Matt Gaetz, the former U.S. Representative for Florida’s 1st congressional district and current One America News host, said on Tuesday that Iran will not obtain a nuclear weapon during Donald Trump’s presidency, crediting Operation Midnight Hammer with destroying Tehran’s nuclear program and calling for the war to be brought to a close.
Gaetz posted the statement to X at 11:36 a.m. on August 11, 2026. His full post read:
“Iran won’t have a nuclear weapon during Trump’s Presidency. Midnight Hammer obliterated the nuclear program. So let’s end this and get back to making AMERICA great again.”
Operation Midnight Hammer refers to the U.S. strikes carried out on June 22, 2025, when American B-2 stealth bombers dropped GBU-57 bunker-buster munitions on Iran’s Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites, while a U.S. submarine fired Tomahawk missiles at supporting targets. The strikes, executed during the Twelve-Day War between Iran and Israel, were described by Trump at the time as an operation “there is not another military in the World that could have done.”
Gaetz’s post arrives more than a year after those strikes and roughly five months into a separate, larger campaign, Operation Epic Fury, which began on February 28, 2026, when Trump authorized a joint combat operation against the Iranian regime after what the administration described as repeated Iranian refusals to negotiate in good faith.
The White House later declared the core military phase of Epic Fury complete after 38 days, stating that more than 85 percent of Iran’s defense industrial base, including the bulk of its ballistic missiles, launch vehicles and long-range drones, had been destroyed, and that Iran’s air force had been reduced from dozens of daily sorties to zero. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at the time that “Iran begged for this ceasefire — and we all know it.”
Despite the April ceasefire declaration, fighting and disruptions in the region have continued in the months since, including strikes on commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf, drone attacks reported in Kuwait, and a British Navy report of a tanker struck near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. As of early August, diplomatic tracks involving Oman and other regional mediators remained active, with a draft Iran-Oman text reported to be under review by Iran’s parliament.
Trump himself signaled a desire to wind down the conflict on August 7, telling reporters the war “has got to end pretty soon” and that he did not believe Iran “can go much longer.” Days earlier, on August 1 and 2, Trump said he called off a planned weekend strike campaign, which he characterized as the largest planned U.S. military operation since World War II, at the request of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Iran, citing progress toward “the perimeters of a deal.”
Gaetz’s Tuesday post is consistent with a position he has staked out publicly for months. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine, Texas, in March, Gaetz cautioned Trump and the U.S. military against escalating the conflict with a ground invasion of Iran, telling the crowd, “I want President Trump to have every diplomatic tool at his disposal, and I do trust that he knows a great deal more than I do.” He added, “But a ground invasion of Iran will make our country poorer and less safe,” warning it would mean “higher gas prices, higher food prices,” and that the U.S. was “not sure we’d end up killing more terrorists than we would create.”
At that same CPAC appearance, Gaetz called for unity within the Republican Party over the growing rift regarding Iran policy, saying, “We cannot move into midterms with self-inflicted wounds. We have to end this cancel culture that is now occurring on the right.” He added that “dissent and disagreement has to be allowed,” specifically noting that “Tucker Carlson isn’t going anywhere,” and stated, “antisemitism isn’t hiding around every corner and in every bush.”
Gaetz has long identified with a non-interventionist wing of the Republican Party on foreign policy, a position dating back to his time in Congress, where he backed a 2020 resolution aimed at limiting Trump’s authority to strike Iran without congressional approval following the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. He also pushed during his House tenure to withdraw U.S. troops from deployments in Somalia and Syria.
In an earlier X post responding to hawkish rhetoric around the Iran war, Gaetz drew a comparison to the post-9/11 era, writing that framing the conflict in binary terms was “the 2025 version of Bush saying ‘you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists.'” He said that argument “felt good for awhile, then it resulted in Forever Wars, Republicans losing control of Congress, and Obama being elected,” adding, “It was a dumb argument then and now. I’m not ‘pro-Iran’ I’m not ‘pro-Putin’ I’m anti-war when the US interest and exit plans are unclear and uncertain.”
Independent assessments of Iran’s nuclear program since the June 2025 strikes have varied. Prior to Midnight Hammer, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran had enriched uranium to 60 percent purity, close to weapons-grade at 90 percent, and held approximately 408.6 kilograms of that material, enough for an estimated four to five nuclear warheads if further enriched. The IAEA declared Iran in material breach of its Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations on June 12, 2025. Since the strikes, the agency has been unable to conduct in-field verification of Iran’s remaining enrichment capacity or the location of its pre-strike stockpile.
Iran has continued to publicize the toll of the broader conflict. Iranian state media released images this month of wreckage from a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle and multiple MQ-1 and MQ-9 drones lost during Operation Epic Fury, displaying the debris in what was described as an underground exhibition.
Gaetz resigned from Congress in November 2024 after Trump nominated him for U.S. Attorney General, a nomination he withdrew from consideration roughly a week later amid insufficient Senate support. Since leaving the House, he has worked as a host for One America News and has been floated as a potential candidate for Florida governor in 2026, a race open to Republicans following Governor Ron DeSantis’s term limit. In June, Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez appointed Gaetz to the Triumph Gulf Coast Board of Directors, a role Gaetz’s father, State Senator Don Gaetz, previously held.
Gaetz’s Tuesday post did not elaborate further on what “ending this” would entail in practical terms, nor did it address the status of ongoing negotiations involving Oman or the security of Iran’s pre-strike uranium stockpile. As of publication, Gaetz had not issued a follow-up statement or an official release expanding on the X post.