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President Donald Trump claimed that his war on Iran is “very complete” just before markets closed on Monday, causing oil prices to calm — then contradicted himself a few hours later, promising to “not relent” as the U.S. and Israel carried out some of worst bombardments of the war all the while, locals said.
In an interview with CBS on Monday afternoon, Trump said, “I think the war is very complete, pretty much.” He claimed, without evidence, that the U.S. has wiped out Iran’s military capabilities, saying the country now has “no navy, no communications” and “no air force.”
“If you look, they have nothing left. There’s nothing left in a military sense,” he said, adding that he has “no message” for the new leader of the country, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The president also said that the U.S. is “very far” ahead of the four to five week estimate he’s given for the war.
As the interview was published, U.S.-Israeli strikes were pummeling Iran. Al Jazeera reports that Tehran experienced “some of the most intense bombardment” of the 10 days of war overnight, with 40 people killed near the busy Risalat Square. Around the same time, human rights group HRANA reported that there were at least 285 attacks across 17 of Iran’s 31 provinces in the previous 24 hours, killing at least 40 civilians.
Iran’s Mehr news agency reported that rescue workers had recovered the body of a 1-year-old girl from the rubble of a residential building hit by U.S.-Israeli strikes in Tehran. A wave of heavy airstrikes hit Tehran, while the U.S. and Israel also bombarded other cities across Iran, including in Isfahan, where UNESCO world heritage sites were damaged in attacks.
Immediately following the publication of the CBS interview at around 3 pm Eastern Time, oil prices cooled significantly from a record spike over the weekend caused by U.S.-Israeli bombing of oil depots in Tehran and uncertainty surrounding Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Markets rallied after his remarks, with the S&P 500 closing with a 0.8 percent gain for the day.
Trump had a near-immediate about face in remarks to House Republicans in Doral, Florida, just hours later and in press comments afterward. In his remarks, he said: “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough.”
He then told reporters, “we’ll not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated.” He added that he “could call” the war now and label it a success, “or we could go further, and we’re going to go further.”
Meanwhile, a post on X by the Department of Defense’s rapid response account published just before Trump’s CBS remarks on Monday afternoon said, “We have Only Just Begun to Fight,” with a picture attached of a missile that says, “no mercy.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth promised in a press conference on Tuesday morning that “today will be, yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran.” He claimed that Iran is “badly losing,” but also insisted that the U.S. is “not allowing mission creep” on the war — even though the administration has not laid out any clear goals for the objectives of the war or when it would end.
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