Donald Trump has promised an end to his war with Iran more than 60 times, and now every one of those promises is playing back to back in a single video.
The supercut was released Tuesday by Home of the Brave, a nonprofit fronted by former Trump White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, in partnership with the progressive veterans group VoteVets. The two organizations note that Trump launched a war he said would wrap up in about two weeks, and that was more than 208 days ago. By their count, the president has claimed the war was almost over at least 60 times, a number that is still climbing.
The groups also launched an interactive calendar collecting the clips at AboutTwoWeeks.com, where Trump’s shifting promises scroll past a calendar before the on screen text delivers the closing message: “No more deadlines. No more excuses. End the war.” Matthews said the president’s repeated promises to end the war in about two weeks are falsehoods meant to hide the fact that he has no plan and no cards left to play.
The Tape Backs Up Every Word
None of this is exaggerated for effect. PolitiFact and PBS News assembled a running timeline of the statements back in April, and it verifies the montage almost line for line.
Trump announced the start of Operation Epic Fury on February 28 without giving an end date, then told The New York Times a day later that the plan was four to five weeks. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted in the war’s first week that the operation was not another Iraq and not endless.
By March 7, Trump was telling reporters on Air Force One that the United States was winning the war by a lot and that it would continue for a little while, while declaring on Truth Social that the war had already been won. On March 17 he claimed the whole thing had essentially been over in two or three days. On March 20, asked what he meant when he said the war was won, he answered that he thought they had won. Three days later he announced a five day pause in strikes so his team could negotiate a deal.
Then the deadlines started stacking up. On April 4, Trump posted that he had given Iran ten days to make a deal or open the Strait of Hormuz, warning there were “48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them.” The next day he told Iran in a profanity laced Easter post to open the strait or live in hell, and to just watch. On April 7 he announced Iran had agreed to a complete, immediate and safe opening of the strait, so he would suspend attacks for two weeks. Ten days after that, he claimed the process would move very quickly because most of the points were already negotiated.
The Deal That Never Closes
The April talks collapsed within days, with Trump admitting most points were agreed to except the nuclear question, the only one he said really mattered, and ordering a naval blockade of ships moving through the strait. In June the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding in Islamabad that was supposed to end the fighting, reopen the strait and settle the nuclear question within 60 days. That truce fell apart in July after ships were attacked in the strait, and Trump declared it over. In a July exchange with ABC’s Mary Bruce, he suggested the war could continue indefinitely.
Trump then moved to reset the war powers clock entirely, The New Republic reported, formally notifying lawmakers that the war had resumed and claiming a fresh window of 60 days to wage it without congressional approval. Senator Adam Schiff, who filed a war powers resolution alongside Tim Kaine, Andy Kim, Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen, put it plainly: “We were promised the war would be over for months.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the rinse and repeat approach a recipe for utter disaster.
The promises have not aged any better since. Al Jazeera reported this weekend that Iran and the United States have moved even further from a deal in recent days, with the strait still closed to any ship that does not coordinate with Iranian authorities and a sailor killed in an attack on a cargo vessel just last week. And on Monday, HuffPost noted, Trump conceded during another exchange with reporters that the fighting continues, promising once again: “We’re going to win that war very soon.”
What Seven Months Of Promises Have Cost
The video is more than a highlight reel of contradictions. The groups behind it tally at least 19 American service members killed, more than 800 injured, and more than $100 billion in added gas and diesel costs to Americans since March. Those fuel numbers line up with the broken cheap gas promises that have been piling up at the pump all year. The groups say the campaign is aimed at mobilizing veterans and pro democracy Americans against the administration’s foreign policy failures heading into November.
The calendar on AboutTwoWeeks.com is still scrolling, and Monday’s promise sounds exactly like the ones from March. The deadline always moves. The war never does.
