Trump to hold news conference on airman rescue as his deadline for Iran looms
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks from the Cross Hall of the White House on April 1, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump will hold a news conference Monday in the White House briefing room, where he’s expected to give more details on the “daring” weekend rescue of a U.S. airman whose fighter jet was shot down over Iran.
Trump teased the upcoming briefing at the White House Easter Egg Roll.
“Those two pilots were incredible, brave, and we thank them,” Trump said.
Looming large over the president’s upcoming comments, however, is his latest deadline for Iran to make a peace deal or reopen the Strait of Hormuz — by 8 p.m. ET Tuesday — or face massive U.S. attacks on critical infrastructure, including energy and water facilities.
“Right now they’re not too strong at all, in my opinion,” Trump said of Iran at the Easter event. “But we’re soon going to find out, aren’t we?”
Trump told ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott on Sunday that if no peace deal is reached with Iran in the next 48 hours, “we’re blowing up the entire country.”
But in a profanity-laced post on his social media platform early on Sunday, Trump told the Iranian regime, “you’ll be living in Hell” if it did not open the critical maritime shipping channel for oil and trade.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” Trump wrote in the post.
Experts have warned that possible attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute war crimes and violate international law, a claim Iran makes as well. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, when pressed on the issue last week, told reporters: “Of course, this administration and the United States Armed Forces will always act within the confines of the law.”
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said in a post on X that if the U.S. attacks power plants, then Iran would deliver “a decisive, immediate, and regret-inducing response.”
Amid the threats of escalation, questions remain about the status of talks between the U.S. and Tehran, after President Trump said last week that the U.S. was carrying out negotiations with “much more reasonable” leadership.
Asked about reports of a new draft proposal that includes a 45-day ceasefire and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a White House official told ABC News on Monday: “This is one of many ideas, and POTUS has not signed off on it. Operation Epic Fury continues. President Trump will speak more at 1 p.m.”
When asked about the ceasefire proposal, Trump said at the Easter event that he’s seen “every proposal.”
“It’s a significant step, it’s not good enough but it’s a very significant step,” Trump said.
Iran said it will not accept a ceasefire without “suitable guarantees,” a Pakistani security official told ABC News.
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles listens as President Donald Trump announces the creation of the U.S. strategic critical minerals reserve during an event in the Oval Office of the White House on February 02, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said Monday that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer, which was detected early, and that she will continue to serve in her role while she undergoes treatment.
“I am grateful to have an outstanding team of doctors who detected the cancer early and are guiding my care, and I am encouraged by a strong prognosis,” Wiles said in a statement. “I am also deeply thankful for the support and encouragement of President Trump as I undergo treatment and continue serving in my role as White House Chief of Staff.”
President Donald Trump said in a social media post Monday that while Wiles undergoes treatment, “she will be spending virtually full time at the White House, which makes me, as President, very happy!”
During an event at the White House on Monday, Trump praised his top aide, saying that she is an “amazing fighter” and will “take care of it immediately,” referring to her treatment.
“She just started actually, and she’s going to be a great shape,” Trump said of her treatment. “The prognosis there is excellent, beyond excellent.”
Wiles has served as the White House chief of staff since the beginning of Trump’s second term.
She didn’t offer any additional details about her prognosis or treatment plan.
Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in women in the United States (excluding skin cancers). About 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer.
An estimated 321,910 females will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, the American Cancer Society estimates. An estimated 42,140 women will die.
Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen speaks to the media the day after U.S. President Donald Trump walked back on his most aggressive threats over acquiring Greenland on January 22, 2026, in Nuuk, Greenland. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
(GREENLAND) — Greenland’s prime minister has rejected President Donald Trump’s offer to send a U.S. military hospital ship to Greenland, dismissing the proposal as uninvited and rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of how Nordic societies function.
“It’s a no thank you from here,” Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a statement Sunday. “President Trump’s idea of sending an American hospital ship here to Greenland has been noted. But we have a public healthcare system where treatment is free for citizens. That is a deliberate choice — and a fundamental part of our society. That is not how it works in the USA, where it costs money to see a doctor.”
Trump made the announcement Saturday evening on his social media platform, posting alongside an illustration of the U.S. naval hospital ship USNS Mercy, saying, “We are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there. It’s on the way!!!”
On Saturday, a U.S. Navy sailor was medically evacuated from an American nuclear-powered submarine by Danish military forces, according to a U.S. and Danish official.
But what prompted Trump to float sending a hospital ship to Greenland isn’t clear, particularly given the Danish territory’s universal health system serving roughly 60,000 citizens. The White House did not return a request for comment.
Trump has long pushed the idea of the U.S. buying Greenland from Denmark, citing national security needs and tapping its natural resources, and has not ruled out taking it by military force over the heated objections of Greenlanders and the Danes. He said in January he had a framework of a deal with Denmark, Greenland and NATO, but revealed few details.
About 80% of Greenlanders have at least annual contact with a primary care doctor, according to data from Queen Ingrid Health Care Centre, the country’s main hospital hub. The figures are even higher for women: roughly 90% report regular contact, compared to 76% of men.
The U.S. Navy has two hospital ships, both currently in Mobile, Alabama, one of which is likely months away from being able to deploy. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The Mercy, whose homeport is San Diego, is a 1,000-bed hospital ship commissioned in 1986 and is deployed for disaster relief and other large-scale medical crises, including in 2020 when it deployed to Los Angeles, where the ship served as a floating relief valve for the city’s overburdened medical system during the first chaotic stretch of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s unclear whether it’s actually preparing to deploy to Greenland. The Navy did not immediately respond to a request for information on why it is in Mobile.
The Navy’s other hospital ship, the USNS Comfort is undergoing extensive maintenance in Mobile expected to last through April 26, according to the repair contract reviewed by ABC News.
Trump said he was working on the matter with Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, whom he appointed as a special envoy to Greenland last year. While Landry served in the National Guard for 11 years, he has no significant foreign policy or health care experience.
“We are always open to dialogue and cooperation — also with the USA,” Nielsen said. “But please talk to us instead of just making more or less random statements on social media. Dialogue and cooperation require respect for the fact that decisions about our country are made here at home.”
Former Special Counsel Jack Smith (C) arrives to testify during a closed-door deposition before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on December 17, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Former special counsel Jack Smith, testifying Thursday before the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee, was unequivocal about who caused the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Our investigation revealed that Donald Trump is the person who caused Jan. 6, that it was foreseeable to him and that he sought to exploit the violence,” Smith testified. “We followed the facts and we followed the law — where that led us was to an indictment of an unprecedented criminal scheme to block the peaceful transfer of power.”
Smith, who led investigations into Trump’s alleged interference in the 2020 election and alleged mishandling of classified documents, is testifying publicly for first time about his probes.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in both cases, before both cases were dropped following Trump’s reelection due to the Justice Department’s long-standing policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president.
The former special counsel said that partisan politics did not play a role in his decision to charge Trump in his two investigations.
“Some of the most powerful witnesses were witnesses who, in fact, were fellow Republicans who had voted for Donald Trump, who had campaigned for him and, who wanted him to win the election. These included state officials, people who worked on his campaign and advisors,” Smith said of his election interference probe.
In seeking to challenge the results of the 2020 election, Trump was “looking for ways to stay in power,” Smith testified.
Trump was not “was not looking for honest answers about whether there was fraud in the election. He was looking for ways to stay in power. And when people told him, things that conflicted with him staying power, he rejected them or he chose not even to contact people like that,” Smith told committee members.
Under questioning from Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Smith discussed the witnesses his team had interviewed in his election interference probe.
“There were witnesses who I felt would be very strong witnesses, including, for example, the secretary of state in Georgia who told Donald Trump the truth, told him things that he did not want to hear and put him on notice that what he was saying was false,” Smith said. “And I believe that witnesses of that nature, witnesses who are willing to tell the truth, even if it’s going to impose a cost on them in their lives — my experience as a prosecutor over 30 years is that witnesses like that are very credible, and that jurors tend to believe witnesses like that, because they pay a cost for telling the truth.”
Smith said that he got the phone toll records for some members of Congress because his office was investigating the conspiracy to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
“We wanted to conduct a thorough investigation of the matters, that were assigned to me, including attempts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power. The conspiracy that we were investigating, it was relevant to get toll records, to understand the scope of that conspiracy, who they were seeking to coerce, who they were seeking to influence, who was seeking to help them,” Smith said, arguing that it was a normal piece of an investigation.
In a back-and-forth with Republican Rep. Darryl Issa, Smith said he didn’t target then-President Joe Biden’s political enemies.
“Maybe they’re not your political enemies, but they sure as hell were Joe Biden’s political enemies, weren’t they? They were Harris’ political enemies. They were the enemies of the president and you were their arm, weren’t you?” Issa asked.
“No,” Smith said. “My office didn’t spy on anyone.”
He said that the decision to bring charges against Trump was solely his decision and that he was not pressured by any Biden official.
“President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold,” Smith said. “Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions as alleged in the indictments they returned.”
In his introductory remarks, Smith also said the president illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
“After leaving office in January of ’21, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago Social Club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents. Highly sensitive national security information withheld in a ballroom and a bathroom,” Smith said.
Smith said that the facts and the law supported a prosecution, and that he made decisions not based on politics, but the facts and the law.
“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican,” he said.
“No one, no one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that he be held to account. So that is what I did,” Smith said. “To have done otherwise on the facts of these cases, would have been to shirk my duties as a prosecutor and as a public servant, of which I had no intention of doing.”
He also criticized what he said was the retribution carried out by the president and his allies against agents and prosecutors who investigated the cases.
“My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted,” he said. “The rule of law is not self-executing. It depends on our collective commitment to apply it. It requires dedicated service on behalf of others, especially when that service is difficult and comes with costs. Our willingness to pay those costs is what test and defines our commitment to the rule of law and to this wonderful country.”
In his opening statement, Committee Chairman Jim Jordan blasted Smith for what he called a partisan investigation into President Trump and other Republicans.
“Democrats have been going after President Trump for ten years, for a decade, and the country should never, ever forget what they did,” Jordan said.
Jamie Raskin, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said that Smith proved that Trump “engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.”
“Special counsel Smith, you pursued the facts. You followed every applicable law, ethics rule and DOJ regulation. Your decisions were reviewed by the Public Integrity section. You acted based solely on the facts — the opposite of Donald Trump,” Raskin said.
Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell said that Republicans on the dais “are a joke.”
“They’re wrong. History will harshly judge them,” he said.
Trump’s Thursday appearance marks Smith’s second time before the committee, after he appeared behind closed doors last month. It is customary for former special counsels to appear before Congress publicly to discuss their findings.
In his closed-door testimony, Smith defended his decision to twice bring charges against Trump — telling lawmakers his team “had proof beyond reasonable doubt in both cases” that Trump was guilty of the charges in the 2020 election interference and classified documents cases, according to a transcript of the hearing.
And Smith fervently denied that there was any political influence behind his decision — contrary to allegations of Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, who requested the testimony — such as pressure from then-President Joe Biden or then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, the transcripts shows.
“No,” Smith responded continuously to those allegations, according to the transcript.
Just over an hour before his testimony on Dec. 17, the Department of Justice sent an email to Smith’s lawyers preventing him from discussing the classified documents case, according to the 255-page transcript of the deposition, released last year by the Judiciary Committee along with a video of the hearing.
This meant Smith was unable to answer most questions on that case and the deposition — intended to ask questions about the alleged weaponization of the DOJ against Trump and his allies — mainly focused on the 2020 election case instead.
His team also said Smith will comply with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s order that blocked the release of the second volume of his report dealing with the classified documents case.
Smith’s counsel said the DOJ also refused to send a lawyer to advise Smith on whether his statements were in line with their determination of what he could or could not say regarding the cases, according to the deposition. Smith did say, however, that Trump “tried to obstruct justice” in the classified documents investigation “to conceal his continued retention of those documents.
