U.S. President Donald Trump joked on Saturday that his late uncle, MIT engineer John Trump, would “probably be angry at me, but I knocked out their radar,” after claiming that “my uncle invented radar.” He made the remarks after a reporter asked how far along he was on a possible attack on Iran, a question he answered by saying, “while we’re thinking about doing it, and maybe tomorrow, do you really think I’m gonna tell you?” The White House has told ABC News that the United States “will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the midterm elections.”
Trump spoke to reporters in Palm Beach, Florida, after he and first lady Melania Trump voted early in the Nov. 3 midterm elections, The Associated Press reported. He was heading to a campaign rally in Georgia later that day.
A Wall Street Journal reporter asked how far along he was on “a possible attack on, on Iran.”
Trump first asked whether anyone from the newspaper could “ask a question so stupid,” then asked whether reporters thought he would reveal his plans. He went on: “If I’m going to do it, and there’s a possibility I will, there’s also a possibility we’ll have a nice, big, beautiful agreement,” adding, “they wanna make a deal.” He questioned whether Tehran would “hold the deal” and said, “I’ve got to make it permanent.”
Trump then listed what he said U.S. forces had destroyed. “They had 259 jet fighters. You know where they are? Laying out all over the runway in little pieces,” he said. “They’ve knocked out every ship. 259 ships all at the bottom of the sea. They’ve, uh, knocked out the, uh, all of the, actually some of the things that my uncle invented, the radar.”
“My uncle invented radar. Can you believe it? From MIT, Dr. John Trump,” Trump said. “I mean, he’ll probably be angry at me, but I knocked out their radar. I knocked out all of the different things.” Trump did not say he was joking, but the remark about his uncle’s reaction could not have been literal: John Trump died in 1985.
He said Iran’s only remaining advantage was “inflation,” which he put at “301%” as of that morning. “So we’ve done a great job, and the question is, do we finish that?” he said. He added that doing so would not be difficult. “Or do we make a deal with them? And that’s going to be up to them,” he said, before ending the exchange.
The record does not support the claim that John G. Trump invented radar. The president’s paternal uncle was a longtime MIT electrical engineering professor and high-voltage pioneer. During World War II he “interrupted his high-voltage career to work on microwave radar in the MIT Radiation Lab,” and in 1944 became director of its British branch, according to his National Academy of Engineering memorial tribute. He died in 1985.
The Radiation Lab itself was set up in late 1940, after a British mission brought the cavity magnetron to the United States. At the time the British were “ahead of the United States in the development of microwave technology,” according to MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s history of the lab. British physicist Robert Watson-Watt had demonstrated radio detection of aircraft in 1935, according to the Science Museum Group’s record of his apparatus.
Trump has made inaccurate claims about his uncle before. In July 2025 he said the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, had been one of John Trump’s students. Kaczynski never attended MIT, CNN’s fact check found.
Official figures from Iran’s statistical agency put inflation far below 301%. Iran International, a Persian-language outlet based in London, reported that the Statistical Centre of Iran measured annual inflation at 73.6% in September and point-to-point inflation at 89.8%, with food prices up more than 100%. Trump did not give a source for his figures on jets and ships, and they could not be independently verified. His figure for ships also changed during the day: later on Saturday, at a rally in Georgia, he put the number of Iranian ships sunk at 159, not 259.
The United States and Israel began striking Iran on Feb. 28. An April 8 ceasefire was announced in a White House statement on the ceasefire, and U.S. strikes resumed in July, according to a War Powers notification to Congress. The Pentagon has put the U.S. death toll in the war at 21 troops, The Washington Post reported.
Trump’s statements about his uncle inventing radar, Iran’s 301% inflation and the 259 jets and ships destroyed are his own characterizations. The historical record credits radar’s development to British and other researchers, and Iran’s official inflation data is far lower. Neither the White House nor Iranian officials addressed the radar remark directly by Sunday. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday that “whether there is war or not, our policies remain the same,” AFP reported.