Yesterday, I brought you this report that President Trump confirmed we would not be in Iran for the long term… In fact, he said “four weeks or less”. That report here in case you missed it: President Trump Confirms It Will Be “Four Weeks Or Less” Now today President Trump apparently spoke to Jake Tapper by phone and revealed big new updates…. First, he says we are ahead of schedule and we’ve accomplished more in one day than we ever thought we could. That four-week timeframe is greatly accelerated already. But he also told Tapper that the “big wave” of strikes hasn’t even happened yet! We knocked out the top guy and 49 of his top leaders in a historic, unprecedented strike, but that apparently isn’t even the big one yet! Watch here: President Donald Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper in a nine-minute phone interview Monday morning that the US military is “knocking the crap” out of Iran – but the “big wave” is yet to come.https://t.co/0rhIowcppw pic.twitter.com/sWLrvDLmVi — CNN (@CNN) March 2, 2026 FULL TRANSCRIPT: YES I just got off the phone with President Trump. It was a roughly 9-minute phone interview talking about the war in Iran. Um, just want to give you the quotes. Uh, I, uh, he said, quote, “We’re knocking the crap out of them. I think it’s going very well. It’s very powerful. We’ve got the greatest military in the world, and we’re using it.” I asked the president how long he thought this war might last. He said, “I don’t want to see it go on too long. I always thought it would be 4 weeks, and we’re a little ahead of schedule.” I asked him if the US was doing more to help the Iranian people, uh, regain, reclaim their country than the military strikes, if there was other stuff going on. He said, “Yes, we are indeed, but right now we want everyone staying inside. It’s not safe out there.” He also suggested it was about to get even less safe. “We haven’t even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon.” Uh, I asked the president about the fact that Iran, uh, attacked, uh, Arab countries in the region: Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE. Uh, he said that that was the biggest surprise so far for him and his team. Quote, “We were surprised. We told them,” meaning the Arab countries, “‘We’ve got this,’ and now they want to fight and they’re aggressively fighting.” “They were going to be very little-involved and now they insist on being involved,” he said of the Arab leaders of those countries. “I know these people. They’re tough and smart.” The Iranians, he said, quote, “shot into a hotel, they shot into an apartment house. It just made them,” meaning the Arab leaders, “angry.” “They love us, but they were watching. There was no reason for them to be involved. That was probably the biggest surprise. Uh, you have to understand, they were living under that dark cloud for years,” meaning the Iranian nuclear threat. “That’s why you could never have peace.” Uh, I asked, “Okay, well, who’s going to lead Iran now?” The president said, “We don’t know who the leadership is. We don’t know who they’ll pick. Maybe they’ll get lucky and get someone who knows what they’re doing.” The Iranians, he said, “lost a lot in terms of leadership,” because in the initial strikes, not only was Ayatollah Khomeini killed, but also 49 other Iranian leaders, he said. “It was an amazing strike. They got a little bit arrogant by meeting all in one place. They thought they were undetectable. They weren’t undetectable. We were shocked by it. They don’t even know who’s leading them now. We went down 49,” he said, meaning 49 leaders on the, uh, leadership chart there. “We don’t know who’s leading the country now. They don’t know who’s leading. It’s a little like the unemployment line.” The president said that they tried to make a deal with the Iranians, “but we couldn’t make a deal with these people.” He said every offer was met with a walk-back of a previous offer. Uh, “They had all that enriched stuff,” he said, referring to uranium. “They looked at redoing it there.” This is after the strikes last June. Uh, but it was in such bad shape, the mountain had basically collapsed. The president said, “This is the way to deal with Iran. We don’t have to worry about agreements.” He talked about all of the years, decades of killing and IEDs, and all the destruction that Iran has wreaked on, on the United States and other countries. He said, “People in the military walking around with no legs, walking around with no arms, their faces shattered.” Uh, he said that today’s military operation was of a piece, part of a larger campaign. “We took out Soleimani last time.” That’s referring to the Iranian general, uh, Qasem Soleimani. “He was an unbelievably violent, vicious general. Hitting him,” he said, “was a big move. If that didn’t happen, then you might not have Israel today. Israel might not exist.” Then he referred to Midnight Hammer, the strike against the Iranian nuclear facilities last June. “They were a month away from having a nuclear weapon.” He criticized Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. He said, “It gave all the power to Iran. They would have had a nuclear weapon 3 or 4 years ago.” “They would have used it against Israel. They maybe would have used it against us.” In the latest talks, he said the Iranians, quote, “weren’t willing to give us what we asked for. They should have done it. So it’s going good,” the president said before getting off the phone. Backup video here if needed: