Trump says Iran still has to be "finished off"
Trump says Iran's drone-making capacity is "soon to be gone" and that nobody knows who is running the country
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UpdateTuesday, October 6, 2026 at 4:38 PM ET
Trump also said Tuesday that the war between Russia and Ukraine is getting closer to ending.
President Trump said Tuesday that Iran still has to be "finished off", adding that its drone-making capacity is "soon to be gone." He said the biggest problem with Iran is that nobody knows who is running the country.
Speaking at an event at Sparrows Point Shipyard in Baltimore County, Maryland, Trump said the US would finish up with Iran either "the nice way or the not-so-nice way," according to Iran International. He also called Iran "the bully of the Middle East" but said it is "not so much the bully anymore," the outlet reported.
Separately on Tuesday, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a statement praising the October 7 attack as one of the "greatest" operations in history, saying allied armed groups in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria are operating alongside Iran against Israel and the US, Iran International reported.
Trump's language returns to the confrontational register that followed his rejection of Iran's ceasefire proposal and the buildup of forces around the Strait of Hormuz, rather than the mediated track that briefly surfaced through reports of possible sanctions relief, which Trump himself later denied offering. Paired with his claim that nobody knows who runs Iran, the remarks cut against any near-term negotiated outcome and align instead with a pattern of escalation markers, including the evacuation of the Fairford bomber base and reinforced Gulf deployments. The rhetoric itself adds no new operational detail, but it keeps the confrontation track dominant over the stalled diplomatic one.