaller situation, which is Hormuz and Iran, they weren't there for us. Remember what I said. They weren't there. None of them. They weren't there. So we were there on Ukraine.
I mean, we shouldn't have been. It would have never happened if I were president. But nevertheless, when they've had problems over the years, we were there.
When we asked them to get involved on a very minor skirmish by comparison to what it could be, they weren't there. So I don't think they'd be there for a large skirmish. And therefore, I think they've got themselves a problem.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do your policies like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, show that the Democrat Party is no longer the party of the working class and the Republican Party under your leadership --
TRUMP: I love this question. This is the greatest guy. Look how handsome he is. What a great guy he is.
DEAN: All right, we're listening to President Donald Trump there on the South Lawn as he prepares to go out west to Nevada to talk about his no tax on tips. But worth noting there, when we did dip back in, he anticipates Lebanon and Israel meeting there at the White House in, he says, about four to five days.
[14:20:00]
He says he's going to be the difference maker in those meetings. They haven't met in some 40 years.
Let's bring in Kristen Holmes who's at the White House, who's also been following along. Kristen what else can you tell us?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I do want to start by touching on something Jeremy said, which was this idea of what Hezbollah is going to do. Of course, we haven't heard from them, but President Trump said repeatedly that they had also agreed to the ceasefire, so we'll wait for a statement on that.
President Trump talked about the blockade and then he made this comment about himself potentially going to this next round of talks, which he said could happen as early as this weekend in Pakistan. I mean that would be a huge development.
I can tell you from talking to a number of security experts, members of the Secret Service, that just getting Vice President, J.D. Vance there was a huge security risk. They were incredibly diligent about it. It took a lot of time to plan out and they were deeply concerned about it.
So bringing the president into that, again that could provide another huge security risk, but of course we'll watch that closely. I did reach out to someone at the White House who said they didn't know that he was going to say that, but there are obviously multiple conversations going on at one time. I do also want to talk about the ceasefire with Iran because you saw him kind of go back and forth on that answer.
We saw him say at one point that he didn't think he was going to have to extend the ceasefire. Then he said he would extend it if it was required, if he needed to. Then he said again that he didn't think that they would have to extend it.
And I do want to just put all of this into the larger picture because the ceasefire we're talking about with Lebanon and with Israel really plays into whether or not the U.S. can strike a deal with Iran. One of the things Iran kept saying was that the U.S. was in violation of their part of the ceasefire because Lebanon was not included in that ceasefire, because Israel continued to strike Lebanon.
This takes that off of the table, so this is them inching towards some kind of a deal. President Trump seems very confident. We heard from the White House yesterday, they seemed very optimistic. But of course, we always have to caveat that these things have a way of falling apart in the 11th hour. However again, they are saying that the relationship right now is in a good place.
I think the real eyes are going to be on this question of whether or not President Trump is going to go to Islamabad. Again, yesterday, I was told by a senior White House official that that coalition or that delegation was going to be led by the Vice President, J.D. Vance, and we'll see if that shifts. Yeah.
SANCHEZ: And quickly, Kristen, the president also talked about the Pope, saying that he's not actually fighting with the Pope, but he has nothing against the Pope. Though he did misquote something that Pope Leo had said. He said that he believes that the Pope had said that Iran has the right to have a nuclear weapon. That's actually not the Pope's stance. He'd spoken out previously against any kind of nuclear proliferation. It's a stance the Vatican has had for decades. HOLMES: Well, he also didn't talk about nuclear proliferation at all. I mean, the Pope has been talking about very specifically the civilization aspect of this. One, not using religion to justify war, but two, the original most pointed remarks from the Pope that really set this whole thing off came because of the tweet that President Trump or Truth Social Post that President Trump put out saying, he was going to eradicate an entire civilization.
And the Pope then pushed back on that saying that that is inappropriate language, that we shouldn't be talking like that. And he has been pushing for peace. I did think it was interesting because President Trump has been continuing this fight with Pope Leo. And in fact, he has kind of gotten some of his most loyal followers, members of the government, probably the three most powerful members of the Republican Party, him, J.D. Vance and Mike Johnson.
Mike Johnson and J.D. Vance, who is a Catholic, both talk about their Christianity, the Catholicism all the time to kind of go out against the Pope and accuse the Pope of being political. Now you see President Trump kind of walking back from this saying, I don't have a problem with him. I'm allowed to disagree with him.
And it goes to show you what we've been reporting, which is there are Republicans across this country who are deeply concerned about this divide that President Trump is causing with the Pope. They are deeply worried that this is going to impact midterms, turn off Republican voters during a time where Republican voters are already turned off. They don't want to be further breaking down the base here ahead of those midterms.
SANCHEZ: Kirsten Holmes, live for us at the White House, thank you so much for the update.
So just minutes from now, NASA's Artemis II crew is going to hold a press conference on their historic trip around the moon. We're going to bring it to you live, straight ahead.
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[14:29:11]
SANCHEZ: So, we are counting down. Just minutes from now, the Artemis II astronauts are going to share more details about their historic lunar flyby. And it's happening just days after they completed a nearly 10-day journey into deep space, traveling more than 250,000 miles from Earth.
DEAN: Quite a journey. All of the astronauts, all four of them, will be speaking, taking questions at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. And we are joined now by CNN's Ed Lavandera and former NASA Astronaut, Garrett Reisman. He's also a Professor of Astronautical Engineering at the University of Southern California, my alma mater.
Garrett, it's great to see you. Thanks so much for being here with us. Let's start first with you. What are you hoping to learn when we hear from them? GARRETT REISMAN, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: Yeah, fight on, Jessica. So I am hoping -- I'm just hoping to hear more of their message, which has been one of unity. It's been one of celebrating their differences. And one of expressing the impression they got of Earth from space --
