CNN Reporter Calls Trump Out For Blurting ‘KEEP THE OIL’ Amid Search For Downed US Fighter Crew

CNN White House correspondent Kristen Holmes called out President Donald Trump for blurting “KEEP THE OIL ANYONE?” while rescue efforts were underway to recover the fighter crew that was shot down in Iran.

News broke Friday that two U.S. warplanes — an F-15 and an F-35 — were shot down by Iranian missiles and two other aircraft were hit by Iranian fire during rescue operations. One member of the F-15 crew is still missing.

As the events unfolded, Trump’s only public comment for hours was a Truth Social post that read “KEEP THE OIL, ANYONE?”

On Friday’s edition of CNN’s The Arena, guest anchor Pamela Brown asked Holmes what she was hearing from the White House. Holmes noted the president’s post, and added “No actual response to the fact that this ongoing search and rescue mission has happened, that someone was rescued, that this plane was shot down”:

PAMELA BROWN: Kristen, I want to bring you in. We know the president has been briefed on this. What are you hearing from the White House?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we’ve really been hearing almost nothing from the White House except for moments ago. President Trump did a brief phone interview with NBC News in which he told them that the jet going down would not affect any ongoing negotiations. Now, we have come to believe that we don’t actually know what is happening with those negotiations.

I just want to remind you, we originally said that this meeting in person, meeting between the U.S. — excuse me, there’s a bee — between the U.S. officials and Iranian officials was going to be last weekend. Then it was moved to that week. And then it seems to have completely fizzled out. So, where those negotiations stand, that is still a huge question.

President Trump himself publicly has only done one thing in the last six hours posted on Truth Social, saying, keep the oil, anyone. No actual response to the fact that this ongoing search and rescue mission has happened, that someone was rescued, that this plane was shot down.

Of course, all of this coming as President Trump has definitively said, that the U.S. is almost completely, essentially won the war. At one point he said this, and I want to read this quote, “We literally have planes flying over Tehran and other parts of their country. They can’t do anything about it.”

Now, I was told originally that the reason the White House wasn’t engaging in this, that they wanted everything to be streamlined. They wanted it to go through U.S. Central Command. They were waiting for a press release from them. They kept telling me it was coming. It still has not come.

So, it’s unclear what the method is here for getting communication or getting information out to the public. But so far, all we’ve heard from President Trump is one line about oil and keeping oil, and then this other line about it not impacting negotiations.

BROWN: All right. We’ll see if we ever get that statement from U.S. Central Command.

Watch above via CNN’s The Arena.

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