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The Situation Room

Trump Holds Cabinet Meeting. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired March 26, 2026 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: 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.

And, by the way, this was not staged. I just saw the pen sitting there. And I thought of this as an example of how $25 million spent by me at the Federal Reserve building would be a better job than $4 billion that they're spending.

And you know one of the things that Kevin Warsh told me? He said, they ripped down the nicest building. I don't know what building they're talking about. They ripped down a building, Scott, right? Kevin Warsh said it's the most beautiful building in Washington. He said the most beautiful space.

They ripped it down. Why did they do that? I don't know. Do you know what he's talking about? Is it true?

SCOTT BESSENT, U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY: Yes, sir.

TRUMP: They ripped it down. We have a moron at the Fed. Who wouldn't be lowering interest rates right now?

But I want to thank Jeanine Pirro and Pam and her group for having the courage to bring this suit. And I believe that the contractor on that job, he is probably one of the richest men in the country right now. I believe that it's not possible to spend that kind of money, $3 billion, $4 billion.

Nobody knows. Nobody has any idea what it is. But it's over $3 billion, and it's probably going to be over $4 billion by the time they finish. And it may never get finished, unless I take it over. I will get it finished. But it can never be what it was. It's never going to have those beautiful ceilings.

It's never going to have those incredible walls. The walls were a foot-and-a-half thick of solid masonry. They ripped them down for no reason. And I just give you the story. And just to finish on this one, so I told that story to somebody and said, yes, but, I mean, but it's not the same thing.

I said, you're right. This one is better. It writes. So the guy said to me, you don't have to pay me, sir. I will give him to you for nothing. I said, no, I don't want that. Let me pay you. I want to pay you. No, sir, you don't have to. You're the president of the United States. He was shocked. The head of Sharpie gets a call.

I don't even know who the hell he is.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: He said, is this really the president? He said, no, you don't have to pay me, sir. This is such an honor. I said, no, I want to pay you. And he said, what would you like to pay? I said, how about five bucks a pen?

He said, that's all right, whatever the hell we agreed to, peanuts, as opposed to $1,000. And these were $1,000 pens. And we were given an amount. Sometimes -- you were there for signings. I'd have 30, 40 people standing behind me. I give out 40 pens to people. Then somebody would say, could I have a couple extra?

That's why I go like this. Here, you want five? Here, take five.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: But the bottom line is, they're better pens. It's a business story. So, for $5 -- it could be zero. But, for $5, I get a much better pen than for $1,000.

And I can hand them out. And, actually, they have become hot as a pistol. So what can I tell you?

With that, could I give it to please a man who's done a great job at Treasury, Scott?

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: Good luck, Scott.

BESSENT: Well, sir, as always, you're a tough act to follow. But...

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: All right, we're going to continue to monitor this Cabinet meeting, Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, just beginning his remarks. We heard from the president. It's been going on now for almost an hour.

We will take another quick break. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:38:07]

BLITZER: All right, we're going to continue to monitor this Cabinet meeting, the president meeting with his Cabinet members. It's been going on now for more than an hour.

I want to get back to it just in a few moments, but Alayna Treene, our White House correspondent, is standing by.

At the top of the meeting, the president opened with a very optimistic statement, Alayna, about what's going on in the war with Iran right now. He said: "We are absolutely obliterating them."

He said that the U.S. has now wiped out the Iranian air force, the Iranian navy. Their missile launchers, 90 percent of the missile launchers have been destroyed. And he said: "The Iranians are begging to make a deal, not me."

Give us your sense of the news on the war with Iran.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: It was fascinating to me, Wolf, just to see the top of this, as you mentioned, the president going through, like you said, painting a very rosy picture of how the war is going thus far.

But then when he -- well, one, he first tossed, I should say, to Vice President J.D. Vance, someone who has been through -- in the past and kind of even throughout this time some -- a little bit skeptical of foreign intervention. But he threw to Vance to really crystallize the idea of the justification for this war.

You heard the vice president saying, essentially, that what the military operations thus far in Iran have done for the U.S. is to essentially give them options. And he said the reason those options are so important, and he said, "I want Americans to hear this," is that it will help us in our goal of making sure Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.

And then that kind of became the theme from what we heard from a lot of the other officials, like Steve Witkoff, like Pete Hegseth, like Marco Rubio, who went around the table to talk about this, was laying out a justification for this war.

BLITZER: Alayna, hold on for a moment. I wanted to interrupt for a moment.

The president, once again -- this is the second time during this Cabinet meeting -- he's really been going after NATO, saying what a great disappointment it has been. I want to listen in.

[11:40:02]

TRUMP: ... some of the towns, but for the most part, soldiers are dying. Nobody's seen anything like it since World War II.

It's a terrible situation. And, hopefully, that's going to get settled. I settled eight wars. And many of them, I think, were more difficult than this one. In theory, they were more difficult. But there's tremendous hatred between President Putin and President Zelensky, tremendous hatred.

I've seen it before, but I've never seen it maybe to this extent. And I think that's calming down a little bit. And I think we have a chance of getting it done. But we -- it doesn't affect us, thousands of miles away.

That's why when I heard the head of Germany say, this is not our war about Iran, I said, well, Ukraine's not our war. We helped. But Ukraine's not our war. I thought it was a very inappropriate statement to make. But he made it. You can't erase it. But he felt that way.

I said, well, Ukraine's not our war. But -- and it's not. But I would like to see all those young people stop being killed. And they're being killed. It's like a slaughterhouse. What's happening there is horrible, 25,000.

On our -- last two months ago, it was 31,000 people died in one month, Marco, right? Look, I said, it's getting crazy. It's getting worse. Think of it, 31,000 soldiers, both Russian and Ukraine, died two months ago, 25,000 last month.

And if I could solve that, it would be a great honor to do it. I wish it could have gone faster. The -- I solved the other ones in one day that had been going for 32 years. We solved -- we stopped one that was starting, it was already started, India and Pakistan.

And the prime minister of Pakistan, a very fine gentlemen, said, President Trump solved something that was going to cost 10 million lives. That was going to cost a lot of lives, two nuclear nations. And those were complicated, but we got them done quickly.

This one is a -- it's a shame. And the only reason I'm doing it, frankly, is because I want to stop death. I want to stop the death from happening.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I think I'm going to go with a man that I've missed, Brian. I haven't seen you in a long time. I've missed you. He's been in a very strange location. I don't know.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: He's in -- a strange thing happened.

But anyway, go ahead, Brian.

QUESTION: Well, good to see you today. It's actually (OFF-MIKE)

You talked about gas prices coming down. Obviously, they will.

TRUMP: Yes.

QUESTION: Would you ever consider suspending the federal gas tax in order to kind of temporarily alleviate some...

TRUMP: Well, some people should do that.

As an example, in California, every time prices go down, his prices go up because the gas tax is bigger than the tax itself, bigger than the product itself. It hasn't -- I mean, we've thought about it, I guess, but, honestly, when I did this, I knew it was going to be a little bit that -- we had the greatest economy ever.

We had the greatest stock market in history. I said, we're going to take a little bit of a hit, a short-term hit. It's going to end up going much higher than it was, in my opinion. I said -- I said we're going to have a great stock market. Nobody thought we could get to 50000 or 7000 in the respective indices.

Nobody thought that that was going to happen. But it did in the first year. They said it couldn't happen in four years, that you wouldn't hit 50 in four years, but you could maybe get close. We hit it in the first year.

And I said, this is a good time to solve a problem that you have to solve. And that's what I did. But the gas tax, people have talked about it. It's something we have in our pocket if we think it's necessary.

QUESTION: And if I could follow real quickly, you just recently took off, Secretary Duffy, 17,000 truckers off the road that could -- quite frankly, could not speak English, which is a safety issue.

TRUMP: Yes.

QUESTION: Could we ever extend that to Uber drivers, Lyft drivers, cab drivers?

For someone who takes a lot of Ubers, a lot of my drivers can't speak English.

TRUMP: Oh, wow. That's not good. I didn't like that.

Go ahead, Sean.

SEAN DUFFY, U.S. TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: So that's a really good point.

The problem is that our states are the ones that issue these licenses. So, with commercial driver's licenses, we do have some federal control. But, again, we have thousands of people who can't speak the language, longstanding rule. And it's a safety issue, right?

If you can't understand road signs, if you can't communicate with law enforcement when you're pulled over and communicate what's on your rig, huge problem. But the last administration, Mr. President, they let truck driving schools self-certify that they were qualified to train truck drivers.

[11:45:00]

And so this is like the "Learing Center," right? You could pay $800 and you get a certificate that you passed a CDL driving school. And, again, they have no skills. They never -- they don't have the knowledge and they don't have the skills. They haven't gone through any of the testing.

And then they get licenses, and they're killing Americans on our roads. So it's remarkable the rot that the last administration allowed to take place. We are ending that. And I need partnership with our states. Even California has started to come on board.

Even Gavin has started to play ball with us, which is surprising.

TRUMP: Sure.

DUFFY: Not all the way, a little bit, a little bit...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Shocking.

QUESTION: Mr. President...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: It's interesting, because I just saw something, that the nursing home business and the day care centers in particular, they went out and inspected them in Minnesota, and they didn't exist. They're knocking -- there happens to be a young man, Nick, nice young man. He's done a very good job.

They're knocking on doors. It's like homes. And they're getting hundreds of thousands of them. They didn't exist. And, in California, it's worse. It's even worse. And I spoke with Russell Vought.

I said, Russell, don't send them any money. He said, but we have a court order that we have. So can you believe it? The judges are really hurting this country. Our judges -- Justice Roberts doesn't like when I say it, but the judges are really hurting this country.

And, frankly, the justices, the Supreme Court, has really hurt our country too.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Mr. President, do you have a new deadline, given that there are some talks now? Do you have a new deadline before taking...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: No, I will announce it. I mean, right now -- you're talking about a deadline for doing some pretty big damage, even bigger than we have done?

Well, we will say, look, we have very substantial talks going on with respect to Iran with the right people. I told you about a present, right? Steve, can I reveal the present?

STEVE WITKOFF, U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR PEACE MISSIONS: You can do anything you want.

TRUMP: Thank you.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: 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. This was two days ago. And they will sail up tomorrow. That was three days ago. And I didn't

think much about it. And then I watched the news, and they said, a very good anchor, actually, happened to be FOX. But I watched it, and he said, something's unusual happening. There are eight boats that are going right up the middle of the Hormuz Strait.

Eight big tankers are going loaded up with oil right through. And I said, well, I guess they were right, and they were real. And I think they were Pakistani-flagged. And I said, well, I guess we're dealing with the right people.

And, actually, they then apologized for something they said, and they said, we're going to send two more boats. And it ended up being 10 boats. And I hope I haven't screwed up your negotiations. But I thought it was appropriate to say, because I did taunt you the other day by saying they're going to give us a present.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Yes, please.

QUESTION: Sir, there were two illegal immigrants who were arrested at San Francisco Airport for ignoring deportation orders. At the same time, as you have highlighted, really great reception from American travelers for ICE agents.

Is there a P.R. aspect of this that can allow future deportations to go on with less protest and less outrage?

TRUMP: Yes, it's amazing, because by putting ICE there -- look, the press was very unfair to ICE. So was everyone else. These are great American patriots. They have a tough job. They have to find murderers and take them out of our country. I wouldn't want to do it. You wouldn't want to do it. Most people wouldn't want to do it.

They do it. And 11,888 murderers, and that's murderers. That's not drug dealers. That's not lots of other things. It's not people from mental institutions. Entire jail populations were released from major countries and let into our country through the open border.

And ICE has done an amazing job. I wouldn't want that job. It's a tough job, dangerous job. But -- so what happens is, by putting them at the airport -- and I just said, do me a favor, take off your masks. And they did, for that, not for when they're looking for some cold- blooded killers and they're in the -- but, for that.

And they did. They took them off. And the passengers, I see the interviews of people. They say, these are nice people. One person said, he's a very strong man, but he's a nice guy. He grabbed my bag. He helped a woman with a bag that she couldn't lift.

[11:50:06]

And I will tell you, I don't want to use the word rehab, because there was nothing to rehab, but rehab from the press, because the press is so tough on them. And these crooks in Minnesota, these crooked politicians are dirty

cops. They're dirty cops. They're dirty politicians. Walz is a dirty, crooked politician. The attorney general is a crooked guy, no investigations. And I hope -- J.D. is going to do a great job. He's in charge of it now with somebody who's very talented.

But I think it's easy stuff. They say $19 billion, think of it, is missing, $19 billion. If we would solve half of the fraud problem, Pam, in this country, we would have more than a balanced budget. We'd have a surplus.

And in the case of Minnesota, it's a lot -- it's very Somalia- oriented. Think of it. These people come from a crooked country, disgusting country, one of the worst countries in the world, acknowledged to be one of the worst countries in the world. Some people say it's the worst.

They have no money. They have nothing. They come to our country, low I.Q.s, and they rob us blind, stupid people. And they rob us blind, because we have crooked politicians and we have dirty cops. The attorney general is a dirty cop. That's my opinion. That's only my opinion. And something should be done about him.

Let's see what kind of job we can do.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Excuse me?

QUESTION: Should Iran be able to charge a toll for the Strait of Hormuz? They're charging some vessels to go through.

TRUMP: Well, yes. Well, should they be able to? They shouldn't be able to. But they're doing it a little bit. I don't know.

Look, look, their capability is a lot less than it was two weeks ago. And with every week and every day, frankly, it gets less and less. All I can tell you is they're begging to make a deal. So let's see what happens. We may make a deal.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Tell me about mail-in ballots. I -- you mean I used a mail-in ballot, you will probably say. Yes, I did. You know what?

Because I'm president of the United States. And because of the fact that I'm president of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida, because I felt I should be here, instead of being in the beautiful sunshine taking...

QUESTION: But you were in Palm Beach, sir, the last few weekends.

TRUMP: That's right.

(CROSSTALK) TRUMP: And I -- yes. And I decided that I was going to vote by mail- in ballot because I couldn't be there, because I had a lot of different things.

But we have exceptions for mail-in ballots. You do know that, right? So, if you're away, we have an exception. If you're in the military, we have an exception. If you're on a business trip, we have an exception. If you're disabled, we have an exception. And if you're ill, if you're not feeling good, we're -- so I was away mostly in Washington, D.C., so I used a mail-in ballot.

But I appreciate the question, because I know it was so well-meaning.

Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) I actually just looked up the company that owns Sharpie. (OFF-MIKE)

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: By the way, they deserve it. It's a good product.

QUESTION: So you gave a five-day deadline. The oil tankers going through the Strait of Hormuz, is that a condition to remove that five- day deadline?

TRUMP: Well, we don't want anything impeded. We want ships to go through. We don't know that they have dropped any mines, by the way, because we blew up all the mine droppers, right? We blew up every one of them. They're going to have to take them out on a rowboat or something. I don't know how the hell they get out of there.

But we don't really know. You might speak to it. We don't know. There could be a few of them out there, but that's a lot. If you have a billion-dollar ship and you get hit by a mine, it's not the greatest thing in the world. So if you think -- the problem with, that's not like you have decimated a military.

If you think there may be a mine, that's a bad thought, and it stops things up. How are we doing in that regard, Pete?

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: We -- Mr. President, you're right. We have so heavily degraded their coastal defense capabilities and their naval capabilities that any strategic or operational attempts to do those types of things are extremely limited, and we continue to move over the top of that.

Now, whether Iran makes a wise choice or not to try to execute that is part of how this deal comes together. But with every passing day, the military pressure that we're putting on them lessens their ability to really hold that militarily at issue.

TRUMP: I mean, the problem with the issue of the Hormuz Strait is that we have decimated them as a military, no air force, no navy, very few rockets left. We blew up so many. Hard to manufacture them. Same thing with drones. The leadership is gone.

The problem with the straits is this. Let's say we do a great job. We say we got 99 percent. One percent is unacceptable, because 1 percent is a missile going into the hull of a ship that costs a billion dollars, right? So 1 percent is un -- we can't -- if we do a 99 percent decimation, that's no good.

[11:55:14]

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: So it's really a little bit -- but I have a feeling it's going to clean up pretty quickly. I could just say this. They want to make -- they want to make -- and I probably hurt our little negotiation. It gives them a little impetus to say, well, I wish you didn't say that.

But 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 to shit.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) taking control of Iran's oil?

TRUMP: It's an option. I mean, I wouldn't talk about it, but it's an option.

QUESTION: Is that something you have thought about?

TRUMP: Well, in Venezuela, we've done very well working with Venezuela, certainly. We've taken in billions and billions of dollars.

And by the way, Venezuela is doing better right now than they've ever done in the history of their country, and sort of like a joint venture. But the United States has made a lot of money, Marco, right? Well, do you want to talk about that for a second?

MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: About Venezuela?

TRUMP: Yes.

RUBIO: Yes, I mean, I think Venezuela in the first two months of this year generated more revenue from oil sales than they had most of all of last year. But the money's not being stolen anymore. And it's being held in a U.S. Treasury block account.

And to the extent it's flowing to the Venezuelan government, it's going to help people, like, fund hospitals, pay teachers. It's not being stolen.

TRUMP: And we get a lot of it. And they got more than they have in many years. Think of it. We get a lot of it. We have a deal. We get a lot of it.

We had 100 million, think of this, 100 million barrels we took in, in the first two weeks, 100 million barrels. That's a lot of oil. That's a lot of ships. And we got some and they got some. We pay for the ships. There's a lot of money left over.

And Venezuela has done better now with us. Call it a partner or call it whatever you want. We've made a lot of money and they've made a lot of money. We've paid for the cost of that military hit many, many times over. And we've only just started.

Our relationship with Venezuela has been amazing. The people -- actually, I'm the highest polling person. And, in other words, after the presidency, I think I may go to Venezuela and run for president against Delcy.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: I may run against Delcy. It's an option.

No, I -- they like me in Venezuela. But it's an option for me. It's a wonderful option.

Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: There are some reports that Gulf allies are concerned about winding down the war too soon and potentially leaving Iran...

TRUMP: Well, they're...

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: But the concern...

TRUMP: If we -- if we don't stay -- look, it's a beautiful thing about airplanes that go 2,000 miles an hour is, you can get back there very quickly. If we don't stay, we're going to be protecting them.

We know -- they've been very good. Hey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, in particular Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, the three of them, Kuwait, Bahrain, they've been 100 percent. Now, in all fairness, they could have gone the other way. There were surprisingly missiles. They were shot at. Nobody ever thought they'd be shot at.

UAE had 1,400 missiles aimed at them. Fortunately, they had the greatest anti-missile weapon in history called the Patriot. Almost every single missile was shot down. we had an incident recently where 101 missiles were shot at a certain thing that we owned. It's very valuable, 101 missiles going 2,000 miles an hour.

Out of the 101 missiles, every single one of them was shot down in midair and fell into the ocean. It's amazing technology. There's -- nobody has equipment like we have.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: ... Iran still has that enriched uranium. Is it even possible...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Well, you're going to have to see. But I think we'll be -- we're in just very good shape.

We're roaming. You know what we're doing? You know the word roaming free? We're over their skies with the most beautiful planes you've ever seen roaming free. There's not a damn thing they can do about it.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: It would be nice if, like, the fake news "New York Times," which writes so fake -- and "The Wall Street Journal" is terrible, terrible.

I mean, I read a story today that I'm desperate to make a deal. I'm not -- I don't -- if I was desperate, he'd be the first to know.

Pete, let's get the hell out of there.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: I'm the opposite of desperate. I don't care. I want to know -- in fact, we have other targets we want to hit before we leave. We're hitting them on a daily basis.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

TRUMP: I don't talk about -- you know, 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 about -- I embarrassed her.

I don't want to embarrass you, because I think you're of -- I think she's a friendly reporter. So, I'm sorry.