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The Situation Room

President Trump Holds Cabinet Meeting. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired March 26, 2026 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: But we have a president that means it and does something about it.

As the president outlined very clearly to the world on the night this operation began, Iran has been at war with the United States for 47 years. For 47 years, Iran has been killing Americans and attacking Americans across this planet.

And other presidents had an opportunity to do something about it. And they all warned about how Iran was dangerous, but they refused to act. And this president is not someone that's going to refuse to act. He's not going to leave a danger like this in place.

He's going to address it, and that is what he is doing. From the very first night of this operation, the president made it very clear. People like this -- and what I'm talking about is not the people of Iran. The people that run this country are radical Shia clerics.

These are religious fanatics. Look what they are doing now at their weakest point. This is the weakest Iran has ever been. And look at what they're doing. They're attacking embassies. They're -- embassies. They're attacking hotels.

Imagine what these people would do if they had a nuclear weapon. That is an unacceptable risk for the world. By the way, the president is not just doing a favor to the United States and to our people. This is for the world.

He defined very clearly on the first night of this operation what the goal was. We were going to destroy Iran's navy, and that is happening. We were going to -- if it hasn't already happened. I'll let Pete speak to the specifics of it.

We were going to destroy their missile-launching capabilities. We're well under way to achieving that goal. We were going to destroy the factory so they couldn't make more missiles and more drones. And that is moving forward. Every single objective the president clearly laid out on the first night of this operation is being effectuated.

Again, Pete will speak to the specifics of it. This has been an incredibly successful operation every day. It may not get covered because we're -- unlike them, we're not bombing embassies and hotels. We're hitting military targets. But every day, the Department of War lets the drummer get wicked over

every portion of Iran that has these military capabilities and the results are going to bear fruit for the world. The world is going to be a safer and a better place when President Trump's mission here is achieved.

And, frankly, I think countries around the world, even those that are out there complaining about this a little bit, should actually be grateful that the United States has a president that's willing to confront a threat like this and not allow it to continue to persist, because these people will kill as many Americans as they have a chance to do.

And if they have a nuclear weapon, as the Vice President pointed out, they could kill millions of Americans in the future. And that is a risk that was not going to continue to exist as long as we had this president.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you, Marco.

It's very interesting, because yesterday I was watching, he said Antony Blinken, and he was saying that they should have done it. But they didn't do it. Nobody did it. Nobody did it for 47 years, Marco. That's the number, 47. I guess now it's 48, because we have been saying 47 for a long time. It's probably 48.

But for 47, 48 years, every president should have done this. And some are saying now that they made a big mistake in not doing it. But we're taking care of business.

Steve Witkoff, please.

STEVE WITKOFF, U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR PEACE MISSIONS: Mr. President, it is my distinct honor to be a member of your Cabinet and to report to you and your team on our negotiations with Iran.

Mr. President, you directed Jared and I to pursue a diplomatic resolution with Iran prior to Operation Epic Fury, which we did. However, it became quite clear during these meetings with the Iranian negotiating team that we could not make a deal that fulfilled your objectives of the following, no enrichment whatsoever, no chance of weaponizing whatsoever.

Decommissioning on Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, which you destroyed in Operation Midnight Hammer. No stockpiling of any material, which they flagrantly had violated. Turning all enriched material over to us and a cutback in Iran's missile inventory and range capability of those same missiles.

Throughout our meetings with the Iranians, we heard the following from them. The Iranians have the inalienable right to enrich. Then we heard they possessed enough 60 percent enriched material, 460 kilograms, to make 11 atomic bombs.

Finally, we heard the following statement. They would not give up diplomatically what we could not win militarily. In other words, they were again miscalculating the success of Midnight Hammer, which was a total success.

These are incontrovertible signs, among many other signs, sir, that their regime had not given them negotiating to authority to make a deal required by you. We conferred with you and all the other members of your foreign policy team, Susie Wiles, Pete Hegseth, the chairman, Marco Rubio, J.D., Scott Bessent, Chris Wright, John Ratcliffe, throughout all of these negotiations.

[11:05:15]

And we were repeatedly rebuffed on everything we asked for. I have no doubt that we exhausted all efforts on behalf of the peaceful resolution, as you directed.

Jared and I both agreed that the Iranians were there to buy time until a weaker president arrived. This was a flawed strategy, as your clear direction was to never allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon today or any time in the future.

Against that backdrop and our compelling military successes in Epic Fury, we have had multiple reach-outs from the region and others who want to play a role in ending this conflict peacefully. I can report to you today that we have, along with your foreign policy team, presented a 15-point action list that forms the framework for a peace deal.

This has been circulated through the Pakistani government, acting as the mediator, and this has resulted in strong and positive messaging and talks, as you just indicated to the press.

But these are sensitive diplomatic discussions, and you have directed us to maintain confidentiality on the specific terms and not negotiate through the news media, as others do.

I can say this. We will see where things lead and if we can convince Iran that this is the inflection point with no good alternatives for them, other than more death and destruction. We have strong signs that this is a possibility, and if a deal happens, it will be great for the country of Iran, for the entire region and the world at large.

Your policy of peace through strength is the most effective tool for a diplomatic resolution here, just as it was -- as this policy was an effective tool in each and every one of all of the other conflicts you settled in your first year.

Iran is looking for an off-ramp following your powerful threat on Saturday. Your indications that you are willing to listen to peace proposals have been well received. You have instructed us that your preference is always peace, and that we should make that our priority.

We have delivered that message, sir, along with the 15 points for peace. Finally, we have told Iran one last thing. Don't miscalculate again.

TRUMP: Good. Good. Thank you very much, Steve. Good job. You're doing a great job. Everybody around this table is doing a great job.

Pete Hegseth, please.

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Mr. President.

I will start kind of where you left off, Mr. President. Thank you for doing the work of the free world and having the courage to step up and stop the Iranian terror regime from holding the world hostage. That's really what it is.

And 27 days ago, Iran had a modern military. Never in recorded history has a nation's military been so quickly and effectively neutralized. Operation Epic Fury is not an endless war. It's a decisive campaign with clear objectives, to destroy Iran's offensive military capabilities and ensure they never obtain a nuclear weapon.

This is stuff for the history books. This is stuff for legacy. Mr. President, you are acting now to ensure future generations do not have to live under the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

However, you wouldn't know it if you listened to the dishonest hate Trump media, as you referenced. The folks here in the room, these cameras, they have a choice. You're either informing the American people of the truth or you're not, because I hear it from my people every day.

Behind every headline you write, there's a helicopter crew in the air. And behind every news banner you write, there's a battalion on the move. And behind every fake news story, there's an F-35 pilot executing a dangerous mission.

My message to the media is get it right. This actually isn't something new to me. I may be a young guy, Mr. President, but I'm not a rookie in this realm. In 2007, I helped lead the surge, the public fight for the Iraq surge, stood and watched people stand in the Senate and declare the war is lost before it even started.

Who was that? It was Harry Reid. That was the Democrats and the media working hand in glove. Back then, it was three years into a war. Now we're three weeks into an operation.

[11:10:02]

But see, unlike Iraq, this isn't a tie. This is not parity. This is not chaos. This is success, pure American success, on plan and, as the president said, ahead of pace, over 10,000 enemy targets destroyed, over 140 -- I think now you're right, Mr. President, over 150 naval vessels sunk, underground facilities destroyed, their defense industrial base in shambles.

And, overnight, not only do they not have a navy, Mr. President. They no longer have a Navy commander. IRGC's Navy commander was killed overnight in operation, so no navy, no navy leader.

Now that he's -- here's the thing about the media, though. If President Trump had not acted, you'd be screaming, why not? And now that he has taken decisive action, you're asking, well, why did you? It's the same old tired playbook, TDS in your DNA.

But the hardworking, God-fearing, patriotic Americans out there know better. And you alluded to this, President Obama, Mr. President. Here's a fact that you don't hear on your networks, but we know. Many of the Iranian military factories and bases that we're systematically destroying were paid for by the pallets of American cash that Barack Obama flew into Tehran under the Iran deal, a not -- you might call it an inconvenient truth.

Iran took our money and turned it into weapons and bunkers and ammo. And now we're destroying those weapons and we're righting, you're righting, Mr. President, that grievous wrong. And make no mistake, we had to act. And our objectives are clear, no nukes, no navy, and a complete dismantling of their missile program and defense industrial base.

And, as Marco pointed out, that mission, and the V.P. as well, has not changed since day one. Yet, two days ago, they shot two failed missiles on a target 4,000 kilometers away. For years, they told the world that their missiles could only range two kilometers.

Surprise. Yet again, Iran lied. And to the world, I say London is 4,000 kilometers from Iran. Washington, D.C., is 3,300 kilometers from Venezuela, another country President Trump did something about that partnered for a long time with Iran.

So you're telling us that Iran is not a threat to the world or to the U.S. President Trump knows better. And here's what success actually looks like right now. You mentioned it, Mr. President. A-10 Warthogs -- if you know them, you love them -- and Apache helicopter gunships are flying strike missions inside Iranian airspace and throughout the Strait of Hormuz at will.

See, you only send these slow, low-flying, close-air support platforms when the enemy has no meaningful air defenses left. Their presence is proof that Iran's air defenses are gone. Their command-and-control is shattered, their top leaders hiding in underground bunkers, while their mid-level commanders are being crushed in the field, the morale of their fighters plummeting, and we see that disconnect daily.

They're privately admitting, as you said, Mr. President, very heavy losses. We know that. President Trump has given us a clear mission. Our capabilities are only going up, and Iran's are plummeting. We are here to win, and we're full speed ahead.

So, Steve, we appreciate your efforts. We pray for a deal and we welcome a deal, and we have the ultimate dealmaker to make it happen. But, in the meantime, as I said yesterday, the Department of War will continue negotiating with bombs.

War is negotiation by other means. And, finally, I want to thank our incredible troops, our pilots, crews, sailors, refuelers, air defenders, the absolute best of America, the real 1 percent of our country. This president, President Trump, has your back.

And I know this Cabinet prays for you every single day. We ask the American people to do the same as they continue in this mission. God bless. Thank you, Mr. President.

TRUMP: Thank you very much. It's great.

I think before I ask Scott to say a couple of words, it would be great if people like the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois would say, please come in and stop the crime.

A beautiful young lady was killed the other day, and the father was a very good friend of Dan Scavino. And he took it very hard. Dan took it very hard. He liked the father, friends. They grew up together. And it's a young lady who whose life would be saved if we had -- if we did what we did, as an example, in Washington, D.C., which is now a safe city.

[11:15:08]

All the time, people come up to me in the building. people that work here, they say, thank you so much. I know immediately what they're talking about. They're able to walk to work. They walk to work. You all walk to work. Some of you were mugged. I know you told me stories. Some of you were mugged.

One person in particular was viciously mugged in the group right here. It's not happening anymore. You have a safe city. Louisiana, the governor of Louisiana called me. "Can you help me with New Orleans?" They just had the Mardi Gras. He said it was the safest Mardi Gras we've ever had.

Sounds terrible to say. No murders. It sounds like, who would say this? No murders, but they always had murders. They had a lot of crime during Mardi Gras. He said virtually no crime. We had the troops down there.

Memphis, Tennessee, I just got back. We were there. Crime is down 75 percent in a short period of time. We're there five months. We could do that for Chicago. We could do that for New York. We could do that for L.A. And we could do that for, frankly, San Francisco.

I know they have a mayor who's trying very hard. He's a Democrat, but he's trying very hard. But we can do it much more effectively because he can't do what we do. He can't take people out from the city and bring them to -- back to the country from where they came, where they were in prisons.

They were allowed to go in prisons. They were drug dealers, highest- level drug dealers, murderers, 11,888 murders. We do things that they can't do. I had friends calling me up from San Francisco, could you give him a chance? I said, absolutely. If you want, we will give him a chance. And he's trying. He's doing OK.

But we could do much better. We could make it a lot safer than it is. San Francisco, a great city, was a great city, could quickly become a great city again. But they're going very slowly. I tell my friends -- they're very substantial people. They're in a certain business where people have made a lot of money.

I hope that lasts. But they have a tremendous, tremendous potential. It was one of the greatest cities in the world. Now it's got a lot of crime. And the mayor is really trying it, again, a Democrat trying. And I spoke to him. He just wants to have a chance. And I said, we'll give you a chance. But we can solve it very quickly.

This young lady would be around today if we were around, because we have nobody coming through our border. I mean, literally, for nine months, it's zero. It's hard to believe that that number can be possible, because millions of people came in through .

But nobody even tries. We don't have the caravans of thousands, 25,000, 30,000 people pouring into our border. They come up in caravans. We don't have caravans anymore. There's no such thing anymore. It's a name that I think I developed, but somebody developed it, but I think it was me.

I thought it was an appropriate -- thousands of people would come up and just barge into our country, totally unchecked, totally unvetted. And this man came in, Dan, right? And he came in through the ridiculous open border of Biden.

If we were there -- the election was rigged. What are you going to do? Came back. Big comeback. But if we were there, we wouldn't have had people coming through. It's amazing. It's so easy now, because everyone knows they're not getting through. We don't have any caravans once they know that, when it was easy to come through.

When I heard that they had an open border policy, I said, boy, this is going to be -- I couldn't believe it. But when it was actually -- it dawned on me, because I had 1,000 miles of wall, and we were finishing up some, and he didn't want to finish it up, Biden. I said, they really do want to have an open border.

And we got it finished. But that young lady would be alive today. And she'd be alive for another reason, because we would have the National Guard in Chicago and in New York and in other places. And they love doing it. It's like training. To be honest, it's actually training.

I never want to take them out of D.C. I mean, maybe somebody later on will do it, but I never want to take -- the people, they look, they say, we feel so good, we feel so safe. We see these beautiful, strong people. And they're so nice. They help. They open the doors for people. They carry bags. They pick up paper when they see paper on the ground.

I looked at D.C. last night. I drove to make a speech, and I drove through and I said, take me this way, take me that way. The city is clean. The fences are down. You don't have homeless all over your parks. I mean, we had parks. You couldn't -- there was no room for anything else other than homeless. It's all clean and nice. It's going to -- and it'll be even more beautiful in a year from now.

[11:20:00]

And we have some projects that are great. This ballroom is going to be something that's so beautiful for this city, so desperately needed by presidents. I mean, now it's no secret the military wanted it more than anybody. It was supposed to be secret, but it became unsecret because of people that are really unpatriotic saying things.

But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's going to be great. We're building an arch, a triumphal arch, which will be incredible for this city. We're fixing up the -- what was the Kennedy Center. I was honored when the board changed the name a little bit.

Actually, it shows that the Republican and the Democrats, they work together. It's really something. We work together. So I think it's a great symbol, actually, but we're doing a lot of work. That building is ready to fall down. It's in terrible shape. We're closing it. We're going to open it with a bang in less than two years.

It'll come in under budget ahead of schedule. That's what I do. It won't be like the Federal Reserve that's costing $4 billion or something thereabouts. Think of it, $4 billion. You know, it's amazing.

I said to the group before, I said, everything I do, I get sued. I build under budget, ahead of schedule. I get sued over a ballroom that's going to be the most beautiful ballroom in the country, so desperately needed. You won't have to have tents sitting on the wet White House lawn. If it rains, you get wiped out to honor the president of China or the president of France or the president of somewhere.

You can have the greatest -- we get sued by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. They don't know what they're doing. Then I just found out we got sued by that group and another group, I guess, on the fixing up of -- again, I'll use the old name, Kennedy Center, because they're not fixing up Trump -- what -- it's going to be beautiful when you add the name Trump.

But we got sued. And all I'm doing is fixing it up. We're fixing broken marble. We're putting on a roof because it leaks like a sieve. We're fixing steel that's broken. It's the same building, same exact building. We're fixing it. It's going to be beautiful. It's going to be so beautiful and safe.

It's actually unsafe. You had some of those columns on the outside that were painted a fake gold. Now we painted them a beautiful white color, beautiful cream white. It's beautiful. Everyone's saying it's so much more beautiful now. Instead of a cheap -- you can't imitate gold. See, I'm a gold person. It's all real stuff.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: You can't imitate it. They've -- someday they'll discover a paint that will look like gold, and the guy is going to be the richest man in the world.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: But you can't imitate real gold, just as it -- it's 24 karat, which is what this building deserves.

But think of it. I get sued because I'm fixing up the Trump-Kennedy Center. We're going to make it gorgeous and safe. We're fixing new windows, new this, but just all fixed up. I got sued by preservationists. But you know who they didn't sue? The man that took this beautiful Federal Reserve building that's small, much smaller than the hotel I built.

I built the Waldorf Astoria Hotel down the road, and it was a beautiful job for $200 million, $201 million. It's bigger, I think, than the Federal Reserve Building. And it's got rooms and bathrooms, and it's not like just an open office space, which is much cheaper to build.

Think of this.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: All right, we're going to continue to monitor this Cabinet meeting. We'll go back to it in just a couple of minutes.

Let's take a quick break, resume our special coverage right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:28:26]

BLITZER: All right, welcome back.

We're continuing to follow the news over at the White House, the Cabinet meeting. The president over the last several minutes has been getting into all sorts of other issues beyond the war with Iran, beyond the TSA lines at the airports.

He's talking about the ballroom that he's building at the White House, talking about the new Trump-Kennedy Center building that he wants to close for two years and then rebuild, talking about all sorts of other issues, going after Democrats at the same time.

Let's go back to the Cabinet.

TRUMP: It's the government. I love the government, like I love myself, economically. I want to save money. So I'm saying, this is crazy.

And it had another problem. They didn't write well. So I take it out. And I saw it, and there's no ink. And I got all you people looking. And you say, there must be something wrong with Trump.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: And I sign it. And there's no ink in the pen. And it costs $1,000. This one, I call the guy. I said, I'd like to use your pen, but I

can't have a gray thing with a big S on it. Same sharpie, as I'm signing a trillion-dollar airplane contract to buy brand-new fighters. You have been brand new B-2 bombers, of which we just ordered plenty. I can't do that with the press.

Use your pen. But I like the pen the best. But I'll sign it. I could do like Biden did, give it to somebody else to sign, or an autopen, or maybe sign it separately in another room. But I can't use your pen.

You say, well, I can make it nicer. I said, what can you do? He said, I'll paint it black. I said, that's nice. And I could even paint the White House on it, sir, if you like, in gold, almost real gold. Not bad. And I could even do your signature, sir.