U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the ongoing American military campaign against Iran was aimed at ending “any chance where they can have a nuclear missile.”
“This is a far bigger job that we’re doing,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland as he returned from the World Cup final, referring to the latest U.S. strikes on the Islamic Republic.
“We were doing a little job at stopping them from having a certain capability—now we’re just ending it,” the president continued. “What we’re doing now is we’re ending any chance where they can have a nuclear missile.”
“If you look at it—after a week and a half, not four weeks, a week and a half, two weeks—we stopped them from probably, but I don’t want to have the word probably,” he added.
Trump said the U.S. military struck the Islamic regime “very hard again” on Sunday night in honor of the U.S. service members killed in an Iranian aerial attack on Jordan on Friday.
“We did that in honor of the probably three—it’s probably three as opposed to two—great patriots,” he told journalists.
Two service members were killed while U.S. and partner forces defended against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks in Jordan, U.S. Central Command said on Saturday. One service member remains missing.
“Those great patriots were out there fighting that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said on Sunday.
“Iran has been very, very badly damaged. They’ve lost everything almost militarily; they’ve got very little left. They’ve got some missiles. They’ve got some drones. They’ve got some manufacturing ability. Not much,” he stated.
“We control the Strait [of Hormuz]. They don’t control anything, so we’ll see what happens,” concluded Trump.
