Trump warns US may have to 'destroy' rest of Iran and says 'you'll know soon enough'
Donald Trump has warned the United States may have to 'destroy' what remains of Iran, telling reporters in the Oval Office that a decision on further military action would come soon, days after his party lost control of Congress in the midterm elections.
Donald Trump has warned that the United States may have to “destroy” what remains of Iran, telling reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday that a decision on further military action would come soon. “I would rather not destroy the rest of the country if possible, but maybe I’ll have to,” the president said. “You’ll know soon enough.”
Trump put a figure on the damage already done, estimating that it would take Iran 25 years to rebuild if the destruction continued. He also claimed that after more than eight months of war, Washington now controls “everything that we’ve wanted to control” in Iran, and that Tehran cannot move forward with its nuclear programme “without approval”.
The remarks came two days after the midterm elections on Tuesday, in which Democrats seized control of both chambers of Congress, delivering a sweeping defeat to Trump’s Republican Party. Trump has acknowledged that the Iran war and the resulting rise in fuel prices contributed to the Republican losses, and the question of what comes next in the Gulf is now tangled up with the political fallout at home.
Vice President JD Vance gave the clearest sign of that reckoning in a long social media post on Wednesday, blaming the war for the party’s defeat. Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, who was Vance’s counterpart in earlier peace talks, hit back by accusing Vance of letting Trump double down like a “losing gambler” by planning more strikes on Iran.
Inside Washington, senior officials are now debating three very different paths, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal and Axios: resuming major military strikes, pursuing a negotiated settlement, or holding to the naval blockade and economic pressure on Tehran. Trump’s Oval Office comments kept all three on the table, offering no timeline and no commitment in either direction.
The diplomatic track has not gone quiet. Iran has sent a nuclear proposal to the United States through Qatari mediators, which Washington is reviewing while Tehran waits for its seven demands to be met. A White House spokesperson declined to confirm receipt of the proposal, saying only that Trump has been clear Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon and that negotiations continue. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also held telephone conversations on Thursday with his Saudi and Qatari counterparts about the latest developments.
The warning drew a sharp response from Democrats. Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari of Arizona condemned the threat on Thursday, writing that Trump was “once again threatening the annihilation of a country of 90 million people” and calling it “a crime against humanity”. Democrats have also threatened impeachment proceedings against Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth over the conduct of the Iran war, and Trump used the same Oval Office appearance to defend him, praising his performance as the criticism intensifies.
Away from the rhetoric, the pressure on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz continued to build. The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control warned shippers on Friday that anyone paying tolls or other fees to Iran for passage through the strait risks being sanctioned, including payments framed as charitable donations to bodies such as the Iranian Red Crescent Society. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has called the siege on the country’s ports “intolerable”.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, meanwhile, warned that any state helping the United States in renewed attacks against Iran would be treated as a “legitimate target”. The warning followed days of reported tanker fires in the strait, with Iran saying five tankers and a tugboat caught fire after striking naval mines, and the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency reporting a vessel struck by two unidentified projectiles north of Qatar.
The war itself began on 28 February, when the United States and Israel began launching attacks on Iran, and the Strait of Hormuz has been at the centre of it ever since. About a fifth of the world’s seaborne crude oil and liquefied natural gas passes through the waterway, which is why every incident there moves oil prices and rattles governments far beyond the region. Oman has been pushing for a maritime safety deal with Iran to restore unhindered traffic through the strait, and Gulf states have been urging de-escalation even as they prepare for the worst.
What happens next is genuinely uncertain. Trump had promised on 8 October that the United States would not attack Iran before the midterm elections, and that self-imposed deadline has now passed. One possibility is a return to heavy strikes if the talks stall; another is a deal built around the proposal Tehran has sent through Doha; a third is that the blockade and the tanker war simply grind on, with each side testing the other’s nerve. For now, the only certainty is the one Trump himself offered: whatever he decides, people will know soon enough.
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