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The Situation Room

Now, Trump Visits Walter Reed for Third Checkup of His Second Term; U.S. Military Carries Out Strikes on Iranian Missile Sites, Boats; Gas Prices Up More Than $1.50 Since Start of War. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired May 26, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news, Trump's annual physical. Right now, the president is at Walter Reed, his third visit there in 13 months. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here to bring us the very latest on President Trump's health.

Plus, swept away by floodwater, severe storms pummel the Southeast, killing at least one person.

And later, stark Ebola warning, former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield says he thinks the outbreak is going to become a, quote, very significant pandemic. He'll join us ahead.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And there's breaking news, new strikes on Iran. The U.S. attacked missile launch sites and boats in what it's calling self-defense strikes. Iran is now warning it will retaliate.

Plus, tense clash outside an ICE facility. New Jersey officials say they're getting turned away from visiting amid reports of a hunger strike inside.

And later, escalating drone warfare. CNN is in Eastern Ukraine as Russia ramps up its attacks. We'll bring you this Situation Room special report just ahead.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in The Situation Room.

And we begin this hour with the breaking news. President Trump is over at Walter Reed, the national military hospital right here, and he's getting ready for his annual medical and dental checkups. This will be the third visit of his second term in a span of just 13 months.

BROWN: The president turns 80 in just a few weeks, and his health is coming under increased scrutiny. His swollen ankles have prompted repeated questions from independent physicians, and so have the president's frequently bruised hands. Sometimes those bruises are covered with makeup.

We are covering all the angles of this developing story. We'll get the very latest details and insights from The White House to the medical community.

BLITZER: Let's begin with CNN Senior White House Reporter Kevin Liptak. Kevin, the White House says this is all routine, but is it?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, you know, the president has now been to Walter Reed three times since taking office. He's actually had four separate medical checkups since he returned to office last year. After each one, the physician here at the White House gave him a clean bill of health, said that his health was exceptional. But that's despite, I think, you know, some of the visible ailments that we've seen pop up.

You know, when it comes to his hands, the White House says that that is a result of a high dose of aspirin and shaking a lot of people's hands. The swollen ankles, they say that's a common vein disease. He's also treating a rash on his neck with some cream. And we've also seen him, you know, multiple times over the last several months appear to fall asleep during meetings, even though the White House has said that those are just extended blinks.

It has led to some concerns among the American public about the president's health. When ABC asked Americans in a poll earlier this year whether the president is in good enough physical health to serve effectively as president, only 44 percent of the respondents said yes. That was down ten points from the fall. When they asked whether he had the mental sharpness that it takes to effectively serve as president, 40 percent said yes. That also was down from September.

Now, the White House hasn't disclosed what exactly the president will be undergoing today at Walter Reed, beyond saying that it would be routine medical and dental checkups. We should note that he's been to his dentist twice already this year.

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They haven't said whether he will take a cognitive test. They also haven't said whether he'll go under any anesthesia for something like a colonoscopy, which would, of course, require him handing over power to the vice president.

At the end of the day, Wolf, a president is not legally required to disclose anything about his health. If we do get results later today, those will be filtered through the White House, essentially only knowing what the president wants us to know about his physical condition.

BLITZER: Kevin Liptak at the White House for us, stay in touch. We'll be back to you.

Meanwhile, questions about the president's health have surrounded the White House now for several years. Here's what CNN has reported and what the president has said.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president's overall health is excellent. His cardiac performance during his physical exam was very good. He continues to enjoy the significant long-term cardiac and overall health benefits that come from a lifetime of abstinence from tobacco and alcohol.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: And he does have heart disease, is that what you said?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He does not have heart disease.

GUPTA: No, because he had a C.T. scan before that showed calcium in his coronary blood vessels.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He does. He did. He had a -- so I think -- so technically he has non-clinical atherosclerotic coronary atherosclerosis.

GUPTA (voice over): That's heart disease.

BLITZER: Tonight, there are new questions about President Trump's health after he made an scheduled trip to Walter Reed Hospital on Saturday.

GUPTA: I think any time you have somebody who's in their 70s, who has a history of clinical obesity and a history of heart disease, if they show up for an unannounced -- mainly unannounced visit to the hospital, I think any medical professional would ask, why is that?

What we hear he had done at Walter Reed, basic lab tests, those things could've been done at the White House.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: So, I think most of you have seen, they released my physical on Friday. And I understand it was a very good report. The numbers were perfect. And I took a cognitive exam, and I would challenge anybody here to beat those marks, because I have a perfect mark.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: The White House press secretary revealing this afternoon that President Trump has been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency. The announcement coming after Trump, who's 79 years old, noticed mild swelling in his lower legs in recent weeks. Karoline Leavitt reading a letter from the president's physician, Captain Sean Barbarella, also addressed bruising that's appeared on the back of Trump's hand, which they explained was due to his frequent handshaking and use of aspirin.

TRUMP: I'm also going to do a sort of semi-annual physical, which I do. And I think I'm in great shape, but I'll let you know. But, no, I have no difficulty thus far. Is there wood around here? I'll knock on it. No difficulty. Physically, I feel very good. Mentally, I feel very good.

I got an MRI, it was perfect. I mean, I gave you the full results. The doctor said some of the best reports for the age, some of the best reports they've ever seen.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: A memo released by President Trump's doctor says that his cardiovascular and his abdominal health is, quote, perfectly normal.

REPORTER: What part of your body was the MRI looking at?

TRUMP: I have no idea. It was just an MRI. What part of the body? It wasn't the brain, because I took a cognitive test and I aced it. I got a perfect mark.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Dr. Reiner, the president says that he takes 325 milligrams of aspirin a day rather than the 81 milligram baby aspirin, and that he's taking this against his doctor's wishes.

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: First of all, I love the fact that he's taking it against his doctor's wishes.

Why is the president taking aspirin? He has never disclosed a history of heart disease. He's never disclosed a history of stroke or peripheral vascular disease that would warrant aspirin therapy.

TRUMP: Now, of course, I'm not a senior. I'm far younger than a senior. It's true. I feel like -- I feel the same as I felt 50 years ago.

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BROWN: All right, let's continue this discussion with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent. Sanjay, so great to see you as always.

Donald Trump is the oldest person ever elected president in the U.S. He's about to turn 80. What do we know about his health?

GUPTA: Well, we know what they've told us. You know, and that's the nature of when it comes to health reports, obviously, we can just go by what they tell us. As you mentioned, Pamela, he's had three visits over the last 13 months. One was a scheduled visit. We knew about it. That was in April of last year.

And here are some of the things that we learned at that visit. Obviously, his age, his weight, slightly elevated blood pressure, has some sun damage, which we can talk about, to his skin, and then that cognitive assessment exam, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment exam, which he's talked about having taken a few times now and always scored perfectly.

He's on various medications, most of them for cardiac sort of stuff, statins and cholesterol-lowering medications, and then that aspirin as well, which he takes at a much higher dose than would be recommended if it's recommended at all, four times higher dose.

Family history-wise his father had Alzheimer's disease, passed away of that at age 93.

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I think had symptoms seven or eight years before he passed away. But that's kind of what we know. And then, again, a visit in July to assess, at that time we were told what was going on with his legs, and then again a visit in October, which we weren't told about, and then got a report two months later about what those exams were.

So, it's a cloudy picture, but that's kind of what we know.

BROWN: And there's been so much made of the bruising we've seen on his hands. He said it's because of that aspirin he takes. And you said he takes more than what most physicians would recommend. Tell us more about that and what the concerns might be with around that.

GUPTA: So, you know, first of all, when it comes to using aspirin at all, the question is, does someone have some reason to be doing that? Is there some history of heart disease or something else that would warrant that? And, again, we haven't been told that. As you just saw in the clips earlier, he said he doesn't have heart disease, but he's had tests that have shown heart disease, but they maintain he doesn't have heart disease. Again, there's this back and forth. So, that's the one thing. Should he be taking it at all?

Second of all, again, the dose. If people are taking it, 81 milligrams typically is the dose, and there's concerns about bleeding. Maybe that's causing some of the bruising in his hands, but also concerns about bleeding internally. He's taking a dose that's four times higher, 325 milligrams, which is an adult dose of aspirin. He says he wants really, you know, blood that just doesn't clot, but there can be concerns with that in terms of bleeding, and I think that's the back and forth there.

BLITZER: The president, Sanjay, was diagnosed with what's called chronic venous insufficiency back in July. Here, you can see the president's badly swollen ankles. Look at this. See the pictures there. How concerning is that diagnosis?

GUPTA: Well, if it is what they say, chronic venous insufficiency, that in and of itself is not that concerning, relatively common. 1 in 20 people, I think, on average, more common as you get older. Think of it like this. The blood is pumping blood through the body. If it's pumping well and the veins are returning the blood well back to the heart, you shouldn't have swelling. But sometimes those veins become insufficient, so the blood tends to pool in the lower legs and in the feet. You may see that after long plane rides, for example, in people.

But the question is, does this have something to do with his heart? And I think that's what sort of prompted that exam back in October, and maybe some assessment again today. White House has said, no, this is just veins that are insufficient in his lower limbs.

BLITZER: All right. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you very, very much. I suspect we'll learn some more later today. Thank you.

BROWN: We clearly will.

All right, still ahead, the U.S. strikes Iran. The latest on the attacks as Iran is now issuing a stark warning.

BLITZER: And later, deadly collision. A train and a school bus collide, killing four. We're going to bring you the latest developments on this breaking news story.

That and a lot more coming up right here in The Situation Room.

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BLITZER: There's breaking news from Iran. The U.S. military says it has carried out what it calls self-defense strikes on Iranian missile launch sites and boats around the Strait of Hormuz. And Iran's supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, says the United States will no longer have a safe haven for its military bases in the Middle East after the war ends.

BROWN: Let's go live now to CNN Correspondent Salma Abdelziz in London. Salma, these new tensions with Iran come as negotiators work toward this deal to end the war, which started three months ago. What more do we know right now?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and depending on what time it is and who you're speaking to, the United States is either on the precipice of full-blown war with Iran or it's about to negotiate a peace deal.

Let me start with those echoes of war. As you mentioned, of course, the U.S. carried out airstrikes along the Strait of Hormuz just a few hours ago. It says it was acting in self-defense. A CENTCOM spokesperson elaborated on this and said that they were targeting missile launch sites and boats that were trying to plant mines along the strait.

Now, Iran has actually said that it has responded. It says it's downed a Reaper drone and that it fired upon a fighter jet.

Now, it did not make clear when this incident happened, so we're unclear on if this is actually referring to those overnight U.S. strikes. But it went on to say -- Iranian officials went on to say that they will not leave any U.S. aggression unanswered.

Now, during the course of this truce, there has been periods of time where there's been an exchange of fire and the truce has carried on. But this is happening, of course, at an extremely critical moment with those negotiations taking place in Qatar and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, of course, at the helm for the United States saying it's just a matter of sentences, a matter of words.

But there's two things we need to watch out for here. What moves forward in terms of those negotiations now that we've seen those strikes, and can a deal be reached with these heightened tensions now taking place?

BROWN: All right, Salma, thank you so much. Wolf?

BLITZER: And coming up, gas and groceries, when will prices drop? President Trump says they'll, quote, drop like a rock after the war ends. Our Make It Make Sense segment, that's just ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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BROWN: Happening now, according to AAA, the price of gas is $4.49 this morning. That's still up more than $1.50 since the war began. But according to President Trump and members of his administration, those prices are going to come down quickly as soon as the war is over.

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KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Once the national security objectives of Operation Epic Fury are fully achieved, Americans will see oil and gas prices drop rapidly.

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: We promise that when this conflict draws to a close, when this operation draws to a close, we're going to see those energy prices come back down to reality.

CHRIS WRIGHT, ENERGY SECRETARY: Oh, they would go down quite a bit. You know, if we see a pathway to have the Straits of Hormuz open soon and energy flowing again, you'd see energy prices drop pretty significantly.

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Prices have likely peaked, and they'll start going down. Certainly with a resolution of this conflict, you'll see prices go down. Prices across the board on energy prices will go down.

TRUMP: The gas will go down. As soon as the war's over, it'll drop like a rock.

It's going to come tumbling down. There is so much oil out there. It's pent up. It's locked up in the Strait of Hormuz. When all of that stuff comes out, you're going to see prices dropping on gasoline like you've never seen.

SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: But I am also confident on the other side of this, prices are going to come down very quickly.

TRUMP: They'll drop lower than they were before. As soon as it's over, you're going to see gasoline and oil drop like a rock.

You're going to see oil prices plummet. They're going to come down.

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BROWN: All right. CNN Business Senior Reporter David Goldman is here to make it make sense. David, today's question, what actually needs to happen for prices to go down?

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR REPOTER: Yes, that's a great question, because if they're going to drop like a rock, you're going to have to see a tremendous amount of action in the oil market. We'll see if that's actually the case. So, what does need to happen for oil to come down? Well, the first thing that you need is to clear out this bottleneck. So, in the Strait of Hormuz right now, there are about 170 tankers that are there, and they're each carrying around 100 million barrels of oil, and that's a lot of oil. That's not just, you know, a kind of pretend number. That's about 13 days' worth of the oil that has been stuck because we've had 13 million barrels of oil that are just stuck in the Strait of Hormuz right now. So, that's a decent amount of oil.

But imagine getting all of that out of the strait that's mined, that's been an active war zone, that's not something that can just get out all that quickly. Okay, that's step one.

Step two, you got to get rid of all the warehoused oil. You have oil that's just overflowing right now in storage. All of that needs to get onto new empty tankers. So, what happens next? Well, oil production needs to restart.

This is very, very difficult. It's not just like flipping on a light switch. You actually need to start sending water and gas down into wells, and if you do that, you might have a neighboring well that has to do the exact same thing, and you need to make sure that that is all coordinated. That can take two to four weeks just to get production started again.

After all of that is done, you need to fix your facilities because so much of them have blown up literally in the war, particularly the largest LNG port, the largest liquefied natural gas port in the world. That's going to take about two years to come back online. That's no joke. That needs to come back online very soon.

Okay. So, how long is it going to be before we actually start to see some relief? Look at this. This is where we were before the war started. This is where we are right now. There's a huge amount of time that it's going to take, according to the futures market, before we get back down to that sub $70 an oil level.

Look at this, 2032. So, you want $3 gas again? You're going to have to wait maybe six years. And so what does that mean for everything? Look at this. Produce, clothing, airfare, gas, shipping, all of these rely on high gas prices, high oil prices. All of them are going to continue to be more expensive as long as this lasts.

BROWN: I'm sorry, did I hear you correctly? Did you say 2032?

GOLDMAN: Yes. So, if you look at this, this tells you what the oil market is predicting prices will be in the future. We don't get back down to this level until 2032. That's the prediction. We'll see if that ends up being the case, but this is how you make $3 gas. It's going to be a while.

BROWN: Wow. All right, David Goldman, as always, thank you so much.

And if you'd like David to help you make it make sense, email your question or send us a selfie video of your question to makeitmakesense@cnn.com. BLITZER: And just ahead, chaotic clash, reports of a hunger strike at an ICE facility in New Jersey is spurring protests. Multiple state officials now say they're being turned away.

We're following all the latest developments.

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We'll be right back.

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