US President Donald Trump said it would be a defeat for him if Iran’s current regime is still in power when he leaves the White House, and warned that he could order military action against Tehran immediately.
Radio host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump whether he would consider it a defeat if “the Iran crazies” were still in power at the end of his term, Trump replied: “Yes, that would be a defeat.”
He said he would have “no hesitation” about using force again. “If I saw things going the other way, I would do that, and it’s possible I would do it right now,” he said. He added that Iran “will not exist very long any longer” if it killed a senior American official.
The president claimed the United States “totally” controls the Strait of Hormuz, and that Iran’s regime is collapsing under the pressure of soaring inflation and a military he described as “wiped out.”
The remarks came on the same day Trump said he had asked Vice President JD Vance to turn his attention away from Iran and toward fighting crime and corruption in Democratic-run cities. “We don’t need a deal,” Trump said of Iran.
The move is a sharp reversal. Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had empowered Vance to lead renewed negotiations with Tehran, and that Vance had written to Iran’s security chief, Mohsen Rezaei, requesting a meeting.
Vance has blamed the war with Iran for the Republicans’ heavy losses in last week’s midterm elections. Trump, in a separate interview on Thursday, said he was disappointed in voters who turned against his party over the war, calling it a small price to pay to stop a country that would use nuclear weapons.
Trump’s tougher tone comes as Israel’s security cabinet prepares to meet on Sunday, after instructing the IDF to raise its readiness for a possible new strike on Iran.
