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President Trump on Monday touted the success of the military as the U.S. enters its second week of strikes in Iran and amid soaring oil and gas prices as a result.
“We’re achieving major strides toward completing our military objective. And some people could say they’re pretty well complete,” he said at a press conference at his resort in Doral, Fla., his first since the beginning of the U.S.-Israel-led war. “We’ve wiped every single force in Iran out, very completely, most of Iran’s naval power powers been sunk.”
Trump said the military effort is “ahead of our initial timeline by a lot. I would say that we probably would not have thought after a month we’d be here.”
Trump also said they have held off hitting “some of the most important targets” such as electricity production.
“So we’re not looking to do that if we don’t have to. But they’re the kind of things that are very easy to hit, but very devastating if they are hit. We are waiting to see what happens before we hit them, we could take them all out in one day,” he said.
Trump also added that the rising oil and gas prices are affecting other countries more than the U.S.
“It doesn’t really affect us,” he said, though U.S. gas prices have spiked in recent days.
“In the long run, oil supplies will be dramatically more secure without the threat of Iranian ships, drones, missiles, nuclear menace or anything,” he said.
Trump faces reporters as the average price of a gallon of gas has spiked, a growing political problem for Trump, who has raved about how he has lowered gas prices since returning to office. Crude oil prices nearly hit $120 a barrel on Monday before falling again.
But Trump told CBS News ahead of the press conference Monday that he thinks “the war is very complete, pretty much.”
Iran has “no navy, no communications, they’ve got no air force. Their missiles are down to a scatter. Their drones are being blown up all over the place, including their manufacturing of drones,” he said.
Trump’s latest assessment comes after he told reporters over the weekend that he wasn’t worried about the price of gas.
“We figured oil prices would go up, which they will. Uh, they’ll also come down. They’ll come down very fast,” he said.
Trump added the administration is looking into ways to ease the cost burden on Americans, but that spike in oil prices is worth it because the U.S. and Israel are working to “get rid of a major, major cancer on the face of the earth,” referring to the Iranian regime.
“This is a short excursion into something that should have been done for 47 years. 47 years it’s taken to do this and no president had the guts to do it,” Trump said.
But the rising price at the pump isn’t the only tough sell Trump has to make.
The Trump administration has given varied messages on their motivations for striking Iran and in some cases conflicting reasoning, potentially harming their ability to rally public support. A recent NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found the majority of Americans oppose U.S. military action in Iran and disapprove of how Trump is dealing with the middle eastern country.
