President Trump: Over the weekend, the United States Military and the Israeli Defense Forces continued Operation Epic Fury very successfully. Over the past nine days, we've carried out some of the most powerful and complex military strikes and maneuvers the world has ever seen.
President Trump: We've struck over five thousand targets to date, some of them very major targets, and we've left some of the most important targets for later, in case we need to do it. If we hit them, it's going to take many years for them to be rebuilt. Having to do with electricity production, and man other things, so we're not looking to do that if we don't have to. But they're the kind of things that are very east to hit, but very devastating it they are hit. We are waiting to see what happens before we hit them We could take them out in one day.
President Trump: It's all resulting in a ninety percent decline in various things, but in particular, Iranian missile launchers, and eighty-three percent drop in drone launchers, as you know. The drone launchers are pretty well shot, but we're at over ninety percent decline in the Iranian missile launchers, which is very hard to reproduce and very hard to get…as soon as they send a missile up from a launcher, we're able to knock out that launcher within a period of five minutes or less…we're ahead of our initial timeline by a lot. I would say that we probably would not have thought after a month we would be here.
President Trump: As we continue Operation Epic Fury, we're also focused on keeping energy and oil flowing to the world, and I will not allow a terrorist regime to hold the world hostage and attempt to stop the globe's oil supply, and if Iran does anything to do that, they'll get hit at a much, much harder level. I will take out those targets that were easy and that I mentioned just before. We'll take 'em out so quickly; they'll never be able to recover. Ever. If they want to play that game, they better not play that game. In the long run, oil supplies will be dramatically more secure without the threat of Iranian ships, drones, missiles, nuclear menace, or anything, so the Straight of Hormuz is going to remain safe. We have a lot of Navy ships there. We have the best equipment in the world inspecting for mines. Again, most of their ships are own at the bottom of the sea. But we will hit them so hard that it will not be possible for them, or anybody else helping them, to ever recover that section of the world if they do anything.
Reporter: Has Iran activated any sleeper cells in inside the U.S.?
President Trump: We've been very much on top of it. One of the things we have to do is get the democrats to stop the democrat shutdown, because as you know,. the apparatus that looks into that, Schumer and the democrats have shut it down. Which tells you they probably hate our country a lot. But the democrats have to open that up. But we've got very, very good intelligence into that. We know a lot of different things that have happened that have been very bad. A lot of them came in during the Biden open border period. But we have them under; we've got them; we're watching every single one of them. Yeah, we know a lot about 'em, but the biggest problem we have is the democrat shutdown. We know a lot about 'em, but the shutdown doesn't allow us to do what we have to do.
Reporter: How many American deaths are you willing to have in this war?
President Trump: Well, as I said before, when you have conflicts like this, you always have death. And I was at Dover yesterday, I met the parents, and they were unbelievable people. They were unbelievable people. But they all had one thing in common. They said to me one thing; every single one, 'Finish the job, sir. Please finish the job'. And I'll leave you at that.