US President Donald Trump at a Cabinet meeting today (Thursday), during which he addressed the progress of Operation Epic Fury.
"Over the past three weeks' we;ve been hitting Iran's military capabilities at a level that few people have ever seen before," Trump stated. "It's a display of force and precision and skill like nothing the world has really witnessed."
"We're crushing their missile and drone stockpiles, destroying their defense industrial base, we've wiped out their navy completely, their air force completely. We've wiped out a large percentage of their missiles and missile launchers. Without the launchers, the missiles don't do any good. We've wiped out probably close to 90 percent of the luanchers [and] probably, more than 90 percent of the missiles themselves," he added. "We've also destroyed a lot of the factories where they manufactured the drones and the missiles."
Trump dismissed what he called "fake news" from the Wall Street Journal about the strength of his desire for a deal to end the war, saying Iran is the party which is "begging to make a deal, not me. They're begging to make a deal. And anyone who saw what was happening over there would understand why they want to make a deal."
“I don’t know if we’ll be able to do that, I don't know if we're willing to do that," Trump said of the prospects of a deal, adding that those on the Iranian side are "lousy fighters, but they’re great negotiators."
According to Trump, Iran's representatives are lying when they deny that talks are taking place, and Iran should have made a deal long before the current conflict.
Earlier on Thursday, Trump commented on the talks on his Truth Social platform, writing: "The Iranian negotiators are very different and “strange." They are “begging" us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only “looking at our proposal." WRONG!!! They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty! President DJT"