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Missiles and drones are flying across the Persian Gulf, but President Donald Trump minimized the war the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran 100 days ago.<\/p>\n
In an interview with NBC\u2019s\u00a0Meet the Press with Kristen Welker<\/em>, he was asked if the U.S. is at war with Iran in light of Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u2019s recent comment that it has concluded.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, they\u2019ve been largely decapitated. And I call it a military exercise because people would rather have it called that. It\u2019s not a big war for us. It\u2019s not,\u201d Trump replied.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, a fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran has been in place for about two months, but talks for a more lasting peace have stalled.<\/p>\n As a result, the Strait of Hormuz remains mostly closed, though more traffic is flowing, and the U.S. is maintaining a naval blockade, which is considered an act of war.<\/p>\n \u201cThey put up a blockade and so we blockaded them,\u201d Trump told NBC. \u201cAnd we have the ultimate blockade. I don\u2019t consider that a war, but if you want to define it as such, I guess you can.\u201d<\/p>\n He later added, \u201cI don\u2019t define it at all. I don\u2019t think about it. I just do what I have to do.\u201d<\/p>\n But fighting has not completely stopped. In fact, it\u2019s heating up as Iran has launched missiles and drones at U.S. allies in the region, while also threatening commercial ships.<\/p>\n The U.S. has responded by shooting down the projectiles, destroying Iranian boats, and bombing missile sites in Iran that tried to shoot down U.S. aircraft. <\/p>\n Last weekend, the U.S. disabled a ship attempting to breach its naval blockade by firing a missile into the engine room. Also last weekend, the U.S. conducted\u00a0\u201cself-defense strikes\u201d in Goruk, Iran, and Qeshm Island.<\/p>\n On Friday, Central Command said U.S. forces\u00a0shot down Iranian missiles and drones\u00a0launched toward the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf neighbors. Then Central Command announced Saturday evening in the U.S. (early Sunday in the Mideast) that\u00a0two more Iranian drones were downed.<\/p>\n Despite 13 U.S. service members dying in the Iran conflict and thousands of Iranians, Trump has been sensitive about calling it a war.<\/p>\n In March, he said \u201cthey don\u2019t like the word war because you\u2019re supposed to get approval.\u201d Instead, Trump added that he prefers to call the Iran war a \u201cmilitary operation,\u201d echoing Russia\u2019s use of the term \u201cspecial military operation\u201d to refer to its invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n But as public opinion sours, Congress has signaled more assertiveness in limiting the president. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted 215-208, with four Republicans joining Democrats, to rein in Trump\u2019s ability to wage war against Iran.<\/p>\n Administration officials previously have argued that the War Powers Act, which requires congressional authorization for military action lasting more than 60 days, doesn\u2019t apply to Iran because of the ceasefire.<\/p>\n Later in the NBC interview, Trump was pressed about breaking his promise not to start new wars, which was a consistent message during his 2024 campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst of all, I didn\u2019t guarantee no war,\u201d he claimed. \u201cWhy would I have built the strongest military in the world?\u201d<\/p>\n Trumped added that he didn\u2019t want to use the military, \u201cbut I\u2019m doing you and everybody else a big favor.\u201d<\/p>\n During his second term, he has deployed the military steadily. Last June, the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear facilities amid Israel\u2019s war against the regime. In January, U.S. forces captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. And U.S. airstrikes on suspected drug boats are ongoing after starting last fall.<\/p>\n The operational tempo has been so heavy that U.S. stockpiles of key munitions are running low, and the USS Gerald Ford<\/em> recently completed the longest deployment for an aircraft carrier since the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n By contrast, Tump vowed during his\u00a0November 2024 victory speech that \u201cI\u2019m not going to start a war. I\u2019m going to stop wars.\u201d<\/p>\n And while campaigning earlier that year, he said, \u201cI will not send you to fight and die in stupid foreign wars that never end. I will not send our sons and daughters to go fight for a war in a country that you\u2019ve never heard of. We\u2019re not going to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Trump #calls #Iran #war #military #exercise #Hormuz #fighting #heats #denies #vowing #wars<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Missiles and drones are flying across the Persian Gulf, but President Donald Trump minimized the war the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran 100 days ago. In an interview with… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1015,114,665,8603,6391,7259,640,445,808,260,6599,446,1189],"class_list":["post-6131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-calls","tag-denies","tag-donald-trump","tag-exercise","tag-fighting","tag-heats","tag-hormuz","tag-iran","tag-military","tag-trump","tag-vowing","tag-war","tag-wars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}