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The Defense Department was forced on Monday to deny the U.S. had struck Iran’s main petroleum export facility after President Donald Trump posted a fake but very realistic AI-generated video showing a purported attack by American forces.
The video, posted to the president’s Truth Social account, appears to show oil storage tanks and refineries erupting in flames from the perspective of someone filming from inside a helicopter above the carnage, with an accompanying message describing the scene as “Kharg Island being blown to smithereens” and signed as “President DJT.”
But a U.S. official said no such attack had taken place, with Kharg Island not being among the locations targeted overnight in what has been the first exchange of fire between American and Iranian forces in weeks.
Additionally, the head of National Iranian Oil Co, Hamid Bovard, said on Monday that the president’s post was “laughable” and described conditions on Kharg Island as “calm and appropriate.”
Trump — whose White House has repeatedly stated that his Truth Social posts count as official statements from the commander in chief — also hit out at Iran again in a separate Truth Social post on Monday, writing that it was “officially a Failed Nation” and “DEAD.”
President Donald Trump pisted an AI video of a mock attack on Iran’s Kharg Island that looked very real on Monday (@RealDonaldTrump, Truth Social)
It came as Trump has yet to find an exit strategy for the war he started (Getty)
“They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have no currency, they are not paying their soldiers or police, Inflation is at 300%, and their leadership is in total disarray and incapable of properly representing the country. The only thing they have is FAKE NEWS from the USA, a willingness to kill their protesters (now over 100,000 people dead,” he said.
Iranian media outlets did report explosions near Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz, where an American official said Tehran had been preparing to launch mine-laying rockets as part of the country’s bid to choke off the key waterway and hamstring the American economy in response to Trump’s war, which has now passed the half-year mark without end in sight.
In response, Iranian forces fired missiles at Jordan, but an American official told CNN those had been intercepted.
Donald Trump (Truth Social)
Speaking with Fox News on Sunday, President Trump defended the Iran campaign, arguing the U.S. was winning the war, even if a final, durable peace deal had not been inked.
“I don’t need a signature on a piece of paper,” Trump said.
He also argued that Democratic critics of the war were trying to sabotage the operation, invoking an argument used by Republican presidents defending unpopular wars from Richard Nixon in the Vietnam War era to George W. Bush after the invasion of Iraq.
“They want our country to lose the war with Iran, which isn’t going to happen because we are absolutely winning easily,” Trump added.
The strait, which carried about 20 percent of the world’s oil before the conflict, has remained a central obstacle. The U.S. insists it must remain open to unrestricted shipping, while Iran says it has the right to manage traffic through the waterway.
Recently, the Trump administration signaled a shift toward imposing economic measures against Iran. Last week, the Treasury Department unveiled a multi-pronged campaign to “sever the economic lifelines that sustain the Iranian regime.”
“If we need to use kinetic strikes, we’ll use them,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday. “But economic pressure hurts them the most right now.”
With additional reporting by wires services