Trump said military campaign could ‘go far longer’ then initial four-to-five week projection as violence and chaos ripple across Middle East – key US politics stories from Monday 2 March at a glance
Donald Trump has laid out four goals in Iran and said the US campaign had been projected to last four to five weeks but could “go far longer than that”.
On Monday, the US president offered his most extensive comments yet about the war, going beyond two video messages and a series of brief phone interviews with reporters that offered sometimes conflicting objectives.
But Trump undercut the gravity of his remarks by abruptly pivoting to tout his plans for a new White House ballroom, boasting that it would be the “most beautiful ballroom in the world”, coming in “under budget” and “ahead of schedule” for “$400m or less”.
Trump said he had ordered the attack on Iran to thwart Tehran’s nuclear development and a ballistic missile programme that was “growing rapidly and dramatically” and “posed a very clear, colossal threat to America and our forces stationed overseas”.
