Iran contradicted Trump\u2019s claims that the two countries were having productive negotiations to end the war, continued its own retaliatory strikes, and warned workers at U.S.-aligned industrial companies in the region to leave their workplaces lest they be injured or killed in forthcoming strikes.<\/p>\n
Iran also furthered its stranglehold on the vital Strait of Hormuz \u2014 where reports indicated that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had begun enforcing a steep toll on oil ships hoping to pass through.<\/p>\n
Trump administration officials have since the start of the war accused the news media and others of ignoring U.S. wins on the battlefield. At the same time, Trump has painted an overly rosy picture of a war won and winding down, even as ongoing fighting and defiant messages from Iranian officials suggest the opposite is true.<\/p>\n
He has consistently done so using a flippant, casual tone \u2014 a sharp departure from past wartime presidents.<\/p>\n
For weeks, Trump has batted away criticisms of the war campaign and questions about why it was justified and how long it will last. He has derided reporters for asking questions about tactics and whether he\u2019ll deploy boots on the ground as inappropriate and foolish, and repeatedly met concerns about the human toll of the war by shrugging them off or changing the subject.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, during his first Cabinet meeting since launching the war, Trump spent 10 minutes talking about the price of ceremonial White House pens<\/a> \u2014 which he claimed to have brought down, from $1,000 to $5, by switching to his favored Sharpie brand.<\/p>\n Trump was trying to make the point that he\u2019s a great money saver. He seemed chipper, joking with the other leaders of his administration at the table.<\/p>\n Later on Thursday, when asked on \u201cThe Five\u201d on Fox News about whether Iranian people have access to basic necessities such as drinking water and food, Trump complimented the looks of Dana Perino<\/a>, the Fox host who\u2019d asked the question, compared to when he\u2019d met her years before.<\/p>\n \u201cNow I\u2019m not allowed to say this, it\u2019s the end of my political career, but you may be even better looking, OK?\u201d Trump said. \u201cYou\u2019re not allowed to say a woman\u2019s beautiful anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n He then talked about Iranian authorities killing protesters, but said he\u2019d been pleased with them more recently because they had given him a \u201cpresent\u201d by allowing oil ships through the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the war has cost the U.S. billions of dollars<\/a> and depleted its global reserves of critical weapons systems such as Tomahawk missiles, which cost millions of dollars each and are needed to maintain U.S. security around the world, according to the Washington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n Markets have fluctuated based on Trump\u2019s changing messages on an end to the war, planned and then postponed U.S. strikes on Iran\u2019s power plants, strikes on oil and gas infrastructure across the Middle East and Iran\u2019s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a quarter of global oil usually passes.<\/p>\n Trump has talked in recent days about an impending deal to end the war<\/a>, but so far it has not materialized, with Iran downplaying the seriousness of the negotiations and ramping up its efforts to control the strait. <\/p>\n On Friday, Iran\u2019s Atomic Energy Organization reported that both the Shahid Khondab Heavy Water Complex in Arak and the Ardakan yellowcake \u2014 or concentrated uranium \u2014 production plant in Yazd Province were struck, though it said there were no casualties and no risk of contamination.<\/p>\n Speaking by video during a Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva on Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the United States and Israel of harboring a \u201cclear intent to commit genocide\u201d in Iran, claiming that more than 600 schools had been damaged or demolished and more than 1,000 students and teachers \u201cmartyred or wounded.\u201d<\/p>\n The discussion related in part to a Feb. 28 strike on an elementary school in Minab that killed more than 165 people, most of them children, which evidence reportedly suggests was the work of the U.S. and which the U.S. says is under investigation.<\/p>\n Casualties also continued in Gulf nations allied with the U.S., where Iran continues to strike U.S. military installations and other infrastructure, and in Lebanon, which Israel has invaded and bombed relentlessly in its own war with the Iranian-aligned Hezbollah force.<\/p>\n And yet, Trump continued Friday bouncing between speaking engagements and more formal meetings with an apparent lightness \u2014 seeming unbothered by the weight of the conflict and acting as if U.S. victory were already at hand.<\/p>\n A woman speaks on the phone as emergency workers sift through rubble of a residential building that was hit in an airstrike early Friday in Tehran.<\/p>\n (Majid Saeedi \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve already won the war. Militarily we\u2019ve totally won the war,\u201d he told \u201cThe Five\u201d on Thursday.<\/p>\n After Trump\u2019s exchange with Perino, fellow host Greg Gutfeld began to change the topic, saying, \u201cI\u2019m debating whether to be serious or not serious.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo you think Biden would do this interview? Can you imagine? You think Biden \u2014 Sleepy Joe \u2014 he would do it?\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n He called the war a \u201clittle bit of a detour\u201d from what he said were his otherwise winning economic policies, and asserted again \u2014 without providing evidence \u2014 that Iran was on the cusp of having a nuclear weapon and would have used it to cause devastation across the Middle East and to the U.S. if the U.S. hadn\u2019t struck first, including when it bombed Iran\u2019s nuclear sites last summer.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t let a madman or you can\u2019t let a mad ideology have a nuclear weapon,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n He repeated his long-pushed lie that he won the 2020 election, and suggested his support among his MAGA base remains at 100%.<\/p>\n An AP-NORC poll this week found that most Americans believe that the U.S. military campaign in Iran has gone too far<\/a> \u2014 including about a quarter of Republicans \u2014 and that many are worried about gas prices.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774736893_970_.jpeg\")
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