🎥 Trump confirms Iran shot down US helicopter, vows retaliation

President Trump just provided an update on that U.S. military helicopter crash, he said. I have just been informed by our great military that last night, Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz. There were two pilots involved. Both are safe and uninjured. Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity of necessity, respond to this attack. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald J. Trump I'm going to go straight to the white House to Elayna Treen. Later. What more are you hearing about what the president might be referring to? In terms of responding? Yeah, I think, what this response will entail is obviously the key question here. We haven't gotten any more information other than what the president had just shared on social media. But I think one of the key parts of this post, Dana, is that he is saying that it was the Iranians that shot down this Apache helicopter. That is more information, of course, than we have gotten the statement from Centcom this morning. All it had said was that the cause of the incident is under investigation, not giving any information about who was responsible. While Trump is now saying it is the Iranians who were responsible for downing that helicopter and that they have to respond, the United States, out of necessity, very much unclear again, what he means by this. If he means potential strikes, or something else, but that can definitely, of course, be a major complicating factor after a very few, tense days, in this war, really between after, of course, we saw Israel and Iran exchanging fire. The president getting them to back off. Now, he's been optimistic. The latest we heard from him this morning very optimistic about a deal. But now saying he needs to respond to this. And I do want to provide some information while about the importance of these approaches, because this marks the downing of this helicopter, the first time an Apache, was lost since this war began, typically they have been responsible, for, precision attacks on some of these Iranian small boats we know that have been operating in the Strait of Hormuz, the United States, using them as part of the Iranian blockade. So all to say, it's unclear what this response is going to be. I think we have a lot of work to do, in our reporting with our sources on what this is going to look like. And I also think the fact that the president is even, coming out and saying that there needs to respond, be a response is a huge signal on how he's trying to handle this entire, moment at a very, fragile time for the cease fire negotiations. Dana. Yeah. It's so true. All of the factors here are very important. Thank you for bringing us to this breaking news. Let's go now to CNN's Zach Cohen. Zach, tell us, what you were hearing from sources and from the Pentagon. Yeah. Guys, we now know from two U.S. officials that it was an Iranian drone that took down this Apache helicopter that was operating around the Strait of Hormuz. And now this was a we're told this is an Iranian shaheed drone. This is one of thousands of these types of one way attack drones that Iran still has in its arsenal, despite the fact that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon have insisted that Iran's military capabilities have been heavily degraded. And again, this is a reminder, too, of the threat that Iran still poses not just to U.S. vessels and aircraft operating in that key waterway, but also to commercial vessels that have not yet started to regularly transit, for fear of of attacks from the Iranian regime. And so this is a new detail we're learning today, because earlier this morning, the Pentagon said it was still investigating what happened, what led to this crash of the Apache helicopter around the Strait of Hormuz. We now know, thanks to President Trump's tweet and subsequent confirmation from US officials that it was an Iranian drone. Now, what remains unclear at this stage, though, is what the intent was. If this was an intentional attack by the Iranians, or if there was a collision of some kind. But obviously, if you read the president's statement, that true social post right there, it doesn't really seem that he sees a difference between the two and that he feels it's important that the US aircraft was hit by an Iranian drone and that the US now, quote, must respond and said, do we know what options are being weighed as a response? Yeah, Boris, the military has been developing a series of options. We've seen them also respond to other Iranian attacks, aggressive actions around the Strait of Hormuz over the last few days, even. It will be interesting to see if the US response is ultimately proportional or if Donald Trump does order the military to carry out something more significant. We know the military has been developing a target list of potential, targets around the Strait of Hormuz, things like these drone launcher launch sites, missile launch sites, things that are key to Iran's ability to pose a threat to vessels operating in and out of the Strait of Hormuz, which is effectively how they've shut down that key waterway since the early days of this conflict. So it ultimately will be up to President Trump to decide how to move forward here. The key thing to watch for is will this response be proportional or will this be something that escalates the conflict further? Zach, last month, you and our colleague Natasha Bertrand reported that Iran had restarted building drones. It had re-upped its drone production during the cease fire. Is there any reflection on the part of administration officials that this cease fire being dragged out now, weeks and weeks, is giving Iran these capabilities? Yeah, Brianna, that's something that we hear from sources and U.S. officials in private, for sure. But we have not heard the president in particular or Defense Secretary PDX have voiced this similar concern. Really, painting a more optimistic and a more confident view of the damage that the US military has inflicted on the Iranians capabilities. But like you mentioned, we reported that the Iranians have been using this time the cease fire to reconstitute many of its military capabilities and has already restarted production on some of these attack drones, these attack drones that, as we've seen today, are capable of taking down an Apache helicopter, also a threat to US Navy ships and commercial ships alike. Look, this is a war that the U.S. and Israel started. And the president was very clear that he wanted it to be over very quickly. And time and time again, things have happened as is what you know, that's what happens in war. That sets back his desire for a deal that we have heard so many times that a deal is in the offing sometimes, last week, he said, potentially as soon as this weekend, he told farmers in Wisconsin that the fertilizer costs that skyrocketed because of the war would be down in 90 days because he was going to take. Let me just interrupt. Sorry, actually, just to play what the president said last night about this very thing. They were going back and forth, and now they've both agreed through May to stop. And we're in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal that will not allow in any way, shape or form nuclear weapons, etc. and the Strait will open up right away and open up immediately upon signing, which could be in 2 or 3 days, 2 or 3 days. And there he was talking about Iran and Israel and the fire that's been going back and forth there. But if you look back, our, colleague Aaron Blake did a terrific report that you can see on cnn.com. Since this cease fire started two months ago, the president has at least 38 times said some version of a deal is around the corner. Yeah, he's been really pushing for diplomacy here. And he has been calling this a cease fire. It's really a cease fire only by the president's definition, which he recently said just means a more moderate amount of shooting for that region, because you have seen a very hot Middle East in the wake of all of this. Yeah. And, you know, I think she's right. The president believes that there can still be some shooting and the ceasefire holds. But you've seen him so hesitant to restart these kinetic attacks even last night. He said, you know, we could bomb. That's an option. But the Strait of Hormuz would be closed for much longer. What has been much more helpful, he said, I'm paraphrasing, is the blockade. And so obviously we're learning more about what the are. We need to learn more about what the president's going to do. I've asked whether or not he's going to be in the Situation room monitoring, haven't heard back. And then a Centcom command or these com commander who has been the leading role of kind of announcing to the public what has been happening kinetically and including those, responses to those boat strikes that we've seen over the last two weeks. Is supposed to be briefing at 2 p.m. on the Hill. Remains to be seen, if that's okay. And it also because it takes two to tango. It also says something that Iran is so brazen that they shot down Apache helicopters. Helicopters? That doesn't sound like someone who's working towards a deal to end all of this. Not just, you know, making the shooting, less frequent, but ending it entirely. It shows that ending wars, they're easy to start, very hard to end. And Donald Trump has been, you know, making promises that are easier said than done. And we just have something else. And this is from the speaker of the Iranian parliament, which was posted right before President Trump, posted what we reported to you. And the Iranian speaker said, we prefer the language of diplomacy, but we speak other languages far more fluently. Break your commitments and we'll switch to what we speak best. You ride the horse you saddled. Wow, wow. You talk about brazen. This is pretty brazen. And the fact that Iran has kind of used Trump's own style online, in response to him is, is pretty striking. I mean, we were not hearing this kind of language in these kinds of threats out of Iran. Until very recently. And so much of this conflict has been, a strike would happen. And it was unclear how high that strike was ordered because of the inability, because of after those, strikes that took out those top leaders, an inability for one side of the Iran government military to talk to the other. And I think that Donald Trump has for a couple different time said, you know, those strikes are happening because they're not talking to the people. Those strikes are talking happening because they're not talking to the people. And so with that tweet, is he going to say that again?