Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Trump Says Onus Is On Europe To Re-Open Strait Of Hormuz; Average Gas Prices Hit $4.02 As Experts Warn They Could Hit $5; Political Paparazzi: Congress Gets The TMZ Treatment Amid Recess; Johnson On Ending Recess: "Senate Has To Do Their Job"; Trump Owns The Two Longest Shutdowns, Mere Months Apart; Florida Mayor On His Path To Flipping Governor's Mansion. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 31, 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]

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: Go get your own oil. That's the message from President Trump to allies reeling from his decision to go to war. I'm Manu Raju in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

We start with the financial toll of the war in Iran. Right now, the average cost of gas in the United States is more than $4 a gallon, and that's the highest level since 2022. Experts warn prices could spike as high as $5 a gallon. And this all stems from Iran choking off the Strait of Hormuz that handles roughly 20 percent of the world's oil flow. The Strait was open to traffic until the U.S. and Israel launched a war in Iran.

But now President Trump appears to be demanding that NATO allies take the lead in forcing Iran to reopen it. This morning, he delivered a blunt message on Truth Social that said, in part, quote, all of those countries that can't get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran. 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. He went on to say the quote, the hard part is done. Go get your own oil. Now, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, backed up the commander in chief at the Pentagon this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: He's pointing out. This is an international waterway that we use less than most. In fact, dramatically less than most. So, the world ought to pay attention to be prepared to stand up. President Trump's been willing to do the heavy lifting on behalf of the free world to address this threat of Iran. It's not just our problem set going forward, even though we have done the lion's share of preparation to ensure that that Strait will be -- will be open.

(END VIDEO CLIP) RAJU: And I'm joined now by an excellent group of reporters, including Kristen Holmes, who covers the White House for us here at CNN. So -- OK, so Trump yesterday said that if the Strait of Hormuz is not immediately quote, open for business, we will conclude our lovely stay in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells and Kharg Island and possibly all desalinization plants, really destroying the civilian infrastructure that this country relies on. But then, today, the suggestion -- yes -- yeah, that's certainly a concern. But now today, they're saying, this is not one of their core objectives. So, what are your sources telling you?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: What we're seeing is that they're focusing on core objectives that they actually think that they can show the American people that they're achieving. So, destroying the navy, killing off leadership, those kind of things. Reopening the Strait is something that they have to depend entirely on Iran for, and there is no indication that Iran is going to reopen the Strait.

And so, you're seeing them kind of shift on that. And what we've seen, really across the board when it comes to this war in Iran is this kind of shifting narrative and shifting goal post, because we also have President Trump routinely saying, if they don't open up the Strait of Hormuz, we're going to inflict all this pain on him. It's not just that post. It has been going on for months, but now it's that maybe we don't really care about opening the Strait of Hormuz.

He has been privately very, very angry that none of these other European countries have come to his defense or to the United States defense in his mind, as part of this war, even though, of course, they have said that this was not something that they were putting a direct threat for legally or just in terms of resources, they can't do it.

RAJU: Phil, he's saying that if Europe needs this, the Strait of Hormuz something that the U.S. does too.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Look, there's kind of a distinction where two things can both be true. The U.S. is not heavily reliant in any way, shape or form, particularly on oil. When it comes to ships that transit the Strait of Hormuz or tankers that transit the Strait of Hormuz. The United States is extraordinarily reliant on the global market that is oil.

So basically, as we've talked about repeatedly over the course of the last couple of weeks, just because the U.S. is producing 13.6 million barrels a day of oil is more any energy independent in this moment than it has ever been in history. That is undoubtedly the case. You have seen gas prices top $4 a gallon as of today, which is more than $1 than it was before Operation Epic Fury started because oil is a global market and retail gas comes downstream of that.

I think what's important to note here is the reality behind the scenes is to actually retake the Strait of Hormuz. To Kristen's point, Iran has a say here. It would take offensive action by the United States military, which would put likely require ground troops, would almost certainly put naval assets in extreme danger, which is why there are no naval escorts, despite the fact that on March 3, the president pledged that they were coming.

[12:05:00]

What is happening? I think we see publicly in kind of the pendulum swinging back and forth day by day, is a recognition that this is not something that can be done without loss of life, use of ground troops expanding and extending this operation much further than he pledged to wanted to or is within the four-to-six-week timeline. And therefore, he looks at the kind of statistics and says, hey, Europe, Asia, everybody else. You get most of the oil here. You go do it.

RAJU: Yeah. And Europe, in particular, the allies are saying we're not going to get involved in this. And we're seeing this increasing isolation between, you know, the alienation, however you want to characterize if there's tension between the America's traditional allies in Europe and the U.S., just Italy just denied the use of U.S. air giving -- wouldn't give permission to U.S. aircraft to use some its land, insist to land in Sicily, and Spain went even further yesterday in a similar regard. So, we're seeing Trump and Trump is railing on U.K. almost daily now, it seems on Truth Social. This increasing tension between the American and his closest Americans and their closest allies.

AYESHA RASCOE, NPR HOST, "WEEKEND EDITION SUNDAY" AND "UP FIRST": Well, because the allies see that even when they try to appease Trump, it doesn't work. You know, a few days later, he'll be threatening 100 percent tariffs. And so, they're like, well, why are we going to put ourselves at risk? Well, we're not going to get any credit for it, like we could try to help in the Strait of Hormuz or whatever. And you're always going to come back and say, we haven't done enough, we haven't done this. And so that's what's happening.

But this idea that somehow the U.S. will be insulated from what's happening in the Strait it's just -- it's completely false. At the end of the day, yes, the U.S. produces a lot of oil, but we also import a lot of oil, and that will continue to be the case. And so, you're going to have Americans dealing with $4, maybe $5 a gallon oil. And the thing about that is gas prices are like the weather. Everybody loves to talk about it. You know how high these gas prices are? That is that and that is what politicians have to deal with.

RAJU: Yes. And the person who like to talk about a lot was none other than Donald J. Trump. In fact, when they were very -- when they were much lower, he touted them quite frequently, and when they were high under Joe Biden, he attacked Biden over that issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Energy just hit $1.98 in a couple of states. It's way down. You have gasoline that hit $1.98 yesterday in a couple of states. Gasoline yesterday in three states hit $1.98 a gallon. If you look at energy, I think you're going to be at $2 a gallon with cars, very shortly, $2. It was $4, $5 under the Democrats, that's a huge, it's like a massive tax cut. (END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And just for a little factcheck, gas hit an average of 2.70 per gallon in April when Trump made that first statement that you saw there. Gas buddy couldn't find a single station at 1.98 despite what the president said, according to our colleague Daniel Dale. So nevertheless, what are you hearing from the alarm about -- within the White House about the rising gas prices, because they're -- they keep trying to say, it's going to go back to normal, everything will be fine. But what is the reality inside the White House?

HOLMES: The reality is that people are very concerned inside of the White House, particularly when it comes to the politics of this and what it means for the midterm elections. They are watching this creep closer and closer to November, and they understand that all of this is going to play into the midterm elections.

Now, the gas prices, as you noted, are something that President Trump has really doubled down on, and that's because he couldn't fight on the other side of affordability because we weren't seeing any changes in cost of living. We weren't seeing any changes at the grocery store. But instead, what they were looking at was the gas prices, which were going down.

That was the one thing that they could really hold on to and hammer home when they were trying to make this affordability argument. That is now gone. And the question is, maybe it will go back down, but when? And we have not been given a timeline on that either.

RAJU: Yeah. And Phil, I want you to just dissect this White House statement from this morning. Karoline Leavitt said, when Operation Epic Fury is complete, gas prices will plummet back to the multi-year lows. American drivers enjoy before the short-term disruptions. It's not that easy. I mean, grass rippers go high. You don't just drop like that. Are they?

MATTINGLY: Yeah. Up, rock it down feather, I believe is the -- is the traditional economic nature there. I think this is actually really instructive as we watch what the president is trying to figure out, what to do with the Strait of Hormuz. The administration and I have heard this on a daily basis, 50 times a day for the better part of 30 days, has made the case the short term, temporary pain. We knew prices were going to go up. It's only going to be temporary, and then they will dropdown dramatically.

The reason they will drop down, and you could see it early on in the conflict, in oil futures pushing out towards the end of the year, is the idea that if Iran, which has long threatened the Strait of Hormuz or utilizing the threat of the Strait of Hormuz and global energy, holding it hostage on some level was essentially putting a risk premium on energy as it existed for the better part of 47 years, remove Iran and energy prices will drop. Commerce will be more free flowing than it has ever been before. Obviously, U.S. energy position dominance right now is what it is.

[12:10:00] And so, all those things combined will, in the long term, drop gas prices, drop energy prices dramatically. If you don't have the Strait of Hormuz open. If Iran is controlling the flow and the tolls and the process of the Strait of Hormuz, you don't get the long game view that the administration has been utilizing as their literally, their argument for why this was worth it at all. And so that's the dynamic right now that I don't know necessarily how they square as the president tries to figure out which way to go here.

RASCOE: And we should point out that even though the president would always hammer home the fact that gas prices were low, the administration wasn't getting much credit for that on the issue of affordability. People were not happy about affordability when gas prices were low. So even if you get them back to where they were, that doesn't make people go, oh, now I'm happy. The economy is great. They weren't happy before.

RAJU: Yeah, right. And that's again, affordability the issue of the midterms. We'll see how this ultimately plays out. All right, next. We just shut down the government. So, what are you going to do next? TMZ has the goods on a top Republican who was at Disney World, not Capitol Hill. And later, the very first look at what will be Donald J. Trump's presidential library. Perhaps it looks just like you'd expect.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: Day 46 of the DHS shutdown. Tens of thousands of Department of Homeland Security employees, showing up again to work with no paycheck in sight, rent and the mortgage due tomorrow. Lawmakers have no plans to end a two-week recess early, but they are facing new brand of pressure usually reserved for celebrities. Yes, the TMZ treatment.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham was photographed the most magical place on Earth, even boarding Space Mountain. And it's a bipartisan pursuit. Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia was also photographed in a Las Vegas casino bar. TMZ editor Harvey Levin put it like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARVEY LEVIN, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, TMZ: They are insulting our intelligence by thinking, oh, we can get over on them, by blaming it on the other party. It's not the other party, it's both parties. And we are kind of sick of the way they are patronizing us, and that's why we're doing this. If you are watching this and you see a senator out and about somewhere, especially somewhere on vacation, send them to us. Send it to the TMZ tip line.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right. Our smart reporters are back. Is this pressure campaign going to work? RASCOE: I don't know. I mean, it may make people think a little bit. I mean, you can get some bad press, but usually you can survive these sorts of things. But what it does reinforce is just the frustration that people have with Washington overall. It's like you're waiting hours and hours at the TSA lines. And not only that, the people who work at TSA, as you said, they're not getting paid. These people are struggling.

And you know, you have lawmakers in Vegas and that Disney World, you know, going on Space Mountain. I think it just reinforces, like, just the upset that people have at the way Washington is working right now or not working.

RAJU: And Lindsey Graham had said, in response to these TMZ photos, that was invited to a meeting in South Florida on Friday with Trump official Steve Witkoff, I went to Orlando to meet friends after I'm already back in South Carolina. I voted seven times to fully fund the government. Call a Democrat.

And then he posted this on X yesterday, saying I spent time breaking clays in Edgefield County today, it doesn't get much better than that. And then today, Aiken County has always has my back, and I always have theirs. Great morning spent with some great friends at Newbury Hall. He doesn't quite explain exactly why he was in.

HOLMES: And then you want me to speculate --

RAJU: You don't have to speculate.

HOLMES: It looks like it's on TV, but I will say that I think that this is brilliant what TMZ is doing, because everybody can get behind it, right? I mean, when we saw Pete Muntean in those lines at BWI or DCA and he was asking people, why -- like, why is this happening? Who do you blame for this? Almost every answer was the government. It wasn't Democrats, it wasn't Republicans, it was the government isn't functioning. This is a bipartisan effort by TMZ. And American people are actually signing up for, I mean, they're actually calling in when they see these lawmakers' places because they're fed up.

MATTINGLY: A couple of things that I think should be pointed out. First, like Lindsey Graham framing this is like, I just made a side trip on, like off the cuff to Disney World and ended up on Space Mountain. Like my family has been planning for Disney world for the better part of five --

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: Yes. To get to the front of the line on Space Mountain like that is not a side trip. That's like 10 hours. That's first. Second, Manu --

RAJU: And it costs more than to go to Europe.

MATTINGLY: Manu, I feel like this is your moment because the hole in what TMZ is trying to do here is like, find me an American who knows any more than five of the 535 members of Congress and what they look like. So, Manu, I think you should be -- you could create, like, guide videos. Let me tell you who this random dude from the Eighth District of South Carolina is. I think that would be really, really great.

RAJU: Well, at least we have some new competition. That's for -- that's for sure. You know, meantime, there's, of course, this tension that's been building between the House GOP and the Senate GOP, which is why we are in this shutdown right now. The House GOP rejected the plan that passed the Senate. The House passed its own bill. The Senate has not passed that. Democrats plan to block that. Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, was on Fox and Friends this morning. He took a little swipe and his colleagues across the Capitol.

[12:20:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Look, the House members are in their districts working right now. We can bring it back on a moment's notice for a vote. The Senate has to do their job and help us on this heavy lift. We have to get the government funded, and they're playing games with real people's lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So, Kristen, where is the president in this? Because the House has passed, the Republicans are blaming each other. The Senate Republicans wouldn't have moved forward on Thursday with their own plan. If they didn't think Trump was going to sign this,

HOLMES: I think they thought that Trump was going to sign it. They had run it by Trump. They had told him what they thought that they could get out of that deal. But Trump was not 100 percent on board, which we know. He was saying that out loud. He said that anything that didn't fund ICE or border patrol was something that he didn't care for, but he did seem to be giving them a wink, wink, nod, nod, I'm going to stop fighting this. You don't have to stop making deals. I'm just going to let it go.

And they did. They got it passed. And then you had Johnson come out and say, we're not supporting this. And a reminder that everything Johnson does, he runs by President Trump first, so it was very clear --

RAJU: He's not freelancing.

HOLMES: He's not freelancing at all. He's not looking to certain members --

RAJU: Well, neither as John Thune. He's not going to freelance on something. So, he thought Trump was with them too.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: Well, other 53 Republican senators, all of whom signed off on a hotline for UC of the bill. RAJU: Exactly.

HOLMES: But I will say that Trump was pretty transparent on not liking that deal. The only thing that changed was that he had clearly got -- they've gotten through to him, like, this is what's going to pass. Like, this will be got to get done. And so, he went along with it, because he stopped publicly fighting it, but he never was on board with that. I mean, he was asked in the Oval Office, what do you think of this? He's like, I'm not going to like anything that they put forward. So given the opportunity from Johnson and from House Republicans to totally blow that up. He certainly took it.

RAJU: Yeah. And this is all comes as there are -- we're seeing shutdown after shutdown, you know, before this used to not be part of the -- it was rare, shutdowns didn't happen. They didn't -- first time that happened was under Jimmy Carter. Then after the two Clinton shutdowns, we didn't see until Barack Obama. And then it's happened under Trump now three times in this Congress, and then in the previous Trump shutdown.

For Trump 1.0, there were two shutdowns, of course. This is now becoming common in Washington, and you can only expect this and get worse before every deadline that occurs September 30 every single year.

RASCOE: Absolutely. And I mean, I don't even want to get into the fact of the way we fund government now, you know, you don't go through the committees and all that stuff. Like, everything is haphazard. You come to a deadline, and I think that's why you have people who are so frustrated. And you're also playing around with people's livelihoods. Like, how are you going to get people to do these jobs which are necessary as we're seeing at the airport. If they have to always worry about not getting paid, but people aren't going to stick around for that. And so, what does that mean for the public that has to travel.

RAJU: Yeah. It's the party and the minority has that power in the Senate to block legislation going forward. They have now -- using that now multiple times. Democrats extracting some leverage, but to what end. Then a lot of Americans, of course, would be asking that. All right, when we come back, Florida hasn't elected a Democratic governor in 30 years. Could a possible blue wave this November change that. I'll talk to one of the Democrats hoping to succeed Governor Ron DeSantis. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: In Florida, Democrats have officially secured a second special election victory. Democrat Brian Nathan edged out his Republican opponent by just 405 votes to represent the Tampa area in the state Senate. But the swing is significant. President Trump won Nathan's district by seven points in 2024. Another Democrat flipped a State House seat in a Trump plus 11- district. Those shifts are fueling democratic hopes ahead of November's -- governor's election. Governor Ron DeSantis is term limited, leaving both parties with competitive open primaries, but Florida has not elected a Democratic governor since 1994.

Joining me now is one of the Democrats in the race, Jerry Demings, he's the mayor of Orange County around the Orlando area. Thank you so much for joining me, Mayor Demings. So, you know, as I noted there, Democrats did score two wins in those special elections in recent weeks, but those, as you know, are much smaller than statewide races where Republicans have absolutely dominated your state in recent years.

Even your wife, Congresswoman Val Demings, lost her Senate race in 2022 by 16 points. So, when you assess how Democrats are doing in Florida, how damaged is the democratic brand in Florida?

JERRY DEMINGS, ORANGE COUNTY MAYOR: Well, I think the Democratic Party is on an upswing at this time. What we have been seeing in some of these local legislative races is just an indicator, I believe, of what you're going to continue to see across Florida. We are certainly at a point where many of our Floridians just frustrated with what we're seeing and what we're experiencing in terms of the quality of life that we have in terms of housing affordability, in terms of insurance affordability, those are things that's important to Floridians now. And so, they're looking for a change.

So, I believe that with some of these recent election results that we've seen across the country, those within Florida. This is an opportunity for Democrats to bring about the change that many people in Florida want to see.

RAJU: But Mr. Demings, the number of Republicans -- registered Republicans in the state is only growing. Today there are 1.5 million more Republican voters in Florida than Democrats when in 2018, you're