WATCH: Trump holds news conference to answer questions about Iran

WATCH: Trump holds news conference to answer questions about Iran

President Donald Trump provided an update on Iran and answered questions from reporters before he left Florida on Monday.

Watch Trump’s news conference in our video player above.

The news conference came amid rising concerns about high oil and gasoline prices because of the war.

Trump told reporters at that the war with Iran began because that country was starting work on a new site for developing material for nuclear weapons.

Trump said the new site was meant to replace facilities bombed last year by the U.S.

“But they were starting work at another site, a different site, different kind of a site — and that was protected by granite,” Trump said.

The president added that Iran wanted to use the “exponentially growing ballistic missile threat to make it virtually impossible to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” claiming that Iran would have otherwise been able to take over the Middle East.

Though the president has long professed an “America First” policy prioritizing the U.S., Trump suggested at his news conference that the war was for the benefit of other nations, especially those dependent on oil that’s shipped through the Strait of Hormuz.

I mean, we’re doing this for the other parts of the world, including countries like China,” Trump said.

The president was asked about his comments earlier Monday in which he told a reporter that the war was “very complete,” while the Pentagon on Monday said on social media: “We have Only Just Begun to Fight.”

Trump was asked whether it was the end or the beginning and said, “It’s the beginning of building a new country,” a comment that seemed to suggest the U.S. might be engaged in the building of a new Iran.

Trump says he’s ‘disappointed’ by Iran’s choice of a new leader
The president told reporters that he thought the pick of Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father as Iran’s supreme leader would lead to “more of the same” for a country that he seeks to change.

Trump said it “would be inappropriate” to say whether Iran’s new leader would be targeted for a lethal assault as was his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.