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Trump Ramps Up Pressure On Allies To Help Secure Strait Of Hormuz; Storms Amplify Airport Disruptions Amid Ongoing DHS Shutdown; Trump Speaks On Health Diagnosis Of GOP Lawmaker; President Trump Takes Questions At The White House. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired March 16, 2026 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: -- hours according to my reporting over the weekend. And I think when he's talking about we have troops in some of these nations, some of these nations actually rely on a significant percentage of their domestic oil consumption or gas consumption coming through the Strait of Hormuz, he's specifically referring to Asian countries, I'm thinking primarily South Korea and Japan, both of whom have received requests from the United States.

And I think most interestingly, the Japanese Prime Minister is going to be the first leader to visit the White House since the start of the Iran conflict and she will be there. I want to say it's the 19th -- in a couple of days, she'll be there face to face and watching the Japanese government try and figure out how to navigate this moment of being put on the spot. And I think when the President is talking about things the way he was talking about it, he's referring specifically to Japan, knowing that that meeting is coming up.

It underscores that they're having real difficulty right now putting together a coalition.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

MATTINGLY: There's significant reluctance from all of the countries that they're going to in this moment in time, but that he's not going to stop with the pressure. And there are expectations here. And I think he alluded to the fact that I'm going to remember who doesn't come through for us in this moment in time.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, right.

BASH: And yes, Manu, he said, among the other things is that numerous countries say that they're going to send some help. It's on the way. Some are enthusiastic, some aren't.

RAJU: Yes, and we'll see who those names are. And to Phil's point, is a veiled threat that Trump seems to be making here that the U.S. will pull back helping out the security posture of some nations if they don't help them here. So this is going to be a very difficult choice if that is indeed what is happening behind the scenes. But also, Trump really making some serious assurances that this will be a low-risk endeavor. He said that repeatedly.

They're decimated. Again, he keeps saying this is -- Iran is obliterated and --

BASH: They're a paper tiger.

RAJU: -- paper tiger. Nothing's really going to happen. But this is a very complicated, risky mission. And if something does happen, a lot of people will point back at these remarks. Remember when the President promised that everything was fine? Apparently, it's not.

BASH: And Betsy Klein, you're here with us. You have done extensive reporting on everything that's going on with the Kennedy Center. And we were just remarking at the juxtaposition of the President being surrounded by very high-level people and also just sort of regular citizens who are supporters of his, who are members of the Kennedy Center board. But having this huge event at the White House right now, wedged in between phone calls and public sentiments and requests, like we just heard from him on a very real war that he is waging in Iran.

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, I think it just underscores how much of a priority this is for the President. We've seen him take steps to impose his style and taste on cultural issues here in the nation's capital. The Kennedy Center is no different. We saw him gut its board and install a bunch of loyalists who eventually elected him as chairman.

They renamed it to the Trump-Kennedy Center. They've overhauled the programming, the staffing. And now we are about to see them, after the cameras leave, take a vote on whether to close it for two years, which is going to be a major, major change for this center.

BASH: Yes. All right. Well, we -- he's still talking about the Kennedy Center. The President did say he's going to take some questions from reporters. So we're going to take a quick break. And when that happens, when reporters get to ask the President questions, we'll bring that to you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:38:13]

BASH: We're waiting for President Trump to take questions from reporters. In the meantime, we want to turn to another very big story happening this hour. A domino effect at airports across the East Coast, a rare dual storm threat snarling air travel. Right now, a rare level 4 or 5 storm threat is rolling into the Mid-Atlantic. Millions of Americans are facing tornado watches from North Carolina to Pennsylvania.

And now those storms are pairing delays with existing long TSA lines. This weekend, TSA workers officially missed their first full paycheck, prompting more than 300 workers to quit one month into the DHS shutdown.

CNN's Ryan Young is at one of those airports in Atlanta, really feeling the pain there. Right, Ryan?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I feel for the people behind me. They have been upset. We've seen folks crying, frustrated about how they're going to get on their trips, how to get home to their kids. You can understand all those frustrations.

And at the same time, there have been people who are bringing food to TSA workers because they want to make sure they have some lunch to be able to eat. When I step out of the way here, you can see the line behind me. So far, 300 delayed flights, 127 canceled flights, and numerous people missing their flights.

Some folks standing in line, you could actually see them waving their hands at some point because they realize they're not going to make it. On top of all the issues that we've talked about here, one of the things that's really frustrating passengers is there's a timer here that lets people know online how long the lines are going to be.

That system seems to have malfunctioned. And so when you walk up here, it says a 6-minute wait time. Well, I can visually see that it's not going to be 6 minutes to get you through this line. So some folks are being impacted because they think they have time to get here and they're getting here too late.

[12:40:00]

Take a listen to a passenger that we talked to just a short time ago about this pinch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: So what was your reaction when you turned the corner?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my god, are these the lines for TSA? That's crazy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is insane.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We had to wait like an hour to even check our bags and it was like a 2-minute process. I could like punch through a wall right now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's ridiculously frustrating then to know that, you know -- and it's not their fault because they're not getting paid and they're going to come in here. I wouldn't do it either, but just add to the layers of your frustration, add to the layers of you're just trying to buy your time back, have a little piece of vacation from the Matrix and the Matrix still gets you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Yes, we've talked to over a dozen people who are actually headed to Mexico to have a great spring break. That now looks like it's going to be canceled because the flights for a certain airline were canceled. Frontier's impact here has been tremendous. Other folks are trying to rebook and that's sending a cascading effect. All this also happening while people are standing in line and trying to rebook flights because the idea they're missing that first flight, so they're trying to get on that second flight and everyone's sort of doing at the same time. This is really impacting the public. Folks wondering when will this pain come to an end.

They're asking those questions and at the same time they're not getting the answers. So many people in shock by this and just wondering how do they get around it. Even heard one person talk about the idea of trying to maybe book a car to go to another airport. It's probably not going to work at this point. Dana?

BASH: Yes, and just to underscore what you're reporting, weather is one thing and weather happens, but the TSA problem --

YOUNG: Yes.

BASH: -- is very much compounded by the fact that DHS is still shut down and here where I am in Washington, there's virtually no conversation happening, not at least in a productive way.

YOUNG: And one other thing that's just it.

BASH: Yes.

YOUNG: Yes, and one thing should stand out. I was surprised to hear many people say they feel bad for them as well because they were like, how do you show up to work without a paycheck?

BASH: Yes.

YOUNG: So it was good to hear the flying public kind of understand that as well.

BASH: Yes, yes, absolutely. I was pretty much right where you are this time last week going through the TSA line. And one of the TSA officers who was about to miss a paycheck said to me that somebody gave them a voucher and the voucher -- for a meal and the voucher had expired the day before. So this just gives you a sense of how chaotic things are for these poor workers who deserve to get paid.

Thank you so much, Ryan. Appreciate it.

YOUNG: Thank you. It's good to see you.

BASH: Up next, voters in deep blue Illinois will decide which Democrat makes it to the general election. Who is spending big to promote their favorite candidate? More when we come back and we are still waiting for the President to take questions.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:47:21]

BASH: Welcome back to Inside Politics. I'm going to talk here with my panel. As I mentioned, the President is still talking to people who are there as part of his Kennedy Center board there in the East Room of the White House. And we've been listening and monitoring this event. And as he is sort of famous for doing, he has gone off script, and he is talking to the chief of staff on his left, Susie Wiles, and the House Speaker, Mike Johnson, who is there, who is on his right.

And they're discussing -- we're waiting for the sound to be ready, but they're discussing a lot of issues, including the fact that there's a very narrow majority in the House of Representatives. And part of the challenge that they have is a very human one, and that is when somebody is sick or unable to come, because it's basically a one -- effectively a one-vote majority, they have a lot of trouble with getting a majority in order to get legislation or really anything passed.

Manu, I'm going to have -- actually, I'm going to have you talk, Catherine, about this, because you're getting the notes. And as soon as we're ready to re-rack this and play it, we're going to do it.

CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG NEWS: Yes, I'm just going from the notes that we're getting from the meeting, which was that in this conversation about the House -- the narrow House majority, one thing that came up was a Florida representative, Neal Dunn, who has been sick. And he's been known, right, Manu, that he has been ill.

The President said that of his initial diagnosis, he would be, quote, "dead by June," which Speaker Mike Johnson said that wasn't public. And then they discussed how apparently the President says that he helped introduce him to physicians to help him with his condition.

BASH: OK, let's listen to it now. We have it ready.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- diagnosis.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: It was -- I mean, I think it was a terminal diagnosis.

TRUMP: He would be dead by June.

JOHNSON: OK, that wasn't public. But, yes, OK, that's --

TRUMP: That was --

JOHNSON: -- it was grim. That's what I was going to say. I don't think --

TRUMP: With the heart problem, by the way. This was a heart problem.

JOHNSON: right. So long story short, the President called him to encourage him and thank him. And they had conversation. And the President mentioned in the course of the conversation, you know, how to get my doctors involved. And they did.

And within a within a number of hours, they took him to Walter Reed emergency surgery. The man has a new lease on life. He acts like he's 30 years younger. And he walked into the conference meeting and we thought we'd seen a ghost. And I spoke with him over the weekend. And he's encouraged and thankful.

And he thanks the President for his leadership and intervention. And thank you. Thank you.

[12:50:05]

TRUMP: He actually called Mike. Mike called me and he said, sir, we're up by three, but we're going to lose one by June. Said who? Neal Dunn. He's a great congressman. Incredible.

He called to say that he was terminal, really bad heart. There's nothing they can do. I said, that's bad. Number one, it was bad because I liked him. Number two, it was bad because I needed his vote.

But he really said, he said, Mike, I'm going to last this out for the President and you. And however long I live -- I mean, it looks like June is the time, but however long I live, I'm going to be voting for you. I mean, how many people are going to say that? Most of them are going to say, Mike, I'm retiring immediately. That's the end.

JOHNSON: He's an extraordinary man.

TRUMP: But he didn't do that. Really -- it was really impressive. And then I realized I have doctors in the White House. The White House doctors are incredible. And they've helped me with other people. They're helping me with people right now.

People that are very sick are like their miracle workers. And I said, I have to call them. And I called the two doctors. They're both great. And they immediately went over to see the congressman. And he was on the operating table like two hours later.

JOHNSON: Yes.

TRUMP: And it was a long operation. They gave him more stents and more everything that you can have. I think he's got everything that you could possibly have. And they called up. They said, sir, I think you'll be fine. I said, you got to be kidding. He said, I think you'll be fine.

And Mike was telling me the story that the other day he came into a meeting for the first time in a long while. Go ahead.

JOHNSON: Well, it was incredible. I mean, just that he has a new lease on life. He has more energy than a man half his age and very encouraged and encouraged all of us. So, again, a testament to great leadership. And he's -- my hats off to Neal Dunn and his beautiful wife and family. He's an extraordinary individual.

TRUMP: And just, you know, because I don't want to have --

BASH: OK. Well, that was an interesting conversation in front of the cameras. Look, the good news is what the House Speaker said and what the President added in there, which is that whatever treatment Congressman Neal Dunn got seems to be working --

RAJU: Yes/

BASH: -- which is very good news. The sort of context of that conversation was interesting.

RAJU: Yes. So much for patient privacy. That was one of my first things I thought of there. But yes, good news he's doing better. But Trump is making that pretty remarkable statement that he would be dead by June. And what was not known at this time, we've known that he's -- Congressman Dunn has been ill.

And the reason why it's gotten a lot of attention is because of just how narrow the House Republican majority is. Remember, just one Republican defection. That's all that Mike Johnson can afford to pass any legislation right now. And there are threes open seats because of vacancies.

And there's questions about how long he can maintain this majority because of -- he's a couple of heartbeats away or resignations away from suddenly the House being thrown up into disarray. And maybe Democrats having a chance to pull back power, especially if they win some of these special elections. So there's a lot of questions about whether Johnson can maintain this very, very narrow majority up until November.

So the fact that they're talking about it in those terms, Trump and Johnson about -- Trump said, I'm glad he's better, but his vote is just as important to me, shows you just how much they are thinking about this tiny, tiny Republican majority and whether they can actually hang on to it through November.

MATTINGLY: Yes. First, God bless. If the way that they're describing the change in the medical treatment, if that's accurate and there's no reason to think it's not, that's remarkable.

BASH: Absolutely.

MATTINGLY: And it's extraordinarily news. And I know this has been something that House leadership and House members have been very concerned about on a personal level for a friend and a colleague who I think nobody knew exactly what was going on, but everyone was pretty well aware that it was not great and there was a very real possibility of death. And so if that's the case, and it seems to be the case, that's tremendous news.

BASH: I think the President is now finally taking questions. Let's listen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- what they are, what that entails, how soon they might be there?

TRUMP: You mean who are the countries?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, sir.

TRUMP: I'd rather not say yet, but we'll be announcing a Marco Rubio and the various people that are doing that we'll be announcing. And we do -- I have to tell you, we have some that are really enthusiastic. They're coming already. They've already started to get there.

You know, it takes a little while to get there. It's like in some cases you have to travel an ocean. So does it go that fast, but it'll go fast. And we have some that are fairly local that are doing it, but we'll be in that. We'll give you a list.

Some are very enthusiastic and some are less than enthusiastic. And I assume some will not do it. I think we have one or two that will not do it that we've been protecting for about 40 years at, you know, tens of billions of dollars, Mr. Speaker. So I'll be reporting that to you in the House and the Senate, and I'll say, why are we protecting countries that don't protect us?

[12:55:11]

And I've always felt that was a weakness of NATO. We were going to protect them, but I always said when in need, they won't protect us. Now, this is a need. Need would be one of the big boys, but I will say that we built the greatest military in the world and we protect people. And if we need their mind boats, or if we need anything -- any piece of apparatus that they may have because of a situation that they have, they should be jumping to help us because we've helped them for years stay out of wars.

Yes, please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you very much, Mr. President. Can you tell us if you have spoken with French President Macron about the coalition to reopen the Strait of Hormuz? Have you been speaking with the French president?

TRUMP: What does that mean?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you been speaking with the French President Macron about the coalition to reopen the Strait of Hormuz?

TRUMP: Yes, I have spoken to him. He's been -- on a scale of zero to 10, I'd say he's been an eight, not perfect, but it's France.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you --

TRUMP: We don't expect perfect.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you confident that France will help with the reopening of Strait of Hormuz?

TRUMP: Yes, I mean, sure. He's going to -- I think he's going to help. I mean, I'll let you know. He's -- I'd spoke to him yesterday. I don't do a hard sell on them because my attitude is we don't need anybody. We're the strongest nation in the world. We have the strongest military by far in the world. We don't need them, but it's interesting.

I'm almost doing it in some cases, not because we need them, but because I want to find out how they react because I've been saying for years that if we ever did need them, they won't be there. Not all of them, but they won't be there. I was very surprised with the United Kingdom because the United Kingdom two weeks ago, I said, why don't you send some ships over? And he really didn't want to do it.

I said, you don't want to do it. We've been with you. You're our oldest ally. And we spend a lot of money on, you know, NATO and all of these things to protect you. I mean, we're protecting them. We're working with them on Ukraine. Ukraine's thousands of miles away, separated by a vast ocean.

We don't have to do that, but we did it. Well, Biden did it. I mean, I have to be honest with you. Biden got taken to the cleaners (ph). But we worked with them in Ukraine. We don't need to work with them in Ukraine. And then they tell us that do you have a mine ship around, and they don't want to do it.

I think it's terrible. No, I was very surprised. I told him, you know, he -- we requested two aircraft carriers, which they had, and he didn't really want to do it. And then right after the war essentially ended, you know, meaning they were obliterated, he said, I would like to send the aircraft carriers. I said, I don't need them after the war is ended and one I needed before the war.

So I was very upset with -- not upset, I was not happy with the U.K. I think they'll be involved. Yes, maybe. But they should be involved enthusiastically. We've been protecting these countries for years with NATO because NATO is us.

You can ask Putin. Putin fears us. He doesn't fear -- he has no fear of Europe whatsoever. He fears the United States of America and the military that was built by me in the first term.

Yes?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, you mentioned the significant amount of oil that China derives from the Middle East. What is the status of your conversation with President Xi in terms of getting China to cooperate in terms of making the Strait of Hormuz safe for those oil tankers?

TRUMP: Yes. So China is a great example. They get 91 percent of their oil from the Hormuz Straits, which we protected for years. And it always bothered me that we have these countries. Japan gets 95 percent of its from the Straits, the Hormuz Straits. And it always bothered me that we're protecting and we don't need them.

We didn't need them before we started Dig We Must. Dig We Must, that's the Trump policy of lots of oil. And we didn't use them very much. We -- it used to be at 10 percent. Now it's at almost zero. We don't need -- you know, we don't need oil. We have all the oil we need for ourselves. It's one of the great assets that we have.

We have double, more than double what anybody else in terms of oil production. We're at more than double any other country. So we don't need it. But we did it. It's almost -- you could say we did it out of habit, which is not a good thing to do. But we did it because we have some good allies there. We have some great Middle Eastern countries there, Israel there.

So we did it for a lot of reasons. But it always amazed me that --