At the end of his White House roundtable on college sports on Friday, Donald Trump said he would take one or two questions and called on a favorite Fox News correspondent, Peter Doocy.

Doocy asked the president about reporting from the Washington Post and Fox News, that Russia is providing intelligence to Iran to help it target US assets in retaliatory strikes.

“Thank you, president Trump,” Doocy said. “It sounds like the Russians are helping Iran target and attack Americans now-”

Trump cut him off to joke that possible Russian assistance to Iran in the war launched by the US and Israel, is “an easy problem compared to what we’re doing here”, referring to the discussion of how college sports might be changed.

After pausing for laughter from the assembled supporters in the room, Trump scolded the Fox News correspondent for daring to mention the war.

“But can I be honest? It’s just- I have a lot of respect for you. You’ve always been very nice to me. What a stupid question that is to be asking at this time. We’re talking about something else.”

The Associated Press reported on Friday that Russia, whose president, Vladimir Putin, met with Trump last year to talk about ending the Ukraine war he started, has provided Iran with information that could help it “strike American warships, aircraft and other assets in the region,” according to two officials familiar with US intelligence on the matter.

A few minutes later, Trump pointed at Doocy again and said, “Peter, I’ll give you one more chance, because that was a bad question you asked before.” When Doocy asked if he could bring up something other than college sports, Trump said no.

When Doocy then asked why he was doing an event on sports “right now, because there is a lot of other stuff going on in the world,” Trump did briefly address the war in Iran, but not the reporter’s question about Russia’s role.

“In, uh, Iran, we’re doing very well. Somebody said, ‘How would you score it from 0 to 10?’ I said, ‘I give it a 12 to a 15’, the president said.

Trump has largely avoided questions from reporters since he launched the war on Iran in concert with Israel on Saturday from his Florida beach club, Mar-a-Lago. The next day, when he returned to the White House from Florida, Trump ignored reporters’ shouted questions about Iran as he paused in the paved-over Rose Garden to admire newly installed statues of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

As reporters shouted, “Mr President what is your main objective?” and “Who do you want to lead Iran?” Trump simply pointed at the bronze likenesses and said, “Unbelievable statues, you’ll see, come and look at them”.

The reporters, however, were kept at a distance and could only shout requests for the president to come over to “talk to us about Iran”.

Instead, Trump turned and walked away, not breaking stride as one reporter shouted, “Mr President, what’s your message to the families of the service members who were killed?”