Note: I've been working with a few others at CNN on tracking everything President Donald Trump has said about the war so far. He has repeatedly claimed the US already won, only to walk those claims back. He has demanded unconditional surrender before acknowledging talks.
What's below is from me along with CNN's Boer Deng, Dugald McConnell and Austin Culpepper. A more in-depth version, along with video, will be on the site Wednesday. Here's a preview:
Trump has dubiously claimed Iran posed an “imminent” threat to the US, months after declaring the US had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities. He’s given a multitude of reasons for launching a war in the first place. He has declared victory scores of times, only to qualify those claims later on.
He has demanded Iran’s unconditional surrender and suggested he already won the war. Then he announced over the weekend that he held “productive” talks with Iran. Though the country’s foreign ministry at first denied Trump’s claim, the Iranians later acknowledged that the US initiated conversations.
Now, 1,000 US soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division are preparing to deploy to the Middle East after Trump repeatedly refused to say whether ground troops would be necessary.
We took a comprehensive look at what Trump has said publicly over the past three weeks as he appears to be trying to justify an expanding war to Americans in hindsight.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment asking for clarity on Trump’s positions.
How many times can you win a war?
“We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!” Trump said on Truth Social on March 7 — about a week after the start of the war — expressing a thanks-but-no-thanks attitude to news the United Kingdom could dispatch aircraft carriers to the region.
Two days later, he said there’s more to do.
“We’re achieving major strides toward completing our military objective. And some people could say they’re pretty well complete,” he said at a March 9 press conference.
Two days after that, he declared victory again.
“And we’ve won. Let me tell you, we’ve won. You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the — in the first hour, it was over. We won,” he said at a rally in Hebron, Kentucky, on March 11.
That’s just a flavor of Trump’s back-and-forth assessments on whether the war has been “won” — or not.
Over the course of three weeks, the president has variously claimed the US has achieved victory, “militarily WON” or “basically ” won or “won in many ways.”
But he has also said that the war continues, that we “haven’t won enough” and that the US will still need to “finish the job.”
On Tuesday, Trump was back to saying the war was already won.
“You know, I don’t like to say this — we’ve won this, because this war has been won, the only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news,” Trump said in the Oval Office.
‘Unconditional surrender’ or a deal?
Trump demanded Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” in a March 6 social media post. That demand came at a time when it was unclear whether the Iranian regime would survive the initial attack, and Trump was talking about a theoretical deal with future Iranian leaders that the US would have a say in selecting.
In an interview with CBS News the next day, Trump said surrender had already occurred.
“He’s already surrendered to all of the Middle Eastern countries because he was trying to take over the entire Middle East,” Trump said of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Pezeshkian had effectively apologized to neighboring countries for striking at within their borders. Trump viewed that apology as a surrender, as he explained to reporters on Air Force One.
“That’s a surrender right there. I called it a surrender tonight… that’s really a surrender to those states and to us.”
In the time since, however, the war has intensified. The regime did not collapse. And rather than accepting surrender, Trump is now talking about getting a deal in talks with Iran.
“They want very much to make a deal. We’d like to make a deal, too,” Trump told reporters Monday.
“We’re doing a five-day period. We’ll see how that goes, and if it goes well, we’re going to end up with settling this. Otherwise, we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out,” he promised.