On Tuesday, May 5, 2026, at an Oval Office signing restoring the Presidential Fitness Test award, with schoolchildren gathered around the Resolute Desk alongside athletes and Cabinet secretaries, Trump turned to the Iran war. Asked by a reporter whether Iranian protesters could topple their government, he said: 'You can have 200,000 people protesting and have five or six sick people with guns, and when they start shooting them right between the eyes, and you see a guy fall, and another one fall, and you have no guns.' Recalling earlier protests, he said 'a woman dropped dead with a bullet right there. Always right there,' pointing to the space between his eyes.
He also told the room, 'You might be too young for this,' before warning that 'you can't let a bunch of lunatics have a nuclear weapon,' and said, 'Iran with a nuclear weapon ... maybe we wouldn't all be here right now,' adding, 'I can tell you, the Middle East would have been gone. Israel would have been gone. And they would have trained their sights on Europe, first, and then us.' He repeated an unverified claim that Iran killed 42,000 protesters 'last month,' and, during a remark about gender-affirming care, told the children, 'Don't listen to this, kids.'
In a May 16 Truthout piece, educator Jesse Hagopian contrasted the scene with state education laws such as Florida's Stop WOKE Act, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, which bars teaching that causes students 'guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress.' The setting was an event built around a children's fitness initiative.
At the same event, according to The New Republic, Trump began by thanking Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, then turned to Iran, saying, 'we've basically wiped out their military in about two weeks.' The war had begun with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Feb. 28 and was well into its third month, The Independent noted. The New Republic also reported that Trump appeared to fall asleep as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Education Secretary Linda McMahon spoke; other outlets confirm the event but not that he dozed. The ceremony came a day after a White House small-business summit at which Trump boasted at length about acing his cognitive tests (see Trump Derails a White House Small-Business Summit With a Long Riff on His Cognitive Tests and Jokes About Leaving Office in 'Eight or Nine Years').
Update (October 2, 2026): a second tracker entry on the same event, which centered on The New Republic's account of Trump dozing, has been merged into this one.
Correction (October 2, 2026): This entry said the Trump administration signed Florida's Stop WOKE Act; it is a Florida state law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, and a keyFact describing it as the same administration's policy was removed. The entry dated the event May 1; reporting by People and The Independent places it on Tuesday, May 5, and the date was corrected. The Stop WOKE Act quotation was corrected to 'guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress,' and the description of the protester remarks now makes clear Trump was describing killings of protesters by Iranian forces.