Trump hijacks Veterans Day speech to make case for his Iran war — and 250-foot arch

Detailed summary

President repeats claim that U.S. ‘won’ war with Iran while also suggesting war will ‘be over soon’

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President Donald Trump used the national Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday to defend his war with Iran, telling an audience of veterans and their families that the United States had already won it and that the only open question was “when we want to end it.”

Speaking in the cemetery’s Memorial Amphitheater, Trump inserted the partisan remarks towards the tail-end of his remarks after devoting most of them to commemorating the service of American veterans.

“America did not start a war with Iran. Iran has been waging war in America since 1979. This should have been taken care of a long time ago,” Trump said.

“It was about time somebody fought back. All of us fought back. We fought back, and we seriously fought back, and we won. Just a question of when we want to end it. We want to make sure we have a total victory, not a 93% percent victory.”

The speech came eight days after voters handed control of both chambers of Congress to Democrats in an election Trump himself has said was shaped in part by the war. About six in 10 voters told the AP’s Election Day survey that the decision to use military force against Iran was the wrong one.

Trump, who unlike Vice President JD Vance did not serve in the military, set up the argument by introducing Dale Garner, a Marine veteran who survived the 1983 bombing of the barracks in Beirut by Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants, an attack that killed 241 American service members. Garner, the president said, was “a veteran who reminds us why that mission really matters.” After describing Garner’s collapsed lung, broken back and burns, Trump asked him to stand. “You look good, Dale. He looks good. A handsome guy. What’s going on here?” he said.

He then gave his own account of the current conflict. “We began operations against Iran seven months ago, of which only a few weeks were active hard…

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