His address raised more questions than it answered about the war in Iran.
Americans have been waiting for their president and commander in chief to address the nation and explain why the country is at war. For weeks, Donald Trump has offered only snippets and sound bites about his decision to lead the United States into another conflict in the Middle East; his primetime address this evening was, one assumes, aimed at informing and reassuring the American public.
Maybe he’d have been better off not trying. Trump’s critics (including me) have castigated him for refusing to go on television and provide a comprehensive explanation of the war to the American people. But given his performance this evening, perhaps he had the right instinct. His address did not come across as a wartime speech but instead was a disjointed series of complaints, brags, and exaggerations (along with a few outright lies) delivered by a man who looked and sounded tired. After his 19 minutes on the air—brisk by Trump’s standards—Americans could be forgiven for being even more concerned now than they were only a few days ago.
A speech that should have been a clear explanation of why the United States is fighting a nation of 92 million people began instead in shambolic style. He discussed the operation that captured the president of Venezuela, perhaps hoping to make listeners believe that the Iran war will be a similarly short operation. He then said that Iran has taken losses never seen “in the history of warfare”—as if the destruction of, say, the Axis in World War II had never happened.
Trump offered little that was new, instead repeating the same lines from a short video presentation the night that he ordered attacks on the Islamic Republic, more than one month ago. He listed—rightly and correctly—the various offenses that the fanatical Iranian regime has perpetrated against the United States and other countries for nearly a half-century. But he couldn’t help himself: He patted himself on the back for killing Iranian terror mastermind Qassem Soleimani in his first term, and for cancelling the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by Barack Obama. (“Barack
Hussein Obama,” of course.) The United States, Trump claimed in a strange moment, had emptied out all the banks in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia as part of that deal—“all the cash they had”—to send that “green, green” currency to Iran.
But back to the war: What is America fighting for? Trump insisted that Iran must never be allowed to get a nuclear weapon. Almost no one would disagree with this general point—certainly I don’t—but Trump presented no evidence that Iran was nearing the nuclear threshold. Instead, he simply asserted that the Iranian mullahs were going to get a nuclear weapon and that the United States had to stop them: In other words, he admitted to launching a preventive war based on something that might happen one day.
Trump, however, then undercut his own point by assuring the country that Iran’s “nuclear dust” was buried under mountains of rubble, inaccessible since the great success of last June’s joint Israeli-American strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. The Iranians would never be allowed to excavate any of it, he said.
So, then, perhaps the war was about regime change, which would be the surest way to stop every evil plan gestating in Tehran, including nuclear weapons and terrorist plots. Well, no, it turns out, the war is not about
that either. Trump explicitly denied that the goal was to bring down the Iranian theocracy—a staggering claim given his exhortations to the Iranian people
on the first night of the war that their hour of liberation was at hand. After denying that the U.S. goal was regime change, he then claimed that regime change had now
already happened because so many Iranian leaders have been killed.
In addition to ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Trump laid out three other goals that he said were now within reach: neutralizing Iran’s ability to project power anywhere through terrorism, destroying the Iranian Navy, and eliminating Iran’s missile stocks and production capabilities. As with so many other Trump promises, the president said that he will accomplish these goals in two to three weeks. How he will do all this was left unclear, other than that he will hit Iran “extremely hard.”
Meanwhile, Tehran still controls the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said only that other nations should go in, clear the Strait, and take Iran’s oil. He chided Americans for their impatience; the two world wars, and conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq took longer than the current war, he said. He also waved away any economic concerns. Everything will get better, he promised, telling viewers that only a year ago America was a “dead and crippled country” that he personally rescued. Oddly, Trump claimed that the United States has never been more economically prepared for a conflict—the “little journey,” as he called it—like the one he has led against Iran.
The president also said things that might come back to haunt him. He vowed not to let Israel or America’s friends in the Gulf “get hurt or fail in any way, shape, or form,” as if Iran were not already inflicting damage on them. And he assured Americans that gas prices would come down. (They might, but not anytime soon.) He threatened, yet again, to bomb all of Iran’s electrical plants, a likely war crime if carried out with the completeness that Trump promised should Iran refuse to … well, do whatever it is he thinks they should do. “We are unstoppable,” he said, noting that U.S. forces were in combat against “one of the most powerful countries.” (This, too, is nonsense: It takes nothing away from U.S. military valor to admit that Iran was at best a second-tier power even before the war.) America might be unstoppable, but the American president seems to be at loose ends now that the Iranians have a chokehold on a major part of the world’s energy supply.
The only bright spots in the speech were in the things the president did
not say. He did not, as many observers expected, prepare Americans for the introduction of ground forces into Iran. (If he now goes ahead with such an operation, he will have betrayed the public by misleading them about the course of the war.) And he did not eviscerate NATO and threaten to pull out of the alliance, as some expected him to do because of his ongoing anger at major European powers’ unwillingness to join a war they did not start.
If the president meant to be reassuring, however, he missed the mark. The reality, as best we can tell, is that Trump fully expected the Iranian regime to collapse in a matter of days or weeks, and he is now flummoxed to find out that a major war is a lot more complicated than he—or
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth—realized. The president’s delivery tonight was hardly a confidence-building exercise. He was, as he himself might say, low-energy—mumbling and lapsing into the repetitive phrases that come out when he’s riffing on a point instead of reading the speech in front of him. (I lost count of how many times he said “like nobody’s ever seen” and “decimated” and “never before.”)
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Trump Stirs Market, Political Angst With Vague Timeline for Iran
US President Donald Trump during a prime-time address to the nation on April 1.
President Donald Trump finally tried to sell the American public on his Iran war.
But his primetime address five weeks into the messy conflict instead underscored the US president’s growing defensive posture, as pressure mounts on global shipping routes, gas prices and his political party.
Trump said the US operation was close to completion, in an attempt to reassure a skeptical public. Still, the speech lacked new announcements — most notably a precise timeline for an exit. He also pledged more aggressive actions in the next two to three weeks, including potential strikes on electrical plants. The president also did not present any new arguments or explanations for the war, instead reiterating his desire to destroy Iran’s military and nuclear capabilities. Likewise, there was no concrete plan for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy thoroughfare. While he said diplomatic discussions continue, he shared no breakthroughs on ending the conflict.
Acknowledging the domestic political concerns gripping his party, Trump briefly addressed gasoline prices, a key psychological gauge of the US economy, which climbed above $4 a gallon in recent days. When the war ends, he declared, “the gas prices will rapidly come back down. Stock prices will rapidly go back up.” Investors had the opposite reaction to the rhetorical scraps the the president had to offer. Treasury yields climbed and the dollar pushed higher as Trump’s remarks triggered gains in crude oil. US equity futures retreated. “The administration hoped this speech would calm markets and bring energy prices down but energy prices actually went up during the speech,” Marc Short, who served in Trump’s first administration, posted on social media. “If the U.S. isn’t going to secure the Strait of Hormuz, who is?”
Trump added of the nearly five-week-long conflict that has claimed thousands of lives: “We had to take that little journey to Iran to get rid of this horrible threat.”
Uncertain Timeline
Whether Trump’s two- to-three week horizon holds remains to be seen. Trump has made and broken such promises before, but he has grown increasingly frustrated with the war and the geopolitical fallout in recent days, which has his team eyeing a quick exit. “The hard part is done, so it should be easy,” Trump said.
Still, even if Trump makes good on his apparent vision of winding down the conflict in the next few weeks, the military episode has already left a lasting stain on Trump’s economy and threatens his political standing. As a candidate, Trump promised to bring down the cost of living and to avoid long-term military entanglements. His war with Iran has run counter to both of those promises, frustrating Americans concerned about so-called forever wars and the price at the pump. For Republicans running in November’s midterm elections, Trump’s actions have made an already challenging campaign year even harder.
A CNN poll released this week put Trump’s approval rating at 35% and support for his handling of the economy at 31%. That survey suggests that gas prices have frustrated Americans, with 63% saying higher costs have caused some financial strain in their household. Since the US and Israel launched the war in late February, the economic fallout has been swift. The war has thrust one of the world’s most important oil- and gas-producing regions into tumult. US crude prices settled above $100 a barrel on Monday for the first time since 2022 in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That year was also the last time US gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon.
Market Pressure
Those pressures have also impacted financial markets. The $31 trillion US Treasuries market notched its its worst monthly performance since late 2024 in March, with bond investors concerned that the war-driven surge in oil prices would ignite inflation and force the US Federal Reserve to take a more aggressive stance.
Still, ten-year yields are relatively little changed compared with where they were on Election Day 2024. The dollar has also soared since the conflict began, postings its strongest month in March since mid-2025. And as much as the US and Israeli military strikes have degraded Iran’s military capabilities, the leadership in Tehran has publicly appeared unbowed. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian took the unusual step of releasing a letter addressed to Americans, warning that “continuing along the path of confrontation is more costly and futile than ever before.”
Trump has vacillated between appeals to and threats against Iran to make a deal, and has lashed out at allies for refusing to help reopen the strait. The president portrayed the US as being on the path toward victory and asserted that the strait was for other countries to resolve. Despite the vitriol he’s directed at NATO members and others on social media in recent days, his exhortations toward them during Wednesday’s speech were relatively mild.
“They must grab it and cherish it. They can do it easily. We will be helpful, but they should take the lead,” he said. As he sought to project strength, Trump asserted that Iran’s nuclear capabilities will be eliminated, even though it remains unclear that Iran’s near-bomb-grade uranium stockpile has been moved or destroyed. Trump also again claimed that there had been regime change in Iran but Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the early hours of the war, has been replaced by his son. He made no mention of his push early in the conflict for Iranians to rise up against the the regime. Trump has largely stopped using that line, as an organized domestic effort to topple the government has failed to materialize.
“He merely extended and repeated what he’s been saying for days,” said David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist and longtime adviser to former President Barack Obama. “Same assertions, leaving the same questions.” While the war may have achieved some US military and strategic goals, it has broadly appeared to be a diplomatic disaster for Trump: it has strained ties with key European allies, exposed wealthy Gulf monarchies to deadly Iranian drone and missile attacks, and raised food, fertilizer and fuel prices in Europe and poorer countries across Asia. The US has also used up vast stores of costly and hard-to-replace missiles and air defense interceptors that could have been sent to Ukraine and Taiwan or used by the US against stronger adversaries, such as Russia and China.
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Full speech transcript:
Thank you very much. My fellow Americans, good evening. Let me begin by congratulating the team at NASA and our brave astronauts on the successful launch of Artemis 2. It was quite something. It will be traveling further than any manned rocket has ever flown and will very substantially pass the moon, go around it and come back home from a distance that has never been done before. It's amazing. They are on the way and God bless them. These are brave people. We want to God bless those four unbelievable astronauts.
As we speak this evening, it's been just 1 month since the United States military began Operation Epic Fury targeting the world's number one state sponsor of terror, Iran. In these past 4 weeks, our armed forces have delivered swift, decisive, overwhelming victories on the battlefield. Victories like few people have ever seen before. Tonight, Iran's navy is gone. Their air force is in ruins. Their leaders, most of them, terrorist regime they led are now dead. Their command and control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is being decimated as we speak. Their ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed and their weapons, factories, and rocket launchers are being blown to pieces. Very few of them left. Never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such clear and devastating large-scale losses in a matter of weeks. Our enemies are losing and America, as it has been for 5 years under my presidency, is winning and now winning bigger than ever before.
Before discussing this current situation, I also want to thank our troops for the massive job they did in taking the country of Venezuela in a matter of minutes. That it was quick, lethal, violent, and respected by everyone all over the world. After rebuilding our military during my first term, we have by far the strongest military anywhere in the world. And now we're working along with Venezuela and are, in a true sense, joint venture partners. We're getting along incredibly well in the production and sale of massive amounts of oil and gas, the second largest reserves on Earth after the United States of America.
We're now totally independent of the Middle East, and yet we are there to help. We don't have to be there. We don't need their oil. We don't need anything they have, but we're there to help our allies. Tonight, I want to provide an update on the tremendous progress our warriors have made in Iran and discuss why Operation Epic Fury is necessary for the safety of America and the security of the free world. From the very first day I announced my campaign for president in 2015, I have vowed that I would never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. This fanatical regime has been chanting death to America, death to Israel for 47 years. Their proxies were behind the murder of 241 Americans in the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, the slaughter of hundreds of our service members with roadside bombs. They were involved in the attack on the USS Cole, and they carried out the countless other heinous acts, including the blood just horrible, bloody atrocities of October 7th in Israel. Something that most people have never seen anything like it.
This murderous regime also recently killed 45,000 of their own people who were protesting in Iran. 45,000 dead. For these terrorists to have nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat. The most violent and thuggish regime on Earth would be free to carry out their campaigns of terror, coercion, conquest, and mass murder from behind a nuclear shield. I will never let that happen, and neither should any of our past presidents. This situation has been going on for 47 years and should have been handled long before I arrived in office. I did many things during my two terms in office to stop the quest for nuclear weapons by Iran first, and perhaps most importantly, I killed General Qassem Soleimani in my first term. He was an evil genius, brilliant person, a horrible human being, however, the father of the roadside bomb, and he lived just horrible what he did. Iran would have been perhaps in far better, stronger position had he lived. We would have had probably a different conversation tonight. But you know what? We'd still be winning and winning big.
And then very importantly, I terminated Barack Hussein Obama's Iran nuclear deal, a disaster. Obama gave them 1.7 billion dollars in cash, green, green cash. Took it out of banks from Virginia, DC, and Maryland. All the cash they had. Flew it by airplanes in an attempt to buy their respect and loyalty, but it didn't work. They laughed at our president and went on with their mission to have a nuclear bomb. His Iran deal would have led to a colossal arsenal of massive nuclear weapons for Iran, and they would have had them years ago, and they would have used them. Would have been a different world. There would have been no Middle East and no Israel right now, in my opinion, the opinion of a lot of great experts. Had I not terminated that terrible deal that I was so I was so honored to do it. I was so proud to do it. It was so bad right from the beginning. Essentially, I did what no other president was willing to do. They made mistakes, and I am correcting them. My first preference was always the path of diplomacy, yet the regime continued their relentless quest for a nuclear weapons and rejected every attempt at an agreement.
For this reason, in June, I ordered a strike on Iran's key nuclear facilities in Operation Midnight Hammer. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. Those beautiful B-2 bombers performed magnificently. We totally obliterated those nuclear sites. The regime then sought to rebuild their nuclear program at a totally different location, making clear they had no intention of abandoning their pursuit of nuclear weapons. They were also rapidly building a vast stockpile of conventional ballistic missiles, and would soon have had missiles that could reach the American homeland, Europe, and virtually any other place on Earth. Iran's strategy was so obvious. They wanted to produce as many missiles as possible, and they did, with the longest range possible, and they had some weapons that nobody believed they had. We just learned that out. We took them out. We took them all out so that no one would really dare stop them in their race for a nuclear bomb, a nuclear weapon, a nuclear weapon like nobody's ever seen before. They were right at the doorstep. For years, everyone has said that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons, but in the end, those are just words if you're not willing to take action when the time comes.
As I stated in my announcement of Operation Epic Fury, our objectives are very simple and clear. We are systematically dismantling the regime's ability to threaten America or project power outside of their borders. That means eliminating Iran's navy, which is now absolutely destroyed, hurting their air force and their missile program at levels never seen before, and annihilating their defense industrial base. We've done all of it. Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Their missiles are just about used up or beaten. Taken together, these actions will Iran military, crush their ability to support terrorist proxies, and deny them the ability to build a nuclear bomb. Our armed forces have been extraordinary. There's never been anything like it militarily. Everyone is talking about it, and tonight, I'm pleased to say that these core strategic objectives are nearing completion. As we celebrate this progress, we think especially of the 13 American warriors who have laid down their lives in this fight to prevent our children from ever having to face a nuclear Iran. Twice this past month, I have traveled to Dover Air Force Base, and it's been something. I wanted to be with those heroes as they returned to American soil, and I was with them and their families, their parents, their wives, their husbands. We salute them, and now we must honor them by completing the mission for which they gave their lives. And every single one of the people their loved one said, "Please, sir. Please, finish the job." Every one of them.
And we are going to finish the job, and we're going to finish it very fast. We're getting very close. I want to thank our allies in the Middle East, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain. They've been great, and we will not let them get hurt or fail in any way, shape, or form. Many Americans have been concerned to see the recent rise in gasoline prices here at home. This short-term increase has been entirely the result of the Iranian regime launching deranged terror attacks against commercial oil tankers in neighboring countries that have nothing to do with the conflict. This is yet more proof that Iran can never be trusted with nuclear weapons. They will use them, and they will use them quickly. It would lead to decades of extortion, economic pain, and instability worse than we can ever imagine. The United States has never been better prepared economically to confront this threat. You all know that. We built the strongest economy in history. We're going through it right now. The strongest in history. In 1 year, we've taken a dead and crippled country. I hate to say that, but we were a dead and crippled country after the last administration and made it the hottest country anywhere in the world by far with no inflation, record-setting investments coming into the United States, over $18 trillion, and and the highest stock market ever with 53 all-time record highs in just 1 year.
It all positioned us to get rid of a cancer that has long simmered. It's known as the nuclear Iran, and they didn't know what was coming. They've never imagined it. Remember, because of our drill, baby, drill program, America has plenty of gas. We have so much gas. Under my leadership, we're number one producer of oil and gas on the planet without even discussing the millions of barrels that we're getting from Venezuela. Because of the Trump administration's policies, we produce more oil and gas than Saudi Arabia and Russia combined. Think of that. Saudi Arabia and Russia combined. And that number will soon be substantially higher than that. There's no country like us anywhere in the world, and we're in great shape for the future. The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won't be taking any in the future. We don't need it. We haven't needed it, and we don't need it. We've beaten and completely decimated Iran. They are decimated both militarily and economically and every other way, and the countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage. They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it. They can do it easily. We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on.
So, to those countries that can't get fuel, many of which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, we had to do it ourselves. I have a suggestion. Number one, buy oil from the United States of America. We have plenty. We have so much. And number two, build up some delayed courage. Should have done it before. Should have done it with us as we asked. Go to the Strait and just take it. Protect it. Use it for yourselves. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done, so it should be easy. And in any event, when this conflict is over, the Strait will open up naturally. It'll just open up naturally. They're going to want to be able to sell oil because that's all they have to try and rebuild. It will resume the flowing, and the gas prices will rapidly come back down. Stock prices will rapidly go back up. They haven't come down very much, frankly. They came down a little bit, but they've had some very good days over the last couple of days. We've done actually much better than I thought, but we had to take that little journey to Iran to get rid of this horrible threat. With our historic tax cuts, where people are just now talking about receiving larger refunds than they ever thought possible. They are getting so much more money than they thought. That's from the great, big, beautiful bill. Our economy is strong and improving by the day, and it will soon be roaring back like never before. It will top the levels that it was a month ago.
I've made clear from the beginning of Operation Epic Fury that we will continue until our objectives are fully achieved. Thanks to the progress we've made, I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly. We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing. Regime change was not our goal. We never said regime change, but regime change has occurred because of all of their original leaders' death. They're all dead. The new group is less radical and much more reasonable. Yet, if during this period of time no deal is made, we have our eyes on key targets. If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously. We have not hit their oil, even though that's the easiest target of all, because it would not give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding. But we could hit it, and it would be gone, and there's not a thing they could do about it. They have no anti-aircraft equipment. Their radar is 100% annihilated. We are unstoppable as a military force. The nuclear sites that we obliterated with the B-2 bombers have been hit so hard that it would take months to get near the nuclear dust. And we have it under intense satellite surveillance and control. If we see them make a move, even a move for it, we'll hit them with missiles very hard again. We have all the cards. They have none. It's very important that we keep this conflict in perspective. American involvement in World War I lasted 1 year, 7 months, and 5 days. World War lasted for 3 years, 8 months, and 25 days. The Korean War lasted for 3 years, 1 month, and 2 days. The Vietnam War lasted for 19 years, 5 months, and 29 days. Iraq went on for 8 years, 8 months, and 28 days. We are in this military operation, so powerful, so brilliant against one of the most powerful countries for 32 days. And the country has been eviscerated and essentially is really no longer a threat. They were the bully of the Middle East, but they're the bully no longer.
This is a true investment in your children's future. The whole world is watching, and they can't leave the power, strength, and brilliance. They just can't believe what they're seeing. They leave it to your imagination, but they can't believe what they're seeing. The brilliance of the United States military. Tonight, every American can look forward to a day when we are finally free from the wickedness of Iranian aggression and the spectre of nuclear blackmail. Because of the actions we have taken, we are on the cusp of ending Iran's sinister threat to America and the world. And I'll tell you, the world is watching, and when we do, when it's all over, the United States will be safer, stronger, more prosperous, and greater than it has ever been before. May God bless the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much, and good night.
