LIVE: Donald Trump Addresses Nation After Strikes on Iran; UPDATE: Trump Warns, Peace Or Else

Having rendered Iran’s main nuclear-weapons development sites useless — we hope — Donald Trump will shortly address the nation on live TV, scheduled for 10 pm ET. If you have not followed Beege’s excellent thread tonight, be sure to catch up now. Trump decided to eschew a narrow objective of just the Fordow site, which got hit with six GBU-57 bunker busters, but also finished the elimination of the Iranian military facilities at Natanz and Isfahan. The B-2s sortied to Fordow, but 30 submarine-launched Tomahawks dealt with the latter two sites.

Trump has already declared that he wants Iran to come to the table to discuss an end to war:

We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Trump followed it up with another offer to let the regime back down:

I will be giving an Address to the Nation at 10:00 P.M., at the White House, regarding our very successful military operation in Iran. This is an HISTORIC MOMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISRAEL, AND THE WORLD. IRAN MUST NOW AGREE TO END THIS WAR. THANK YOU!

The Iranians don’t sound like they want to take Trump up on the offer, although this is still sinking into the psyches of the Iranian regime, too. Right now, state media mouthpieces are issuing threats to attack US bases and American citizens in the region in retaliation, promising to “finish it”:

Iranian state TV airs a graphic showing U.S. bases across the Middle East under the heading: “Within Iran’s firing range.”

The message reads: “Mr. Trump, you started this — we will finish it.” pic.twitter.com/OUsl9SxpCh

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) June 22, 2025

As I quipped in response, “Kiss your navy goodbye, then.” The US has pushed at least three carrier groups into and around the Persian Gulf before tonight, which is an enormous projection of military power and capability. The Iranians can’t even fly in their own airspace. They do have short- and medium-range missiles and cruise missiles that could target US assets, but they also have an extremely vulnerable and now hopelessly outmatched navy. Trump would likely order that navy destroyed before they have a chance to block the Strait of Hormuz, especially if they start targeting US assets anywhere. 

At any rate, Trump will likely want to focus on opportunities to dial down hostilities rather than ramp them up. He will also want to explicitly lay out his case vis-a-vis the War Powers Act by reminding everyone that Iran has been a clear and present danger to American national security since 1979, and that their nuclear ambitions would have been catastrophic had they come to fruition. The real question is whether we have actually stopped it.

The live embed from Fox is active now, but they will also carry Trump’s speech. I’ll post it separately in an update when Trump concludes, and add more thoughts at that time. 

Update: Trump tweeted out a live stream on X:

https://t.co/2OYrMFlw46

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2025

I’ll have more thoughts afterward, as I noted earlier. 

Update: That was a shorter statement than I expected, and more pugnacious, too. Trump offered Iran a chance for peace, but he made it very clear that the US would continue to strike targets in and around Iran until they throw in the towel. That might complicate his case to Congress, but it would take them some time to act — and technically, Trump has 90 days to report to them under the War Powers Act. (Obama never did report to Congress on Libya in 2011.) Trump also used 46 years of Iranian attacks on American forces to justify tonight’s action, noting that Iranians had killed over a thousand US service members over the last few decades. 

Trump made it clear that CENTCOM has a long list of targets left to hit. The Iranian navy has to be near the top of the list, since it’s about the only part of their military that represents a real threat in the region. They were acting as spotters for the Houthi attacks on international shipping, so the navy is perhaps the most acute threat in the region.