The Dispatch
The President of the United States delivered a primetime address to the nation on the evening of April 1, 2026, providing what the White House described as an important update on Operation Epic Fury, the military campaign against Iran launched jointly with Israel on February 28. It was the President’s first formal address to the nation since the operation began. The address was delivered approximately twelve hours after the President posted to Truth Social that Iran’s new regime president had requested a ceasefire — a claim denied by a spokesperson for Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who said Iran was determined to fight on.
The President opened by stating that in the past four weeks, United States armed forces had delivered swift, decisive, overwhelming victories on the battlefield. He said Iran’s navy is gone, its air force is in ruins, most of its leaders are dead, and its ability to launch missiles and drones has been dramatically curtailed. He said weapons factories and rocket launchers are being blown to pieces, with very few of them left. He said the United States military has struck 12,300 targets and damaged or destroyed 155 Iranian vessels since February 28, according to US Central Command. He said the United States is winning bigger than ever before.
The President stated that the war’s core strategic objectives are nearing completion. Those objectives, as enumerated by the White House, are: obliterating Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and production capability, annihilating its navy, severing its support for regional proxy groups, and ensuring Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon. He reiterated that the war is necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. His own Director of National Intelligence acknowledged last year that Iran is not currently seeking to build one. The President stated there would have been no Middle East and no Israel without his withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear accord, which required Iran to scale back its nuclear programme under international monitoring. Iran has maintained that its nuclear activities are peaceful.
The President stated that the United States will continue hitting Iran extremely hard over the next two to three weeks, and will take them back to the stone ages where they belong. He warned that if no deal is reached during that period, the United States has its eyes on key targets and will hit every one of Iran’s electric generating plants, very hard, and probably simultaneously. He stated that regime change was never the United States’ goal, but that regime change has occurred because of their original leader’s death. He stated that the conflict represents a true investment in your children and your grandchildren’s future. He stated that the whole world is watching and cannot believe what it is seeing. He acknowledged that gasoline prices have risen by more than 25 percent since the war began, and attributed the increase entirely to deranged Iranian terror attacks on commercial oil tankers. He described this price increase as short-term.
On the Strait of Hormuz, the President urged other countries to build up some delayed courage and go to the strait and just take it, protect it. Earlier in the same week, the President had established the strait’s reopening as the condition for considering Iran’s ceasefire request. The President did not address this condition during the address. He closed by stating that the United States is on the cusp of ending Iran’s sinister threat to America and the world. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed.
Source Block
- Primary: Al Jazeera liveblog — Iran war live, April 2, 2026: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/4/2/iran-war-live-trump-to-address-nation-tehran-denies-seeking-ceasefire
- Supporting: CNN live updates: https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/01/world/live-news/iran-war-us-trump-oil
- Supporting: NPR: https://www.npr.org/2026/04/01/nx-s1-5769805/iran-war-trump
- White House objectives summary: https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/04/president-trumps-clear-and-unchanging-objectives-drive-decisive-success-against-iranian-regime/
- PBS — Trump’s original Iran address (Feb 28): https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/read-trumps-full-statement-on-iran-attack
- Screenshots: screenshots/1775093521845_image.png, screenshots/1775093588077_image.png, screenshots/1775093605378_image.png, screenshots/1775093615580_image.png, screenshots/1775093624874_image.png
- Internal cross-references:
