Donald Trump issued a thinly-veiled threat against Iran’s new Supreme Leader – telling reporters: “We’ll see what happens to them”.
He dismissed the war as a “little excursion” for the US, which had been “easier” than anticipated. And he played down skyrocketing fuel costs caused by the war, claiming oil prices would be “coming down” soon.
Iran this week named Mojtaba Khamenei as its new Supreme Leader after a US air strike killed his father, the late Ayatollah Ali Khameni. Asked earlier whether he thought the US could declare a victory in the war with Khamenei remaining as Supreme Leader, Trump was unusually coy, saying he didn’t want to comment. But later, during a factory tour in Cincinnati, Ohio, Trump issued a further threat to Iran’s leaders.
He said that the US had “knocked out twice their leadership” in Iran, and added: “Now they have a new group coming up. Let’s see what happens to them.”
“We did a little excursion,” Trump said. “We had to take a couple of weeks, a few weeks of excursion, but it’s been incredible, the military, the job they’re doing is incredible. I would say, to put it mildly, way ahead of schedule.”
He went on: “We’ve knocked out their Navy, their military in all forms. We’ve knocked out just about everything there is, including their leadership, twice.” Trump claimed the markets were “holding up well.” He said: “I figured we would be hit a little bit, but we were hit less than I thought and we will be back on track in a pretty short while. Prices are coming down substantially, oil will be coming down.”
Asked whether it was an “excursion” or a war, as he’s previously described it, Trump said it was “both.” It was, he said, an excursion for the United States and a war for Iran.
The US national average petrol price as of today is $3.578 a gallon – nearly 60 cents higher than it was a month ago, according to the US motoring and travel organisation AAA. The rising price of petrol is a major sticking point for Trump, whose “affordability tour” tonight reached Kentucky, where he will give a speech to a rally.
In November, the White House announced that Trump would travel the country more frequently in an attempt to stave off a drubbing in this year’s midterm elections by showing he’s taking America’s cost of living crisis seriously.