Donald Trump has now said that Iran’s military was largely untouched by U.S. strikes over the past three months, contradicting countless statements he has made and continues to make about the scale of the U.S.’s successes in the ongoing war.
The president spoke in an interview that aired Saturday with his daughter-in-law Lara Trump on Fox News. As the war in Iran now runs past the three-month mark, the U.S. remains mired in a stalemate with Iran under the shadow of a shaky ceasefire that Trump is now considering an offer to extend for another 60 days.
A war that the president and his team have long insisted would be over in “days” or even just a few weeks is now at a flashpoint with the U.S. having proven largely unable to forcibly open the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for global energy shipping traffic. Negotiations continue, but details of a pending agreement to extend the ceasefire indicate that the sides are still far apart on the eventual question of Iran’s nuclear program, including its future enrichment capabilities.
On Saturday Trump gave another description of the U.S. operation, and seemed to break from his past claims of having obliterated Iran’s military.
After saying Iran’s navy and air force were “totally gone”, the president then commented on Iran’s “military”, telling Lara Trump: “Their military, we’ve sort of left it alone, because we think that their military is somewhat, somewhat moderate….We’ve actually left their military alone. People would be surprised to hear that.”
He went on to claim that leaving Iran’s “military” intact was necessary to keep the country from collapsing into chaos as had occurred in areas of Iraq and Syria with the rise of the Islamic State, partially caused by the power vacuum resulting from the U.S.-led purge of Saddam Hussein’s party from Iraq’s government after the 2003 invasion.
“Mistakes have been made in wars where you wipe out everybody and then you have a country that, for 40 years you can never rebuild,” Trump said, pointing to Iraq specifically.
This was the first mention the president appears to have made about avoiding U.S. strikes against specific parts of Iran’s armed forces. But he seemed to contradict it only moments later, in the same interview.
“Iran is in a very bad position. They have no military, all they have is good talk and a fake press,” said the president.
The confusing and seemingly opposite stances were explained away by some experts and the president’s supporters on X as a verbal slip-up, with Trump supposedly having meant to refer to Iran’s IRGC, the Revolutionary Guard corps, as he was referring to Iran having “no military” remaining.
But the president’s actual words made no mention of the IRGC.
“Now we know why Trump still hasn’t been able to open the Straight of Hormuz. It’s because, in the cognitively impaired mind of Trump, Iran cleverly has the only Schrödinger military in the world: it exists and it doesn’t exist all at the same time,” quipped Rep. Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California, in a tweet responding to a clip of the exchange shared on X.
Lieu added in another tweet, responding to one of Trump’s angry defenders: “I didn’t hear trump say IRGC. He said military both times.”
And the apparent slip-up comes as the U.S. still has not inked a deal to extend the ceasefire, despite it being reported as early as last Thursday that the agreement was finalized and awaiting the president’s approval. U.S. officials claimed last week that the agreement would see the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, while conversations began anew about the nuclear program and Iran’s desires for U.S. sanctions relief, as well as the possible release of funds tied up in western financial systems.
It remains unclear if the delay is due to Trump’s own hesitance to anger his neoconservative Iran hawk allies, who were adamantly opposed to sanctions relief or releasing frozen Iranian funds during the Obama administration’s negotations around the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, or whether negotiators continue to touch up the proposed agreement. Vice President JD Vance told reporters on Thursday that parts of the deal were still being tinkered with.
The Trump administration is heading into the summer months with gas prices slowly ticking downwards (mostly due to optimism around ceasefire talks) after the national average jumped by more than a dollar per gallon with the war’s onset. Experts have warned that some price increases will likely remain in place for months, even if traffic through the Strait begins increasing, and the possibility always remains that hostilities could resume in the area.
Trump’s proclamations about the war and the strength of Iran’s military continue to be met with doubt as Iranian forces have made clear that they have the resources and ability to continue harassing shipping traffic in the Strait in a manner that can cause severe impacts to the global economy.
Iran’s government has also not collapsed, despite initial proclamations from the president’s allies and some in his administration that regime change would be a major part of the U.S.’s goals.
