US President Donald Trump walks with aides outside the North Portico of the White House in Washington on Saturday (local time). [AP]
US President Donald Trump walks with aides outside the North Portico of the White House in Washington on Saturday (local time). [AP]

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2026-07-13 05:38:12

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US President Donald Trump said Sunday that the United States had carried out powerful airstrikes against Iran and that the Strait of Hormuz remains open to civilian vessels, pushing back against claims by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that it had closed the waterway.

Speaking by phone to NBC and CNN, Trump said, "We hit them very hard last night" and "Hormuz is open. We bombed the hell out of them last night."

The strikes Trump referred to were CENTCOM attacks on Sunday targeting Iranian aerial and ground surveillance radar systems, missile and drone storage facilities, missile and drone launch sites, and surface-to-air missile batteries. The operation was a response to an IRGC attack on a Cyprus-flagged container ship transiting the Strait of Hormuz at 7:15 p.m. Eastern time Sunday, and marked the third time US forces had struck Iran within the past week.

Trump lashed out at Iran, calling its leaders "really evil, crazy people." He said the two sides had held a final round of talks Sunday, adding, "They agreed to a deal — it was a perfect deal for us. No nuclear, none of this, none of that."

Trump said Iran had agreed to give everything up, then walked out of the meeting room — and within less than an hour launched drones and dispatched vessels. "So I said, 'You're crazy. You're crazy people,'" he said.

Trump's remarks amounted to an explanation of how the renewed US strikes came about: after the ceasefire MOU with Iran collapsed and the two sides fell into armed conflict, Washington had again reached a deal with Tehran on Sunday — only for Iran to attack another civilian ship passing through the strait, prompting US forces to resume strikes.


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