Trump’s Address to the Nation on Iran
A Transcript
In case you missed it last night, below is a transcript of Trump’s speech on the Iran war, lightly edited for clarity:
My fellow Americans,
I am now going to look into the camera and lie to your faces.
Four, maybe five—some say six—weeks ago, we started Operation Epic Fury targeting the world’s number one state sponsor of terror, Iran.
Since then, our forces have delivered overwhelming military victories like few have ever seen before – and we have sustained strategic losses like you wouldn’t believe. I thought this would be quick, lethal, violent, and respected, like when we took Venezuela and formed a joint venture to sell their oil. Instead, it’s dragging on, gasoline prices are up, and boots are on their way to the ground.
Which is proof that we’re winning.
By the way, we don’t need to be in the Middle East, but we’re there to help our allies, who had made peace with Iran until we intervened. Now Iran is attacking them. We’re there to help.
Since I became president in 2015, I vowed that Iran would never have a nuclear weapon. For this fanatical regime — which recently killed 45,000 people whom I urged to take to the streets before they were gunned down — to have a nuclear weapon after I destroyed their nuclear program last June, would be intolerable.
This isn’t the first great thing I’ve done to stop Iran. Most importantly, I killed the evil genius, the father of the roadside bomb, a general whose name I cannot pronounce.
But most most importantly, I terminated Ayatollah Imam Barack Hussein Muhammad Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, which gave the terrorist regime $1.7 billion in cash and would have given them nuclear weapons — which the man I killed, Ayatollah Khamenei, issued a fatwa against. Instead, by lifting sanctions on Iranian oil sales and giving them the ability to tax ships sailing through the Strait of Hormuz, they can now make that in a week.
We also lifted sanctions on Russian oil and allowed a Russian ship to deliver oil to Cuba. Nobody stands up to or makes money for America’s enemies like I do. I was proud to do it. I’d do it again.
My first preference was diplomacy, but after tabling our maximum demands and giving Iran at least five minutes to consider them — which is all I need with Putin — we had to let the bombs fly.
We totally obliterated those nuclear sites in June 2025, entombing their uranium and making it necessary for us to take out their future reconstituted nuclear program that was set back years. They wanted to produce as many missiles as possible with ranges that maybe a decade from now could reach the United States. We took them out. We took them all out. All of them. Which is why we need two or three more weeks.
For years, everyone has said that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, but in the end those are just words if you’re not willing to threaten them so much that they actually want to produce one. So, you see, they were right at the doorstep.
As I stated in my announcement of Epic Fury, our objectives are very simple and clear: Iran cannot be allowed to project power beyond its borders like it currently is against Israel, our Arab Gulf allies, and US military bases in the region — or to hold the world economy hostage by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Now their allies, the WhoDeez? in Yemen, are going to close that other crucial waterway for international commerce: the Babs and Mindy, named after Epstein girls.
So, clearly, our core strategic objectives are nearing completion.
Many Americans have been concerned to see the recent rise in gasoline prices here at home. This short term increase may go on a while longer, and is the direct result of the Iranian regime attacking commercial oil tankers. Before the war, the Strait of Hormuz was open and oil passed freely through it. We attacked Iran. Then they closed it. Nobody told me they would. But they did. This is yet more proof that they can never be trusted with nuclear weapons. Because if they got one, they would use them, and they would hold the world hostage, leading to economic pain and instability like we have today.
The United States has never been better prepared to withstand this economic shock. We’re becoming so resilient. Losing manufacturing jobs despite tariffs. Squandering the $18 trillion in investment that Gulf countries will now need to rebuild their own infrastructure. Turning European and Asian allies toward China. We’re the hottest country in the world, folks. Just try going skiing out west.
Because of our drill baby drill program, we produce more oil and gas than Saudi Arabia and Russia combined. We use almost no oil that goes through Hormuz. So even though we released that raccoon in your kitchen, you deal with it, okay? It’s called consequence delegation. It’s the Pottery Barn rule: we broke it, you buy it. Even though we told you we don’t need your help, you weren’t there for us. So now gather up your courage and fix the mess we made you. Go take the Strait, okay?
Or buy American oil.
When the conflict is over, the Strait will magically open back up. Iran will not want to exact any price for our killing hundreds of their senior officials and thousands of their people. They will not want to tax the world economy — especially the ships going to and from our Arab Gulf allies who supported the war and hosted the military bases we used to attack them — to help rebuild their infrastructure and nuclear and ballistic missile programs, necessitating us doing this all over again.
We will continue Operation Epic Fury until our completed objectives are fully achieved. Regime change was never our goal, but regime change has occurred, because all of their original leaders are dead – except the ones that are still alive. Just like when all of our Founding Fathers died, Britain celebrated regime change in our country.
Iran’s new leaders are less radical and much more reasonable. But if they don’t make a deal, we are going to hit all of their kebab restaurants very hard and probably simultaneously. We have not hit their oil, because then we couldn’t take it — even though we don’t need it. Without oil, you can’t make kebab, folks.
We are unstoppable as a military force and bereft as a political one. If they make one move toward the nuclear sites we obliterated twice, we will obliterate them again. That’s what “obliterate” means. We hold all the cards.
Let’s keep this war in perspective. American involvement in World War I lasted for one year and seven months. World War II lasted three years, eight months. The Korean War lasted three years, one month. The Vietnam War lasted 19 years. Iraq went on for 8 years, 8 months. We are in this military operation against one of the most powerful countries — more powerful than the Kaiser or Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or Communist China — for…32 days. Keep your panties on.
Nobody can believe what they’re seeing, the brilliance of the United States military ending Iran’s sinister threat to America and the world. When it’s all over, I, my friends in the oil industry, and my insider trading buddies, will be safer, stronger, and more prosperous than ever before.
May God bless Kalshi and Polymarket. And may god bless America.