On March 16, 2026, President Trump claimed that a former president had privately told him he wished he had attacked Iran. “I've spoken to a certain president, who I like, actually, a past president, a former president,” Trump told reporters before a Kennedy Center board meeting. “He said, 'I wish I did it, I wish I did,' but they didn't do it. I'm doing it.” He repeated the claim later in the Oval Office: “I spoke to one of the former presidents who I actually like.” Asked by Fox News' Peter Doocy whether it was George W. Bush, Trump said no; asked about Bill Clinton, he said, “I don't want to say.” He added that the person was “a member of a party, they have Trump derangement syndrome, but it's somebody that happens to like me, and I like that person, who's a smart person,” and said, “I don't want to embarrass him.”
Representatives for all four living former presidents, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, told the Associated Press they had not recently spoken with Trump. A Bush aide told NBC News “they haven't been in touch,” a Clinton aide said whoever Trump was referring to was not Clinton, an Obama aide said there had been “no recent conversations,” and a source familiar with the matter said it was not Biden. A Clinton spokesperson separately told Newsweek that Clinton had not spoken to Trump about Iran. Reporters from AP, NBC News and CNN all reported denials, and the White House did not publicly respond to them.
The claim came amid growing domestic criticism of the war, then in its third week. The next day, March 17, Joe Kent, Trump's director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned over the war, writing that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.”
Correction (October 14, 2026): An earlier version described the person as a Democrat; Trump said only “a member of a party.” It said Obama's aides confirmed “no record” of communications; the aide said there had been “no recent conversations.” It said Kent resigned the same day; he resigned the next day, March 17. It also listed The Daily Beast among outlets that independently confirmed the denials; The Daily Beast reported them, while AP, NBC News and CNN obtained them. The title now says the denials came from the former presidents' aides and representatives.