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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump Tells Allies To "Go Get Your Own Oil" In Social Media Post; U.S. Gas Price Tops $4 For First Time Since 2022; American Journalist Shelly Kittleson Kidnapped In Iraq; Artemis II Moon Mission Set To Launch With Historic Crew; Judge Approves Trump Admin. Effort To Obtain List Of Jewish Community Members At Univ. Of Pennsylvania; Trump Taking Questions After Signing Order On Mail-In Ballots. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired March 31, 2026 - 17:00   ET

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

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ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Big thanks to my panel here in New York. Jake Tapper, meanwhile, is standing by for The Lead. Hi, Jake.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Hey, Abby. How you doing? We're going to look for more tomorrow in The Arena.

PHILLIP: All right. See you tomorrow.

TAPPER: New warnings for Americans in the Middle East. The Lead starts right now. A brand new security alert for U.S. citizens in Saudi Arabia warning that hotels, American businesses and schools could quickly become targets. The increased threat level as three key NATO allies cut off U.S. access to their bases for Iran operations. We're going to lay out all the potential consequences.

And gas prices now soaring above the $4 a gallon mark. And that's just the national average. We're going to show you what one station here in Los Angeles has the nerve to charge drivers.

Plus, let the countdown begin. Just over 24 hours into the launch of Artemis II and an historic mission around the moon.

Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. Is President Trump giving up on reopening the Strait of Hormuz? That's the big question.

Today, the average price of gas in the United States topped an average of $4 a gallon for the first time in years as the war in Iran has essentially prompted Iran to shut off oil tanker traffic through the strait. Experts warn that the price will likely go even higher if the strait remains effectively closed by Iran. And, well, it's possible that could happen.

Sources are telling CNN that President Trump and his administration increasingly believe that they cannot promise to reopen the Strait of Hormuz before they declare victory in the Iran war. This morning on Truth Social, the president told countries who need oil, quote, I have a suggestion for you. Number one, buy from the U.S. we have plenty. And number two, build up some delayed courage. Go to the Strait and just take it. You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself. The USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil.

This call for American allies to take action in the Strait comes as some of those allies are distancing themselves from the United States, France, Spain and Italy are all now restricting U.S. military access to some of their bases in airspace for Iran related actions. NATO allies, all of them.

Straightening out the Strait of Hormuz is something Trump has clearly wanted to do, but it has proven to be quite complicated. CNN has new reporting on what Trump was not told before launching into this war. According to sources, in the lead up to the first bombs dropped on Iran February 28, the President met with a small group of advisers to discuss options.

The president made it clear he wanted to launch a military campaign alongside Israel, sources tell us. This sort of briefing would normally include likely economic fallout should Tehran retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz, which is eminently predictable.

But three sources tell our CNN defense team, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth not only validated Trump's idea to move forward, he downplayed risks, the sources said, of the conflict spiraling out of control. Nobody in the room during that critical meeting, we're told, emphasized the potential risks of starting the war.

And speaking of risks, today Secretary Hegseth was asked about reports that the U.S. is considering putting boots on the ground. Service members on the ground in Iran.

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PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Our adversary right now thinks there are 15 different ways we could come at them with boots on the ground. And guess what? There are. Point is to be unpredictable in that. Certainly not let anybody know what you're willing to do or not do.

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TAPPER: Be unpredictable. This all comes as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff today told the American people that the U.S. military has begun flying B52 bombers over Iranian territory for the first time since the war began. This would suggest that Iran's air defenses have been quite significantly degraded.

But the overall situation in the Middle East in general remains delicate. So delicate that the State Department today upped its shelter in place guidance for Americans in Saudi Arabia, adding this new warning saying, quote, we are tracking reports of threats against locations where American citizens gather. We advise U.S. citizens that hotels and other gathering points, including U.S. businesses and U.S. educational institutions, may be potential targets. Meanwhile, we're learning that the US Is tracking the kidnapping of an

American journalist, her name Shelly Kittleson. Iraq's Ministry of Interior says that Kittleson was kidnapped in central Baghdad by unknown individuals, saying that they have launched an operation to try and find her.

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The U.S. Embassy in Iraq has repeatedly warned U.S. citizens in Iraq to leave that country since the conflict with Iran began, saying that Iran backed militias in Iraq could attempt to kidnap Americans.

Let's discuss all of this with retired Lt. Gen. Mark Schwartz. He was the U.S. security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority. General, thanks so much for joining us. So I have so many questions to ask you. Let's start with this.

How unusual, how concerning is it that CNN is reporting that ahead of the war, according to sources, no officials seem to give Trump a realistic rundown of potential worst case scenario risks.

LT. GEN. MARK SCHWARTZ (RET.) CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, it's very concerning. I'm surprised that if the chairman was in the room, you know, again, I've known Chairman Kaine for decades now and you know, the military senior advisor to the president is responsible for laying out options and laying out the risk to each one of those options.

And as it's been reported extensively, the holding the strait of horrors at risk by Iran and any type of action against Iran has always been part of the core analysis in terms of threats to any type of operation. So I'd be surprised if the military didn't. I can't speak for, you know, Secretary Hegseth or whoever else was in the room though.

TAPPER: Let's do a good news, bad news from the war front. Good news, B52s are now flying over Iran. What does that suggest to you?

SCHWARTZ: Well, certainly reinforces air supremacy. I mean, there's obviously no Stealth to a B52, you know, flying over enemy airspace. And then the other thing that I caught very interesting today when the chairman was briefing was the number of dynamic targets that are taking place each, you know, each air tasking order cycle or each 24 hour period. That definitely tells me that the long target list that CENTCOM has been working against since the outset of the campaign on 27, 28 February.

It's not exhaustive because they are doing a lot of reattacks, but they are getting opportunities to go after, you know, launch, actual launch locations as they find them through real time intelligence. That was pretty telling to me as I was listening to the briefing today.

TAPPER: Interesting. So that's the good news. Here's the bad news. Spain, France, Italy are now putting serious restrictions on the ability of the U.S. to use their bases, to use their airspace. What do you make of that? SCHWARTZ: Well, none of that's helpful, obviously. And the fracture

that's taken place, you know, with the NATO alliance and just our European, you know, partners writ large is concerning, you know, we didn't communicate to the degree that we have done in the -- in previous combat operations or large long standing conflicts before going into them with their allies. And I think this is, you know, a result of that.

We certainly need to have basing opportunities or not opportunities, but basing locations. That helps with really the agility and the geometry as you build a military campaign. So none of that is helpful and makes, you know, frankly, the job a lot more difficult.

And it puts aircraft that we could otherwise put on the European continent at risk, you know, having them in Saudi Arabia like we saw over last weekend when those were struck by ballistic missiles from Tehran.

TAPPER: And now seems quite possible from Wall Street Journal reporting and from President Trump's own public statements that the U.S. might look at the fact that the missile program has been destroyed. Many of the missiles have been destroyed. The U.S., I'm sorry, the Iranian navy has been destroyed. The Iranian air force severely degraded the regime in shambles and say, OK, we're done, declare victory with the Strait of Hormuz remaining, basically kidnapped, held hostage by Iran.

Can the U.S. do that? It seems -- can the U.S. do that?

SCHWARTZ: They can for a short period of time, I would say. But, you know, we have the Fifth Fleet that sits in Bahrain. We have naval vessels that are up in the Persian Gulf and have been for decades in transit the Gulf.

We have -- while we're not as strategically reliant on the resources that come out of the Persian Gulf, certainly we are still reliant, maybe not to the degree that, you know, so many other in the world, particularly East Asia and the Indo Pacific are.

But I don't think I was surprised by that, you know, kind of the walk away, you know, what came out on Truth Social earlier today. I understand that certainly the European allies and certainly all those, all of our Gulf nation allies need to make sure that commerce can flow freely. But it's going to be much more difficult if the United States does not really lead that effort to reopen the Strait.

TAPPER: Retired Lieutenant General Mark Schwartz, thank you. We always appreciate your insights.

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Then of course, there's the oil situation. Gas topping the $4 a gallon mark today for the first time since 2022. Wait until you see what one station out here in L.A. is charging drivers. Will prices ever drop like a rock, as President Trump recently promised they would? We're going to get some expert opinion. Also some breaking news in the Moneylease. The Dow S and P and NASDAQ

all closing with major gains in the last hour after sources say the President announced that he might end the war even though he will not ensure the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. As our business team says, they don't call it Taco Tuesday for nothing. Stay with us.

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TAPPER: And we're back with the Money Lead. And I'm in downtown Los Angeles. American drivers woke up this morning, and according to AAA, for the first time in a while, gas prices are now above $4 a gallon.

In fact, the average nationally is $4.02 cents a gallon. But check out what it is here at this station here in Los Angeles. $8.29 a gallon for regular unleaded, $8.89 for diesel.

Now, the average here in California is $5.89 a gallon for regular unleaded. And, yes, a chunk of that is California state taxes and fees.

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But bottom line, if you come here to load up your car with gas, you are going to pay for regular unleaded, more than $100 for a 13 gallon tank.

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TAPPER: More than 100. Back here in the studio, I want to bring in Tom Kloza. He's the chief energy advisor at Gulf Oil. Tom, that was not a golf station, just FYI. So you watch these price fluctuations all day, every day. I want to play a bit of what President Trump has said about the gas situation in recent weeks. Take a listen.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The price of oil will drop like a rock as soon as a deal is done.

I think the gas prices as soon as that's over are going to come tumbling down along with everything else.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you worried about gas prices right now?

TRUMP: No. This is a short excursion.

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TAPPER: Now, before the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, the national average was $2.98 a gallon. Will prices in 2026, is there any chance that they'll go back down to that cheap $2.98 a gallon or do you think it's possible that they'll continue to stay high for the indefinite future? TOM KLOZA, CHIEF ENERGY ADVISER, GULF OIL: I think they'll stay high

for the next quarter at least and then they'll drop. But you know, the question is what they drop from. We went to 5.01 in June of 2022. I don't think we'll quite get there this time. But we're looking at higher prices.

And quite frankly, if I had to bet, I'd say we're not going to see below $3 as a national average. December 31, October, you name it. It's just not going to happen. You need to see crude oil prices below $65 to support that cheap of a gasoline price.

TAPPER: So the Trump administration is trying to take some measures to alleviate the pain at the pump, starting with lifting restrictions on ethanol blends. That's going to make gasoline cheaper to produce. It will create more smog, especially in the summer.

How much can drivers save for that trade off? And have you seen a drop in consumption since the war started?

KLOZA: These are small levers that they can pull and allowing a little bit more volatility in gasoline and some cheap components in the gasoline that gets blended with ethanol helps, but it helps to maybe 10 or 15 cents. You know, ethanol is an interesting story.

If you go into the middle of the country right now, you can find E15, 15 percent ethanol for probably less than $3 a gallon. It's much, much cheaper than the hydrocarbons. And you get some of these credits for it, so it knocks the price down.

But the amazing thing is, and maybe this is tied to a consumer report story that ran 30 or 40 years ago, people don't trust it. They see it's 88 octane and it's got 15% ethanol, and they think something must be wrong with it. And I would submit there isn't anything wrong.

TAPPER: Of course, it's not just, you know, regular unleaded that we buy at the station. Diesel prices are up to $5.45 a gallon on average. That's up more than $1.60 in just a month. And just to state the obvious, it's often blue collar workers, truckers forced to pay these prices as they carry the cargo that America runs on.

How long until you see those prices dramatically passed on to consumers until there is a reduction?

KLOZA: That's the real problem. And that's going to haunt inflation in April and maybe beyond that. I mean, if you're in California, I think you're seeing average prices around 7.17 for diesel and you get about seven miles to the gallon with an 18 wheeler. So you're basically talking about every mile you go, you can throw out a dollar, you know, out the window. That's very expensive. And I would submit that it's really going to have incredible inflationary impacts on everything.

And it's not just diesel on the road. If you're talking about marine diesel or marine gas, oil or marine fuels, those are sky high as well. And as bad as it is in the United States. In Singapore today, they're paying about $6 wholesale for diesel. And you know, that probably leads to prices close to $10 a gallon equivalent. TAPPER: Wow. All right, Tom Kloza. Thank you so much. Appreciate your

expertise. Good having you on.

NASA is coming up on 24 hours before its big mission tomorrow, the launch of the Artemis II spacecraft that will take four astronauts around the moon. We're going to break down the critical pieces of this launch, next.

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TAPPER: In our out of this worldly the countdown to the launch of NASA's Artemis II mission. Tomorrow, four astronauts are set to lift off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a 10-day journey around the moon.

Now, this flight will be the first crewed mission toward the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in what year? 1972. More than 50 years ago. CNN's Tom Foreman has a sneak peek for us now at what we can expect during tomorrow's historic launch.

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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jake, no matter how many space launches you've seen, you've never seen one like this. Because the space launch system is truly a vessel unto itself. This is a beast. Much taller than the Statue of Liberty. From the base all the way up to the torch, well over 300 feet. This weighs around 6 million pounds at launch, but that's OK because it can produce about 8 million pounds of thrust.

Starting with these two big solid fuel boosters on the side, they will ignite at the same time, burn for a couple of minutes and then fall away. They give that extra oomph when it's trying to get off the ground. And working in conjunction with that center section there, it's all orange because that is insulation to keep what's inside very cold.

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Liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen all feeding down to these four RS25 engines down at the bottom. So, where are the astronauts in all of this? They're up top. That's where you'll find the Orion capsule. And just below it, the service module, which will feed to the crew oxygen and water and electricity and other things like that.

And below that, another big booster that will set that part of it into a huge elliptical orbit around the Earth before it takes off deeper into space. And up top, you see that sort of upside down ice cream cone thing that is basically an escape module to help the crew get away. Even when this rocket is traveling thousands of miles an hour, if that is necessary.

Of course, everybody hopes that will not have to be used, that everything in this system will be used properly, will fall away properly, and the Orion crew will be on its way on this historic return to the moon. Jake.

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TAPPER: All right, Tom Foreman, thank you so much. Let's get more insight right now from CNN aerospace analyst Miles O'Brien, who is live at the Kennedy Space center for us. Miles, so great to see you.

NASA says that tomorrow's weather is the most optimal for the launch. There's still a 20 percent chance of a no go, we're told. What are those weather factors that could stop tomorrow's launch?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AEROSPACE ANALYST: Jake, first I'm going to go with the 80 percent half full look on this, or 80 percent full. But what they're looking for, you don't want to launch into rain. You don't want to launch into certain kinds of cumulus clouds they call the Manville clouds.

I'm old enough to remember Apollo 12, when that Saturn 5 rocket flew through certain kinds of clouds. It created enough friction to create its own lightning, causing an electrical failure. Those kinds of things are what we'll be looking at. In addition to the winds, they want to make sure if there's an abort, that the Orion vehicle, if it comes -- has to come down to the ocean isn't blown back onto land. So those are the things we're looking at. But it looks pretty good.

TAPPER: This will be the first crewed mission toward the moon in more than 50 years. Astronauts in this case, of course, won't actually land on the lunar surface, but NASA says this mission is designed as a step towards a 2028 landing on the moon. What are you most looking forward tomorrow?

O'BRIEN: Well, it's, you know, just the spectacle of it, Jake. This is 8 million pounds of thrust. No one has seen a rocket of this size with people on top of it, launch from here. The Saturn 5 had 6 million pounds of thrust, but just by way of comparison.

So I spent a lot of time covering shuttle missions that was on the order of 6 million. So it was -- it's going to be bigger, it's going to be louder and it's always breathtaking to me when you are faced with that intensity of the light coming from the plume and the shockwave as it hits you here in the press site that there are individuals sitting on the top of that thing who have strapped themselves in willingly and are on their way to a ride of a lifetime. It's really for me a very emotional thing.

TAPPER: And what are they going to be doing in space for 10 days?

O'BRIEN: You know, pressing their nose up against the window and looking at Earth? Maybe a little bit of that. No, they will be ringing out this spacecraft, this is a test flight. They're going to make sure everything works from the exercise to the party to enjoying a meal. How easy is it to sleep in there? Are all those systems working? Will they sustain human life? Well that'll be a big deal.

They're going to do some visual science as they pass by the moon. Kind of a three-hour high pass around the moon. They'll be looking for craters, potentially looking at the site where the Artemis 4 mission might land. And then the thing we're all really going to be holding our breath on is the heat shield.

On that last mission three and a half years ago, the heat shield did not do well. It burned unevenly. It's a so called ablative material that's supposed to burn off evenly to protect the crew. It didn't do that. They've made some modifications to this heat shield. They've changed the way it's going to reenter the atmosphere.

But we're talking about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit of temperature as they come in. And you want that heat shield to work. So that'll be a very critical moment. If all those things work out, then it is go for the next one which will be Artemis 3, hopefully next year.

TAPPER: All right, Myles O'Brien, thanks so much. CNN is going to carry this launch live. CNN special coverage mission the moon Artemis 2 launch begins at 5:00 p.m. Eastern tomorrow.

A judge just weighed in on a story we brought you yesterday here on the lead, the unease at the University of Pennsylvania in Philly. The university asked to hand over a list of Jews on campus by the Trump administration. In their efforts, the Trump administration says to combat antisemitism. What a judge just said about this subpoena from the Trump administration. That's ahead.

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TAPPER: Breaking news in our National Lead, moments ago, a federal judge ruled that the University of Pennsylvania must hand over a list of members of the school's Jewish community, handed over to the Trump administration by May 1st. That includes the names, addresses and phone numbers of Jews on campus.

Now, the Trump administration says they requested this list as part of an investigation into whether Penn is failing to protect its Jewish employees and students from anti-Semitism. CNN's Danny Freeman has been following the story for us. Danny, so what is the reaction from Jews at Penn to all of this?

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, this really just came down in the past few hours, and I have a little bit of reaction from folks who have been watching this so closely ever since this subpoena came down last summer. Beth Wenger, she's a professor of history of modern Jewish history. She is Jewish herself. She was one of the voices we brought you yesterday, and she wrote to me.

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I'm deeply disappointed by this ruling on a fundamental level. I'm concerned about the government being allowed to gather the personal information of Jews or any other group. That is what a lot of Jewish members of this community have been telling me over the past couple of weeks, that they were concerned that their phone numbers, their mailing addresses, their names would be handed over essentially in a list to the federal government. But the judge here in this case, the federal judge here in Philadelphia, Gerald Pappert, said that this was a legitimate subpoena from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. That's a commission of the federal government who has been investigating a hostile work environment, in their opinion, that has occurred at Penn when it comes to Jewish employees.

The judge ruling, essentially saying that any comparisons to the Holocaust or Nazi Germany, which some Jewish community members had evoked, the judge said these were unfortunate and inappropriate. And he said specifically, though ineptly worded, the request by the EEOC had an understandable purpose to obtain in a narrowly tailored way, as opposed to seeking information on all university employees, information on individuals in Penn's Jewish community who could have experienced or witnessed anti-Semitism in the workplace.

Essentially, the judge in this case saying, listen, if the EEOC wants to find if there were instances of anti-Semitism at Penn, the only way that the EEOC could reasonably do that is to ask for a list of Penn employees who might be Jewish. So Penn now has until May 1st to comply with this, though I will say Penn has responded, Jake. They said they will appeal and they say, I'll just quote here, we continue to believe that requiring Penn to create lists of Jewish faculty and staff and to provide personal contact information raises serious privacy and First Amendment concerns. Jake, that's what Penn's feeling right now as this judge's ruling has come down.

TAPPER: Danny Freeman, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

This just in to our Sports Lead, Tiger Woods pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges following a rollover crash in Florida last week. Woods' attorney requested a jury trial for the golfer and filed a waiver of arraignment, allowing Tiger Woods to skip the initial hearing that was set for April 23rd.

We're also learning some new details about the golf legend's arrest. According to a police report released this morning, Tiger Woods had glassy bloodshot eyes with extremely dilated pupils. He appeared lethargic, failed multiple field sobriety tests.

Police also found prescription opioid pills used to treat chronic pain in the golfer's pocket. The 82-time PGA Tour winner is charged with driving under the influence with property damage and refusal to submit to a lawful test.

There's a lot coming up in today's Law and Justice Lead. A new lawsuit from FBI agents who investigated Trump and were fired. A ruling on Trump's attempt to strip funding from NPR and PBS. And another ruling on Trump's beloved White House ballroom. That decision as the president reacts this afternoon. We're going to get into all these cases, next.

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[17:42:13] TAPPER: Our Law and Justice Lead now. A brand new class action lawsuit was just filed by three FBI agents who say they were unjustly terminated because they had previously investigated President Donald Trump's actions. The lawsuit demands that these three agents be reinstated to their FBI jobs. It claims they were fired without clear explanation or the ability to even respond.

Each had worked on the 2020 election case with decades of experience at the FBI. If the case is successful, it could open the door for at least 50 other FBI agents who were fired after taking part in various Trump investigations.

Also in our Law and Justice Lead, President Trump suffered two blows today on the legal front. First up, his beloved White House ballroom. A federal judge has ruled that construction on the ballroom must stop, "Unless and until Congress blesses this project." Regardless, the judge says Trump does not own the White House, and likely did not have authority to act on his own to replace an entire section of the executive mansion as he did.

In a second case, a federal judge today agreed to permanently block the Trump administration from ending federal funding for NPR and PBS. The White House claims that both media entities, PBS and NPR, are counterproductive to American priorities, but the judge argues that ceasing funding is unlawful and unenforceable. Let's talk about this all with our panelists.

We have David Axelrod and David Urban. David Axelrod, quite a day for the president.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. Well, I'll tell you, the thing that struck me about those rulings is that they both came sort of a little late in terms of events. I mean, the destruction -- a lot of the destruction has been done at the White House, and, you know, and the destruction has been done to PBS and particularly to NPR, a lot of smaller stations around the country, fatally damaged.

So, you know, in a sense, the President, his modus operandi is to do things and then force people to tell him that he couldn't. And this is another one of those instances. But yes, rebukes for sure.

TAPPER: David and David, stand by. President Trump is speaking right now at the White House. He's taking questions. Let's listen in.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Almost its entire prison population was allowed to come into the United States of America, the Congo. Many of the countries in South America, they emptied their prisons out into our country. This was under Biden.

And nobody can tell me that's a good thing. And yet they haven't changed their ways, because if they ever took power, they would open up the borders and they would let people pour in and destroy our country. So I have many powers, but I don't have to use them. I mean, only in severe cases. Yes?

[17:45:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, thank you. If you were able to sign the executive order to pay the TSA agents, why not do the same for FEMA and other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security?

TRUMP: Well, FEMA is different because FEMA, I really believe that it's fine, but I think it's very inefficient. I think, you know, we have smart governors. And one way to tell whether or not they're smart is how well they do. FEMA is a very expensive way of trying to put out a problem. But what I'd rather do is let the states do it and help them financially, but let the states do it.

In other words, you'll have a hurricane in Florida and people will come from Alaska. They haven't been to Florida. By the time they get used to it, you know, the problem can be solved. So I've never been a big fan of FEMA. I like to keep it local. I like to see governors and neighboring states help each other as opposed to FEMA.

FEMA is very expensive and it really doesn't get the job done. You know, North Carolina, they did a terrible job until I became elected a second time and I went in here. We had that tremendous water flow. There was a water hurricane, the likes of which nobody has seen. The land there is that never had lakes. All of a sudden had lakes that you couldn't even get to it.

And actually, we were helped by Elon Musk with the communication with his great communication system that worked very well. We're very lucky, saved a lot of lives. But no, I we got to do things right. And we don't do them right. We shouldn't do them at all. Yes, please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, President Trump. After you said today that's the wrong word, you can assume the stock market close much higher. Do you have thoughts on that? And also, a judge just ordered you to stop construction of the ballroom. Are you planning to stop?

TRUMP: Well, we'll appeal that. But it's not -- I don't know. This is basically when I wrote part of his opinion. But basically, he's saying I need congressional approval. And he's so wrong. This is being financed privately. It's a donation that's being given by companies, very rich companies, very rich people, so that for 150 years, they've wanted a ballroom here. We're going to have the finest ballroom, I believe, anywhere in the world.

And he said we need congressional approval. Well, they don't get congressional approval from the White House when they do things, they don't, especially when you don't. We didn't ask for any tax money. We have no taxes -- taxpayer free. We have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents. And I see right here, just write it out.

He said we need congressional approval. Well, we built many things at the White House over the years. They don't get congressional approval when they build in the White House. It's totally separate. And especially when it's a donation. I mean, the ballroom is a donation. It's gotten great reviews. People love it. And presidents for 150 years have wanted this ballroom to be built because when we have President Xi or other presidents or prime ministers coming, we don't have a big room.

We have the East Room, which is very small. And he said we need congressional approval. He also said, but this is positive for us. I'm allowed that meaning we are allowed to continue building as necessary. To let's see, what is that? To cover the safety and security of the White House and its ground. So it says here very carefully the safety and security have to be protected in the White House grounds.

Well, that's what we're doing because everything's bulletproof glass, et cetera, et cetera, including the ballroom. And then it goes construction and all of the things necessary. It says personal safety of the President and his staff are a part of that. So it talks about that we're allowed to continue building. In other words, he put an order on and even that he gave 14 days. We don't need it because that's what we're doing.

He's allowed to continue building as necessary. And when it talks about the safety and security of the White House and its grounds. So just so you know, I wrote some of the thing down. We have a drone proof roof and it talks about the president and his staff. Well, we don't have a lot of bulletproof glass. The White House was built a long time ago.

This has the highest level of in fact, they call this graph this grass, this glass. It's bulletproof and it's ballistic proof. It's very thick. It's like that. And it's going 45-feet high and every window is covered. Every door is covered. The roof is drone proof. We have secure air handling systems. You know, bad things happen in the air if you have bad people.

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We have bio defense all over. We have secure telecommunications and communications all over. We have bomb shelters that we're building. We have a hospital and very major medical facilities that we're building. We have all of these things. So that's called I'm allowed to continue building as necessary. So think of that for the safety of the president. So we have all these things.

So on that, we're OK. Where he's totally wrong and he made, you know, a statement that's fine. But I'll give you an example. You have right here 300 to $400 million, depending on finishes. If I use very expensive marble, if I use very expensive wall coatings, if I could bring it up to 400. Otherwise, we're right now ahead of schedule.

We're under budget. But depending on finishes from 300 to $400 million are being given by great people, people that you all know. Rich people, rich companies, big companies. They wanted to see this built because every president literally for 150 years has needed a space like this. Many of you have gone to the tent when we have a president of a big country or somebody being honored of great distinction and they sit in a tent. And if it rains, you get soaked because the grass gets wet here very fast.

It's a very wet area. They used to call it a wetland, but I guess they don't do that for the White House. But it's essentially a wetland. And when it rains, you're in trouble. The water can go up to three to four inches over their shoes. It's not a good feeling for Prince. But who was Prince Charles, who will be who will be here next couple of weeks is King Charles, who's a great guy. We don't want him to sit in a pool of water. And they've been wanting this for 100, think of it, 150 years that we're building it.

And it's covered perfectly. What's not covered perfectly is the fact that the judge said we need congressional approval. Many things have been built in the White House. They haven't gotten congressional approval, especially when the money is being not put up by the taxpayer, the taxpayers not putting up a dime. This building was necessary for many years by the fact that I've built many ballrooms and I built many things and I know how to build. I'm not building the Federal Reserve where the guy spending $4 billion for a tiny little building, $4 billion for the Federal Reserve building.

That contractor is going to be one of the richest men anywhere in the world after he finishes the Federal Reserve. The man is totally incompetent. Jerome, too late. Powell is totally incompetent and he's got to get out of office pretty fast. He's doing a bad job, but he's also done a bad job in shepherding the construction of that building. Do you know they ripped down a part of that building? And it was a nice -- they say it's one of the nicest buildings in Washington.

They ripped it down. So we feel and we don't feel we know that congressional approval is not necessary to put up a ballroom. And many things have been built on the site. They've never gotten congressional approval, and especially when the money is all put up. This is all donations by people that love our country, that love the White House and that feel it was very necessary.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A couple of questions for you on Iran. But first one affects Americans gas prices. Today, they hit $4 and --

TRUMP: Four dollars. Yes. And we have a country that's not going to be throwing a nuclear weapon at us in six months.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But Americans are feeling the effects in the interim.

TRUMP: And they're also feeling a lot safer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is the plan to bring them back down?

TRUMP: All I have to do is leave Iran and we'll be doing that very soon. And they'll become tumbling down. And stock prices were up today almost to a record because they know two things. Number one, we have a safe country. We had to take a little detour because we had a madman named Khomeini, who sadly is no longer with us. And we had regime change already.

We've knocked out one regime that we knocked out the second regime. Now we have a group of people that's very -- that are very different. They're much more reasonable. I think much more -- much less radicalized. It's a -- we've had regime change. We're dealing with people that are much more rational. And it's amazing what we've done. We had to make a little detour. So when the stock market broke all records just a few weeks ago, when it hit 50,000 on the Dow, 7,000 on the S&P, I said to the American people, it's time that we have make a little detour because we have a madman that wants a nuclear weapon.

And if we did not come out with a B-2 bomber, we would have a nuclear weapon right now, we would -- it would have been used before this, before today. And you may not be standing there asking that question. OK, so I think we have a country that understands that. I see CNN did a poll and they talked about voters or MAGA voters.

[17:55:03]

And my poll came out at 100 percent. Nobody covers that poll. Then another poll was at 92 percent approval. I think that the people understand that. We'll be leaving very soon. And if France or some other country wants to get oil or gas, you know, go up through the Strait and Hormuz Strait, they'll go right up there and they'll be able to get I think it'll be very safe, actually. But we have nothing to do with that.

What happens to the Strait? We're not going to have anything to do with because these countries, China, China will go up and they'll fuel up their beautiful ships and they'll leave and they'll take care of themselves. There's no reason for us to do it. We hit them hard. We got rid of a lot of a lot of the radicalized lunatics along the Strait. But if they want something, but I would say that within two weeks, maybe two weeks, maybe three, we're hitting them very hard.

Last night, we knocked out tremendous amounts of missile making facilities. We, as you probably read or wrote, we knocked out. Excuse me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The U.S. will be gone or done with the war.

TRUMP: I think we're two or three weeks, we'll leave because there's no reason for us to do this. Look, probably the Strait. A guy can take a mine, drop it in the water and say, oh, it's unsafe. It's not like you're taking out an army or you're taking out a country. They can drop it or you can take a machine gun from the shore, shoot a little few bullets on a ship or maybe an over the shoulder missile, small missiles.

That's not for us. That'll be for France. That'll be for whoever's using the Strait. But I think when we leave, probably that's all cleared up today. I heard tremendous numbers of ships were sailing through. We're negotiating with them right now. They've been again, we have had regime change. Now, regime change was not one of the things I had as a goal.

I had one goal. They will have no nuclear weapon. And that goal has been attained. They will not have nuclear weapons. But we're finishing the job. And I think within maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer to do the job. But we want to knock out every single thing they have. Now, it's possible that we'll make a deal before that because we'll hit bridges. And we've hit some. We'll hit some bridges. We've got a couple of nice bridges in mind. But if they come to the table, that'll be good.

But it doesn't matter whether they come or not. We've set them back. It'll take 15 to 20 years for them to rebuild what we've done to them. They have no Navy. They have no military. They have no Air Force. They have no telecommunications. They have no anti-aircraft systems. They have no leaders. You know, their leaders are all gone. That's why we have regime change. We have nice new leaders.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks, President Trump. You talked about how the ballroom needs to have a drone-proof roof.

TRUMP: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There have been drone swarms flying over sensitive military installations in the U.S. over the last couple weeks.

TRUMP: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reports are they don't look commercial and they can't be jammed. Is this another country's military?

TRUMP: I don't think so. We have a great system of -- do you notice that over the last four or five days, you haven't seen very many drone hits, right? We have some unbelievable anti-drone weaponry that's incredible. But you want to have, like, for instance, the ballroom. We have a very powerful steel, very steel roof with other things in it. And you want to have, if you're building, a building for security, like, just like a judge's opinion.

You have to have security for the President and his staff. They have -- you need heavy, strong ceilings. You need seriously thick, bulletproof, ballistic glass. And we have that. Other buildings don't. You know, modern, fairly modern buildings don't have that. They have roofs that are weak and they have regular glass windows.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was this incident down at Barksdale, though, where apparently the whole swarm of drones for a couple hours was over the flight line. There's a lot of really important planes down there.

TRUMP: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How concerned are you that this is something --

TRUMP: Well, I'm not concerned. Yes, I know about it. They've checked that out and they've gotten to the bottom of it. You know, you have a lot of people now that fly these things all over the place and we're coming down very hard on them, but we're able to take them out militarily. We're able to take them out very easily. And a new thing is lasers. You know, the lasers are becoming very, very effective. You hit a drone and it melts in air. It's a beautiful thing to see if it's coming at you.

Having a laser is a very nice thing. But we have -- there are methods of defending against drones. I mean, the advantage from the standpoint of defense is they don't go very fast relative to a F-22, that plane right over there. They go very slow. They can be also shot out of the air by, you know, high quality aircraft, which we have more than anybody ever had.

[18:00:04]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a viral video this week, I don't know if you saw it, of army helicopters hovering near kid rocks house in Nashville.