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Trump Holds First Cabinet Meeting Since Start Of Iran War; Trump: Iran Must "Permanently Abandon Their Nuclear Ambition"; Trump Says War "Way Ahead Of Schedule" As It Nears 5th Week; Trump: Iran Is "Begging To Make A Deal, Not Me"; GOP Lawmakers Frustrated Over Lack Of Info On Iran War. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 26, 2026 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I can't talk about specifics. A lot of people say that wouldn't matter, maybe it does matter. Who knows? But I wouldn't talk. It's like the question this young lady asked -- sorry if I embarrassed her. So, I don't want to embarrass you because I think you're of -- I think she's a friendly reporter. So, I'm sorry. But you know, I can't say what were going to do because if I did, I wouldn't be sitting here for long. They'd probably -- what is it called? The 25th Amendment. That institute, the 25th Amendment, which they didn't do with Biden, which is shocking.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- safe enough to leave the region, because Steve said that they've got enough uranium to make a living bombs, that's a very scary thing.

TRUMP: So again, I can't talk to you about that. You're asking me a question. You're essentially saying, will I go in and do something. I can't talk to you about it.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're looking at coalition of ships to help -- warships to help protect tankers. How close are you getting that?

TRUMP: Well, we have a coalition for them, but they should have been up here a long time ago. And you know, they're affected. The amazing thing is, we don't need the Hormuz Strait. We don't need it. We don't need it at all. We don't -- we have so much oil. Our country is not affected by this. We have more. We have twice the amount of oil as Saudi Arabia or Russia, and soon it'll be three times the amount.

Chris, do you want to speak to that for a second?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's correct. Our total oil production is greater than Saudi Arabia's, plus Russia, and more than we consume in the United States. We're the largest --

TRUMP: Pretty good. Pretty good. You know, they call it, drill baby drill. (CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Anything else you want to say?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, same thing for natural gas. We wait before your first term. We were the largest exporter of natural gas in the world. Today, we're just by far the largest and we were the largest importer. Now, we're by far the largest exporter, and it's growing rapidly. This year, new facilities are coming online and productions ramping up.

TRUMP: We're doing amazing job. We're getting a lot of help for that man right over there. He's getting approvals done quickly and very environmental -- he's an environmentalist, actually. He does a great job, but he gives you a fast approval or rejection. Do you have anything to say?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, back on Venezuela, where Chris and I have both had a chance to be there. I literally think they're going to put up a statue to President Trump, and I'm not being -- it's not a political statement, it's not --

TRUMP: I'm hoping that would be a great --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, because it's like, they view President Trump like Simon Bolivar. He's the liberator of a country, and this is a country where they, you know, they love American baseball. You look on the street, they're wearing NBA jerseys, and Delcy and her team working with us getting back. Chris and I both experienced. It was the first time in Venezuela in history that they had the free press allowed to come on to the essentially, what's there, where the White House, the police show of minute floors. And it was like, it was an emotional thing for people that had been for 20 years, had never had a chance to be there.

So, whether it's the -- and then production, it's showing up in production, the American companies that are coming back. Most of those American companies have many American Venezuela team members. One company in Houston has got 600 Venezuelan Americans that know more about reviving that industry.

So, their GDP went is one-fourth of what it was before. They want to get back. They remember what it was. Their production on oil production is going to -- is climbing towards 50 percent increase just in the three months we've been here, that that flows to American refineries on the Gulf Coast, lowering the price of gas in America. So, it's --

TRUMP: You get that. When are they going to do the statue?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've been really honest about how disappointed you are in (inaudible) particularly you mentioned in Iran. So, I'm curious about your phone calls with him, how easy they might be. And also, were you surprised -- TRUMP: Are we talking about Starmer?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. I think --

TRUMP: I think he's a lovely man. I do. I think he's a lovely man, but I think he did something that was shocking. He didn't want to help us, and maybe in particular, that country, you know, the longest bond, the longest ally, Australia, too. Australia was not great. I was a little surprised by Australia. I wouldn't say anybody was great, other than the five countries in the Middle East, we never really had very much support.

You know, we spent trillions of dollars supporting countries. And this is little league. This isn't the big league deal. This is sort of little league pool for us. This wasn't easy. This was like we decimated them in a period of a week. In the first week it was over. In the first few days it was over. I think the navy took us three days to essentially annihilated. They weren't there.

So, if there's ever a big one, which I hope there's not. But if there's ever a big one, I don't think they're going to be there. And that's not fair, and we have to remember that as a country, because we spend trillions of dollars protecting Europe, protecting the countries of NATO. They weren't there for us, for small time. This is small time. You know what? Venezuela is a big deal, but it's not the big one. They weren't there. So, what makes you think they'd be there if we needed them for something?

[12:05:00]

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: And your prime minister was not there, as you know. He was there after we won. He said, we like to send some chips. I said, we already won. We don't need them anymore.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, can you explain why Venezuela --

TRUMP: Why, why?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why Venezuela since we help with Iran?

TRUMP: He didn't have to. I didn't ask him. I just said, you should tell me, no. I mean, we're always going to be there, at least we were. I don't know about anymore, to be honest with you. I'd have to be honest. We were always there when they needed help. We always would have been there when they needed help. I mean, think of it. We're there to protect Europe from Russia. In theory, it doesn't affect us. We have an ocean, big fat, beautiful ocean. But we're there to protect NATO, to protect them from Russia, but they're not there to protect us. It's a ridiculous. It doesn't make sense.

I tell you, a lot of people were big NATO people. I was never big. It was OK. I got them to pay 5 percent, by the way, they haven't paid it yet. You know that? You know, I got them to pay 5 percent from 2 percent to 5 percent. They didn't pay it yet. I got them to pay up to 2 percent because they weren't paying the 2 percent. Then I got them to pay 5 percent, which he should be at, and we had a lot of, oh, that was great, great. Oh, only Trump could do it -- from us he haven't paid because if you look at the numbers, they haven't paid yet.

So, we were there for them, but they were not there for us. Did we need them? No. I never thought we needed them. I was more doing a test. I said, I really would love to have you come up, bring your boats. You can sail through the beautiful Hormuz Strait, and you can protect people that are being shot at. They didn't do it, and that's small potatoes. You understand what I'm saying. You go ahead.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm just going to say, does it affect the state? Is it with the king that you're now having equally looking forward to that.

TRUMP: With the king?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With the king.

TRUMP: No, no. He's a friend of mine. He's a great gentleman. As you know, he honored me and our country. He really honored our country, but we had an amazing time. I've known him as Prince Charles. I know him as King Charles. I'm proud of him. He's fighting a tough battle. He's tough. I think -- I think he's a fantastic -- it has nothing to do with that. It's different.

But, and -- we're going to -- he's going to be here very soon, as you know. We're going to have a state dinner. It's going to be great. But I was very disappointed when the prime minister said, I won't be able to -- it started with the island. The island that the indigenous have claimed away from your country. And for some reason, you went for it, and all of a sudden, indigenous people that never saw the place, they never saw it. He was afraid that we would do something to himself, because he's a liberal. That's the way they think.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: And when we needed the island to land that beautiful B2 bomber, we were told we can't use it. We'd have to fly back to Missouri, which is a 17-hour flight, as opposed to a couple of hours. And I said, you got to be kidding. Not good. They made a big mistake.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is the Friday deadline for Iran? Is that pushed back now? Or if not --

TRUMP: I don't know yet. I don't know. Mr. Witkoff and J.D. and Jared will tell me whether or not they think it's going along, and if it's not going along, maybe not. And we have a lot of time. You know what? It's a day in Trump time a day, you know what it is? That's an eternity.

(CROSSTALK) TRUMP: You say it, what?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: European parliament just passed a major deportation plan. Some of the tenets of it are that member states can deport rejected asylum seekers to third countries, regardless of whether they have a connection to it. It allows for detention periods of up to two years, and also offshore return hubs or detention centers, similar to our --

TRUMP: Who did this? Who does -- which country?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: European parliament and the vote was not close. It was 389 and -- to 208 again.

TRUMP: I'd vote -- I'd vote with them, you know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is where you are now, do you think that will move the needle with Democrats?

TRUMP: I don't care about the Democrats. The Democrats hate our country. The Democrats are in chaos right now, and they have no common sense. You know, they have one quality that's amazing, they stick together. And it's harder because they stick together in a ridiculous policy like men playing in women's sports, open borders for everybody, including murderers and anybody else who want it. We're open to you. Come in murders. You know why they do that? They do that for a couple of reasons, but they do it for votes because they think they're going to vote for the Democrats.

[12:10:00]

Even though I did great with the Hispanic vote, tremendous with the Hispanic vote. You know, I turn that whole thing around. The Hispanics like me and I like them. And you know, it's interesting with Hispanics. When I built the wall, everybody said, oh, that's going to ruin us for the Hispanic was just the opposite. They know all about immigration, and they know all about death and crime, and they're smart people, and they have common sense. They wanted to be protected from the people that were coming into our country.

So, you know, I won the election with a very tremendous Hispanic vote, and I think it's higher now than it was then. So, we're a party of common sense. The Democrats are a party of insanity. They're a party that will destroy our country. If I didn't win this election, I believe our country would have been destroyed by now one year. This all it would have taken.

If you had Kamala or sleepy Joe, either one, it wouldn't have mattered. They're the same thing. Two sleepy people, two stupid people. I believe -- and by the way, Gavin Newsom, who is one of the candidates, I believe he took himself out of the running when he says he is -- he suffers from mental disability. And a reporter said it was terrible that I talked that way about somebody with mental disability. I said, I have no problem with it, but I don't want a person with mental disability to be my president. I mean, you don't want to have a person with mental disability. DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: OK, we're going to continue to monitor the president. He is having a cabinet meeting. It's been going on since 10:35 am eastern, so an hour and a half or so. I just want to say, before we fully start, you just heard the president say that Gavin Newsom said he had a mental disability. Gavin Newsom has dyslexia, and we can talk about that another time. The president has been sort of seizing on that for a couple of weeks now.

But we did see the president answer questions at this cabinet meeting, and one of the key things that we've been watching and listening for was what he's saying about Iran. He had a blunt warning for Iran. Permanently abandon your nuclear ambition, or U.S. strikes will continue.

Here's what he said about a potential deal to end the war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: 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 anybody would know that, 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 said yesterday that we weren't negotiating with them, and now they admit that we were negotiating with them. So, they want to make a deal. The reason they want to make a deal is they have been just beat the shit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters here at the table. Natasha Bertrand, I want to start with you. You covered the Pentagon for us. Can you translate some of what we heard from the president versus what you're hearing from your sources about what is happening militarily?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I'll try. It's kind of difficult because there seem to be so many conflicting objectives here. On the one hand, you see the military saying repeatedly that the goals are to destroy the navy, the ballistic missile capabilities, the drone capabilities, and wipe out kind of the shield that would allow them to create a nuclear weapon.

But then on the other hand, you have Secretary of State, Marco Rubio and President Trump repeatedly saying, well, they can never have a nuclear weapon. And so, what is the actual objective here? And are they going to really do what they need to do if they believe that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, which is sending a ground force to actually get that highly enriched uranium out of those nuclear facilities, which they would need to produce a nuclear weapon and put U.S. troops at a tremendous risk in doing so, and that's the big question.

BASH: So, our friend of the show, Tam Keith with NPR, tried to ask about enriched uranium, and the president said, the question was ridiculous. Now I think he was saying that because he likes to say, he doesn't like to tip his hand, which is understandable, but that's really what you're talking about here. And is that part of the reason you're hearing that the -- never mind the thousands of sailors and marines that went last week, but now the 82nd Airborne is on its way to the region to potentially back up special forces to get that enriched uranium.

BERTRAND: They're going to give the president options and give him the options that he would need in order to launch that kind of ground operation. The Kharg Island operation, which would be separate, of course, to try to cripple their ability to export crude and kind of, you know, cripple that economic lifeline for the Iranians, that would be likely marines and the 82nd Airborne, if there was any kind of operation going into the -- into Iran itself, to try to get that uranium, that would likely be the 82nd Airborne.

[12:15:00]

But it's important to note that no decisions have been made at this point. They're going to be staging in the Middle East, essentially, to be ready for President Trump to give that order if he decides to move ahead with it. But I can't emphasize enough just how risky experts and military officials have told us that would be.

BASH: Right. I mean, that is very, very difficult. It's one thing to bomb from the air. It's a whole another thing to go in deep into the ground and try to take out the enriched uranium. Let's talk about gas and oil prices for a second. Phil Mattingly, first, let's listen to what the president said about oil prices during this lengthy cabinet meeting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So, let's actually look at where oil prices are right now. Oil, if we put it on the screen, is about, what 4 percent, I think I was just told, there you go. It's up 4 percent rather, and that's Brent crude oil, international and domestic is about four and a half. So, they're both about four and a half percent. So, it is up.

Phil, in addition to him saying he thought it would be worse. The president also later said that he or that it doesn't affect the U.S. because the U.S. does its own drilling. That is true that the U.S. does its own drilling, but it absolutely has affected the U.S., because oil markets are global markets.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. So, there's a couple things I'm going to try to unpack here, hopefully within a 30-minute time period for everyone's sake, starting with the oil prices, up four or four and a half percent today. The market has been kind of vacillating back and forth, mostly on vibes, is my understanding of things.

When you talk to analysts, particularly energy analysts, who actually agree with what the president just said there, that prices should be significantly higher right now. Markets should be significantly more anxious at the moment but are largely basing everything they're doing in a short-term way off of what the president is saying.

The president is saying that markets have confidence in me. He gets it. He understands that when he's saying things, he's moving markets in and of itself. That's a really risky play because the Strait of Hormuz is not open right now. And so, when the president says, we don't rely on it. We don't need it. It is true that not only is the U.S. producing 30 point 6 million barrels of oil a day, again, more than Saudi Arabia, that was -- that was 100 percent accurate and produced more LNG than just about anybody in the world.

It is a global market, as you know better than anybody. There is a reason why oil prices are up 30 percent and why gas prices, which started the month right around $3 maybe even a shade under, right now, or tip toeing around $4, that's $1 increase in a gallon of gas in less than 30 days, which is pretty extraordinary.

I think the bigger issue here is his last statement, when he was talking about how the U.S. doesn't rely on or need the Strait of Hormuz. He said it doesn't affect us. It does, not just because of gas prices, not just because of the price of oil. Being a global market that moves based, not just on U.S. production, but also because of everything else that is connected downstream.

We're talking about fertilizer. If you're a U.S. farmer, you care a lot about that. We're talking about helium. We're talking about petrochemicals. We're talking about LNG, which obviously the U.S. produces a ton, but can you ship it? And can you ship it at scale? So the global economy is global. It is interconnected. Everything affects us and global economy.

We saw it during COVID. You're dealing with a price shock here now, and you're seeing the broader economic repercussions. Mortgage rates going back up above 6 percent, the highest they've been since September. As he's railing against Jerome Powell again, which is tied to the Fed, which usually looks through energy shocks, trying to get to the other side not -- dictate monetary policy by them saying, look, duration here is everything. If you don't get the Strait reopened soon, you have a major, major economic problem.

BASH: Yeah. The mortgage rates just went up for the fourth straight week as the president was talking. Let me get straight to the White House, CNN's Kristen Holmes is there. Kristen, just going off of what Phil Mattingly was just saying about oil prices. What did the president say about the Strait of Hormuz, which is a main focus of the U.S. and Israel, and it's obviously the way blocking it off, is the way that Iran is retaliating.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. And Dana, I mean, one of the things he did was reveal what this "present" from Iran was, which directly involves the Strait of Hormuz. Just a reminder, he teased the idea of this president when he was asked specifically about any kind of negotiations. How the U.S. knew that the person that they were talking to was actually in charge? Had they shown any good faith? Could they be trustworthy?

[12:20:00]

He said that they had given him a very big present, but now for days, we've been asking about what was it? He did reveal that in the cabinet meeting. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Look, we have very substantial talks going on with respect to Iran, with the right people. You know, I told you about a present, right? Steve, can I reveal the present? They said, to show you the fact that we're real and solid and we're there. We're going to let you have eight boats of oil, eight boats, eight big boats of oil. Eight big tankers are going loaded up with oil right through it. And I said, well, I guess -- I guess they were right and they were -- they were real. And I think they were Pakistani flagged. And I said, well, I guess we're dealing with the right people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So obviously, they're this kind of show of good faith by opening the Strait of Hormuz to these Pakistani flag boats. But Dana, I do want to kind of take a broad picture here because it was very clear. If you cut out the fat of what President Trump said, as he often did, going off message, talk about the Kennedy Center, the price of sharpies, people's various learning disabilities.

If you look at what the cabinet was actually intended to do during this meeting, it was to respond to the criticism around this war and try to get a message to the American people. You had J.D. Vance, who is known to be against U.S. intervention, saying that this war was necessary to end a nuclear threat of Iran. You had Witkoff going into what exactly was happening behind the scenes and trying to explain why there weren't more details on those negotiations. They were trying to combat that criticism in real time using the cabinet here.

BASH: That's such a good point. I'm glad you brought that up. Really, really important point. Kristen, thank you so much. I'm back here at the table. Mario, you have been in the briefing room, trying to get some answers, maybe not always successful, but you're trying.

MATTINGLY: Mario is always successful.

BASH: Well, it's nothing to do with your reporting, it's a situation. What do you make of what you heard from the president? MARIO PARKER, NATIONAL POLITICS TEAM LEADER, BLOOMBERG: Well, I'm glad, Kristen brought that point up, because I saw the briefing yesterday and in the cabinet meeting today, is two stories that the White House is trying to tell. The story yesterday was quite clear that they wanted to wrap this thing up. Karoline Leavitt came out and she announced that there will be this visit from President Trump to China.

That visit, if you recall, had been postponed because of the backdrop of the war. President Trump said that he didn't want to go over there because of the optics of having a war going on at that time. That date was set for May 14 and May 15. That's a clear signal.

And I asked Karoline about that as well, but it's a clear signal that they see this thing probably trying to conclude by then or at least trying to signal that. She also outlined the four-to-six-week timeline. She spoke about being ahead of schedule. She spoke about decimating military capabilities yesterday, right?

Today, we saw in that cabinet meeting as Kristen explained just the justification for the war. We saw Pete Hegseth say this is a legacy play by the president. He's doing something so future generations don't have to worry about this type of Iranian threat that has plagued the U.S. for 47 years.

President Trump tried to nudge that up a little bit to 48 years, as he's want to do as well. But we saw Scott Bessent speak about the Strait of Hormuz, speaking about Iran trying to use that as a way to choke the global economy. And again, to your point, Dana, we saw J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio also offering their own justification. So, yesterday was, we're wrapping this up. Today was a message of here's why we did just that in the face of so much criticism.

BASH: Except some of the president's staunchest allies on Capitol Hill now are not satisfied with what they're hearing with regard to the military plans. Mike Rogers, who is the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, came out of a closed-door meeting saying, quote. They're moving troops into the Centcom and the combatant command, and we want to know more about what options they're considering, and we aren't given any details. We feel like the administration needs to be forthcoming. That's a big deal from the Republican chair of the Armed Services Committee.

MARIANNA SOTOMAYOR, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Absolutely, yes. Look, this is the kind of thing that I and many other Hill reports have been hearing behind the scenes, privately, that this committee in particular has been working in a bipartisan manner that has actually impressed both sides of the aisle to really press administration officials on what is happening.

What should Congress know before the president makes another decision abroad? And this, as everyone has explained, this whole back and forth of, oh, this is a justification. No, actually, this is a justification. They are getting sick of it, so sick of it that you see the chairman going out publicly and saying, we need clear answers. Oh, and also, I am pressing administration officials to please be clear, because we are not putting boots on the ground yet, but we are sending them. Why are we doing that?

[12:25:00]

And obviously, Congress wants to have a clear answer because at some point they will have to vote on a supplemental bill that the price tag is just getting bigger and bigger as the days go by. They might not be able to vote necessarily because it's Congress to actually approve this war. So that Iranian supplemental may just become that kind of green flag or maybe a red flag if there's not enough votes to actually approve this war.

BASH: All right, everybody standby. Coming up. Negotiations on Capitol Hill are deadlocked still, which means massive TSA lines could actually get worse. Plus, exactly two years ago today, Maryland's key bridge collapsed. I got an exclusive tour of the site and where the new bridge will be built. I was with the governor Wes Moore.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. WES MOORE (D-MD): To your point, it's difficult to understand this enormity of this bridge until you get out here, and you are and you see it up close.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[12:30:00]