Trump Speaks As U.S. Launches New Strikes On Iran

21:12Donald Trump:I'm significantly concerned, you know, not that there's a particular plot that I'm aware of and not to be alarmist for folks who are listening. But let's kind of walk through some of the facts that have come out and come to light recently about why I would make that comment. So there's been three cells that have been arrested in Qatar, in the UK, and in Azerbaijan over the last week that were affiliated with the IRGC, the Quds Force, that's Iran's special operations folks that have an external cell, that were engaged in either intelligence collection or surveillance in preparation likely for sabotage or terrorist operations.

21:43Donald Trump:We saw a bombing outside of the U.S. Embassy in Oslo. We still don't know who's responsible for that. And then there was reporting that came out earlier today that code words appear to have been intercepted where the Iranians may have activated sleeper cells globally amongst their IRGC folks or potentially Hezbollah. And so they've been known to have folks slip in and out of the United States, intelligence officers from Iran in covert status who have been in the United States conducting surveillance on targets, who have also attempted to contract hit men in some cases. You know, there's a plot against President Trump himself.

22:14Donald Trump:There's a very famous female dissident who lives in Brooklyn. They were attempting to assassinate her as well. They've become exceptionally bold in recent years. And this all sort of came to light during the Obama administration when it was revealed and disrupted that they were looking at actually bombing a restaurant in Washington at one point where the Saudi ambassador was said to have been eating. So the threat is real. And as Iran gets further backed into a corner and its military capabilities are further degraded, there's a possibility it could turn to asymmetric threats. And as we like to say in the business, you know, one time is an instance, two times is a coincidence, three times is hostile enemy action.

22:45Donald Trump:We had three cells arrested this week, a bombing outside Oslo, and then potential chatter now about sleeper cells being activated. So the JTTF and speaking to contacts within the FBI and law enforcement community are actively monitoring and aggressively pursuing any leads that are out there right now, including with international partners. So confidence in the efforts our federal law enforcement, along with their local partners, have. But they only have to be right once, and we have to be right every time. Alex Plitzis, thank you so much for your expertise. Appreciate it. But let's turn to another story in our Law and Justice League, a report discovered by the Miami Herald.

23:19Donald Trump:Details how one inmate recounted the morning Jeffrey Epstein died at a New York jail, that that inmate at the Metropolitan Correction Center told the FBI that he overheard guards discussing a cover-up plan. Julie K. Brown unearthed this five-page handwritten report from the government's Epstein Library. You'll recall it's Julie K. Brown's reporting with her colleagues at the Miami Herald that exposed Epstein's crime and brought the story back to the fore. She is the author of the book, Perversion of Justice, and the in-depth substat called The Epstein Files by Julie K. Brown. I recommend them both.

23:50Donald Trump:So, Julie, in this FBI report that you found, the inmate claims he heard an officer say, dudes, you killed that dude. Then a female guard replied, if he is dead, we're going to cover it up, and he's going to have an alibi, my officers. Is this a credible testimony, do you think? What more can you tell us? well since i wrote that report we did get some more information and it turns out that this particular inmate uh had 18 months to serve on his sentence and because of his cooperation he was released he he got a sentence cut and he is no longer and and it's odd because when you look him up in the bop's database it just says unknown so he has virtually disappeared uh so So we wonder whether he did either provide them.

24:42Donald Trump:He must have provided them with some information that was credible or else he wouldn't have gotten a get out of jail free card the way he did. Let's talk about Tova Noel, one of the two correctional officers that was charged with falsifying records about the rounds that night. Those charges were later dropped. But the FBI reports as inmates said Miss Noel killed Jeffrey. Tell us more about this guard. Well, she wasn't working for the Bureau of Prisons very long, but she was working there for many months before Jeffrey Epstein was arrested. And you can see that she was having regular cash apps in her banking account.

25:24Donald Trump:It appears that her bank flagged some of these cash transactions and that the BOP, the Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Justice, did get those records. What they did with them, we don't know, because she and her fellow guard that was working the night Epstein was killed. They were both initially charged and then those charges were were basically null prost. So she hasn't been charged with any kind of a crime. But again, she had this$5 ,000 deposit on July 30th, which was roughly a week after Epstein. He said he was assaulted by his cellmate in the in the shoe and in the special unit that he was in.

26:10Donald Trump:And it was also approximately a week before he was actually found dead. So obviously, a lot of people think that anybody who talks about whether or not Epstein committed suicide or was murdered is a conspiracy theorist. The Justice Department did conclude that Epstein died by suicide. But the forensic pathologist hired by Epstein's estate believed that the injuries were more similar to strangulation than they were to suicide. Where do you see this all going from here? I really think that the Congress needs to take a look at all these records that I'm reading. I was up until about two o 'clock this morning reading some of these interviews with the warden and with some of the correctional officers and they raise a lot of questions.

26:53Donald Trump:Even the way that the investigators are asking the questions sound like they are skeptical of some of the stories. I mean there were so many things that went wrong. I mean, you have Epstein first being put in with a quadruple killer. And then after that, then he's supposed to be with a roommate because he allegedly tried to commit suicide and they don't give him a roommate. His cell number was wrong in the system. They didn't do the counts that night. I mean, the list goes on and on of all the mistakes that were made and the investigators themselves, the way that they pose these questions sound like they're a little skeptical that there could have been that many things that went wrong.

27:37Donald Trump:All right, Julie Kay Brown, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Moments ago, President Trump seemed to offer a new timeline on his war with Iran. He called it a short-term excursion. He said that to a House Republican conference in Florida. But his Pentagon just retweeted a quite different message saying, we've only just begun. Will the president elaborate when he addresses reporters in just a few minutes? Stay tuned.

28:07Donald Trump:And we're back with more in our World Lead as we wait for President Trump to begin a press conference. He told CBS News just minutes ago that he thinks the Iran war could be over soon. He called it very complete. Let's get to CNN's Kristen Holmes at the White House. Kristen, the Pentagon says we've only just begun. President Trump says it's very complete. What's going on? Yeah, actually, we saw Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, just moments after President Trump said this to CBS, reposting this tweet that said this is just the beginning, so clearly not on message. Now, I would say that President Trump was dialing it back.

28:42Donald Trump:This is what he just said to Republicans. Take a listen.

28:48Jake Tapper:We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some evil. and I think you'll see it's going to be a short-term excursion.

28:57Donald Trump:So you have those two things, what he said to CBS and that excursion, short-term excursion, coupled together, sounds like he's dialing back. But then, just a few minutes later, he said this, We've already won in many ways, but we haven't won enough. We go forward more determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory that will end this long-running danger once and for all. There is so much messaging here that is all over the place, And President Trump, part of his strategy has been this having these kind of three minute to five minute phone calls with various reporters, talking to them about what the strategy is for the war and then contradicting himself in the next interview.

29:36Donald Trump:So what we are going to see in a few moments is President Trump actually taking questions from a full press corps, giving remarks that are just supposed to be about Iran, although, of course, it is President Trump. And perhaps we'll get a more fulsome answer on where exactly all of this stands, because right now there is a lot of mixed messaging here. Indeed. Kristen Holmes at the White House, thanks so much. Continuing with our world lead, Iranian leadership opted for more of the same over the weekend. They selected Moshtaba Khamenei, who's the son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the country's new supreme leader.

30:12Donald Trump:Let's get some perspective now from Kiyan Tajbach. He's an Iranian-American and former political prisoner of the Iranian regime because of his work as a democracy and human rights advocate. He is now a professor at New York University. Kian, thanks for joining us. So the first wave of U.S.-Israeli strikes killed Majtaba Khamenei's father and his mother and his sister and his brother-in-law. Do you think that would make him more willing to want revenge and not agree to any settlement with the U.S.? Well, I think it will certainly harden his already hardened attitude against the United States. So as you mentioned in the lead, I think that the selection of this person, Mojtaba, signals continuity on two fronts, both of which worry me and are very close to me as a former political prisoner.

31:11Donald Trump:I was arrested for being an Iranian-American and representing American interests when I was trying to create warmer relations between the U.S. and Iran, Mojitava is going to represent that continuous animosity against the United States. So I don't see that it indicates a willingness on the part of the regime to put somebody forward who might compromise, who might capitulate, who might suggest a new kind of settlement with President Trump. And on the other side, when I was arrested as a democracy activist, Mojtaba also represents worrying continuity. It's the same antagonism and brutal repression of the society that we've seen for 47 years.

32:04Donald Trump:He's going to continue that. And so on both those counts, external behavior and internal behavior, I think he represents more of the same, as you mentioned. And that's not good for the Iranian people inside, those who want greater freedom. And it's not great for those who are looking for, let's say, a quicker settlement to this conflict. And you and I are old enough to remember that one of the things the Iranian revolutionaries were revolting against in 1979 was the notion of inheriting leadership, the Shah. The new leader was selected not by an election, but by Iran's assembly of experts. It's an 88-member body of elected senior clerks.

32:46Donald Trump:President Trump today called Khamenei's election a big mistake. And we heard from the Israeli foreign minister talking to Bianna Golodriga that Moshtaba Khamenei, he suggested perhaps he could be killed as well. Will they just keep on electing hardliners over and over this Council of Experts? Yes, they will. But I think it's important to understand that the news coming out of Tehran, as much as we can verify it, showed that the IRGC officers played a very strong and unprecedented role in strong arming the members of this assembly of experts.

33:28Jake Tapper:and something we haven't really heard before. Not that there's much daylight between them, but the fact that they actually went out of their way

33:36Donald Trump:and by all reports, a few, maybe two or three of the members of the assemblies of experts did not attend the meeting. And that is also a kind of show of the lack of unity, which we haven't seen before. So it shows that he is very much IRGC's man. they've selected someone who will be relatively weak relatively pliant and will continue the war I think that's one of the big messages that we should take away Professor Kian Tajbach, thank you so much really appreciate your insights President Trump just wrapped up his comments to the Republican conference in Florida the House Republicans coming up next he's going to have a news conference with reporters we will bring that to you live obviously we're in the middle of a war But first, a U.S.

34:25Donald Trump:citizen killed by an ICE agent. But this isn't Renee Good. This isn't Alex Preddy. This was last year in Texas. Why this case is only emerging now. Stay with us.

34:47I'm Dr.

34:48Jake Tapper:Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. What if caregiving doesn't just take from us, but what if it gives something back as well?

34:57Donald Trump:Multitasking is the worst thing you could do as a caregiver because the presence is the currency. That's all you can really give. You cannot control outcomes. At the end of the day, the presence, and if you're multitasking, it's going to muddy up the whole thing. We also don't consider care as productive in our country.

35:17Jake Tapper:Her book is called When You Care, The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others. Journalist Alyssa Strauss, The Magic of Caring for Others. Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now wherever you get your podcasts.

35:49Donald Trump:In our national lead since the start of President Trump's second term, the U.S. government has posted more than 1 ,400 ex or Twitter posts claiming that ICE agents are under attack by terrorists or rioters or agitators. According to a new Wall Street Journal investigation, most of those accused were American citizens, including Renee Good and Alex Preddy, both killed by federal agents in January in Minnesota. This all comes as documents reveal another U.S. citizen had been killed, 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez. This was in March of last year. This was during a traffic stop on South Padre Island, Texas.

36:22Donald Trump:CNN's Brian Todd reports on how this incident went unnoticed for months. A blue Ford sedan drives slowly past the scene of an accident. Within seconds, officers are yelling, with one officer calling to others to stop the vehicle.

36:39Jake Tapper:Stop him, stop him, stop him.

36:41Donald Trump:The situation escalates as the officer wearing the body camera runs after the car.

36:50Jake Tapper:Three gunshots are heard.

37:02Donald Trump:This body camera footage recently obtained by CNN is from an incident in South Padre Island, Texas on March 15th of last year. The driver of the vehicle, 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez, died as a result of his gunshot wounds. The agent who shot him was from Homeland Security Investigations, an investigative unit which falls under ICE's umbrella. This was the earliest of at least six deadly shootings by federal officers during an immigration crackdown launched by President Trump in his second term. It came roughly 10 months before the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Preddy by ICE agents in Minneapolis.

37:37Donald Trump:But this shooting in Texas wasn't publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security until the Associated Press and other media outlets reported it in late February of this year. It's very disturbing that this is coming out a year after this young man was shot and killed by DHS. We reached out to the Department of Homeland Security to ask why it took so long for this shooting to be disclosed. We haven't heard back on that. The department issued a statement to CNN in late February, saying the driver, Ruben Martinez, intentionally ran over a Homeland Security investigation's agent, resulting in the agent being on the hood of the vehicle.

38:13Donald Trump:Then, DHS said, another agent fired, quote, defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public. A report from the Texas Department of Public Safety, citing an account from one of the agents, said Martinez bumped the agent's legs with his car, then made a turn which pushed the agent back, causing him to fall over the hood. But the passenger in Martinez's vehicle, Joshua Orta, in an unsigned witness statement obtained by CNN, contradicted that account.

38:41Jake Tapper:In that statement, Orta said the agent walked up to the car, slapped the hood, and, quote, seemed to be trying to get in front of the car.

38:48Donald Trump:Orta said, quote, Rubin did not hit anyone. A Texas grand jury declined to issue indictments in this case. And Joshua Orta, a crucial witness, died last month in a car crash, according to the Associated Press. We will not have the benefit of that eyewitness testimony. That's going to make, again, recreating what happened, getting a clear and transparent and accurate accounting of this shooting, very difficult. Thanks to Brian Tapp for that report. President Trump speaking now at the press conference. Let's listen in.

39:20Jake Tapper:We are waiting to see what happens before we hit them. We could take them all out in one day. but it's all resulting in a 90 percent decline in various things but in particular iranian missile launchers and 83 percent drop in drone launchers as you know the drone launches are are pretty well shot but we're at over 90 percent decline in the iranian missile launchers which is very hard to reproduce and very hard to get. And usually what we were able to do through great equipment, a lot of smart people, as soon as they sent a missile up from a launcher, we were able to knock out that launcher within a period of five minutes or less, accurately right on the noggin.

40:13Jake Tapper:So now we have low-cost interceptors effectively combating Iranian drones and our B-2 bombers recently dropped dozens of 2 ,000 pound bombs to destroy missile launchers all over Iran and very deep under Iranian soil in many cases. The soil was no match and we're also annihilating the manufacturing base that the regime uses to build drones and missiles at a rate that nobody thought was possible. We're knocking them out. we know where they all are we're knocking them out very quickly we're ahead of our initial timeline by a lot i would say that we probably would not have thought after a month we'd be here in addition to the fact that we've taken out the leadership twice and maybe three times and we as you know we want to be involved we don't want another president that maybe wouldn't be willing to do what i'm willing to do for the good of the world for the good of our nation to be stuck with the situation in five years or ten years from now so we think they should put a president in or the head of the country in that's going to be able to do something peacefully for a change they've been doing this for 47 years killing people for 47 years whether it's the barracks or even the ss coal where they were involved very strongly they always denied it but where they were very strongly involved and all of the people that died through the roadside bombs, died and are right now walking around with no legs, no arms, a face that's been so badly damaged.

41:50Jake Tapper:The Iranian regime has been attacking Americans and spreading terror for 47 years. And despite these countless opportunities to renounce their nuclear ambitions, which they had just a short while ago, they told Mr. Whitcoff, who is standing right over here, they said uh they actually said we want to keep building essentially in a real nutshell we want to continue to build nuclear weapons if we didn't knock out midnight hammer if we didn't knock out their iranian potential if we didn't do that with midnight hammer they would have had a nuclear weapon they would have used it long before now and at a minimum israel would have been annihilated.

42:34Jake Tapper:I was very lucky that we had the courage to do that, that we had the talented pilots and the great equipment. The B-2 bombers are unbelievable. We ordered 25 more, by the way, the newer, better version. It's, we have the greatest military in the world. We have the greatest equipment in the world by far. You see that no matter where we go. You still need the people though to operate it and to use it and those are the people that we cherish even after we obliterated their key nuclear sites in operation midnight hammer they never negotiated into good faith they still continued to say we want to build nuclear we want enrichment at levels that were unacceptable and they even turned down an offer for unlimited free nuclear fuel forever for civilian purposes.

43:26Jake Tapper:We had people offering them free nuclear fuel. They weren't interested in that because they wanted to build a nuclear weapon. So instead, the regime was trying to reconstitute its weapons program at a different site. They couldn't go back to where they were, the three sites that we obliterated. But they were starting work at another site, a different site, different kind of a site. And that was protected by granite. They wanted it protected. Granite's pretty good, but they wanted it protected by a lot deeper. They wanted to go a lot deeper. And they started the process while rapidly building conventional ballistic missiles.

44:08Jake Tapper:They were going to do it all at the same time that threatened our overseas bases and soon could have reached even our homeland. The regime's intention was to use this exponentially growing ballistic missile threat to make it virtually impossible to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon. So as you probably saw, they had a tremendous number of missiles, most of which have now been used or destroyed and very unsuccessfully used because we have been able, for the most part, to shoot them all down. What incredible technology. The patriots have been unbelievable and other things. And the laser technology that we have now is incredible.

44:50Jake Tapper:It's coming out pretty soon. We're literally lasers. We'll do the work of, at a lot less cost, do the work of what the patriots are doing or what other things are doing. The situation was very quickly approaching the point of no return and the United States found it intolerable in my opinion based on what Steve and Jared and Pete and others were telling me Marco so involved that I thought that they were going to attack us I thought they would if we didn't do this at the time we did it I think they had in mind to attack us and if you notice they did something which was very foolish very stupid, I would say.

45:28Jake Tapper:They attacked their neighbors. And their neighbors were largely neutral, or at least weren't going to be involved. And they got attacked. And it had the reverse effect. The neighbors came onto our side and started attacking them, and actually quite successfully. if you look at Saudi Arabia you look at UAE Qatar and others but they were strong and they were smart but they got attacked nobody when I first heard it I said no somebody made a mistake there was no mistake UAE had over a thousand missiles shot at it knocked them almost all down on the very first day I came down the escalator in 2015 I said quote I will stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and all i'm doing is keeping my promise think of that that was in 2015 i said it it was a threat then and a much bigger threat now but no longer a threat not for a long time anyway we want to keep it that way as we continue operation epic fury we're also focused on keeping energy and oil flowing to the world and i will not allow a terrorist regime to hold the world hostage and attempt to stop the globe's oil supply and if iran does anything to do that they'll get hit at a much much harder level i will take out those targets that were easy and that i mentioned just before we'll take them out so quickly they'll never be able to recover ever if they want to play that game they better not play that game in the long run oil supplies will be dramatically more secure without the threat of iranian ships drones missiles nuclear or menace or anything.

47:16Jake Tapper:So the Strait of Hormuz is going to remain safe. We have a lot of Navy ships there. We have the best equipment in the world inspecting for mines. Again, most of their ships are down at the bottom of the sea. But we will we will hit them so hard that it will not be possible for them or anybody else helping them to ever recover that section of the world. They do anything. In recent years, the regime and its terror proxies have launched attacks on hundreds of commercial vessels. We're putting an end to all of this threat once and for all, and the result will be lower oil prices, oil and gas prices for American families.

48:02Jake Tapper:We've done that. We've done it. We brought it very low. This was just an excursion into something that had to be done. We're getting very close to finishing that too. In the meantime, during this brief disruption, the United States is offering political risk insurance to any tankers operating in the Gulf. So we're putting up risk insurance. We'll perhaps go alongside of them for protection. We don't think it'll be necessary if it is. And if they do anything, the price will be incalculable. It will be so great that they will have wished they never did it. Because you have to keep the straits flowing.

48:42Jake Tapper:With all of that, it affects other countries much more than it does the United States. It doesn't really affect us. We have so much oil. We have tremendous oil and gas, much more than we need. We have Venezuela now as our new partner, great partner. They've worked out so wonderful. We're working with the administration, the president and it's a massive source of oil gas everything but uh we're in a very good position but very unfair to other parts of the world like china is an example i mean we're doing this for the other parts of the world including countries like china they get a lot of their oil through the straits so we're doing this we have a very good relationship with president and Xi and Xi and Xi and Xi.

49:29I'm going there in a short period of time.

49:32Jake Tapper:And we're protecting the world from what these lunatics are trying to do. And very successfully, I might add, we're also waiving certain oil-related sanctions to reduce prices. So we have sanctions on some countries. We're going to take those sanctions off till this straightens out. Then who knows, maybe we won't have to put them on. There'll be so much peace. But when the time comes, the U.S. Navy and its partners will escort tankers through the straight if needed i hope it's not going to be needed but if it's needed we'll escort them right through and we have the greatest mind sweeping ability we have the greatest ships and all of the we know exactly where their place will get them out of there very fast but we hope we don't have any of that and again if they do that if they play that game we're going to hit them at a level that that they have not seen before so we're winning very decisively.

50:27Jake Tapper:We're way ahead of schedule. Our military is the greatest in the world, with the greatest equipment and the greatest people in the world. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. Iran is a very powerful country. They were going to take over the Middle East. If we did not hit them, they were going to take over the Middle East. They had thousands and thousands, since their last hit, they had thousands and thousands of missiles and everything else. most are now destroyed but they were going to take over the Middle East those weapons were aimed at Middle Eastern countries that had nothing to do with this they were going to take over the Middle East and they were going to try and destroy Israel so we stopped it with good timing and we're very proud to be involved in this and it's going to be ended soon and if it starts up again they'll be hit even harder.

51:22Jake Tapper:Thank you very much for being here. Go ahead. Any questions?

51:27Donald Trump:Thank you so much. Do you approve of Iran's new supreme leader? And secondly, can you tell us more about your call with Russian President Vladimir Putin today? What did you discuss?

51:38Jake Tapper:Yes, I had a very good call with President Putin. We had a lot of people on the line from our side from his side we were talking about ukraine which is just a never-ending fight and when look there's tremendous hatred between president putin and president zelinski they can't seem to get it together but i think it was a positive call on that subject and we obviously talked then about the middle east and he wants to be helpful i said you could be more helpful by getting the Ukraine Russia war over with that would be more helpful but we had a very good talk and he wants to be very constructive yeah yeah please thank you mr.

52:24Donald Trump:president on Iran you called it an excursion you said it would be over soon are you thinking this week it will be over no days I think so okay and very soon look everything they have is gone including their leadership

52:39Jake Tapper:In fact, there are two levels of leadership and even actually, as it turns out, more than that. But two levels of leadership are gone. Most people have never even heard about the leaders that they're talking about. So it's obviously been very, very powerful, very effective.

52:55Donald Trump:To Cuba, you said that Cuba wants to make a deal. Yes. What would the United States get in return for that? And why should Americans trust Marco Rubio to negotiate it?

53:05Jake Tapper:Well, Marco Rubio is doing a great job. I think he's going to go down as the greatest Secretary of State in history. Look at what we've done as a presidency. Look at what we've done as an administration. They trust Marco. And so do the American people trust. He's been successful no matter where he's been. He also speaks the language, which is always nice and always helpful. But he's dealing. And it may be a friendly takeover. It may not be a friendly takeover. It wouldn't matter because they're really in, they're down to, as they say, fumes. They have no energy. They have no money. They're in deep trouble on a humanitarian basis.

53:52Jake Tapper:And we don't want to see that, but they were very, very bad to a lot of people, as you know. And a lot of people living our, the Cuban-American vote, which I got at record levels, very important. Those people are very important to me. I know what they went through. They went through hell. Some of them have gone on to be some of the most successful people in the country. Cuban American business people, some of them are like the most successful in the country. And a lot of them are friends of mine because I've been fighting this battle with them for a long time. The Castro regime was brutal. But they lived off Venezuela.

54:27Jake Tapper:Now they don't live off Venezuela. It sends them no energy, no fuel, no oil, no money, no nothing. They lived without Venezuela. They couldn't have made it and we cut them off from everything else. So yeah, we're they're gonna make Either a deal or we'll do it just as easy anyway. Yeah Please go ahead

54:54Jake Tapper:Tomahawk missile likely Destroyed that Iranian girl school. So will the Americans will the u.s accept any responsibility? Well, I haven't seen it And I will say that the tomahawk, which is one of the most powerful weapons around, is used by, you know, is sold and used by other countries. You know that. And whether it's Iran, who also has some tomahawks, they wish they had more. But whether it's Iran or somebody else, the fact that a tomahawk, a tomahawk is very generic. It's sold to other countries. But that's being investigated right now. Yeah, please. Thank you.

55:32Donald Trump:Thank you. Mr. President, you've said the war is, quote, very complete, but your defense secretary says this is just the beginning. So which is it, and how long should Americans be prepared for this war?

55:42Jake Tapper:Well, I think you could say both. The beginning, it's the beginning of building a new country, but they certainly, they have no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have no anti-aircraft equipment. It's all been blown up. They have no radar. They have no telecommunications, and they have no leadership. it's all gone so you know you could look at that statement we could we could call it a tremendous success right now as we leave here i could call it or we could go further and we're going to go further but uh the big risk on that war has been over for three days we wiped them out the first in the first two days when you think about it it's incredible we wiped out a big navy very powerful navy you know these were ships these were serious ships these were ships that you buy when you want to win battles they're all they're all on the bottom floor the sailors are all running off the ships they refuse to get on the ships uh the air force is gone everything's gone the missiles are down to a trickle the drones are down to probably 25 percent and they'll be soon be down to nothing we'll have the where they manufactured the drones are under fire as we speak they're being hit.

57:00Jake Tapper:So the rest is going to be determination as to my attitude along with the people in the Trump administration what we want to do. Thank you. Yeah please.

57:13Donald Trump:Can I ask you, you mentioned you were going to waive certain additional oil waivers or sanctions. Can you talk a little bit more about that and address in particular? Well we're looking to keep the oil prices down.

57:23Jake Tapper:We It went artificially up because of this excursion into a very positive thing. I mean, this was an excursion that a lot of people wouldn't have done. I knew oil prices would go up if I did this, and they've gone up probably less than I thought they'd go up. But I don't think anybody thought we were going to be this quickly successful. This was a military success, the likes of which people haven't seen. We have the best military. We have the best equipment. we have i believe the best generals we have the best and this went very quickly uh we talked about that with president putin he was very impressed with what he saw because nobody's ever seen anything quite like it you know iran was a very powerful military country with all of the missiles now you had the double attack you had the original attack with us and israel and that knocked them for a loop.

58:18Jake Tapper:Then you had the B-2 bombers, which took out their nuclear capability, and they would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks to four weeks, and they would have used it long before this press conference, and we might have had a much different press conference if we had a press conference at all. But it's been amazing. The military success that we've had is truly unprecedented.

58:45Donald Trump:You said you've told your congressional colleagues that you will not sign any piece of legislation until the Save America Act is passed. Does that include the confirmation of Senator Mullen as your next DHS secretary? Does that mean a DHS funding bill? And Senator Thune said today, it's not a matter of whether or not your Republican colleagues agree with the policy. It's about changing the process.

59:05Jake Tapper:In other words, getting rid of the filibuster to get there. So in order to get it, you're going to need Democrat votes. and what we're saying is the Save America, not the Save Act, which nobody knew what it was, the Save America Act, the Save America Act. And that's voter ID. We want voter ID. When a voter, we want to be able to see a picture of the voter. We want to be able to see that the voter is legitimate. We want, very importantly, confirmation that this voter is a citizen of the United States of America and we want no in no mail-in ballot scams so we have exceptions for the military for sick for disabled and for people that are away business trips or whatever even vacations will be very liberal that we've added two things to it no men and women's sports and no trans gender mutilization of our children we don't want our the it's mutilization of our children and we don't want that so we added those two things that's the five points we have five very good points uh it polls at 86 percent with democrats think of that the overall vote is 86 percent with republicans it's 98 percent and the only one opposed to it is a democrat leadership because they cheat they want to cheat so we added those two points we're going for the gold and we're going to have to fight like hell now certain things will happen certain things will take place i'm here to do a great job for the country but we don't have a country if we're going to have elections that are so corrupt and so dishonest like we've witnessed over the last period of time you know as an example few i mean virtually nobody has like we nobody has a system of mail-in ballots like we have.

1:01:05Jake Tapper:No other country in the world. France went away from it. They all went, you know why? Because it's corrupt. And Jimmy Carter, when he had a commission, frankly, I think it's probably the best thing Jimmy Carter did. He said, you can't have mail-in voting because it's inherently dishonest. And it's turned out to be totally dishonest. So we're going to fight for it. Yeah.

1:01:26Donald Trump:Have Iran activated any sleeper cells inside the U.S.? There's reports that they have pressed that trigger button to activate those cells, at least abroad.

1:01:36Jake Tapper:Well, we've been trying for a long time. We've been very much on top of it. One of the things we have to do is get the Democrats to stop the Democrats' shutdown. Because, as you know, the apparatus that looks into that, Schumer and the Democrats have shut it down, which tells you they probably hate our country a lot. but the Democrats have to open that up. But we've got very, very good intelligence into that. We know a lot of different things that have happened that have been very bad. A lot of them came in during the Biden open border period, but we have them under. We've got them. We're watching every single one of them.

1:02:16Jake Tapper:Yeah, we know a lot about them. The biggest problem we have is the Democrat shutdown. We know a lot about him, but the shutdown doesn't allow us to do what we have to do.

1:02:28Donald Trump:Do you have to take him out? Does he have a target on his back?

1:02:31Jake Tapper:You mean the new Supreme Leader? You mean the sun?

1:02:34Donald Trump:How can there be an Iran with another IATOL?

1:02:36Jake Tapper:Well, I don't want to say that, but I was disappointed because we think it's going to lead to just more of the same problem for the country. So I was disappointed to see their choice.

1:02:49Donald Trump:you've said you have someone in mind to be the new iranian leadership if not the ayatollah's son what are you looking for in that person are you looking at someone internal given that you just

1:02:58Jake Tapper:said that their leadership has been i like the idea of you know internal and eternal come to think of it but i like the idea of internal because it works well i mean i think we've proven that so far in Venezuela. We have a woman, Delcy, who has been, you know, president of the country, very respected, very, she's doing a great job. And it's, you know, no disruption. We had, as you remember, Iraq, where everybody got fired. The military got fired. The police got fired. The politicians got fired. There was nobody. And you know what they turned into ISIS? and we don't want that we don't want that so uh i would like to see people that are inside go now they talk about the son of the shah they talk about other people but you know hasn't been there in many many years uh we have a formula that's been very good so far and i think it'll continue to be good the relationship is extraordinary with venezuela smart country we've taken out a hundred million barrels of oil it's right now in Houston being being taken care of and made so beautiful and you have to see this at work they have it's it's brought to the refineries it's being refined in Houston which is made exactly for that product and so far but it's a hundred million barrels of oil and now they have another hundred million barrels coming.

1:04:33And it's like a partnership.

1:04:35Jake Tapper:We're getting along so well with them. It's great for Venezuela and it's great for the United States. Yeah, please go ahead.

1:04:44Donald Trump:Mr. President, you just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a tomahawk and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war. But you're the only person in your government saying this. Even your defense secretary wouldn't say that when he was asked standing over your shoulder on your plane on Saturday. Why are you the only person saying this?

1:05:01Jake Tapper:Because I just don't know enough about it. I think it's something that I was told is under investigation. But tomahawks are are used by others, as you know. Numerous other nations have tomahawks. They buy them from us. But I will certainly whatever the report shows, I'm willing to live with that report. Yeah, please.

1:05:23Donald Trump:You said earlier that we've already won in many ways, but we haven't won enough. What do you consider enough? What's your baseline? Where they're not going to be starting the following day to develop a nuclear weapon, where they'll look at that man

1:05:38Jake Tapper:and some other people from the administration and say, all right, we're not going to do it. They were not willing to say that. And when Steve called up and he said that to me, I said, well, here we go let's do it the hard way but the hard way i think is probably the easy way when basically i can see that they will no longer have any capacity whatsoever for a very long period of time of developing weaponry that could be used against the united states israel or any of our allies we have great allies in the middle east great countries that are allies and they were staying out of it until they got hit someday they'll have to do a story why did he do that why did they do that but they were going to hit them if i didn't hit them first they were going to hit our allies first i believe upon information and belief but i believe that he was going to uh he was they were going to take over the middle east they were looking to take over the middle least.

1:06:40Jake Tapper:Now, had Operation Midnight Hammer not taken place, that was definite, because they would have had a nuclear weapon within a matter of weeks. But that took place. That was a setback. But look at the number of missiles they were able to buy and make over the last six months. And those missiles were aimed at various countries. And when you look at a thousand, over a thousand missiles shot at like UAE. They were looking to take over the Middle East. We got there first. Lucky. I'll tell you what, the Middle East and those countries, very rich countries, are very lucky that I was president instead of somebody else.

1:07:26Jake Tapper:I don't think so. No, no. We get along very well on this. He was, I would say, philosophically a little bit different than me. I think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic. But I felt it was something we had to do. I didn't feel we had a choice. If we didn't do it, they would have done it to us. I felt based on the negotiations that were being had by Steve Woodcoff and Jared Kushner and Marco and Pete and everybody was involved, I felt that they were gonna that they were looking to tap us along before they hit and I thought they were gonna hit and if they hit us first That would have been a very bad thing In the back, please in the back

1:08:19Jake Tapper:About the straight you mean Yeah, well, I'm I want to keep it open. I want to keep it good You know it doesn't pertain to us so much as it does to China know we're really helping china here and other countries because they get a lot of their energy from the straits but hey look we have a good relationship with china it's my honor to do it

1:08:41Donald Trump:yeah you have called him an unacceptable choice so does he have a target on his back and how can

1:08:50Jake Tapper:you i don't want to say whether or not he does because that would be inappropriate but hey look I had a target on my back because, as you people wrote pretty well, they caught the assassin that was after me. So we just got them first. But they caught the assassin. They have him now in custody that was after me. So, you know, but people don't like to mention that. But they did catch him. And I'd like to congratulate our military, Secret Service, FBI, all of the people that worked on that. But they did. Yeah, please. I heard about this award almost over the way. Go ahead. No, go ahead, please.

1:09:24Donald Trump:Thank you, Mr. President. You promised the Iranian people you would help them, but it sounds like you're willing to end this fight after your military objectives have wrapped up. Isn't that a betrayal of the people? Will I help them?

1:09:34Jake Tapper:I'd like to, if they can behave. But they've been very menacing. You know, they're great people. They have an amazing population. It's amazing, smart, brilliant, energetic. They have a great population. I'd love to help them, but they have to be in a system that allows them to be helped. and right now they're in a system that only allows failure and I don't want that and I want a system that's not going to be attacking us we want a system that can lead to many years of peace and if we can't have that we might as well get it over with right now yeah please Mr.

1:10:11Donald Trump:President as of today there have been eight U.S. military fatalities associated with the war in Iran how many American deaths are you willing to have in this war?

1:10:20Jake Tapper:Well, as I said before, when you have conflicts like this, you always have death. And I was at Dover yesterday. I met the parents and they were unbelievable people. They were unbelievable people. But they all had one thing in common. They said to me one thing, every single one, finish the job, sir. Please finish the job. And I'll leave you at that. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you.

1:11:17Donald Trump:Beginning. When pressed on whether he thought the war would be over this week, the president said no, but soon. He didn't go into detail about what soon means. When asked to explain why Secretary Hegseth said the war was just beginning, President Trump said it's the beginning of building a new country. When asked by CNN's Manu Raju if the United States would accept any responsibility on that deadly strike on an Iranian school if it was proven to have been caused by the U.S., The president suggested without evidence that it might have been Iran. Other countries have access to that missile, the Patriot missile.

1:11:51Donald Trump:He said it's still being investigated. He later said, quote, whatever the report shows, I'm willing to live with that report, unquote. The president also says he was disappointed to see that Iran's new supreme leader, named by the Council of Elders, is the son of the Ayatollah who had just been killed two Saturdays ago. The president said Iran should put in a leader who could do things differently for a change. Let's bring in my panel of experts who are all standing by here. Caitlin Collins, of course, foremost among them. Caitlin, the president's been talking to reporters every single day with varying messages.

1:12:26Donald Trump:He talked to Dana. He talked to me. He talked to CBS News just a few hours ago in which he said this is almost over. He seemed to be suggesting it's almost complete. What do you make of the tone he just struck? Well, I think the question that a lot of the reporters had were in the conflicting messages that we've heard from the Pentagon saying that this is a war that is just getting started to what the president was saying to CBS News earlier when he was saying that it's nearly complete. I thought it was interesting there during that press conference with reporters where he kind of set the bar at saying that Iran should have no capability of having weapons that can be used to attack not just the United States, but he also pointed out Israel and other neighboring countries, other U.S.

1:13:01Donald Trump:allies that are in the region that we've seen obviously coming under fire from these Iranian missiles. in recent days. That obviously seems to be a high bar, so it's a question of what this looks like. That means taking out all of their ballistic missiles, right? Well, because obviously it's much easier to hit somewhere in the region, Israel, for example, than it is the United States. But another reporter followed up because the president did say he thought that the war would end soon and asked if he envisioned that being this week. He seemed to say no, but he did say that it could be over soon.

1:13:29Donald Trump:One thing, though, is that the president has obviously had a vested interest in who leads Iran and his son being named the new supreme leader. President Trump just told reporters there he was disappointed by that. I thought what was most striking, though, in the president's remarks also was he was pressed on these analyses and intelligence and reports that people have looked at on who is responsible for the strike on the girls' school in Iran that happened the first day of the war. The president said on Saturday to reporters that he believed it was Iran that was actually responsible for that. There's been more analysis since it has shown it was a Tomahawk missile, which obviously the United States - Oh, that's what I meant, Tomahawk.

1:14:07Donald Trump:Yeah, sorry. That's what the United States has been using in this. I don't think Iran is known to have any Tomahawk missiles. I mean, I could be wrong on that, but that's what the public reporting suggests. And so when the president was just asked about that by Sean McCree, who followed up on Manu's question about it, he said, I just don't know enough about it. He said, whatever the report shows I'm willing to live with that report and noted that it is still under investigation. So he didn't even seem as confident as he seemed on Saturday and that it was Iran that was behind that. Because obviously our analysis of the geolocated images and others, the New York Times, Reuters, has said there was the United States military that was most likely responsible.

1:14:42Donald Trump:Obviously, there's been no confirmation of that yet. Yeah. And just earlier today, CNN reported that the U.S. hit an IRGC base adjacent to the school. Yeah, they're extremely close. Yeah, so that could explain some of that. Caitlin, thank you so much. And don't miss Caitlin on her show, The Source with Caitlin Collins. It airs at 9 p.m. Her guests tonight include Democratic Senators Tim Kaine and Adam Schiff and Cory Booker and Tammy Baldwin. They are all making a joint appearance. That's to discuss the strike on the grade school. Is that why? Well, they actually want to start holding votes on Capitol Hill if Senator, if the Senate leader John Thune is not willing to hold public hearings where Rubio has to come testify and Pete Hegseth has to come testify on this.

1:15:27Donald Trump:They said they the closed door briefings are not sufficient for them. They want public hearings. And if they don't get that, they're going to put up a bunch of votes where basically Republicans have to go on the record about what they support. Well, the more transparency, the better for the American people. That's tonight at nine Eastern only on CNN. Let's go live to CNN's Fred Pleiken. And he's on the ground in Tehran, Iran, with photojournalist Claudia Otto. And CNN, we should note, is operating in Iran with the permission of the Iranian government, as is required for any reporter in Iran. CNN is maintaining full editorial control over what we report.

1:15:57Donald Trump:We are there because we think that you, the viewer, have the right to see what is happening on the streets of Tehran and also see from that side the effectiveness of the U.S. campaign. Fred, President Trump says he thinks the war will be over, quote, soon. How does that square with what you are seeing and hearing there in Iran? Well, we're certainly hearing a lot of kinetic activity tonight. It was one of the interesting things that I picked up from that press conference is that I think President Trump was saying that some of Iran's capabilities were being hit even as he was speaking. One of the things that I can say is that there were massive airstrikes going on tonight, I would say for about an hour or an hour and a half here around the Iranian capital.

1:16:36Donald Trump:In fact, the building that we're staying in was really shaking for a lot of those times that we were hearing those thuds. We were hunkered down here for an extended period of time. From what we're gathering right now, it seems to have been in the eastern part of the city, the northeastern part of the city. And then also there are reports that Tehran's Marabad Airport, which is sort of the second city airport here in this city, was apparently hit as well. There's also reports of a town that's, I would say, about an hour's drive to the west of here called Karaj. apparently also taking some pretty big hits.

1:17:08Donald Trump:But on the whole, Jake, one of the things we have to say is that the leadership here is definitely trying to project that they still are very much in control. President Trump mentioned it. We know that there's a new supreme leader here in Iran, Ayatollah Mochitaba Khamenei, of course, the son of the late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was voted in yesterday. And today there were big demonstrations here in Tehran and other Iranian cities with people pledging their allegiance to the supreme leader. Obviously organized by the government. However, the turnout was certainly massive, at least from the event that we were in, which was in a place called Revolutionary Square here in Tehran, Engelab Square.

1:17:49So clearly the leadership is saying they have a president in place, they have a head of

1:17:53Donald Trump:their supreme national security council in place, Ali Larijani. They have a supreme leader in place as well. And they certainly have a military that they say is still capable of striking back and still is capable of striking those missiles. And one thing I want to add, Jake, one thing that we're not seeing here is the dissolution of public order here in Tehran. There's a lot of security forces that are on the ground. There's a lot of checkpoints that are on the ground. So clearly also here to the local population, to the Iranian population, the leadership of this country is also trying to project that they are still very much in control of this country, Jake.

1:18:28Donald Trump:Fred, President Trump said he was disappointed by the selection of Moshtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader, the son of the recently killed Ayatollah, as you noted. What does the selection of Moshtaba Khamenei signal for the future of this conflict with the U.S. and Israel? He is considered over here in the United States to be a hardliner. Yeah, he's certainly considered to be exactly that as well here in Iran. Of course, he's much more of a known commodity here to the Iranians. He's been in the orbit of his father, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for an extended period of time. He was in very high up in the office of the Supreme Leader for a long period of time as well.

1:19:12Donald Trump:And he's certainly someone who also has the respect of the military and specifically of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which of of course, is that elite wing and also the military wing that's responsible for missiles and drones here in this country. But I put that question also to the main advisor, to the Supreme Leader for Foreign Policy, whom I interviewed today. And he said it shows that the state here is functioning, that there is continuity. But I also asked that advisor where all of this can end, how all of this can end, whether or not any sort of diplomacy might be in sight. And he said, quite frankly, he believed at this point there wasn't.

1:19:48Donald Trump:Let's listen in. Iran has a new supreme leader. What does that mean for your military effort and the confrontation with the United States and Israel?

1:20:00Jake Tapper:That means the system is quite functioning.

1:20:03Donald Trump:So the United States has drastically degraded the Iranian military, the capabilities as far as missiles is concerned, drones is concerned. How much longer can you do this? That is one of the false narratives that the United States government is producing.

1:20:22Jake Tapper:Iranian military is quite strong, as you see, because they have the motivation, they have the arms that they need, which are produced in Iran. As a matter of fact, we are not dependent on any other country for weapons and arms.

1:20:45Donald Trump:So your side is ready for a long war, if the United States and Israel choose that. Do you consider this an existential threat to the Islamic Republic?

1:20:55Jake Tapper:It is an existential threat to the Islamic Republic, and therefore we have to stay with full might, as we are doing now.

1:21:07Donald Trump:The advisor to the Supreme Leader, Kamal Harazi, who I spoke to earlier today, I also asked him how exactly this whole conflict could end. And he said he believes it can only be through economic pressure coming from other countries. In other words, it seemed to us he was insinuating that the Iranians believe that they could, in fact, continue a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, of course, choking off some of those oil supplies and gas supplies, and that they believe that then maybe countries of the region, but also globally, could have put pressure on the U.S. to try and end the conflict, Jake.

1:21:39Donald Trump:Fred, one last question before I let you go. We had a guest earlier who said that the selection of the new Khomeini, the new supreme leader, by the Council of Elders, this group of 88 individuals, that there were reports that that council had been leaned on by the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guard. Is that what you are hearing too, or is that something that isn't getting attention in Iran? Well, it's getting a lot less attention definitely in Iran. And one of the things that we have to point out is that the Council of Experts certainly is known to be quite an independent institution. But at the same time, of course, especially in times like now when there is a conflict, as there is now, and there is, of course, a military confrontation between Iran and the U.S., between Iran and the Israelis, certainly those institutions do consult with one another.

1:22:38Donald Trump:It's unclear to what extent that might have happened. It's unclear to what extent anything might have been influenced by that. But certainly, one of the things that we can point out is that Machtaba Khamenei is someone who has been within the state structure, within the leadership structure of this country for a very long period of time, also under his father. He knows these institutions. He knows the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. And one of the things that I found interesting when he was elected, when his election was announced, is that very quickly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps put out a statement saying that they pledged allegiance to him.

1:23:12Donald Trump:And then a little bit later, the Quds Force, which, of course, as you know, Jake, is the foreign operations wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also pledged allegiance to him as well. So it certainly seems as though the power structure here of the Islamic Republic is trying to project, is trying to show to the outside world that they are very much unified, very much capable of continuing the military confrontation for a long period of time, Jake. All right. CNN's for the plight gun and photojournalist Claudia Otto live in Tehran. Thank you both. Stay safe. Much more of the president's latest remarks on Iran in moments.

1:23:44Donald Trump:Our experts are standing by. We're going to squeeze in a quick break. We'll be right back.

1:23:56Donald Trump:Tax Act knows filing taxes can be confusing, so we have live experts on hand who can help answer any questions you may have. Questions like, can I claim my SUV is my home office if I answer work emails in my car? If I adopted 12 dogs this year, can I list them as dependents? And am I doing this right or am I doing this very, very wrong? Our experts have the answers to those questions and many others. Tax Act. Let's get them over with. And we're back with the breaking news. President Trump just wrapped a news conference focused on the war with Iran. I want to bring in some of my experts. Standing by here, Jeremy Diamond, live for us in Tel Aviv, Israel.

1:24:39Donald Trump:Jeremy, President Trump's position today is that the war is almost complete. It's been a great success, but the U.S., of course, did not do this alone. Do Israeli officials think this war is just about over? Well, Jake, I think for days now, Israeli officials have been watching like so many others around the world with consternation and trying to kind of parse through some of President Trump's language as he has given kind of conflicting messages about exactly what his goals are in this war, how much longer he is willing to go for. Israeli officials have made quite clear that they want to see regime change happen in Iran and that they're willing to allow this war to continue for basically as long as it takes.

1:25:20Donald Trump:And today, the message that I think they're probably going to take away from President Trump is that they certainly have some more time for the United States to be joining them in this war against Iran. But how much time still seems to be very much an open question. And while President Trump still indicated that he wants to see different leadership in Iran, you know, I don't think that he is as explicitly committed to the goal of regime change as Israeli officials were. Instead, the president seemed to be talking about this idea that he wants to see a regime that's, you know, not going to be able to threaten the United States, not going to try and pursue a nuclear weapon.

1:25:56Donald Trump:So still not something that is the current situation with this new supreme leader in Iran. But again, some daylight still there between the United States and Israel's goals and some questions about what that means going forward. CNN National Security Analyst Alex Plitzis is here with us, too. Alex, CNN's Manuraju asked the president about that deadly strike on that Iranian girls' school. I want to play some of that exchange.

1:26:23with the footage that shows an American missile strike

1:26:26Jake Tapper:and a tomahawk missile likely destroyed that Iranian girl school. So will the Americans, will the U.S. accept any responsibility for that strike? Well, I haven't seen it. And I will say that the tomahawk, which is one of the most powerful weapons around, is used by, you know, is sold and used by other countries. You know that. And whether it's Iran, who also has some tomahawks, I wish they had more. But whether it's Iran or somebody else, the fact that a tomahawk, a tomahawk is very generic. It's sold to other countries. But that's being investigated right now.

1:27:01Donald Trump:Alex, you have extensive background in military national security. Is President Trump, is that accurate? Lots of countries have access to the tomahawk missile. Iran has tomahawk missiles. No, I think, you know, he may have been misspeaking there. They do have land attack cruise missiles, but in the site that was struck, as was noted in an earlier segment, that was attached to an IRGC compound that was struck. And at least one part, my understanding, was part of that, but that has been a school now for about 10 years. Now, there are groups within the U.S. military whose job it is to deconflict these types of targets to make sure that happened.

1:27:36Donald Trump:So if it was the United States, which an investigation will figure out, there clearly would have been some sort of targeting failure there. The Israelis have told me that they were not operating in the area at the time of that strike. They didn't have aircraft that were operating there. They don't have Tomahawk cruise missiles. So at this point, the president has accused the Iranians they don't have Tomahawks, but they do have land attack cruise missiles. And the Iranians have obviously clearly said it's the United States. So it's not the Israelis, either the U.S. or the Iranians. And evidence is at this point pointing towards a potential accidental strike.

1:28:06Donald Trump:But the Pentagon said it's still under investigation. Tom Kloza is the chief oil analyst for Gulf Oil. Tom, this has been a historically wild day for oil. I want to play a bit of what the president had to say about that topic. Take a listen.

1:28:21Jake Tapper:In recent years, the regime and its terror proxies have launched attacks on hundreds of commercial vessels. We're putting an end to all of this threat once and for all. And the result will be lower oil prices, oil and gas prices for American families.

1:28:39Donald Trump:How long do you see these high oil and gas prices lasting?

1:28:48Donald Trump:Well, based on what the president said, I think we remain in a very bipolar market for the foreseeable future. I think people in the oil market who sold in the morning today were hopeful that we hear some particulars on opening up the Strait of Hormuz. The fact of the matter is, if the flows in the strait are not restored by the end of this week, we're going to see higher prices. And we've seen that today. He also said that he was surprised that oil didn't react as much as it did. And it went from$70 essentially in the end of last week to$120 this morning. So that's a little bit of a surprise.

1:29:28Donald Trump:Emily Schrader is an Israeli-American journalist. Emily, you've been talking to Iranians on the ground about the strikes and about Iranian leadership going forward. How do the Iranians you're talking to, how do they see the future unfolding in Iran? Of course, there's a lot of uncertainty and there's a lot of problems with the Internet still being shut off, although there is some limited use with Starlink and limited other options. But by and large, the responses from Iranians that I've spoken to has been overwhelmingly in favor of the United States and Israeli action on the ground. They're very happy that regime targets, many of them, the centers of suppression of the Iranian people.

1:30:08Donald Trump:Many of these besieged IRGC bases and forces are, in fact, being targeted. So they're happy about that. The main complaint that I'm hearing right now on the ground is that they're witnessing, personally witnessing, IRGC troops moving into schools and mosques. I've received a plethora of photos from Iranians on the ground of exactly that, moving both the force, the manpower, and weapons and equipment into school areas. So this is something very concerning. It's not new. It is a tactic of the Islamic regime and their proxy forces. But it's definitely concerning for the future. And of course, there is some questioning about what President Trump does intend for the leadership.

1:30:46Donald Trump:The united call from the Iranian people on the ground is that they want the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi to lead a transition government. After that, go to a national referendum where they will choose the system of government. But it's not clear yet where Trump stands on that issue. And we heard it in his press conference as well. He prefers someone inside. The problem is it isn't Venezuela. It's not the same system. And you have to deconstruct that system. the IRGC, in order to have genuine change and stability. Interesting stuff. Emily, Jeremy, Tom, and Alex, thank you all for your time and expertise.

1:31:20Donald Trump:You just heard President Trump trying to downplay the steep rise in gas prices that Americans are seeing because of the war with Iran. Are voters going to buy what he's saying? That's next.

1:31:40Donald Trump:Back in our politics lead, just moments ago, President Trump, in his remarks to the press, seemed to downplay the global spike in oil prices as a result of the war on Iran.

1:31:52Jake Tapper:I knew oil prices would go up if I did this, and they've gone up probably less than I thought they'd go up.

1:32:00Donald Trump:Here now is the panel. So we just had the oil analyst from Gulf say politely, they've gone up from$70 a barrel to$120. So I don't know what he was expecting. But this is something Americans are going to feel directly at the pump. I mean, not only are they going to feel directly at the pump, I was astonished looking at the counter near my house because within a few days already it had just been climbing and climbing, climbing. You know, that's the thing about gas. People feel it. People feel it immediately and it makes people very angry when it moves. And so, you know, this issue again hits to the heart of President Trump's affordability problem.

1:32:40Donald Trump:This war is not helping with that. Yeah. We're still well below where we were post-Russia invasion of Ukraine. Now, this is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. I love the bar. No, no. This is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which when the president was saying, you know, this is less than we expected. This is absolutely less than you would expect where we are today. Right now, we're one week in. Which also means it's a relatively easy resolution. Now, there are things that are downstream that take a little bit of time to spin back up. But fundamentally, if the Iranian regime said tomorrow, we will not attack anything else, everything can go through, Lloyd's brings that insurance back up, setting aside some of the things the Ex-Im Bank is trying to do to reduce that insurance cost, this will be a very rapid resolution in price.

1:33:16Donald Trump:But why would the Iranian regime ever do that? I mean, it's like, well, it's a good pressure point. It's their biggest point of leverage to date. I mean, obviously, it's continuing to inflict pain on the region, continue to keep air travel closed, and then also continue to attack civilian infrastructure, including desalinization plans throughout the region. It is their leverage, but it's also their best means of saying, all right, let's get serious about a negotiation on what the future looks like. One thing that is very surprising is that usually when the U.S. goes to war, there is a rally around the flag kind of fervor that takes over the U.S.

1:33:47Donald Trump:I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing, but it just does happen. That's not happening here. A recent PBS News, NPR, Marist poll found 56 percent of the American people oppose U.S. military action in Iran. Do you think the president needs to change how he communicates about this? I think the president could be doing the best job possible, and it still wouldn't matter. That 56 percent is the exact same as a rule rating. If you look at the Venezuelan support, it is matching the same. The president has at no point tried to tell the American people why we're there, what is the purpose of this incursion, and also he has done a 180 on what he always promised, which was that he would not drag America into foreign conflicts.

1:34:28Donald Trump:We still have a hangover from Afghanistan, and we still have a hangover from Iraq. The American people have not forgotten the disastrous effects of those wars, and the president has done absolutely nothing to explain this to the American people in a way that they could rally around the flag, quote-unquote, and understand what they're doing there. Instead, they just see the cost. And you fought abroad. What are you hearing from your former battle buddies? There's obviously some hesitation on how long things could last. And right now, we do not know. Anyone who served in Iraq, they look at the Iranian regime falling and they say, fantastic, please.

1:35:02Donald Trump:They have the blood of so many of my brethren on their hands. Right, because of the IEDs and such. I mean, that was the number one threat that we were facing, at least in the time that I was there. And so when it comes to making the case, you do not need to make the case to American veterans. Interesting. I do wonder, the president has communicated the issues, but I think sometimes the scattershot nature of how he talks gets in its own way. It's incredibly muddled. On the one hand, we're doing regime change. Then we're not doing regime change, but we're actually in there to get oil. Then we're not doing it to get oil.

1:35:37Donald Trump:We're there to help the Iranian people. then perhaps we're not going to help the Iranian people. We're going to just switch the regime out and maybe do business with them. If you are constantly changing the bar of what success is, of what the purpose of this is, then of course people aren't going to understand why we're doing it. So the military commanders, General Cain and others, have said, destroy their missile program, destroy their nuclear weaponization program, destroy their navy, and kill the regime. So that's pretty clear. they're pretty close to doing that, I think. Yeah, and then it's a question when it comes to destroying that regime, what does the future look like and who is willing to step up and have it be a decapitate and delegate strategy as opposed to what the concern is that it will be the regime change, endless wars, yada, yada, yada, that puts us in a similar place.

1:36:25Donald Trump:Or a civil war that actually causes lots of mass displacement and plunges the region into more instability. And the number one thing that I think Trump remembers when he's talking is he's obviously talking to a domestic audience, but even more importantly, he's talking to those Iranians who are going to be making those decisions who want to figure out what the next days look like. He also made the point about, he thought de-bathification, he didn't use the term, but when the U.S. went into Iraq and fired everybody, he thought that was a bad idea. It was. At least so. He's right about that. Thanks to both of you.

1:36:54Donald Trump:Really appreciate it. Aaron Burnett out front. Live from Tel Aviv starts right now. Thanks, Ben.