President Donald Trump told Fox News in an exclusive interview Monday that he credits the U.S. strikes on key Iranian nuclear sites for making the Israel-Hamas peace deal possible.
Trump made the comments to Fox News’ Trey Yingst in Israel after Hamas freed the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages from captivity in Gaza.
‘I think it really started when we took out the nuclear capability of Iran,’ Trump said, referring to the June strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. ‘When you look at what they had, you couldn’t have made this deal with someone sitting over there with a nuclear weapon over your head.’
Trump said that other countries around the Middle East were ‘fantastic’ in helping the U.S. broker the peace deal, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Egypt.
‘That’s the amazing thing,’ Trump said. ‘Everybody came together at this point. If you go back six months or seven months, you would have said a thing like this was impossible.’
Trump added that even with his impact as the U.S. president, the deal wouldn’t have happened if the dozens of countries that make up the Middle East did not want it to.
‘They all wanted this to happen,’ Trump said, ‘and it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.’
Yingst said Trump emphasized that the Gaza deal is only the beginning of what he hopes will become a wider movement toward peace across the Middle East.
When asked about the state of Iran’s nuclear program today, Trump said it is nonexistent.
‘They don’t have a nuclear program,’ Trump said of Iran. ‘It was obliterated.’
In June, the U.S. launched Operation Midnight Hammer, the longest large-scale B-2 bombing mission in history, striking Iran’s nuclear sites with 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs.
Trump had immediately proclaimed Iran’s nuclear program had been ‘completely and totally obliterated,’ though skeptics and opponents of the strikes voiced caution about declaring the mission a success before a final damage assessment was finished.
Trump also told Yingst that he believes Iran is going to be a country that ‘wants to get back into the world of good economies.’ Trump added that Iran has shown signs of being open to diplomacy and that he has since spoken to Iran’s leadership, though he declined to specify which leader.
‘The last thing they’re going to do is get into the nuclear world again because look what it’s gotten them, and I would just have to do it again,’ the president said of Iran and the strikes.
Trump arrived in Israel Monday morning to coincide with the prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas.
The 20 living Israeli hostages were released as part of an agreement intended to end the conflict that began with the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas terrorists. Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,200 people and took around 240 hostages in southern Israel during the attack. Two years of fighting in Gaza followed, which resulted in tens of thousands estimated dead.
In exchange for the remaining living hostages, Israel began releasing around 2,000 Palestinian detainees, including approximately 250 identified as terrorists.
This is a breaking news story; check back for updates.
Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
