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Trump says he has no regrets on the Iran war
September 11, 2026
Trump says the war with Iran ends shortly after the midterm elections, and Bessent says the administration sanctioned and closed the Dubai branches of Egypt's second largest bank.
Trump, the U.S. president, has waged a war against Iran that he first cast as a matter of weeks and that has run into its seventh month, with sanctions used alongside military pressure to cut off Iranian finance.
Key facts
- Bessent described sanctions on Egypt's second largest bank and the shuttering of its Dubai branches, saying the bank had handed Iran $1.8 billion dollars.
- Ingraham put it to Trump that "If we hadn't done Iran, you would be cruising to midterms victory right now," and Trump answered "supposing we were cruising, and all of a sudden Iran has a nuclear weapon. They would use it."
- An Iranian nuclear weapon, he went on, would let the Islamic Republic "wipe out" Israel and the Middle East and begin striking cities in the United States.
- The job of explaining the war to the public, and selling it, belongs to Trump, according to Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.
- Jack Etheridge, an alternate delegate from Ohio, said, “Any good thing in life is worth waiting for, and so if you put the Iran war and its ultimate conclusion in that context, I think that puts a slightly different light on it.”
CNBC reports Trump's exchange with Laura Ingraham, who told him that without Iran he would be cruising to a midterms victory; Trump answered by putting a nuclear-armed Iran against that cruise, saying such a weapon would be used. He said of Iran's forces that he does not know that they are going to be able to hold out, and he said a nuclear-armed Iran would "wipe out" Israel and the Middle East and start hitting U.S. cities. On the economic track, CNBC reports Bessent saying the administration sanctioned and closed the Dubai branches of the second largest bank in Egypt, on the claim that the bank had given Iran $1.8 billion.
NBC News reports the same timeline from the convention floor: Trump said the war will be over very shortly after the election, and in his speech Wednesday he predicted oil and gas prices would come down once it ends. NBC News also reports the arithmetic that sits against those predictions, a war Trump once said would run four or five weeks and that is now in its seventh month. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told NBC News the job of explaining and selling the war to Americans falls to Trump, framing the choice for voters as stopping Iran or allowing Iran to kill Americans. Several convention attendees told NBC News that Trump has earned their trust on the war, among them an Ohio alternate delegate, Jack Etheridge, who said a thing worth having is worth waiting for.
The two corroborating titles push the same event past the election-night frame. The Wall Street Journal ties Trump's senior advisers to the prospect that the fighting runs through the end of his term. Al Jazeera casts the war as a problem for the midterm vote itself. Nothing in the four accounts splits on the substance: the quotes, the $1.8 billion figure, the seventh month, and the post-election end date are corroborated across them. What is settled is what Trump and Bessent said and did this week; what is not is when the fighting actually stops.
“I don't know that they're gonna be able to hold out,” Trump said.
Still developing
The end date Trump gives is pinned only to the midterm elections, with no month, no ceasefire terms, and no timetable for Iranian forces he says he does not know can hold out. The sanctions step named so far reaches the Dubai branches of one Egyptian bank over $1.8 billion, with no further institutions named and no figure attached to the oil and gas price drop he predicts.
How settled the reporting is
Sources
- CNBC — Trump says he has no regrets about starting the Iran war as U.S. dials up economic pressure
- nbcnews.com — Trump says Iran war will end after Election Day
- Al Jazeera — Trump’s Iran war now has a midterm election problem