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President Donald Trump told a Fox News reporter he’s weighing whether to “wipe Iran out” as the war he said would be over within weeks nears the end of its seventh month
“The president described the current choices on the table as ‘wiping Iran out, letting them rot economically, or making a deal,'” Fox News’ Trey Yingst reported
The war has expanded across the region, killed at least 18 U.S. service members, thousands of Iranians, and rattled the global economy
President Donald Trump told a Fox News reporter he’s weighing whether to “wipe Iran out” as the war he said would be over within weeks nears the end of its seventh month.
Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst spoke to Trump, 80, over the phone on Sunday, Sept. 20, from Tel Aviv, and reported on air on Fox & Friends Weekend that the president told him “He’s in a ‘deciding mode,’ and that ‘Very big things are going to be happening in the not-so-distant future.’ “
“The president described the current choices on the table as ‘Wiping Iran out, letting them rot economically or making a deal,’ ” Yingst reported. “He added, ‘My question is, if and when do I blow the entire nation up? They better behave.’ “
President Donald Trump salutes as a U.S. Army carry team moves a flag-draped transfer case containing the remains of Maj. Jeffery R. O’Brien at Dover Air Force Base on March 7, 2026.
Credit: Roberto Schmidt/Getty
Yingst reported that Iranian officials are open to a deal, but Trump told him the country’s leaders are “hiding like rats.”
Trump previously threatened “a whole civilization will die… never to be brought back again” in a Truth Social post in April as the war he projected to last weeks expanded across the region, killed at least 18 U.S. service members and thousands of Iranians, and rattled the global economy.
His message to Iran and the rest of the world on Sunday came as negotiations led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner and longtime friend Steve Witkoff continue on, fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis of Yemen has intensified, and gas prices in the U.S. are averaging near $4.50 a gallon — $1.30 more than the average price a year ago, according to AAA.
“People are going to have to pay some extra gas — I think most people, if they had a vote on lower gas prices or letting Iran have a nuclear weapon, I’d be willing to vote that it would be a massive landslide,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Friday, Sept. 18.
He added, “People don’t want to have Iran have a nuclear weapon, and you know what, they won’t. And the war is going to end soon, and when it ends, your gas prices are going to drop to a level that they were before, maybe even lower.”
“I had no choice. I said to my people, we’re going to have to do an excursion down to Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump said.
On March 2, Trump projected the war that began with a U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign on Feb. 28 would end in “four to five weeks.” On March 17, he said, “We’ll be leaving in the near future.” On March 31, he said the timeline for the war’s end was “two or three weeks.”
On Aug. 6, he told reporters at the White House, “I think it’s going to end pretty soon. I don’t think they can go much longer.”
“Well, hopefully we’re toward the end of the war,” Trump said on Wednesday, Sept. 16. “They wanna make a deal and we’ll see how that works out. They’re very much wanting to make — Iran is very much wanting to make a deal. We’ll see how that works.”
Trump’s threat to “blow the entire nation up” comes just days after United Nations human rights experts released a report stating that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that the strike conducted under the command of the United States on” a school for children ages 6 to 13 in Minab, Iran, on Feb. 28 was a “war crime.”
The destroyed building of Shajarat-al-Tayyiba Primary School in Minab, Iran, seen on March 21, 2026, after a Feb. 28 airstrike by the United States.
Credit: Hassan Ghaedi/Anadolu via Getty
The strike killed 120 schoolchildren, 26 teachers, seven parents, a school bus driver and a man who worked at a nearby pharmacy, according to the report. The report also documented U.S. strikes on a home on July 30 and a wedding celebration Sept. 1 that killed and injured civilians.
The White House and the State Department publicly denounced the U.N. report and the human rights experts as “anti-American” and not credible in statements to The Associated Press last week. PEOPLE has reached out for additional comment.
The Trump administration has not directly accepted responsibility for the strike, nor has it released the findings of a Pentagon investigation that the president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said was underway.
In this aerial handout picture released by the Iranian Press Center, mourners dig graves during the funeral for children killed in a reported strike on a primary school in Minab, Iran, on March 3, 2026.
Credit: Iranian Press Center/AFP via Getty
“Repeated airstrikes causing civilian casualties raise serious questions about whether all necessary measures are being taken to comply with States’ obligations under international law, including to take all precautionary measures to avoid civilian deaths,” South African barrister Max du Plessis, a member of the U.N.’s independent fact-finding mission on Iran, said in a statement.
That report was released ahead of the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York City this week, where Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is expected to attend. Trump told Yingst on Sunday he was open to meeting with Pezeshkian.
Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP nominee for Senate, called for an end to the war in a Monday, Sept. 21 post on X.
“Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran,” Hinson wrote. “The war needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end.”
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