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by MARK POWELL
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“We are going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast. We’re getting very close.”
That was the essence of President Donald Trump’s address to the nation from the White House on Wednesday night. In a talk clocking in at just 19 minutes, he gave the country a status report on Operation Epic Fury.
In many ways, the speech was 32 days overdue, with some observers saying it was the address Trump should have given the day military operations against Iran began on February 28. For he articulated the best case yet for why he initiated strikes against the Islamic Republic.
“They were rapidly building a vast stockpile of conventional ballistic missiles and would soon have had missiles that could reach the American homeland, Europe, and virtually any other place on Earth,” Trump claimed. “Iran’s strategy was so obvious; they wanted to produce as many missiles as possible, and they did with the longest range possible, and they had some weapons that nobody believed they had. We just learned that we took them out, we took them all out so that no one would really dare stop them and their race for a nuclear bomb, a nuclear weapon like nobody’s ever seen before. They were right at the doorstep. For years, everyone has said that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons. But in the end, those are just words if you’re not willing to take action when the time comes.”
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And act, Trump did. Decisively. He ran through an overview of what’s been accomplished so far. “
Their navy is gone,” he said. “Their air force is gone. Their missiles are just about used up or beaten. Taken together, these actions will cripple Iran’s military, crush their ability to support terrorist proxies and deny them the ability to build a nuclear bomb. Our armed forces have been extraordinary. There’s never been anything like it militarily. Everyone is talking about it. And tonight, I’m pleased to say that these core strategic objectives are nearing completion.”
Yet while vowing the war would be wound up in the coming weeks, Trump also made it clear that’s contingent on cooperation from Iran’s new leadership, whom he strongly urged to take the off-ramp.
“We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” Trump said. “We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing. Regime change was not our goal. We never said regime change, but regime change has occurred because of all of their original leaders’ death. They’re all dead. The new group is less radical and much more reasonable.”
Should those new leaders reject Trump’s carrot, he vowed to deliver an even stronger stick.
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“Yet if during this period of time no deal is made, we have our eyes on key targets,” he said. “If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric-generating plants very hard, and probably simultaneously. We have not hit their oil, even though that’s the easiest target of all, because it would not give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding. But we could hit it and it would be gone. And there’s not a thing they could do about it. They have no anti-aircraft equipment.” Their radar is 100% annihilated.”
“We are unstoppable as a military force,” Trump added. “The nuclear sites that we obliterated with the B-2 bombers have been hit so hard that it would take months to get near the nuclear dust. And we have it under intense satellite surveillance and control. If we see them make a move, even a move for it, we’ll hit them with missiles very hard again. We have all the cards. They have none.”
And as for the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s petroleum passes, and whose traffic Iran has slowed to barely a trickle, Trump says it’s up to countries that receive that oil to reopen it.
“The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won’t be taking any in the future,” he said. “We don’t need it… so, to those countries that can’t get fuel, many of which refuse to get involved in the decapitation of Iran — we had to do it ourselves — I have a suggestion. No. 1, buy oil from the United States of America. We have plenty. We have so much. And No. 2, build up some delayed courage. Should have done it before. Should have done it with us as we asked. Go to the Strait and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done, so it should be easy.”
The reaction was, as always in this Age of Trump, split along party lines.
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No clear plan. Rambling, unmoored, unserious.
— Senator Chris Coons (@ChrisCoons) April 2, 2026
He’s in way over his head.
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Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said on X, “No clear plan. Rambling, unmoored, unserious.”
Warmonger-in-chief, South Carolina’s Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, had the Fox News spotlight all to himself for the first ten minutes following Trump’s address.
“What I learned tonight, Iran’s gonna have a choice in two to three weeks,” Graham said. “You either do a deal where you get out of the business you were in (uranium enrichment and missile development), or we’re going to blow your stuff up that will allow you to function as a nation. That is your choice.”
But while Iran decides which course it will follow, the violence goes on. Earlier Wednesday, a young girl was critically injured, and 13 others were also hurt by an Iranian missile fired at central Israel.
At least 13-15 American troops have been killed during the operation, with another 500-600 wounded – although Trump’s administration has been accused of understating casualties.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.
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3 comments
Right gramps, plenty of Republicans think the Iran attack is BS too.
So weird how Trump fired Bondi just days before she was scheduled to give sworn testimony before Congress about the Epstein files.
How many people voted for Trump because they were told Kamala would get us pulled into a war with Iran? How many times did he claim Obama was going to do it? How many times has Trump claimed they are days away from getting a nuke, and how many times has he claimed their nuclear capabilities have been destroyed?
How do you dopes keep getting roped by this?