President Donald Trump told reporters traveling with him that the United States had carried out major new strikes on Iranian targets, declaring the Iranian Navy “gone,” its Air Force “hit hard,” and calling the day “a big day.”
In a 2-minute-43-second off-the-cuff exchange captured on C-SPAN2 and rapidly circulating on X, Trump jumped between military successes, ongoing negotiations, and his assessment of the Iranian regime.
Key moments from the clip include:
- Trump stating the U.S. has “destroyed a lot of additional targets today,” adding that Iran’s Navy is effectively eliminated and its Air Force severely damaged.
- He said the U.S. is negotiating with Iran “directly and indirectly” and claimed Iran had just allowed 20 boats of oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz “as a sign of respect” / “tribute.”
- In one of the most widely quoted lines, Trump said: “We negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up… whether it’s B-2 bombers or just terminating [the Iran nuclear deal]… We had to blow them up again.”
- He called the 2015 Obama-era nuclear deal “probably the worst deal we’ve ever done” and reiterated that he terminated it during his first term.Trump repeatedly asserted that the U.S. has achieved “regime change” in Iran, describing the “really evil” original leadership as “mostly dead” and saying Washington is now dealing with “a third group of people” who are “much more reasonable.”
