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‘Didn’t die of flu, didn’t die of COVID,’ Trump tells ‘CNN’ of senior Iranian officials

The U.S. president also told Dana Bash that “we, of course, support Israel, obviously, and supported it like nobody has ever supported it.”

Trump
U.S. President Donald Trump gives remarks during the “summer soirée” on the South Lawn of the White House, June 4, 2025. Credit: Daniel Torok/White House.

U.S. President Donald Trump told Dana Bash, CNN chief political correspondent, that Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites constituted “a very successful attack,” the network’s anchor stated.

“We, of course, support Israel, obviously, and supported it like nobody has ever supported it,” the U.S. president told Bash, during what she described as a “brief” call.

“Iran should have listened to me when I said—you know, I gave them, I don’t know if you know, but I gave them a 60-day warning, and today is day 61,” Trump said.

The president told the CNN anchor that Iran ought to come to the negotiating table and make a deal “before it’s too late.”

“You know, the people I was dealing with are dead, the hardliners,” he said. Bash wrote that Trump “would not specify which people he was referring to.” She asked him if he meant Iranian hardliners were dead due to Israel’s airstrikes.

“They didn’t die of the flu,” Trump told her. “They didn’t die of COVID.”

The Gulf state accompanied its X post with an image of a Seder plate and matza.
Hezbollah launched some 100 rockets coupled with drones at the Jewish state since the start of the holiday.
The Iranian-backed group attacked Israelis as they marked the Exodus, just as the Amalekites attacked the Israelites when they left Egypt, the defense minister said.
The film documents the circumstances of the small rural town of Gniewoszów, focusing on one of its last living survivors, along with a resident who says he saw Jews murdered there six months after the Nazis’ reign of terror ended.
The episodes will “reveal fascinating stories,” IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said.
“This week we are reminded that with true faith, eternal hope and the power of prayer, nothing can stop the people of God.”