Trump Press Conference: Iran Has No Navy, Air Force, or Leadership — War Danger Ended Three Days Ago

Excerpts from Trump press conference on Iran (March 10, 2026): Q: Thank you Mr. President. Regarding Iran, you described this as a "limited action" and said it would end soon. Do you mean this week? Or within a few days? Trump: No. But I think soon. Very soon. Look, everything they had is gone, including their leadership. In fact, two levels of leadership have been eliminated and actually, as it turned out, even more than that. But two levels of leadership have been eliminated. Most people have never even heard the names of the leaders being discussed. So it is clear that this operation has been very powerful and very effective. Q: You said the war is, in your words, "very complete," but your Secretary of Defense says this is just the beginning. Which is correct? And how long should Americans prepare for this war to continue? Trump: Well, I think you can say both. It is a beginning — a beginning of building a new country. But they certainly no longer have a navy. They do not have an air force. They do not have air defenses. Everything has been blown up. They have no radar. No communications and no leadership. Everything is gone. So you can look at that sentence from that angle. We can, right now, as we leave here, call this a tremendous success; or we can go further, and we will. But the main danger of that war ended three days ago. We took them down in those first two days. Q: You previously said that we have already won in many respects, but have not won enough yet. What does "enough" mean to you? What is your benchmark? Trump: That they do not start a nuclear weapons development program again the day after this. That they look at that man and a few other government members and say — okay, we are not going to do this anymore. They were not willing to say that. And when Steve called and told me this, I said okay, then we are going the hard way. But I think the hard way is probably the easy way. When I can actually see that for a very long time they have no capacity to develop weapons that could be used against the United States, Israel, or any of our allies. We have great allies in the Middle East, large countries that are our allies, and until they were targeted, they had not gotten involved. Someday a report should be made about why he did this? Why they did this? But if I had not struck them earlier, they were going to attack these countries; they were going to hit our allies first. Based on intelligence and indicators, I believe they intended to take over the Middle East. They were seeking to seize the Middle East. Now if Operation Midnight Hammer had not happened, this was certain, because they were within weeks of a nuclear weapon. But that operation happened and dealt them a huge blow. Still, look at the number of missiles they managed to buy and build in just the past six months. And those missiles were aimed at various countries. When you see more than a thousand missiles fired at a country like the UAE, it is clear they were seeking dominance over the Middle East. We got there first. They got lucky. I tell you, the Middle East and those countries — which are very wealthy countries — are very lucky that I was president and not someone else. Q: Is there any point of disagreement between you and your Vice President about US action in Iran? Trump: I do not think so, no. On this we are very well aligned. I can say philosophically he differed from me somewhat. I think maybe he was less eager than me to enter this matter; but he was fully on board. But I felt this was something we had to do. I did not feel we had another choice. If we had not done this, they would have done it to us. Based on negotiations that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and Marco and Pete and everyone were involved in, I felt they were ready to strike us before we struck — and if they had attacked us first, it would have been very bad. Q: You said you are considering taking control of the Strait of Hormuz. Is there a timeline? Trump: Yes, I want to keep it open. I want it to be in good shape. You know, this does not matter to us as much as it does to China. We are actually here helping China and other countries because much of their energy comes through this strait. But look, we have a good relationship with China. I am proud to do this.