President Donald Trump said he would “never apologize” for the war with Iran and downplayed the financial toll it has taken on Americans. “I did the right thing,” he added.
He argued higher gas prices have been worth it in his pursuit of preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon.
“For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember… we don’t want to have them have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said Friday.
Catch up on the latest headlines:
- Strait of Hormuz: Trump said he plans to declare the strait a US territory after “we finish defeating Iran.” Tehran countered that, with its deputy foreign minister saying the strait “cannot be seized with a tweet, an aircraft carrier, an executive order, or a campaign speech.” Traffic in the waterway remains at less than a fifth of pre-war levels, and no genuinely safe shipping route exists in the region, according to a maritime intelligence group.
- Costly proposal: Declaring the strait a US territory would necessitate deploying troops in the area indefinitely — at the least — though Trump previously vowed to keep the war brief. Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran has not decided whether to resume negotiations with the US.
- Conflicting messages: As Trump claims he “did the right thing” in taking military action against Iran, others in his orbit have signaled a tone shift. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said keeping gas prices low and ensuring Iran never gets a hold of a nuclear weapon are of equal importance to the president. Vice President JD Vance recently said “goal number one” is “cheap” gas and oil prices for Americans, and “goal number two” is avoiding a nuclear-armed Iran.
- Crew welfare concerns: A second sailor with the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group went overboard last spring, according to a sailor currently serving on the Lincoln and two US officials. CNN previously reported on a sailor who officials said jumped into the water off of the Lincoln in early August during a mental health incident. Trump dismissed claims that families of service members on board had concerns about the conditions on the carrier and said the ship’s lengthy deployment was “not nearly long enough.”
CNN’s Laura Sharman, Aida Karimi, Mitchell McCluskey, Kit Maher, Julia Benbrook, Pamela Brown, Shoshana Dubnow, Haley Britzky, Issy Ronald, Eleni Giokos, Mustafa Qadri and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed reporting.
