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Trump Tells Nation Iran Is "No Longer A Threat"; Trump: "Absolutely" Considering Withdrawing From NATO; Supreme Court Expresses Skepticism Of Trump's Order; Sources: Trump Has Discussed Ousting Attorney General Bondi. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired April 02, 2026 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:24]

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to our viewers joining us from the United States and all around the world. I'm Danny Freeman. It is Thursday, April 2nd, 5:00 a.m. here in New York.

Straight ahead on EARLY START.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: In an address to the nation, President Donald Trump laid out the justification for the United States' war with Iran.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They had some weapons that nobody believed they had. We took them out. We took them all out.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: The majority of the Supreme Court is skeptical of the Trump administration's argument in support of limiting birthright citizenship.

CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS, U.S. SUPREME COURT: It's a new world. It's the same constitution.

ANNOUNCER: Booster ignition and liftoff.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: After a successful launch, the four astronauts on Artemis II are now on a risky journey to the far side of the moon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

FREEMAN: A lot of news to get to this morning, but we begin with President Trump trying to reassure skeptical Americans that the war with Iran is a success and should be over soon. He repeated a number of familiar talking points in his primetime address to the nation, including the claim that gas prices will come down quickly once the war is over. He said if Iran doesn't agree to a peace deal in two to three weeks, he'll order attacks on their energy sites and oil facilities. And he claimed Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Our objectives are very simple and clear. We are systematically dismantling the regime's ability to threaten America or project power outside of their borders. That means eliminating Iran's navy, which is now absolutely destroyed, hurting their air force and their missile program at levels never seen before, and annihilating their defense industrial base. We've done all of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: The president also honored the 13 American service members killed in Operation Epic Fury, and he said the operation's main objective has been achieved.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The nuclear sites that we obliterated with the B-2 bombers have been hit so hard that it would take months to get near the nuclear dust, and we have it under intense satellite surveillance and control. If we see them make a move, even a move for it will hit them with missiles very hard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: Now, White House officials say they're pleased with the president's address selling the justification for the war and its military successes.

CNN's Alayna Treene has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TREENE: In an address to the nation Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump laid out the justification for the United States war with Iran. And really, the speech served as a sale to the American people, in part trying to emphasize the successes of the U.S. military operations in Iran thus far, but also to convince them that this is not going to be a protracted military engagement, saying that the war was nearing its completion.

And really, we did not learn anything new, really, from his speech on Wednesday, particularly for those who have been paying close attention to the president's post on Truth Social or listening to his comments in recent days. But the goal of this really was to make sure that Americans were listening.

And that's part of why they did this in the form of a national address.

Now, some things that stood out to me was one, he did not even reach the subject of something. We know his team is closely considering, privately, this idea of sending ground troops to Iran.

He also talked about the Strait of Hormuz. Of course, a huge issue and a primary concern for many people here in the White House. He essentially said what he's been saying, that he believes that the onus is really on many of the United States allies and European countries, NATO allies, to be the ones to try and reopen it. He framed it as them relying and being more dependent on oil that flows through the Strait of Hormuz more than the United States, and said, really, it is up to them to try and go and take it. He also said at one point that he believes that it will reopen naturally when the war ends.

He also talked about his predecessors and argued that, as he has done in the past, that he is the only president that could save America from the threat of Iran. But really, I think the big picture here was that he did what his team wanted him to do. This was a sale again to the American people at a time when many people throughout the Trump administration recognize that their patience is wearing thin.

Alayna Treene, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREEMAN: Thank you, Alayna, for that reporting.

Meanwhile, while President Trump was speaking, new attacks were taking place across Iran and Israel.

[05:05:04]

This video right here shows huge explosions in the Iranian city of Isfahan. You can see bright orange flashes and billowing black smoke as flaming debris falls from the sky. It's not clear, though, what exactly was targeted.

Meanwhile, CNN has geolocated another video from about 20 kilometers to the south. Witnesses who posted these pictures on social media say the fire was burning in the direction of a military facility. Plus, this -- those, of course, air raid sirens. They sent residents running for shelter in the Israeli port city of Haifa on Tuesday.

And a CNN crew witnessed large booms in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, in what one Israeli official described as the most significant Iranian strike since the first days of the war.

Meanwhile, Iran is responding to President Trump's address to the nation.

CNN's Paula Hancocks is live in Abu Dhabi, with more on that.

Paula, what can you tell us?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brian, we've had a statement from the Revolutionary Guard posted through the state media in Iran, and they've effectively rejected President Trump's claim that the military has been decimated. They say that they have missile production capability that the U.S. does not know about, and that it's hidden and they will not be able to find. Now, they also said that they will continue this war until the U.S. and Israel face -- and I quote here -- "humiliation, disgrace, lasting regret and ultimate surrender."

So, as expected, a very strong response from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. We also had before President Trump spoke, an open letter that was written by the Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Now, there are still questions as to how much control he has over what is happening. It's certainly believed to be more the IRGC that is -- that is running things at the moment.

But in this letter, he showed an understanding of the way that American -- the American political system worked. I'll read you a couple of the lines. Quote, "Exactly which of the American people's interests are truly being served by this war? Is America first truly among the priorities of the us government today?"

Now, he said that he was addressing the American people directly in this open letter, saying that Tehran's response also against the Gulf nations has been, quote, "legitimate self-defense."

But we have been seeing that that even after this speech, there has been continual retaliation against Gulf states by Iran. We've seen that Kuwait and Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, have had to intercept projectiles that have been fired towards their territories. Here in the UAE, we know that there was damage after an interception at the Khalifa industrial area, the economic zone, which is an area near Khalifa port that Tehran has said that they were going to target and it has been targeted a number of times in the past.

So, while President Trump suggests that diplomacy is ongoing at the same time as saying that there will be extremely tough military operations over the next two to three weeks, what is happening on the ground hasn't changed at all. We are still seeing these continual attacks on all sides.

And as you mentioned, there, there does appear to have been, at least in the last 24, 36 hours, more sustained waves of launches against Israel -- Brian.

FREEMAN: Yeah. And that perspective too, that on the ground has not changed. And again, president signaling it might get more intense. Very important to remember.

Paula Hancocks in Abu Dhabi -- thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Meanwhile, the British prime minister says he won't let the U.K. get dragged into the war with Iran. But today, he's hosting a virtual summit to discuss options for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. For weeks, NATO allies have rebuffed the U.S. president's calls to help regain control of that vital waterway.

And now, President Trump is once again threatening to leave NATO, suggesting its members are bad allies for not supporting the war effort and saying the U.S. gets nothing out of the alliance.

CNN's Clare Sebastian is covering all of this from London for us.

Clare, at least there's got to be some relief that President Trump did not specifically say that about NATO in the speech last night.

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I think given that he had explicitly trailed that he would talk about this and coming off the back of those threats to pull the U.S. out of the alliance because of what he sees as a reluctance from allies to come to his aid in Iran. I think that was perhaps small comfort.

But I think there is significant disquiet among NATO allies, number one, that every time we see these kinds of comments from Trump, it does fundamentally undermine the alliances unity as a cornerstone of its deterrent and collective defense.

[05:10:00]

And number two, because the current dispute coming from the U.S. president seems to be rooted in a fundamentally different understanding of what the alliance is for than is enshrined in its treaties. Take a listen to the deputy French defense minister speaking about this on Wednesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALICE RUFO, FRENCH DEPUTY DEFENSE MINISTER (through translator): I will remind you what NATO is. It is a military alliance concerned with the security of territories in the Euro-Atlantic area. It is not intended to carry out an operation in the Strait of Hormuz, which is not in accordance with international law. We must remember that

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEBASTIAN: So, look, these countries that are convening today, the British prime minister and his foreign minister is now convening a summit of 35 countries, not just European, not just NATO, but they are all coming together to discuss what the prime minister said would be viable, diplomatic and political means to try to de-escalate the situation in the Strait of Hormuz. They cannot, obviously, and don't want to get involved in this war that they were not consulted about. But it's also seriously in their interest now to do whatever they can to try to get the Strait of Hormuz reopened.

Energy prices have skyrocketed in Europe, and it could only get worse as this goes on. So, this is the fine line they are treading is trying to stay out of the war while doing as much as they possibly can, of course, to mitigate its consequences -- Danny.

FREEMAN: Clare Sebastian in London, always good to have your perspective on reporting. Thank you so much for that.

All right. Coming up in just a moment, the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the high-stakes birthright citizenship debate. We'll tell you how this historic case could change the definition of U.S. citizenship. That's coming up ahead.

And later, questions surrounding the future of the U.S. attorney general. Could President Trump be considering a replacement for Pam Bondi? That much more after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:16:12]

FREEMAN: President Trump has become the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court. He was there Wednesday, while the justices voiced skepticism, though, about his executive order to end birthright citizenship.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN SAUER, SOLICITOR GENERAL: And of course, we're in a new world now, Justice Alito pointed out, too, where eight billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who's a U.S. citizen.

CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Well, it's a new world. It's the same constitution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: CNN's Paula Reid has more from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: On Wednesday, it appeared that a majority of the Supreme Court is skeptical of the Trump administration's argument in support of the president's executive orders limiting birthright citizenship. On Wednesday, even the three justices that Trump himself appointed appeared that they were not buying what the solicitor general, John Sauer, was trying to sell them in terms of this new interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which for the past over 100 years has been interpreted to mean that if you were born in the U.S., that you are a citizen of this country.

But they're arguing that there's language in the 14th Amendment that says, not only are you born here, but you are subject to the jurisdiction thereof. They really focused on that, arguing that if you are here legally, if you're in a short term visa, if you're a tourist, that you're not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. and therefore, you should not be a citizen.

There's a series of tense exchanges, though, between the justices and the president's lawyer, so we're not exactly sure what he wanted to achieve by being the first president in modern history to attend an oral argument. But clearly, his presence did not make the justices any more sympathetic to his arguments.

He left after his lawyer wrapped an argument. Then the ACLU got up, and they certainly had an easier time, though they did face some tough questions.

At times, the justices, though, appear to be asking questions that maybe were aimed at how they were going to write their opinion, and not necessarily how they should rule. Now, the Supreme Court is a conservative supermajority thanks to

Trump's three appointees. It is now 6-3 conservative court. It has handed the president many major legal victories, but this time on this issue of birthright citizenship and trying to limit it through executive order, it appears that the justices may be willing to hand him a pretty big loss here, but we won't know for sure until June, when they issue their biggest rulings.

Paula Reid, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREEMAN: Thank you, Paula.

Meanwhile, staying in D.C., multiple sources tell CNN, President Trump has privately discussed firing Attorney General Pam Bondi. We're told the president is frustrated by the backlash and anger in his base over the administration's handling of the Epstein files. He's also complained that Bondi has not investigated enough of his perceived political opponents.

In a statement to CNN, the president called Bondi a wonderful person and said she is doing a good job. President Trump has reportedly asked people about replacing Bondi with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, among others. It's not clear, though, whether the president has made up his mind.

All right. Coming up, President Trump calls the unpopular war with Iran an investment in America's future. What he did and did not say, though, about how much longer it will last.

Plus, Gulf states are reacting to President Trump's remarks about the war. We'll have a report from the region, next.

So, stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:23:58]

FREEMAN: Welcome back.

In his primetime address to the nation, President Trump announced the United States' main goals in Iran are nearing completion and signaled he may soon walk away without toppling the Islamic Republic, without reopening the Strait of Hormuz and without securing a deal to end Iran's attacks on the U.S. and its allies.

The president did vow to hit Iran extremely hard over the next few weeks and, quote, bring them back to the stone ages. He also claimed the U.S. does not need this war, that it started in coordination with Israel, and that it doesn't need anything from the region. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: We're now totally independent of the Middle East, and yet we are there to help. We don't have to be there. We don't need their oil. We don't need anything they have. But we're there to help our allies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: Now, the president went on to describe the war as payback for nearly half a century of violence by Iran and its proxies. Meanwhile, Iran's military dismissed President Trump's claim that four weeks of the conflict have left it weakened. Israel's air defenses intercepted Iranian missiles Wednesday on the first night of Passover.

[05:25:04]

Gulf states are reacting to President Trump's speech, too.

CNN's Matthew Chance is in Doha, Qatar, with more on the regional reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, I mean, I spoke to Iranian officials earlier on today and they said they didn't put much stock in the public remarks of President Trump because they don't reliably reflect what actually happens. And they went on to say, this reflects a trait of him that he is eccentric and unpredictable, which of course we all know.

But I mean, there's been a physical response as well to this speech in the region with alarms going off and missiles and drones being launched by Iran across the region, particularly at the United Arab Emirates. Within the past few minutes, we've had those reports coming in of attacks from Iran, again, against those surrounding Gulf Arab states that have been so terribly battered in the course of the past month or so, since this Iran war began. These are energy-rich countries that depend almost entirely on energy exports for their survival.

And they've seen those revenues because of the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz and because of the attacks on the energy infrastructure. Absolutely devastated, dropping from billions of dollars a day in some cases to close to zero. And so, we're looking at an existential economic crisis for this region.

And there was very little in terms of reassurance in that, that that speech by President Trump, he talked about, you know, potentially escalating the conflict, at least continuing it. Certainly, there was no word on when this conflict would come to a conclusion. And insomuch as he did address that, I think we're all left with the impression that at the end of this conflict, we could see an Iran which is strengthened strategically that will keep the Strait of Hormuz under its control and possibly even have the capability to have ballistic missiles and even a nuclear program at the end of this war.

And so that's very alarming for the countries in this region.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREEMAN: Matthew, thank you very much for that reporting.

For more on President Trump's speech and the war with Iran, let's bring in H.A. Hellyer. He's a senior associate fellow at the royal united services institute. He joins me live this hour from Cairo.

Thank you so much for chatting with us about really consequential a couple of hours in this conflict. But let's start here.

Let me get your first top line reaction to last night's speech.

From your vantage point, was there anything new to change how we should be thinking about what may come next in this war?

H.A. HELLYER, SENIOR ASSOCIATE FELLOW, ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE: First, thank you very much for having me. I don't think there was anything particularly new in the speech last night. It felt like the Truth Social posts that have been coming out over the last days and weeks were simply consolidated and put into a speech. We didn't see really a clear end game beyond, frankly, the idea that Rubio has put forward that the main aims of the United States are for, which is to degrade Iran's air force. Iran's navy, Iran's capacity to launch missiles and its defense industry.

And there is a conflict there are conflicting messages here. You have Hegseth, the secretary of defense or war, talking about how unpredictability is basically the name of the game here, leaving open a more flexible way to say mission accomplished.

But Rubio -- Marco Rubio has been a lot more focused in this regard, talking about these four aims. It's not clear where Trump is going to land, and this is quite -- quite strange to have different messages from the secretary of defense, and from the secretary of state and national security advisor. But I think this is where we are right now.

And as your correspondent pointed out, there wasn't really any clarity on the strait of Hormuz. There wasn't really that much clarity on the nuclear stockpile, let alone monitoring arrangements in that regard.

And I think the markets reacted to all of that quite negatively, futures selling off reflecting I think the markets concerned that these tactical gains and there have been many tactical gains over the last few weeks doesn't indicate strategic closure at all.

And within the region, I think a great concern that indeed at the end of this, the United States could call it quits and go home. And there would be an Iran that is more -- more run by the IRGC, much more aggressive, and deeply antipathetic to all of its neighbors, leaving the region in a much worse condition than it was before this war started.

FREEMAN: Well, let's talk about what the president hopes is, I guess, the end of this, because I'd like your perspective from outside of the United States right now from the Middle East. Does it seem plausible to you that Iran.