Editor’s Notes: A short time ago, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. military has begun major combat operations against Iran, vowing to eliminate what he calls imminent threats from a “vicious” regime and its proxies across the Middle East. In this address, he invokes decades of attacks linked to Iran—from the 1979 embassy hostage crisis to support for Hamas—to justify a sweeping campaign targeting Tehran’s nuclear program, missiles, and military infrastructure. He warns that American casualties are possible but frames the operation as a necessary fight to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran and secure the future safety of the United States and its allies. Trump also urges Iran’s security forces to lay down their arms for “complete immunity” and calls on ordinary Iranians to seize this moment to overthrow their government once the bombing stops. (Feb 28, 2026)
TRANSCRIPT:
Major Combat Operations Begin in Iran
PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP: A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people. Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world.
47 Years of Iranian Aggression Against America
For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted, “Death to America,” and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops, and the innocent people in many, many countries. Among the regime’s very first acts was to back a violent takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, holding dozens of American hostages for 444 days.
In 1983, Iran’s proxies carried out the Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut that killed 241 American military personnel. In 2000, they knew and were probably involved with the attack on the USS Cole. Many died. Iranian forces killed and maimed hundreds of American service members in Iraq. The regime’s proxies have continued to launch countless attacks against American forces stationed in the Middle East in recent years, as well as U.S. naval and commercial vessels in international shipping lanes. It’s been mass terror, and we’re not going to put up with it any longer.
From Lebanon to Yemen and Syria to Iraq, the regime has armed, trained, and funded terrorist militias that have soaked the earth with blood and guts. And it was Iran’s proxy, Hamas, that launched the monstrous October 7th attacks on Israel, slaughtering more than 1,000 innocent people, including 46 Americans, while taking 12 of our citizens hostage. It was brutal, something like the world has never seen before.
Iran’s Nuclear Program and Operation Midnight Hammer
Iran is the world’s number-one state sponsor of terror and just recently killed tens of thousands of its own citizens on the street as they protested. It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon. I’ll say it again. They can never have a nuclear weapon.
That is why, in Operation Midnight Hammer last June, we obliterated the regime’s nuclear program at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. After that attack, we warned them never to resume their malicious pursuit of nuclear weapons, and we sought repeatedly to make a deal. We tried. They wanted to do it. They didn’t want to do it. They just wanted to practice evil. But Iran refused, just as it has for decades and decades. They rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore.
Instead, they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long-range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland. Just imagine how emboldened this regime would be if they ever had and actually were armed with nuclear weapons as a means to deliver their message.
The United States Military’s Ongoing Operation
For these reasons, the United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests. We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again, obliterated. We’re going to annihilate their navy. We’re going to ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces and no longer use their IEDs or roadside bombs, as they are sometimes called, to so gravely wound and kill thousands and thousands of people, including many Americans. And we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. It’s a very simple message. They will never have a nuclear weapon.
This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States Armed Forces. I built and rebuilt our military in my first administration, and there is no military on Earth even close to its power, strength, or sophistication. My administration has taken every possible step to minimize the risk to U.S.
personnel in the region. Even so, and I do not make this statement lightly, the Iranian regime seeks to kill. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war. But we’re doing this not for now. We’re doing this for the future. And it is a noble mission.
We pray for every service member as they selflessly risk their lives to ensure that Americans and our children will never be threatened by a nuclear-armed Iran. We ask God to protect all of our heroes in harm’s way. And we trust that, with His help, the men and women of the Armed Forces will prevail. We have the greatest in the world, and they will prevail.
A Warning to the Iranian Military
To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the Armed Forces, and all of the police, I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity, or, in the alternative, face certain death.