President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States is performing extremely well in its military campaign against Iran, nearly a week after coordinated airstrikes with Israel in Tehran that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Speaking during a White House roundtable on college sports, Trump praised the performance of the U.S. military and claimed Iran’s military capabilities have been largely wiped out.
“Somebody said, ‘How would you score it from zero to 10?’ I said, ‘I’d give it a 12 to a 15,’” Trump said. “Their army is gone. Their navy is gone. Their communications are gone. Their leaders are gone. Two sets of their leaders.”
Trump also said Iran’s air force had been “wiped out entirely” and claimed the country’s naval fleet had been destroyed.
“They have 32 ships. All 32 are at the bottom of the ocean,” the president said, adding jokingly, “Other than that, they’re doing very well.”
The remarks came after White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Trump why he was holding a domestic policy roundtable while major events were unfolding overseas.
Trump responded that the U.S. military is performing “phenomenally,” saying the country had been forced to act against what he described as a dangerous leadership in Iran responsible for violence against Americans.
“Our military is doing phenomenally,” Trump said. “The situation was a very bad and very sick group of leaders who were killing a lot of people. A lot of our people were being killed or maimed. We had a choice. We could take it and go on like that for years or do something about it. And we did something about it.”
The president also said global perceptions of the United States have improved because of recent military actions, pointing to operations in Venezuela and earlier missions involving stealth bomber strikes that targeted Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
“I think right now we’re a country that’s more respected than we’ve ever been respected before,” Trump said.
During the exchange, Doocy also raised reports that Russia might be helping Iran target Americans. Trump dismissed the question, saying the issue was minor compared to the broader military operations underway.
In a separate message, Trump said that once the conflict concludes and new leadership is selected in Iran, the United States and its allies would work to help rebuild the country’s economy and stabilize the region.
The president added that America and its partners would work “tirelessly” to help bring Iran back from the brink and make it “economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”
