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The Situation Room

Meta and YouTube Found Liable in Social Media Addiction Case; Trump Holds First Cabinet Meeting; Trump: Iran "Begging to Work Out a Deal". Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired March 26, 2026 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news, we're still waiting for President Trump to begin his cabinet meeting with top officials in his administration. Once that cabinet meeting begins, we'll have live coverage coming up right here in the Situation Room.

In the meantime, there's other important news we're following. A California jury has found YouTube and Meta liable in a landmark case about social media addiction. The companies were accused of intentionally getting a young woman addicted to their sites and harming her mental health. The jury found Meta and YouTube negligent in the design of their platforms. And they were ordered to pay a total of $6 million in damages. YouTube and Meta are planning to appeal. But this case could be a watershed moment for social media companies and how they operate. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK LANIER, PLAINTIFF'S ATTORNEY: These social media companies make their money off what they call the attention economy. They're selling the time we spend on their platforms. And that's fine if they want to do that business, but they must do it responsibly. They can't take advantage of young, pre-developed minds and purposely engineer addiction into their platforms so that those children spend more time than they should just to profit the companies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: CNN's Clare Duffy has more now on how this case could mark a crucial moment for social media companies and accountability.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: This case was brought by a now 20- year-old named Kaylee and her mother, accusing Meta and YouTube of intentionally designing addictive features that got her hooked as a young woman and caused mental health challenges like anxiety and body dysmorphia. And the jury sided with Kaylee on all counts in this case. They found that Meta and YouTube knew that their platforms could be harmful to young people, failed to warn users of these risks, and played a substantial role in Kaylee's mental health challenges. The jury has awarded a combined $6 million in compensatory and punitive damages. And look, $6 million between these two companies is sort of a drop in the bucket when you're talking about companies as big as Meta and YouTube.

But this is just the first step. This case now potentially creates a roadmap for lawyers to follow in hundreds of other cases that have been filed against these two companies, as well as TikTok and Snap, which settled Kaylee's case just before trial. If these tech companies continue to lose in these hundreds of cases, we could see them potentially on the hook for billions of dollars in damages and also forced to make changes to their platforms.

Parents and advocates who for years have been raising concerns about online safety issues for children are also certainly hoping that U.S. lawmakers are watching this decision closely, watching the evidence that came out in this trial, and that that could motivate them to create more comprehensive online safety legislation.

Now, Meta and YouTube do say they plan to appeal. They say they respectfully disagree with this decision. That could drag out this case for months, if not years. But in the meantime, we will see these other cases starting to go to trial. So, this is an important moment and just a first step as we potentially start to see a shift in how we think about who is responsible for the safety of young people online. Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: All right. Clare Duffy reporting for us. Thank you very, very much. And once again, we're waiting for President Trump to hold a cabinet meeting with his top officials in his administration. We're going to go to the White House, and the president will have that cabinet meeting coming up. Once it starts, we'll have live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:35:00]

BLITZER: All right. We're going to go right to the White House in the Cabinet Room. The president meeting with his top officials. The Cabinet meeting is beginning right now.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: My Cabinet, they're doing a phenomenal job. Everybody pretty much agrees to that, including our newest member, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin. Thank you, Mark.

We all know him very well, and he was a very popular senator, a very effective senator. Effective probably being the more important word. J.D., don't you think? Yes, sir. And we wish you a lot of luck. I think you do fantastically well. Congratulations to you. An amazing family that were here yesterday in the Oval, sworn in. His family is amazing. So, thank you very much.

We're now on day 41 of the disgraceful Democrat shutdown of Markwayne's department. Congratulations. You came into a department that's shut down. Shut down by the radical Democrats. But Democrats are really punishing the American people. I saw it today on one of the shows where they were interviewing people at the airport, and they're all angry at the Democrats. They're saying they're actually angry at Schumer. I didn't think anyone knew his name. One woman said, that Schumer is disgraceful. He's a disgrace to our country. But they're angry at the Democrats. They know what's happening.

But they're punishing the American people, including travelers at airports, all in the quest to return to open borders and give amnesty to illegal alien criminals. They want to give amnesty to some of the criminals that came into our country. Just about all of them, actually, if you look at it. They love sanctuary cities, which is a sanctuary for criminals. They want to make sure they're taken care of. That's what we're fighting about. They don't talk about that, but that's what they're fighting about. They want to protect criminals.

In many cases -- 11,888 murders. Many of them, I will say, are gone now because of us. We got them out. But still have some left. Should have never happened. Should have never been allowed to come into our country. But we're not going to let it happen. We're not going to let the Democrats get away with this stuff. And people are wise to them. So, they need to end the shutdown immediately or we'll have to take some very drastic measures.

This morning, I want to give an update on the Operation Epic Fury, which is an appropriate name because we are absolutely obliterating them. Over the past three weeks, we've been hitting Iran's military capabilities at a level that few people have ever seen before. People never knew there was such a capability. We're the strongest military anywhere in the world by far. I built it during my first administration, and I used it during my second administration.

Unfortunately, because I'd rather not have to use it. But it's a display of force and precision and skill like nothing the world has really witnessed, although you get a pretty good witnessing of it in Venezuela also. That was a smaller version of what we're doing now.

We're crushing their missiles and drone stockpiles, destroying their defense industrial base. We've wiped out their Navy completely, their Air Force completely. We've wiped out a large percentage of their missiles. And the missile launchers, without the launchers, you can't. The missiles don't do any good.

[10:40:00]

And we've knocked out probably close to 90 percent of the launchers, probably more than 90 percent of the missiles themselves. Between some they fired and more than they fired, we knocked out. We've also destroyed a lot of the factories. We're continuing to do that.

But a lot of the factories where they manufacture the drones and the missiles, the drones too are way down. But the reason they're down is they go one way and they don't come back, because for the most part we're shooting them down. But we also are able to -- we've really done tremendous damage to the places where they make them. And just so we set the record straight, because I've been watching The Wall Street Journal's fake news and all these stories that get printed like, oh, I want to make a deal. They are begging to make a deal, not me. They're begging to make a deal. And anybody that saw what was happening over there would understand why they want to make a deal. But they say, oh, we're not talking to them. Anybody would know they're talking. And only a total fool. And they're not fools. They're very smart, actually, in a certain way. And they're great negotiators. I say they're lousy fighters, but they're great negotiators. And they are begging to work out a deal. I don't know if we'll be able to do that.

I don't know if we're willing to do that. They should have done that four weeks ago. They should have done it two years ago, or they should have done it when we first came into office, because two years ago they had free reign under Biden. Sleepy Joe, worst president in the history of our country. What he allowed to happen to our country at the borders. And even with a thing like this.

But not just him. Every president for 47 years, every president should have done this. They should have done it a long time ago, because you cannot give lunatics a nuclear weapon. And they would have had a big one. It stopped, really, when we did the B-2.

But even before that, Barack Hussein Obama, what he did where he gave them the Iran nuclear deal, gave them free will toward a nuclear weapon. Basically, he chose Iran over Israel and others that didn't want him to do it. But I terminated that deal. Had I not terminated that deal, you would have had a nuclear weapon years ago and it would have been used, guaranteed.

And one of the reasons, you know, about the guarantee is because their neighbors were sort of like bystanders. They weren't involved very much. They didn't choose heavy sides. They didn't want to because people were concerned with Iran. There was a big black cloud over the Middle East. They were concerned. But all of a sudden, the war starts, and they start shooting at these five, in particular, five countries. They start shooting at Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Oman. They start shooting at them. Everybody was shocked, including us. You know why? Because they're sick. And they had a plan to take over the Middle East.

And some of those missiles that were shot at them were locked long before we even started this process. They were locked and loaded and aimed at those countries. They wanted to take over the Middle East. But we happened to come along, so it wasn't so easy.

So, right now, their navy is sunk in the largest elimination of a foreign navy that has taken place, maybe ever, but certainly since World War II. Their air force is gone. Their anti-aircraft and communications capabilities are totally dismantled. And one of the problems they do have when they deal with us is we deal with people and the people aren't able to communicate with anybody else. You know, because all of their leadership has been gone. The first level is gone, and they met to pick a new level, and they're gone. They're all gone because they didn't make a deal and because they're sick people. They're really sick. They're really sinister, sick people.

And if anybody thinks it was OK to have a group of people like this to have nuclear capability, nuclear weapons, and if we didn't attack with the B-2 bombers, they would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks of that, maybe four weeks.

But between two and four weeks, they were planning to have a nuclear weapon. If we didn't hit them at that time with the B-2 bombers, and one of the great air raids in history, maybe the greatest, dark at night, no moon, no light, every single bomb hit its mark and just obliterated that place. So, it's now buried deep under Earth. And it was an amazing thing, but they would have a nuclear -- and they would have used it without question.

And you know that because why did they shoot all these countries that weren't even really involved with them? They weren't involved. They had no big problems. Because they're sick. Because they want to take over the Middle East, not just Israel.

[10:45:00]

Certainly, Israel would have been the first on their list. They would have used nuclear weapons, a nuclear, you don't need too many of them, but they would have used a nuclear weapon on Israel and they would have used it on the other neighbors. And then they would have come after us.

And if we had a weak president, they would have done great damage. But fortunately, you don't have a weak president. I knew what was happening. And I think we've been proven right. You know, they took one missile, went 2,500 miles. They supposedly didn't have a missile like that. They had no missile with that capability. But they shot the now-famous Ireland, the island that the U.K. was very afraid to give us. Because they didn't want to get dragged in. But we don't want to get dragged into their wars either.

One thing, we're very disappointed. I'll say it publicly. We're very disappointed with NATO because NATO has done absolutely nothing. And I've always said, 25 years ago, I mean, I was somebody that wasn't a politician, but I was always involved in politics and I understood politics. I said 25 years ago that NATO's a paper tiger. But more importantly, that we'll come to their rescue, but they will never come to ours. And I want you to remember that we said this. They didn't come to our rescue.

Now, they all want to help when they're annihilated. The other side is annihilated. They said, we'd love to send ships. They actually made a statement, a couple of them, that we want to get involved when the war is over. No, it's supposed to get involved when the war is beginning or even before it begins. We had the U.K. say that we'll send, this is three weeks ago, we'll send our aircraft carriers, which aren't the best aircraft carriers, by the way. They're toys compared to what we have.

But we'll send our aircraft carrier when the war is over. I said, oh, that's wonderful. Thank you very much. We don't bother. We don't need it. And we don't need it. And we don't need them. We estimated it would take approximately four to six weeks to achieve our mission.

And we're way ahead of schedule. If you look at what we've done in terms of the destruction of that country, I mean, we're way ahead. Think of it. They have no Navy. And they had good ships. 154 ships have been shot down and are resting very nicely at the bottom of the sea. And we did that in a matter of less than a week. Because we have the greatest military in the world by far. Nobody even close.

So, we estimated it would take approximately four to six weeks to achieve our mission. 26 days in. We're extremely, really a lot ahead of schedule. The Iranian regime is now admitting to itself that they have been decisively defeated. They're saying to people, this is a disaster. They know it. That's why they're talking to us. They wouldn't talk otherwise. But they're talking to us because they've got a disaster on their hands.

They're defeated. They can't make a comeback. We're free to roam over their cities and towns and destroy all of their crazy nuclear weapons and missiles and drones that they're building. And we're doing that. They now have a chance to make a deal. But that's up to them. And they'll tell you, we're not negotiating. We will not negotiate. Of course, they'll negotiate. And they've been obliterated. Who wouldn't negotiate? They are begging to make a deal.

We'll see if we can make the right deal. And if they make the right deal, then the strait will open up. Hormuz Strait will open up. And even now, we don't know if there are any mines. They have 22 mine, they call them mine droppers. Think of it. Who would have 22-mine droppers? This is a boat that drops mines. Who has 22-mine droppers? Except for people with very evil intention. So, every one of those mine droppers has been struck with the same weapon we use to stop drugs from coming into the United States of America.

When we hit those boats, it's the exact same weapon. Extremely effective. We have unlimited supplies and extremely effective. But they have no more mine droppers.

By the way, speaking of drugs, we're 98 percent down drugs coming in by water, by the ocean, by the sea. 98 percent. And we're trying to find out who are the 2 percent because we think they're the bravest men anywhere in the world. Maybe women. But whoever's on those boats is very brave or doesn't watch television. But where drugs coming in by sea, coming in by water, are 98 percent down. And now, we'll stop the drugs coming in by land.

[10:50:00]

The land is the easy one. You had to stop the water. A lot of it came into the water. Now, it's all pinched. And these people are trying to come in by land. And we will. That's the easy one. But we had to take care of the water first. Nobody's coming in.

Virtually nothing is coming in anymore. It was hundreds of millions of dollars a week were coming in by water. But they now have the chance, that is Iran, to permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions and to chart a new path forward. We'll see if they want to do it. If they don't, we're their worst nightmare.

In the meantime, we'll just keep blowing them away, unimpeded, unstopped. There's not a thing they can do about it. They can't do anything about it, you know. I'll tell you if they could. If they could, you'd be hearing about it. You'd be hearing about it. You don't hear anything about it. They can't shoot our jets. We have the best military equipment in the world. Not even a contest.

You see that with Venezuela. They had other equipment. They didn't have ours. It didn't work. Didn't work. Think of it. We did a situation in Venezuela. It was a great military operation, getting a very, very dangerous man who's killed a lot of people, forced people into our country. Incredible. He emptied his prisons in Venezuela, emptied his prisons into our country. And I hope that charge will be brought at some point. Because that was a big charge that hasn't been brought yet. It should be brought. He emptied his prisons into our country and was a major purveyor of drugs coming into our country. And he's now been captured and, you know, I guess be given a fair trial.

But I would imagine there are other trials coming because they have just -- they've really sued him just in a fraction of the kind of things that he's done. Other cases are going to be brought, as you probably know.

In the meantime, with Iran, we're going to keep doing what we've been doing. And nobody's a match for the United States, but they're not a match for the United States. It's small potatoes. That's why I'm so disappointed in NATO, because this was a test for NATO. This was a test. You can help us. You don't have to. But if you don't have -- you know, if you don't do that, we're going to remember. Just remember. Remember this in a number of months from now. Remember my statements. I have an expression, a great expression. Never forget. You can never forget.

So, as we end threats to America abroad, we're focused here at home on building the greatest economy in the history of the world. Now, before this started, the Dow hit 50,000. The S&P hit 7,000. Both of those achievements were not achievable. Every one of you, most of you, I guess, said you'll never hit 50,000 during a four-year period because it was too high a number. Well, we hit it in our first year.

And I said, well, now we have to take an excursion to Iran and we have to stop this maniac who's no longer with us. The supreme leader wasn't so supreme. No longer with us. It's very sad. But we have to stop him from blowing up the world, blowing up the Middle East, and blowing up our country. And we did that.

And I thought, frankly, I thought the oil prices would go up more and I thought the stock market would go down more. It hasn't been nearly as severe as I thought. I think they have confidence in maybe the American president and maybe the people sitting around this table. But Americans filing their taxes this year are receiving record-setting refunds. It's been a very big story. Well, it should be a big story. I don't think you write about it that much, but I speak about it. You know, I speak about it. Because if I speak about it, at least people here, you don't write about it. You don't write about the drug prices going down. They'll be going down 30, 40, 50, 60 percent, 70 percent.

Favored nations. Called most favored nations. We're going to be paying the lowest price anywhere in the world before we paid the highest price in the world. Bobby, right? And now, we're going to pay the lowest price in the world. That's quite a difference. It's a difference of from 40 to 70 and 80 and even 90 percent. That's a pretty big difference. But we're slashing regulations, and investment is pouring in from all over the world. We have the most investment of any country in history has been put into our country in the last year.

And again, we had to take a little detour. It won't be long. It's going to end soon. We had to take a little detour, go to Iran, and we had to put out a fire, a very dangerous fire that could have blown up big portions of the world, if not the whole thing.

[10:55:00]

So, tomorrow, we'll be announcing a variety of actions that we're taking to support American farmers. We'll never forget. We love the farmers. We gave them $12 billion out of tariff money. We had a tremendous amount of tariff money come in, and we continue to have. We've gone -- as you know, the Supreme Court gave us a very good deal of money, a very unfortunate, foolish ruling, a ruling that gives the people that have ripped off our country for many years, gives them some money back. It's one of those things. It's a terrible, terrible, horrible mistake they made.

But it's OK because we have another method that's just as good. We'll use the other method. But because the tariff money has been so substantial, we gave our farmers, who have been mistreated by some countries, we gave them $12 billion. And they're extremely happy, and they deserve it. They've been great. They never complain. They just go out, and they farm, and they wouldn't do anything different. They wouldn't trade jobs with any of you, except maybe some of the fake media. Some, I don't see that. I like their job better, actually. I love the farmers. So, we gave them $12 billion.

So, in just a few moments, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will discuss the actions that we're taking to address energy prices, which have not gone up as much as I thought, Scott, to be honest with you. And, you know, it's not over, so maybe it'll go up a little bit more. It's all going to come back down to where it was and probably lower. And my predictions have been right. Trump was right about everything. They have a new hat. Trump was right about everything. It's pretty right. But Scott's going to address that.

And I think before we go very much further, I want to ask Vice President J.D. Vance to say a few words about where we are with the situation. He's involved with Steve and with Jared on negotiations. And then some of the others will speak. We'll have Marco say a few words, Pete Hegseth, who was born for this role. I mean, he's doing a great job. They gave him a hard time.

And now, people -- I'll tell you, somebody came up to me yesterday and gave you a very hard time, said, you know, I made a mistake. Pete Hegseth is doing a good job. So, when I tell you who, you're not even going to believe it. He gave you such a nasty hard time. But you're doing great. And then Steve is going to speak and Scott will speak last. And if we have any questions, we'll take some questions. You may have questions. I doubt it, but you may have some.

So, J.D., please.

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, sir. Well, thank you. It's good to see everybody. Proud to be part of this team. Proud to be serving the president of the country. Let me just say a couple things. The first of all is the president summarized this very ably. But look, the Iranian conventional military is effectively destroyed. They don't have a navy. They don't have the ability to hit us like they could have a few weeks ago. And what that does is that gives us options, Mr. President.

Now, there's been a lot of reporting about diplomatic options, about negotiations. There's, of course, Pete and his team. There are further military options. But what we have now that we didn't have when the president took over just a little over a year ago is the ability to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon. Because when I say options, I think it's important the American people know options for what, and it's options to ensure that Iran never has a nuclear weapon.

You talk about people who walk into a crowded supermarket and have a vest on. And they blow up the vest and a couple of people get killed and that's a terrible tragedy. What happens when what's on the vest is not something that can kill a couple of people but can kill many, many tens of thousands of people? That is the most important American national security objective that exists for any administration at any time is you don't want the worst people in the world to have a nuclear weapon. That's why the president is doing this. That's why the president cares so much about this particular issue.

I'll let Steve talk a little bit. About the details of the negotiation. But the last thing I'll say before I turn it over to Marco is, I'm very mindful, of course, that we have a lot of folks overseas fighting very ably for the United States of America. And the heat and the whole team, we're very proud of them, but they're fighting at a time where we are about to enter, as Christians, the most important week of the Christian calendar, the Holy Week, that celebrates the return of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem.

And so, I want to say to all of my fellow American Christians, but particularly those serving in the Gulf, that I wish you all very blessed Easter a very blessed Holy Week, and we continue to stand behind you and continue to support you every step of the way. Thank you, sir.

TRUMP: Thank you very much. Marco?

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: The most important job any president has is to keep the American people safe, and every president says it, but we have a president that means it and does something about it. As the president outlined very clearly to the world on the night this operation began. Iran has been at war with the United States for 47 -- [11:00:00]