President Donald Trump on Friday said the U.S. is ‘doing very well’ in Iran, nearly a week after the military coordinated with Israel on airstrikes in Tehran that left its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dead.
‘Somebody said, ‘How would you score it from zero to 10?’ I said, ‘I’d give it a 12 to a 15.’ Their army is gone. Their navy is gone. Their communications are gone. Their leaders are gone,’ Trump said. ‘Two sets of their leaders.’
The president made the remarks after Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked at the end of a White House college sports roundtable what was motivating Trump to hold the roundtableat that moment ‘because there is a lot of other stuff going on in the world.’
‘That’s right,’ Trump agreed, adding that Iran’s air force has been ‘wiped out entirely. Think of it. They have 32 ships. All 32 are at the bottom of the ocean. Other than that, they’re doing very well,’ he joked.
‘Our military is doing phenomenally,’ he said. ‘The situation with a very bad and very sick group of leaders who were killing a lot of people, a lot of our people were being killed or were being maimed … And we had a choice. We could take it and go on like that for years or do something about it. And we did something about it.’
Trump added that ‘people are very impressed with our military, and they admire our military with what happened in Venezuela, what’s happening now, what’s happened with the B-2 bombers before this, where they took out the nuclear capability or potential of Iran.’
He added, ‘I think we’re, right now, we’re a country that’s more respected than we’ve ever been respected before.’
Doocy also said to the president earlier, ‘It sounds like the Russians are helping Iran target and attack Americans now.’
‘That’s an easy problem compared to what we’re doing here,’ Trump said, referring to college sports, calling it a ‘stupid question to be asking at this time. We’re talking about something else.’
Earlier Friday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the U.S. won’t accept any deal with Iran ‘except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!’
‘After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before,’ Trump wrote. ‘IRAN WILL HAVE A GREAT FUTURE. ‘MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!).’’