WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Wednesday delivered a sweeping account of U.S. military operations against Iran and Venezuela, declaring that American forces have annihilated Iran’s navy, air force, drone program, and military leadership, and boasting that the United States military has no equal anywhere on earth.
Speaking to reporters at the White House while signing the Secure America Act, Trump offered his most detailed public accounting yet of the military campaign, framing it as both a national security necessity and a demonstration of a force he said he personally rebuilt during his first term in office. “We have the greatest military in the world, the toughest military in the world, just the best in every way,” Trump said. “Nobody even close. There’s no military that’s even close. I rebuilt it during my first term. I’m using it now.”
From Venezuela to Iran
Trump recounted how the military campaign began not in Iran but in Venezuela, describing what he called a swift and decisive operation he has since framed as a precursor to the Iran strikes. “We first stopped off at Venezuela,” Trump said, describing a military action he characterized as having lasted less than a day. “It was a one-day war. It was really, to be exact, 48 minutes of fury and it was over.”
Trump said the United States has since established favorable relations with the Venezuelan people and is actively extracting oil from the country. “Venezuela is doing great. Relationships with the people are great. It’s become a happy country, believe it or not,” Trump said. “We’re taking out millions of barrels of oil from Venezuela.” He added that the cost of the military operations had been offset many times over by the economic returns.
Iran’s Military, Piece by Piece
On Iran, Trump described a systematic campaign that he said has left the Islamic Republic’s armed forces in ruins. “There’s no Navy,” Trump said. “159 ships at the bottom of the sea. There’s no air force. All of their planes are blown up. Most of their drones are gone. Most of their drone-making ability is gone. Most of their missiles are gone. All of their leadership is gone, so they replaced it. All of that leadership is gone, so they replaced it.”
Trump said the second wave of Iranian leadership that stepped in after the initial strikes has now become the party the United States is negotiating with, and he expressed cautious optimism about a deal. “I think they’re going to want to make a deal, but we’re going to find out,” he said.
The B-2 Bombers and a Decision Trump Called Courageous
Central to Trump’s account was his decision to deploy B-2 stealth bombers against hardened Iranian nuclear facilities — a strike he said required real political courage and was, by his telling, a complete success. “We hit him with the B2 bombers, which took a lot of courage,” Trump said. “It was totally successful. We buried it — very hard to get.” He described the target as deeply fortified but said American forces penetrated it.
The president also disclosed, apparently for the first time, that U.S. forces had conducted a large-scale covert naval operation against Iranian shipping under the cover of darkness. “We took out the other night 22 ships late at night with no lights because they don’t have any radar because we blasted the crap out of it,” Trump said, crediting the operation as a key factor in keeping global oil prices from spiking to the catastrophic levels his advisers had warned about before the war began.
Weighing the Economic Cost
Trump acknowledged that in deciding to launch the campaign, he had been presented with stark warnings from his own economic team: the stock market would fall sharply, potentially by 25 percent, and oil could reach $250 a barrel. He said those projections proved far worse than reality. “That’s why oil is $85 a barrel,” he said. “Which is pretty amazing.”
He cited what he described as a record-setting stock market run as evidence that the economy has weathered the conflict better than feared, claiming the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 50,000 — a figure he called previously unthinkable — during his first year back in office. “On the Dow, 50,000 was an impossible number. They said five, six years out you’d hit. Well, I hit it in my first year.”
A “Conflict,” Not a War
Trump acknowledged at one point a distinction he said was suggested by an adviser in the room. “Todd said, ‘Please call it a conflict, right?'” Trump recounted, referring to a preference for the term “military operation” over “war.” Trump used both terms interchangeably throughout his remarks.
On the question of what comes next, Trump returned to the economic promise at the heart of his pitch to the American public. He predicted that once the conflict concludes, oil prices will fall to levels not seen since the early months of his second term. “When this conflict is over, you will see oil drop to where it was before,” Trump said. “I was in Iowa and we passed gas stations $1.85 a gallon, and we’ll be back at those levels very soon.”