Trump: End to Iran operation needs ‘more of the same’

President Trump said the U.S. needs to do “more of the same” when asked on Wednesday what he needs militarily for the operation in Iran to end.

“Right now, they’ve lost their navy. They’ve lost their air force. They have no anti-aircraft apparatus at all. They have no radar. Their leaders are gone, and we could do a lot worse,” Trump told reporters.

But questions continue to grow around what Trump’s exit strategy is in Iran as the conflict threatens to roil the U.S. economy and several polls show Americans are dissatisfied with Trump’s handling of the operation.

The president and his administration have also been giving conflicting accounts of when they see the war ending, with some critics saying Trump started a “war of choice.”

An NBC News survey, which began collecting responses since the day before the U.S. launched the joint strikes with Israel, found that 54 percent of Americans said they disapproved of Trump’s handling of the situation in Iran.

Meanwhile, in an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll released Friday, 56 percent of Americans said they strongly opposed military action in the region, while 44 percent said they supported or strongly supported the campaign.

Trump and administration officials have offered mixed messaging on what a U.S. exit plan from Iran would look like, which could prove to be politically complicated for Trump.

Trump told reporters Monday the U.S. is “getting very close to finishing” operations in Iran, suggesting a potential off-ramp was in sight. But then Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a Tuesday news conference the conflict is “quite contained.”

When asked in an interview with CNBC how he sees the war ending, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said, “I don’t know.”

“President Trump is the wrong guy to go up against, that’s what I know,” Witkoff said. “He has drawn a red line, and that is that Iran cannot have a weapon. And yes, they say they don’t want one, but all of their actions indicate the exact opposite.”