Remarks transcript, Jul 13, 2026 (Donald Trump)

We don't need it, but we need it from the standpoint of protecting allies, et cetera, et cetera—including Israel, including Saudi Arabia, including Qatar, including U.A.E. We're protecting all of them, and we've done a very effective job.

So, 4 months ago, these people had military that was very strong—by far the strongest probably in the Middle East. They were called the bully of the Middle East.

Now they don't have a navy. They have 159 ships underwater. They had a total of 159 ships. Now every one of them is underwater. They had 230 airplanes—attack planes. They're all gone. They're all—they're gone. They had tremendous radar. It's all gone. They had tremendous anti-aircraft. It's all gone.

Sadly, their leadership is all gone. They had—their first-tier leaders are all dead. Their second-tier leaders are all dead. Their third-tier leaders, who we're dealing with, more or less, some of them are already gone.

And then you read fake news, like your network, CNN, which is fake news—you read them—you have them say, "Well, actually, aren't they doing quite well?"

Let me just tell you: They have now inflation of over 300 percent. Four months ago, they had inflation of 5 percent. Now they're at over 300—could be 350 percent.

They made a deal. They broke it—probably 10 times. And they killed a lot of people. They killed our people. But the protesters—what they've done to the protesters. Fifty-two thousand—have you ever seen any of the burial lots where they're doing—where they're burying the protesters? They killed 52,000 protesters. And, on my watch, they can't do any of that.

So we have them in a position that they don't have any military. There's not a thing they can do about it. All they have is fake news, because they have—the fake news would rather see us lose the war than win the war, which is really treasonous.

But you argued Iran should have ballistic missiles.

Which is really treasonous, in a certain way.

So we're doing another very major attack tonight. They want to make a deal. They came back. We made a deal 2 days ago, and they want to make a deal. They've been negotiating for 47 years, but nobody has ever hit them militarily. We're hitting them very hard.

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you very much.

Are you going to sign the sanctions bill? The Russia sanctions bill.

Thank you, press.

The Russia sanctions bill that Lindsey Graham wanted passed.

Yes, we're talking about it.

You'll sign that?

We're talking about it. We'll decide very soon on that.