By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-09-09 20:26:32 | Updated at 2026-09-09 21:12:27
52 minutes ago
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during an event in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Aug. 10, 2026. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
U.S. President Donald Trump said that the war with Iran will likely end after the midterm elections, set to be held in two months, that will determine what party controls Congress.
Trump made the forecast while speaking to the press at Maryland’s Joint Base Andrews before heading to the Republican Party’s midterm convention in Dallas. The midterms will be held on Nov. 3.
“I think the war is going to end immediately after the election,” the U.S. president told reporters. “I think the war will end immediately after the election because they can’t hold out any longer.”
He added that Iran is using a strategy of holding out in an attempt to impact the U.S. election and will resume trying to produce a nuclear weapon.
“They’re desperate to try and affect the election so that we can get a nice, weak group of people in there and leave them alone, and let them have their nuclear weapon,” Trump said, referring to Tehran.
Adding that he isn’t interested in negotiations with Iran’s regime, Trump told reporters: “All they want is a nuclear weapon. And if they had a nuclear weapon, the whole world is in deep trouble.”
Over the summer, the United States and Iran held talks over Tehran’s nuclear program as well as reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway that allows for significant amounts of the world’s oil to be transported.
Renewed fighting between the two countries erupted last month over the strait, with American forces saying they destroying five Iranian oil tankers in a new round of strikes on Tuesday. In response, an Iranian military official warned that Tehran would escalate its attacks on U.S. assets in the region.
The war has been marked by a cycle of pauses followed by periodic flare-ups, with Iran still being able to launch missile and drone strikes on other Middle Eastern nations and threaten oil shipping in the Strait of Hormuz despite the U.S. attacks.
It’s not the first time this week Trump made forecasts about the Iran war.
On Monday, the U.S. president predicted that elevated gas prices would drop quickly once Iran is defeated by the United States. Trump wrote on Truth Social that prices would drop to $3 or possibly below $2 per gallon once that occurs, although he did not make a prediction on when.
Figures released by the American Automobile Association on Wednesday show that the price for regular gasoline averages to around $4.22 per gallon, rising 7 cents from the previous day. Diesel prices, which have been impacted by Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities in recent weeks, rose 4 cents to an all-time high of $5.94 per gallon.
The new U.S. strikes and Trump’s prediction also came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday claimed that Iran’s regime is “very close” to being toppled.
Speaking from Mount Hermon in Syria, Netanyahu said that “there is still work to do: The main task is to defeat the terrorist regime in Iran. We are very close to it.”
“We know that the entire axis will ultimately fall. We are committed to doing this, and we will do it,” he said, according to a translation into English provided by his office.
