Trump Calls Iran’s Regime a 47-Year Menace as US Forces Conduct Record Strike Operations

Framing the military campaign against Iran as a long-overdue historical correction, Donald Trump argued on social media Friday that the Iranian regime had spent 47 years killing innocent people around the world. As the 47th president, he declared, it was now his turn to kill them, calling Iranian leaders “deranged scumbags” in the same post. The remarks accompanied a day of record-scale US and Israeli strikes, with the combined target count having exceeded 15,000 since the war began.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the 15,000-target figure to reporters in Washington, emphasizing that the campaign had been striking more than 1,000 sites per day. Israel reported over 200 individual strikes in the most recent 24 hours, targeting missile launchers, weapons facilities, and air defence systems across Iran. Trump announced late in the day that US Central Command had destroyed every military installation on Kharg Island, Iran’s primary oil export hub, in what he described as one of the most powerful bombing raids in the entire history of the Middle East.
Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who took power after Israel killed his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a defiant written statement on Thursday pledging continued resistance. US officials dismissed the statement as weak and pointed to the absence of any voice or video as evidence of physical injury. Hegseth described Khamenei as wounded and likely disfigured. The Iranian foreign minister and other senior officials, however, were photographed walking in Tehran’s streets and participating in pro-government demonstrations.
The broader conflict continued to claim lives and spread destruction. Lebanon has recorded over 600 deaths and 800,000 displaced, with Israeli strikes killing eight more in Sidon on Friday. Hezbollah wounded about 60 in rocket salvoes at northern Israel. Saudi Arabia intercepted nearly 50 Iranian drones. Qatar ordered Doha evacuations before missile interceptions. Two Omanis died in drone crashes. Dubai sustained building damage from intercepted debris. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed coordinated strikes on Israel as part of al-Quds Day.
American losses have accumulated throughout the conflict, with six service members dying in a tanker aircraft crash in Iraq and the total US death toll now at 13. France lost a soldier to a militia drone in Iraq. Tehran’s residents described a city of explosions, power outages, rubble, and trapped civilians. Iran reported over 1,300 deaths across the country. Oil markets remained volatile as Iran’s effective Strait of Hormuz blockade threatened energy supplies, and Trump’s threat to strike Kharg Island’s oil infrastructure added another layer of uncertainty to an already deeply unstable situation.