Trump Wildly Claims in the Oval Office: We Have ‘Essentially Taken Over Iran’

President Donald Trump tussled with reporters in the Oval Office on Friday when he was asked about the ongoing war with Iran and his plan to end it.

In answer to ABC News’s White House correspondent Rachel Scott, Trump defended Vice President JD Vance’s characterization of the conflict in Iran as “not a war.”

Scott also pressed Trump about the number of U.S. troops killed and injured in the war so far, prompting a fiery rebuttal from Trump.

“What we’ve done is amazing. We took over Venezuela, and we have essentially taken over Iran,” Trump said of the conflict, which has not seen the U.S. occupy any Iranian territory.

“Now, there’s been no shooting for days before the hit that we gave them the other night to wipe out their radar. They’re very sophisticated. They’ve brought in radar because we knocked it out once. Now we knocked that out twice. Now we don’t notice any activity. I think they’re tired of putting it in and getting blown up,” Trump continued, adding:

But the Strait of Hormuz is taking a lot of ships. We’re getting a lot of ships out of there. A lot of oil is coming out of the strait. There are no mines whatsoever. We have no mines. You know why? We took out all the mines. They had some mines. We took them all with our minesweepers. They go underwater.

Nobody can see them. The best in the world. So we’re doing a great job. And we will — I would say it’s a — a military conflict, if you want. Some people could call it a war. I don’t think it matters what you call it. What matters is the fact that we have had tremendous success. We stopped Iran from having a nuclear weapon.

Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!