Trump says he is in ‘deciding mode’ on destroying Iran

President Trump said Sunday he is in “deciding mode” over whether to launch a full-scale attack on Iran telling Fox News he is weighing three options: “wiping Iran out, letting them rot economically or making a deal.”

Trump made the comments to Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst, who relayed them on air, Mediaite reported. “My question is, if and when do I blow the entire nation up? They better behave,” Trump said, according to Yingst. The president added that “very big things” would happen “in the not too distant future.”

The remarks come six weeks after a ceasefire collapsed for a second time. Israel and the United States launched joint airstrikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites on February 28, 2026. A ceasefire known as the Islamabad Memorandum was signed June 17 and set a 60-day window to negotiate final terms, but fighting resumed on July 8 after attacks from both sides. Under the memorandum, signed by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran pledged to let ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz with no charge for 60 days, and the United States agreed to end its naval blockade within 30 days, Al Jazeera reported.

The Pentagon’s public casualty database listed 18 American service members killed in the conflict. The Washington Post reported on September 18, citing five U.S. officials, that at least 22 troops have died, four more than the public tally. A sixth official told the paper the true figure is 23, though not all of the additional deaths were directly tied to combat.

Trump told Yingst he would “probably” be open to meeting Pezeshkian this week, when world leaders gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. Yingst said the situation also includes the ongoing U.S. naval blockade and attacks by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen that targeted Saudi Arabia with ballistic missiles the day before. Trump said the United States is in constant communication with the Houthis and that they have agreed not to fight the United States, according to Yingst.

Trump’s Sunday comments follow a similar remark three days earlier. “Do I want to go in and annihilate them or do I not? It’s a big decision,” he told Axios on Thursday.

Four days before the Sunday interview, Trump told reporters in North Carolina that “hopefully we’re toward the end” of the war and that Iran had reached out “directly” wanting to make a deal, according to Fox News. He has separately predicted the conflict, now in its seventh month, would end “immediately” after the November midterm elections.

The February airstrikes that opened the war were carried out without a congressional vote authorizing military force, according to NPR’s reporting at the time. Senator Tim Kaine, the primary author of a war powers resolution to block the use of U.S. forces in hostilities against Iran, called the strikes “a colossal mistake,” and Republican Representative Thomas Massie described the strikes as “acts of war unauthorized by Congress,” Al Jazeera reported at the time.

More than 750 U.S. service members had been wounded in the conflict as of late August, the Washington Post reported separately, citing the Pentagon’s own casualty reporting system.