Trump: ‘Nobody Knows What I’m Going To Do’ On Iran, Delivers ‘Ultimate Ultimatum’

By Robert Romano

“I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.”

That was President Donald Trump, speaking at a flag-raising ceremony at the White House on June 18, maintaining strategic ambiguity ahead of what could be a U.S. military strike against Iran’s nuclear capabilities as Israel’s war with Iran continues into its sixth day.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on June 13 that the military campaign, which so far has included targeted air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, ballistic missiles and military leadership “will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat…a program to develop nuclear weapons.” The Prime Minister said Iran had enough enriched uranium to produce nine nuclear weapons: “In recent years, Iran has produced enough highly enriched uranium for nine atom bombs.”

But so far, there has been no official assessment of the damage to Iran’s nuclear capabilities, with some calls for the U.S. to become more involved by utilizing its arsenal of bunker-busting bombs to ensure Tehran’s nuclear program is wholly eliminated. President Trump has met with the National Security Council after cutting his trip to the G7 short but has not yet made a decision.

Trump said Iran was still trying to negotiate, saying, “I can tell you this, that Iran’s got a lot of trouble and they want to negotiate. And I said, why didn’t you negotiate with me before, I mean, all this death and destruction… why didn’t you negotiate with me two weeks ago? You could’ve done fine. You would’ve had a country. It’s very sad to watch this. I’ve never seen anything like it… I was telling them, you got to do something, you got to negotiate. And at the end, last minute, they said, no, we’re not going to do that, and then they got hit. Remember 60 days?”

If Trump were to act, it would be on his own Article II authority as commander-in-chief of the military, for better or for worse, as has occurred more than 125 times since 1787. Congress’ Article I power to declare war and subsequent enactments including the constitutionally dubious War Powers Act that delegate certain powers to the President notwithstanding, the ability of the President to respond to attacks on the U.S. and its forces has remained largely unquestioned since the 1863 Prize Cases by the Supreme Court that found “If a war be made by invasion of a foreign nation, the President is not only authorized but bound to resist force by force. He does not initiate the war, but is bound to accept the challenge without waiting for any special legislative authority.”  

The President is also the nation’s top diplomat, with the power to make agreements and treaties with foreign countries. But is it too late to make a deal? Trump said, “Really, nothing’s too late… I said it’s very late to be talking… I don’t know, there’s a big difference between now and a week ago… I don’t know how much longer it’s going to go on. They’re totally defenseless. They have no air defense whatsoever. We totally captured the air.” More ambiguity. Will the President still talk? That’s for the Iranians to find out.

Asked what he meant by his Truth Social post on June 17, “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” Trump said, “You know what it means. Unconditional surrender: Two very simple words. Very simple. Unconditional surrender. That means I’ve had it, ok, I’ve had it, I give up, I’m no more, then we go blow up… all the nuclear stuff that’s all over the place over there. You know, they had bad intentions, you know, for 40 years they’ve been saying death to America, death to Israel, death to anybody else that they didn’t like. They were bullies. They were schoolyard bullies. And now they’re not bullies anymore but we’ll see what happens. Look, nothing’s finished until it’s finished.  You know, war is very complex. A lot of bad things can happen… I wouldn’t say that we won anything yet, I would say that we sure as hell made a lot of progress. And we’ll see. The next week is going to be very big, maybe less than a week, maybe less.”

Trump remained emphatic that he would not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon: “This is just not a threat that you can have. And we’ve been threatened by Iran for many years. You know, if you go back and look at my history, if you go back 15 years, I was saying we cannot let Iran get a nuclear weapon. I’ve been saying it for a long time. I mean it more now than I ever meant it.”

Asked if he had given Iran an ultimatum, Trump said, “You could say so. Maybe you could call it the ultimate ultimatum.”

Ever since the inception of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, in exporting its revolution abroad, Iran has funded terrorism throughout the region, attacked U.S. forces and killed Americans in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan and other locations. More recently, Iran was accused of attempts to assassinate President Trump during the 2024 election.

The hatred of America was never ambiguous as Iran has long since declared war on the U.S. Besides the common refrain “Death to America!” by rioters during the Iranian Revolution, in Ayatollah Khomeini’s June 1980 speech to Iranians, while Americans were still being held hostage, he stated, “we are fighting against the Western world — devourers led by America, Israel and Zionism… We should try hard to export our revolution to the world, and should set aside the thought that we do not export our revolution, because Islam does not regard various Islamic countries differently and is the supporter of all the oppressed people of the world. On the other hand, all the superpowers and all the powers have risen to destroy us. If we remain in an enclosed environment we shall definitely face defeat. We should clearly settle our accounts with the powers and superpowers and should demonstrate to them that, despite all the grave difficulties that we have, we shall confront the world with our ideology.”

Now, after years of various attempts to dismantle Iran’s nuclear programs via diplomacy and at other times sabotage, Israel has launched a full-scale attack with questions about whether it can finish the job, and if not, whether the U.S. will do so.

The American people elected President Trump fully aware that these decisions might ultimately have to be made, because they trusted he would always put America’s interests first and exhaust every alternative to war. Congress can still act, but if the President must use force, it will only be because he felt he had no other choice.

Even now, it still sounds like President Trump would still like to make deal to save lives, but as he warned, “It’s very late…”

Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government Foundation.

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