Trump Tells the Nation the Iran War Is Nearing Completion

President Trump told the country Wednesday night that the U.S. military campaign against Iran is “nearing completion,” while warning that American forces will hit Iran “extremely hard” over the next two to three weeks. The roughly 19-minute address from the White House was his first prime-time speech on the war, which began Feb. 28, according to CBS News.

Mr. Trump said Iran’s navy has been destroyed and that its missile and drone capabilities have been “dramatically curtailed.” He said regime change “has occurred” because Iran’s original leaders are dead, though he added that it was not the U.S. goal, CBS News reported. He gave no firm end date. If Tehran does not agree to a deal, he said, the U.S. would strike nearly all of Iran’s electric generating plants and target its oil industry sites.

The president also addressed the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway that normally carries about a fifth of the world’s oil and that Iran has effectively closed. Countries that depend on it, he said, “must take care of that passage.” He said the strait would “open up naturally” once the fighting ends. PBS News reported before the speech that the stance was a step back from an earlier threat to attack Iran’s power grid if the strait was not reopened by April 6, and that a White House official expected him to repeat the two-to-three-week estimate.

Mr. Trump acknowledged that 13 American service members have died in the conflict. NBC News, citing a U.S. official, reported that nearly 350 more have been wounded. The national average price of gasoline topped $4 a gallon on Tuesday, the highest since 2022, NBC News reported, and diesel has also climbed, according to CBS News.

The president argued that Iran was “right at the doorstep” of a nuclear weapon. CBS News noted that U.S. intelligence assessed last year that Iran had no active weapons program and would need several months to build a bomb if it chose to. Mr. Trump’s case is that the strikes are needed to prevent that outcome, and CBS News polling found an overwhelming majority of Republicans backing the war.

The speech arrives as public support is thin. A CBS News poll released in March found 60 percent of Americans disapproved of U.S. military action in Iran and 67 percent were unwilling to pay more for gas during the conflict, while an overwhelming majority of Republicans backed the war. PBS News reported that polling shows many Americans think the military has gone too far, and NBC News said voters are dissatisfied with the president’s handling of the economy.

Iran, for its part, has said it is not negotiating with Washington. PBS News reported that Iran’s Foreign Ministry called a claim that its president wanted a ceasefire false and baseless, and that the foreign minister said Tehran sets no deadline for defending itself. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had billed the speech as an “important update” on the war, according to NBC News.

What the address did not offer was a clear path out. Mr. Trump said Iran does not have to make a deal for the war to end, but he tied the reopening of Hormuz, and with it the relief for American drivers, to a conflict whose end date remains his estimate rather than a plan.