Speaking to reporters alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the NATO summit in Ankara on July 8, 2026, Trump described an attack on an American warship: “We had 111 missiles shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan.”
There is no Islamic Republic of Japan. Iran's formal name is the Islamic Republic of Iran, and that is presumably what Trump meant. The White House did not clarify the remark. Snopes reviewed the video and confirmed he said it.
The number is its own problem. No confirmed event matches Trump's description of 111 missiles striking or being intercepted over an American aircraft carrier. Iranian forces had claimed missile strikes aimed at the USS Abraham Lincoln during earlier clashes, and U.S. Central Command disputed those claims at the time, saying the missiles “didn't even come close.”
The president was describing, to an allied head of state and the press, an attack on a U.S. carrier in a war he restarted days earlier, and he named the wrong country and a figure his own military has not confirmed (see Trump Declares His Iran Ceasefire 'Over,' Calling Tehran's Leaders 'Scum' as the War Reignites).