On Wednesday, September 9, 2026, speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews before flying to the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Trump said the war with Iran would end as soon as the November 3 midterm elections were over. “I think the war is going to end immediately after the election,” he said. “They can't hold out any longer. They're desperate to try and affect the election so that we can get a nice, weak group of people in there, and leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapon.”
Asked whether negotiations would resume, he said, “We're not looking for it, to be honest. Originally, I wanted to make a deal. We're so far down the line. We have very little country left.” He added: “Yes, a negotiation could possibly happen, but it's not something we're looking at,” and, “This war will end immediately after our election.” On the fighting, he said, “We've knocked out nine of their ships. I would say that the attacks are caused by us, and you're going to see a lot more.”
In Dallas that evening he repeated the claim in partisan terms: “The war will be over very shortly after the election. They're hanging out for dear life, hoping that we lose, so they can deal with dumb, weak Democrats.” He acknowledged the political cost: “It happens to me all the time. Guys come up, you know, 'I wish you didn't do the war in Iran; gasoline's up.'”
The remarks came on a day Iran said it had targeted ten ships near the Strait of Hormuz, including two U.S. vessels and eight oil tankers, after U.S. forces destroyed five Iranian oil tankers on Tuesday. Crude oil was back above $100 a barrel and diesel had just set an all-time record (see Diesel Hits Record After Record During the Iran War. Trump Calls It 'a Very Inexpensive Price to Pay' and Weighs an Export Ban).
The statement is notable for three reasons. First, it is the latest in a long series of end-dates. Newsweek counted roughly 23 separate predictions from Trump since late February about when the war would end; the original estimate was four to five weeks, and the war is now in its seventh month. Second, it frames the timing of a war he started without congressional authorization around a domestic election, while attributing that framing to the enemy. Third, it arrives as the war has become a political liability: a Reuters/Ipsos survey put Trump's approval at 33 percent, and an NBC News Decision Desk poll found 69 percent of Americans disapprove of his handling of the war, with strong approval among Republicans down 18 points since spring to 30 percent. Al Jazeera cited polling showing only 31 percent of Americans support the conflict, down from 37 percent in March.
Trump has already told supporters what he believes the election means for him personally (see Trump Tells Supporters He Will Be Impeached if Republicans Lose the Midterms, and That They Will 'Lose Everything'), and in April he conceded gas prices would not come down before the midterms (see Trump Admits Gas Prices Won't Drop Before the Midterms, Then Borrows the Biden Price Gouging Playbook He Spent Years Mocking). Sen. Rick Scott, defending the war in Dallas, said, “Nobody likes war, nobody likes higher gas prices, but nobody wants to be killed by a nuclear weapon,” while also saying Trump needs to do a better job explaining the war to Americans.
Update (September 21, 2026): the timeline moved again, in both directions in the same week. At his September 16 rally in North Carolina Trump said, “That war is going to end very soon. Watch, you just watch.” Four days later on CNN's State of the Union, Dana Bash asked U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz whether the war “could keep going until 2029,” the end of Trump's term. Waltz answered, “I wouldn't necessarily put a timeline on it, but I think the president is focused on his clear objectives.” He did not predict the war would last that long; he declined to rule it out, and said time is on the United States' side. An NBC News poll reported by Newsweek found 62% of voters say the war has not been worth it.
Update (September 22, 2026): at the United Nations he gave the timetable again, and added a wrinkle. “I believe we'll make a deal right after the election, because it doesn't make sense for them not to,” he said. “They're waiting to see how I do in the midterm election. What they don't realize is that I'm not running. I did that already and won in a landslide.” Hours later he said U.S. officials had met Iran's delegation for about three hours: “It went very well. It was a very good meeting,” with another “scheduled in the very near future.” In the same remarks he described Iran's choices as “obliteration” or “potential greatness” (see At the UN, Trump Asks Whether to 'Annihilate the Islamic Republic' and 'Drive Them Into Hell,' and Iran's Delegation Walks Out).