Donald Trump in Georgia: war with the Islamic Republic will end very soon

US President Donald Trump said at a Republican campaign rally in the state of Georgia on Friday, 16 October 2026, that the US military operation against the Islamic Republic will end "very, very soon" and that the regime's nuclear threat has been eliminated. He stressed that the Islamic Republic will never get a nuclear weapon.

In the speech, delivered three weeks before America's 3 November midterm elections, Trump said the Islamic Republic even attacked countries that were neutral in the war or had friendly relations with Tehran, bombing them heavily. According to him, the Islamic Republic's leaders are "crazy", and had they possessed a nuclear weapon they would have used it instead of conventional bombs: first against Europe and then against America.

Slain leaders and "nobody to talk to"

The US president said, in a sarcastic tone, that perhaps he had overdone it with the Islamic Republic's leaders, because now he has no one left to talk to. He said the first and second tiers of the regime's leaders and part of the third had been killed. Trump had earlier said in his Arizona speech that it was unclear who he should negotiate with.

Trump also claimed that before the strikes began, the Islamic Republic was about two weeks away from building a nuclear weapon, and that its navy, air force, army, radars and air defences have now been destroyed. He spoke of the destruction of 159 vessels and 289 aircraft, figures that no independent source has confirmed. He compared the operation against the Islamic Republic with the US operation in Venezuela.

Naval blockade and Iran's economy

Trump defended the economic and naval blockade of the Islamic Republic and put Iran's inflation at 301 percent. That figure is far from the estimates of international bodies: the World Bank forecasts Iran's inflation this year at 74.2 percent. US Central Command, however, had said on Friday that the naval blockade has stopped the export of at least $25 billion worth of the Islamic Republic's oil.

The Georgia remarks came a day after Trump's interview with Newsmax, in which he ruled out using a nuclear weapon against the Islamic Republic and spoke of the possibility of striking the underground facilities at Kolang Mountain near Natanz. In Georgia Trump also said that before deciding to attack he had told military commanders he hated having to do it.

Three weeks before the midterm elections, Trump promised that the war with the Islamic Republic will end very soon.