Donald Trump has been called out for claiming there had been no “shooting” for months in his war against Iran on the same day news broke that U.S. strikes on the country have resumed.
“This is not much of a war, Sean, because there hasn’t been shooting for months,” the 80-year-old president said in an interview with his friend Sean Hannity on Monday night after 9 p.m.
However, despite Trump’s claims of no shooting for months, a U.S. official confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. had conducted strikes on some Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, on the eve of the midterm elections.
The U.S. struck Iran’s Qeshm Island, the report said, citing American officials who revealed Washington has quietly conducted a series of attacks against Iranian targets in past weeks.
One of the reporters on the Journal’s story publicly called out the discrepancy between Trump’s claim and the reality in Iran.
“Trump on Hannity again says ‘there hasn’t been shooting for months’ in Iran,” Alex Ward, the Journal’s national security reporter, posted on X on Monday. “The U.S. just struck targets in Qeshm island in Iran, which US officials say was a defensive strike.”
The softball Fox News interview began with Trump telling Hannity this was his final interview before the midterm elections, stating, “I’m shutting it down after your show.”
He quickly changed his mind. “I think I’m doing Fox & Friends tomorrow morning actually, but essentially I’m shutting it down now,” he said. “We’ll see. We’ve had a great presidency, we’ve had a great two years.”
A fawning Hannity then said, “I’m going to scroll through a list of your accomplishments,” before eventually asking Trump if he could “assure” Americans his war on Iran would end soon.
After mentioning Venezuela and Greenland, Trump mentioned Pickaxe Mountain, a site linked to Iran’s nuclear program.
“We might have to go after Pickaxe, but that’s not a big deal, literally, we can do that in one hour, soon as we want, any time we want,” Trump said, before claiming Iran’s military was “gone.”
The aging president then attempted to downplay the conflict, which has so far seen 23 American service members killed.
“What’s a war? A war is fighting... When was the last time you saw us fighting with them?” Trump asked a silent Hannity. “We go months and months, we talk... When was the last time we fired at... this isn’t a war, this is a very soft war.”
Trump added, “But this isn’t, like, a war that’s going on.... It could happen if they don’t make a deal, but they want to make a deal very badly... We can end it at any time. If I can make a deal, I’d rather do it, save a lot of lives... but this isn’t war.”
After more rambling, Trump concluded by saying, “This is not much of a war, Sean, because there hasn’t been shooting for months.”
Earlier on Monday, Trump had used the past tense, telling reporters, “We had a war with Iran. We won. I don’t know if you even call it a war because we haven’t been doing any fighting for months.”
An official told the Journal that the Trump administration had attempted to avoid looking like it is gearing up to resume a full-scale war against Iran, while others claimed the strikes were defensive measures to curb Iran’s ability to threaten commercial vessels using the Strait of Hormuz.
On Monday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired a surface-to-air missile at a U.S. jet fighter, which fired back in self-defense, officials told the Journal. On the same day in a separate incident, U.S. forces intercepted an IRGC missile that had originated from Qeshm, with a U.S. official saying it was targeting commercial shipping.
Iranian state television reported that explosions were heard on Qeshm Island, which is at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz and is home to a large underground missile site, according to the Associated Press.
They cited an U.S. official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, as saying that “Iranians using surface-to-air missiles against U.S. assets” had been targeted.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and Central Command for comment.
