Trump Confronted by Reporter Over Conflicting Messages on War: ‘Which Is It?’

President Donald Trump was confronted by a reporter over conflicting messages on the status of the war from Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

During his 60 Minutes interview, Hegseth told anchor Major Garrett, “What I want your viewers to understand is this is only just the beginning.”

But Trump said, in a phone interview with CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang, that “I think the war is very complete, pretty much.”

The president gave a press conference from his Doral resort on Monday night, during which the Iran war was a frequent topic. In his opening remarks, Trump again asserted that his military objectives are “pretty well complete.”

Later in the presser, Jiang asked Trump which of the statements is the case, and Trump replied that the answer is “both”:

WEIJIA JIANG: Thank you. Thank you. Mr. President, you’ve said the war is, quote, “very complete.” But your Defense Secretary says this is just the beginning. So which is it? And how long should Americans be prepared for this war to last for?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I think you can say both. The beginning — it’s the beginning of building a new country. But they certainly — they have no Navy. They have no Air Force. They have no anti-aircraft equipment. It’s all been blown up. They have no radar. They have no telecommunications. And they have no leadership. It’s all gone.

So, you know, you could look at that statement. We could call it a tremendous success right now, as we leave here, I could call it. Or we could go further, and we’re going to go further. But the big risk on that war has been over for three days. We wiped them out the first — in the first two days.

When you think about it, it’s incredible. We wiped out a big Navy — very powerful Navy. You know, these were ships. These were serious ships. These were ships that you buy when you want to win battles. They’re all — they’re all on the bottom floor. The sailors are all running off their ships. They refuse to get on the ships. The Air Force is gone. Everything is gone.

The missiles are down to a trickle. The drones are down to probably 25 percent, and they’ll soon be down to nothing. We’ll have the — where they manufactured the drones are under fire. As we speak, they’re being hit. So the rest is going to be a determination as to my attitude, along with the people in the Trump administration, what we want to do.

Watch above via White House press pool.

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