President Donald Trump dismissed a reporter’s question Monday about whether Iran retains any leverage over the United States in ongoing negotiations, telling reporters in the Oval Office that Iran’s military has been effectively eliminated and rejecting a recent New York Times report suggesting the country’s capabilities remain comparable to where they stood four months ago. The exchange came during a press availability following the signing of two executive orders on quantum technology.
Asked directly, “Does that give them leverage over you, Mr. President? Does that give them leverage, the Iranians, leverage over you?” Trump responded with an extended rebuttal. “Oh, you’re so stupid. You know, their navy is gone, their air force is gone, their leaders are all dead. Their whole country is a mess. Their economy is shot,” he said. He then turned to a specific report he attributed to The New York Times, paraphrasing its assessment as claiming Iran’s military posture was “about the same as it was four months ago.” Trump rejected that characterization outright.
“No, four months ago, they had a Navy, 159 ships to be exact. It’s gone. The whole Navy is gone,” Trump said. He continued with a litany of claimed losses, stating that Iran’s roughly 250 aircraft were “all gone,” along with the country’s anti-aircraft systems and radar capabilities. “These guys love radar. Their radar is gone. Everything’s gone. Their leaders are gone. Their whole country is gone,” he said.
Trump went on to connect the dispute over Iran’s military status to his broader complaints about media coverage of his administration, framing the disagreement as evidence of declining public trust in mainstream outlets. “The reason the news is doing so badly, or let’s put it another way, the reason that I won in a landslide, even though I got 92% negative press, all fake press, is because nobody believes the press anymore,” he said. He argued that outlets reporting Iran’s capabilities as largely intact were “grasping” for a narrative that did not match the facts on the ground as he described them.
The president elaborated further on what he characterized as the scale of damage to Iran’s military infrastructure, stating that “most of their missiles are gone,” that “most of their launching pads are gone,” and that the country’s “manufacturing capacity for drones and missiles is gone” by an estimated 87 percent. He extended the claim to Iran’s political leadership as well, asserting that the country’s first, second, and third tiers of leadership had all been eliminated. “You have to hear the conversations. Who wants to be president? Well, I don’t want it. Nobody wants to be president,” Trump said, describing what he suggested was reluctance among remaining Iranian officials to assume top positions.
Trump’s remarks come roughly a year after Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 2025 U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, and follow a more recent round of U.S. and Israeli military action against Iran earlier this year that preceded the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding. That earlier operation, according to the Congressional Research Service, involved over 125 U.S. aircraft, including seven B-2 Spirit bombers, and roughly 75 precision-guided weapons, including 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators deployed against nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordow, along with more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles launched at a nuclear facility in Isfahan.
The memorandum, whose full text was disclosed by a senior U.S. official on a conference call with reporters earlier this month, declares the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts” between the United States and Iran and establishes a 60-day window for both countries to negotiate a comprehensive final agreement. That agreement is expected to address the disposition of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, the schedule for lifting U.S. and international sanctions, and a reconstruction package involving at least $300 billion in investment, contingent on Iran’s continued compliance with the ceasefire terms.
Trump used the same exchange to pivot toward broader claims about the U.S. economy, asserting that record levels of investment and employment undercut any narrative of instability tied to the ongoing Iran situation. “We have the strongest economy we’ve ever had. We have 18 to 19 trillion dollars being poured into our country. We’re building factories all over the place. We have more people working today than at any time in the history of our country at higher salaries,” he said, before concluding that the original question about Iranian leverage was, in his words, “so stupid.”
The president’s comments reflect a consistent pattern throughout his second term of pairing claims about Iran’s diminished military capacity with broader criticism of mainstream media coverage and assertions about the strength of the U.S. economy. Independent assessments of Iran’s post-conflict military and nuclear capabilities have varied, with some defense analysts and outlets offering more measured characterizations of the damage inflicted during both the 2025 and 2026 rounds of U.S. and Israeli action than the full elimination described by Trump on Monday.
The exchange took place against the backdrop of ongoing technical negotiations in Switzerland, where Vice President JD Vance has been engaging with counterparts on issues tied to the memorandum’s implementation, and ahead of a planned trip to the Middle East this week by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Both officials have played central roles in shepherding the 60-day negotiating period toward what the memorandum specifies must ultimately be endorsed by a binding United Nations Security Council resolution.
As the negotiating window continues to run, Monday’s exchange underscored the extent to which the administration has staked its public messaging on the claim that Iran’s military and leadership structures have been comprehensively dismantled, a framing Trump has repeated frequently since the strikes occurred and one he again invoked Monday in dismissing any suggestion that Tehran retains meaningful negotiating leverage.