WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump sought Wednesday to explain his rationale for the war against Iran at a pivotal moment at home and abroad, but he offered few new details as he amasses extraordinary executive authority to prosecute the military operation.
Notably missing from Trump’s primetime address was his oft-repeated assertion that negotiations with Iran were underway. He softened his insults against NATO allies and did not indicate he was preparing to send in ground troops, particularly to retrieve Iran’s enriched uranium. But he gave no definitive end date for the conflict.
The war is fast becoming a signature of his second-term agenda, and the speech was a capstone to a remarkable day flexing presidential power.
Trump started the morning as the first sitting president to show up for a U.S. Supreme Court hearing, a stunning reach of the executive into the affairs of the judicial branch. He ended with his first address from the White House about a war he launched on his own, bulldozing past Congress.
On a night when many Americans may have been looking upward as Artemis II astronauts lifted off for NASA's return to the moon, Trump gave a nod to that historic milestone. Then he quickly refocused attention back to him — and to the conflict with Iran that has killed more than a dozen U.S. service members and appears to have no easy exit in sight.
"America, as it has been for five years under my presidency, is winning — and now winning bigger than ever before," Trump said.
“We’re going to finish the job and were going to finish it very fast," he added.
Trump tries to sell Americans on the war
The president said he wanted to “discuss why Operation Epic Fury is necessary for the safety of America and the security of the free world.”
He aimed to show that one goal of Wednesday’s speech was to take on the confusion that has persisted as the administration shifted its reasons for launching the war.
But over the course of nearly 20 minutes, Trump did not offer any new explanations.
He maintained that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, calling such a prospect “an intolerable threat,” and said the country was building a vast arsenal of ballistic missiles that were a threat to America’s homeland.
While he said Iran’s ballistic missile capacity was greatly reduced, he didn’t explain how the operation had headed off Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He and his administration had previously insisted that the U.S. and Israel “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program in strikes last summer.
And as he painted the threats from Iran generally as having been wiped away, Trump didn’t back up that assertion, especially as multiple competing factions of power remain within Iran’s theocracy.
Iran long has insisted its nuclear program was peaceful. It had, however, been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels.
Before the war, U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that Iran had yet to begin a weapons program, but had “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”
Trump provides little information about next steps
Thousands of additional U.S. troops are heading to the Middle East. Gulf allies are urging Trump to finish the fight, arguing that Tehran hasn’t been weakened enough.
And yet Trump days ago predicted the U.S. will be done “within maybe two weeks." On Wednesday, he said the U.S. would hit Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.” Then oil prices rose.
He said the “core strategic objectives are nearing completion" and did not signal any preparations for a ground invasion by American troops — to retrieve Iran's enriched uranium or help secure the Strait of Hormuz, where a chokehold by Iran has sent energy prices soaring.
In fact, he said the nuclear sites bombed last year would be difficult for Iran to access and that the U.S. has them under satellite surveillance.
“If we see them make a move, even a move for it, we'll hit them with missiles very hard,” he said.
Trump is fast approaching the 60-day mark when he must seek approval from Congress under the War Powers Act to continue any military operations.
He did not discuss any diplomatic efforts to work toward a ceasefire and seemed to suggest the war would end after the U.S. finished hitting its targets. After days of Trump insisting that positive talks with Iran were happening, the omission was noticeable. Iran has denied the negotiations were taking place.
Trump avoids renewed threats to NATO allies
Despite having started the week with a torrent of abuse directed at NATO allies and other U.S. partners for not participating in the conflict, which included several direct threats to withdraw from NATO, Trump was unusually restrained in his comments.
He did not mention NATO at all and said merely that countries depending the most on global oil shipments usually transported through the Strait of Hormuz need to take the lead in protecting the key waterway once the war is over.
“The countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage,” he said in his address. “They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it."
Trump said those countries should “build up some delayed courage,” but he did not call specific allies out by name as he has previously.
“Go to the strait and just take it," he said. "The hard part is done, so it should be easy.”
Trump faces political ramifications and economic worries at home
Trump, who ran as the “America First” president vowing not to drag the country into endless wars, has yet to fully address the political pushback he faces from his own base of supporters over the Iran conflict.
In the most explicit terms yet, he acknowledged that many Americans are concerned about gas prices and called them a “short-term increase.”
But the president insisted the U.S. has become “the hottest country anywhere in the world” with Americans benefitting from what he calls the “big beautiful bill” he signed into law last year.
In fact, the U.S. economy is roiling, the financial markets are swinging with Trump’s various pronouncements about the war — including after his address — and Americans are facing pain at the pump as the cost of living rises.
He didn’t offer any new measures to try to address economic concerns and sought to persuade people that it was a cost to bear for a greater future cause.
He recounted the long wars in Korea and Vietnam and vowed the U.S. would be better off because of this one.
“This is a true investment for your children and your grandchildren’s future,” he said.
