WASHINGTON (TNND) — When President Donald Trump convened a cabinet meeting at Camp David on Friday, he had a simple message about how he plans to proceed in the Iran war.
“Well, I think we just want to win, you know, we just want to win,” Trump said.
Hours earlier, Iran launched a drone attack on American military assets on a Kuwait air base and said it struck two tankers with American air escorts in the Strait of Hormuz, claiming the strait was then closed due to “American aggression.”
A spokesperson for Kuwait’s Ministry of Defense said there were no casualties, only material damage from fallen shrapnel. U.S. Central Command disputed Iran’s claim the strait was closed. According to analytics firm Kpler, there were only five crossings in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, 22 on Wednesday and 19 on Tuesday. Before the war, the strait averaged about 130 crossings per day, according to the United Nations.
Earlier this month, a memorandum of understanding, thought to be a preliminary step toward peace, fell apart. Since then, there’s been no sign of life for diplomacy. On Friday, Trump said he’s losing faith in Iran’s ability to negotiate because “they do lie and they do misrepresent.”
“All they do is make me angry, you know, they just make me angry,” Trump said.
Iranian forces said the drone attack in Kuwait was in retaliation for the United States striking Iranian targets earlier this week – which Trump said was retaliation for a prior strike targeting American forces in Jordan.
The president gave a candid answer when a reporter asked if Americans should expect a continuation of these back-and-forth attacks.
“Sure, little bit. (Iran will) get weaker, they’ll get a little stronger maybe now, but they’ll get weaker and then they peter out. Yeah sure, I think so. I mean, it would be foolish to say no,” Trump said.
Trump suggested another attack on Iran is imminent.
We’ll be hitting them. We’ll be hitting him very hard and, you know, at some point they’re going to say, we just can’t take it anymore,” Trump said.