You re being disingenuous Karoline Leavitt blasts CNN s Kaitlan Collins in fiery clash

Thanks, Caroline. Prior to the Iran conflict, the SAVE Act was really the focus of the news cycle. Is the SAVE Act still a priority for the administration? Can you just provide an update on the administration's talks with Congress to get the SAVE Act through? SAVE Act is absolutely still a priority for this President and the administration. The focus, of course, of much of the President's time right now is on ensuring the success of Operation Epic Fury, but the President can walk and chew gum at the same time, and he's very much continuing to focus on the issues that matter here at home for the American people, including the passage of the SAVE Act, including on bringing down the cost of living, which is why you'll see the President in about an hour and a half at the Ratepayer Protection Pledge Roundtable, where he will be sitting with big tech companies, with AI companies, who are building in communities across the country and have pledged to pick up the cost of the electricity tab in these small towns and communities across the country, which is a great thing for American consumers. So you'll be hearing from the President directly on this very important domestic agenda item later this afternoon, and it's something that he mentioned in his State of Union Address, so check it off the list as another promise made and kept by this President. Caroline. Sure. Go ahead. Thanks, Caroline. I just wanted to get back to Danny's question. So those four objectives that you read out do not explicitly include regime change. If those objectives were achieved and the Islamic Republic still existed, would that be an acceptable outcome? That's a hypothetical question that I'm not going to engage in again. Right now, the President and the Commander-in-Chief are focused on executing the success of Operation Epic Fury, which we are already doing so in a very tremendous and impressionable way. Stephen. Thank you, Caroline. Two questions. The Trump administration reportedly is considering arming Kurdish forces in the hopes of inspiring a popular uprising in Iran. Can you comment on that report? I can comment on the fact that the President has held many calls with partners, allies, and leaders in the region, in the Middle East. He did speak to Kurdish leaders with respect to our base that we have in northern Iraq. But as for any report suggesting that the President has agreed to any such plan is completely false and should not be written. President Trump was saying yesterday that he is okay with someone from within taking over in Iran. He spoke about how Venezuela, he saw as a successful model, where Delsi Rodriguez took over and had a better relationship. Iran's President Zeshgian, he took office in 2024 as a relative reformer. He's part of a three-man council now replacing the Supreme Leader. Does President Trump see him as a potential successor who is more pliable? Again, that's another hypothetical, and I haven't spoken to the President about this specific individual, so I don't want to get ahead of him on any assessments that should be made. Caroline. Thank you. Yesterday, the President acknowledged that oil prices will be a bit high. As for gas prices here in the U.S., what is the admin doing right now to counter that? I mean, should it skyrocket? Is there a plan to help Americans right now with those higher gas prices? And then a second question. On the rash that was on the President's neck, the White House physician said it was a preventative skin cream that he was using, but why is the President using this cream? What are they trying to prevent with this cream? To your second question, I don't have anything additional to add to the physician's statement that we provided to all of you on those questions, but I know the statement said that the redness on the neck will dissipate within the next couple of weeks. To your first question about oil prices, thank God we have a President who has exuded American energy dominance over the past year, an administration that is wholeheartedly focused on keeping prices stable as best as we can. Of course, this operation is temporary to protect the homeland, but crude oil prices did fall yesterday. They remain stable today after the President announced steps to ensure the stability in global energy markets. Again, those include the DEC offering reasonably priced political risk insurance and the potential for the U.S. Navy to provide protection for the flow of energy through the Strait of Hormuz. It is the President's belief and his economic team's belief that the economy continues to be very strong, it's robust, and will be able to weather any of the temporary impacts of Operation Epic Fury. John. Thanks a lot, Caroline. Just a follow-up to that, the timeline for making the Strait of Hormuz safe for oil tankers to transport their oil through the Strait, what is that timeline and what can the President do to speed up that timeline? I don't want to commit to a timeline, but certainly it's something that is being calculated actively by both the Department of War and the Department of Energy. They're working very closely. Both Secretaries are in all of the briefings on this subject with the President, and this is, again, something they're monitoring. If and when necessary, the United States Navy will provide assistance to escort oil tankers through the Strait. Caroline. Sure. In the blue. You're not in blue, Andrew. Go ahead. Thank you. Well, I guess you are, sort of. I'll go to you. You had mentioned about the commercial aircraft being used for the evacuations. What about the use of military aircraft? Would that happen in conjunction with that or subsequent to? That is something that is definitely underway, and of course, we're going to use that in conjunction. We want as many planes, whether they're chartered, commercial, or military, taking Americans out of the Middle East and returning them safely home. So yes. Caroline. Andrew, go ahead. Thank you, Caroline. You're welcome. You listed a long list of grievances against the Iranian Government, going back to the takeover of the embassy in 1979, the barracks bombing in the 80s, et cetera. But no one from the administration has laid out the imminent threat that was supposed to be taken care of by this, and the rationales offered by, say, Secretary Rubio, the President's National Security Advisor, said that the threat was retaliation against American interests from Iran after Israeli strikes. The President says it was his own feeling that Iran was going to attack. Why is it that across the administration you can't say what the imminent threat against the United States was that required us to launch this? And also, Prime Minister Starmer told Parliament today that his reason that he didn't allow the use of British bases was that he was not satisfied that there was a lawful basis and a viable, thought-through plan. Was there an attempt to provide the UK Government with a legal basis for these strikes and a viable, thought-through plan? To the first question, I completely reject the premise of your question. You have had the President of the United States, the Secretary of War, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Vice President of the United States, the Secretary of State. And now I am out here today to explain to you exactly what led the President to make the decision to launch Operation Epic Fury. And President Trump does not make these decisions in a vacuum. This decision to launch this operation was based on a cumulative effect of various direct threats that Iran posed to the United States of America. And the President's feeling based on fact that Iran does pose an imminent and direct threat to the United States of America, based on the fact that they are the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, based on the fact that they were rapidly and aggressively building up their ballistic missile program to give themselves immunity within their country alongside their Navy so that inside their country they could continue to create nuclear weapons and nuclear bombs, which would, of course, pose a risk to Americans in the region and even Americans one day here at home. And then another point on this is the President found that through these extensive, exhaustive, failed negotiations with Iran that they were hell-bent on death and destruction. So, again, the President was not going to be just another President on a very long list who sat back and stood by and passed the buck of this direct threat to the next administration. The President had a feeling, again, based on fact, that Iran was going to strike the United States, was going to strike our assets in the region, and he made a determination to launch Operation Epic Fury based on all of those reasons. And I would like the media to actually report on all of them rather than just picking sound bites from one person in this administration and saying, oh, they're contradicting the other person. No. Again, these decisions are not made in a vacuum. They are made by the President's feeling that Iran was going to strike the United States and our assets in the region, and he was not going to sit back and watch that happen. The determination was made that the President was going to strike first alongside Israel, and that has obviously been proven to be the right decision and an effective one at that. Libby. Libby, go ahead. Thank you, Caroline. A two-part question for you. First, has the President spoken with the family members of those U.S. service members that were killed? Second, given what you've outlined throughout this entire briefing, I mean, the United States has sunk a bunch of Navy ships. We've hit all of these targets. What can Americans expect the goal to be moving forward now that the U.S. has accomplished all of this? What is victory, given we've even taken out Iran's Supreme Leader? What's the goal? Again, victory will be determined by the Commander-in-Chief once the goals and the objectives that we have repeatedly laid out are fully realized. Again, we just – in the next few hours, we'll be achieving that dominance over the skies, which means the United States military will be raining missiles and weapons down on Iran to hit these specific targets that have been identified as crucial to take out by the Department of War. Caroline. John. Thank you so much, Caroline. Has the U.S. posture changed in regard to a nuclear North Korea, given the latest strikes on Iran and the fact that the stated goal is to make sure that Iran is not a nuclear country? I don't have any change in position with respect to North Korea today. Thank you. A quick follow-up. There's been reports that Ali Khamenei's son has been elected as the next Supreme Leader. Does the administration think that he is a part of the same regime as his father? Would they like people in the country to uprise or rise up and get him out of power? There's reports he's been elected or that he's assuming to be elected, one of the likely options. Pardon me. What was that? That he's one of the likely options or that he has been elected. Okay. So we'll wait to confirm until someone actually is elected. Caitlin. You just mentioned that the President is going to attend the dignified transfer for these families. Given what Secretary Hegseth said this morning, is it the position of this administration that the press should not prominently cover the deaths of U.S. service members? No, it's the position of this administration that the press in this room and the press across the country should accurately report on the success of Operation Epic Fury and the damage it is doing to the rogue Iranian regime that has threatened the lives of every single American in this room. If the Iranian regime had their choice, they would kill every single person in this room. And so we can all be very grateful that we have an administration and that we have men and women in our armed forces who are willing to sacrifice their own lives for the rest of us in this room and for every American across the country and for every troop that is based in the Middle East. That's what these... But Secretary Hegseth was complaining that it was front page news about these six service members who were killed. That's not what the Secretary said, Caitlin, and that's not what the Secretary meant. And you know it. You know you are being disingenuous. There is not... We've never had a Secretary of Defense who cares more... He's letting the drones get through where tragic things happen. It's front page news. I get it. The press only wants to make the President look bad. As you know, we cover the debts of U.S. service members under every president. The press does only want to make the President look bad. That's a fact. Especially you. No, listen to me. Especially you and especially CNN. And the Secretary of Defense cares deeply about our war fighters and our men and women in uniform. He travels all across this country to meet with them, to connect with them, and your network has hardly ever probably reported on that. You also had the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Chairman Cain, who's a brave patriot, standing alongside the Secretary at the Pentagon this morning, again expressing his condolences to these families. And I just told you that the President of the United States will be attending their dignified transfer. So please... We're not only covering their dignified transfer. That's not making the President look bad. That's showcasing that. We expect you to cover that as you should. We expect you to cover that as you should, Kaitlan. But you and your network know that you take every single thing this administration says and tries to use it to make the President look bad. That is an objectable fact. I don't think covering troop deaths is trying to make the President look bad. If you're trying to argue right now that CNN's overwhelming coverage is not negative of President Donald Trump, I think the American people would tend to agree. And your ratings would tend to disagree with that as well.