The U.S. military was preparing to once more strike Iran “hard” in the coming hours, President Donald Trump warned on Wednesday.
“We hit them very hard last night, very, very. Probably hit them hard again tonight,” Trump told reporters at the 2026 NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkey.
“I’ll give them a little warning. We’re going to hit them hard tonight,” he added. “We’ll see how it all works out—no, I’m not happy with them.”
On Tuesday, American forces launched strikes against the Iranian regime in response to the Islamic Republic’s attacks on civilian commercial ships, according to U.S. Central Command, which said it hit more than 80 targets to degrade Tehran’s ability to continue attacking international commerce.
Trump subsequently declared the Iran ceasefire and its accompanying Memorandum of Understanding effectively dead.
“To me, I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore,” he said in response to a reporter’s question on day two of the NATO summit.
“They’re scum ..., they’re sick people,” Trump said of Iran’s leadership. The Islamic Republic is “led by sick people and they’re vicious, violent people, and if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over,” he continued.
“I’ll speak to our negotiators. They want to negotiate. They’re good people—Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner. But they have to come back to me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them,” the president said.
