SOUTHWEST FLORIDA (CBS) — Speaking in Denton, Texas, Thursday night at the Peterbilt Motors facility, President Trump said Iran “is ready to fold up.”
He said he believed the U.S. would win the war “right after the election,” referring to the U.S. midterm elections in early November.
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“Maybe before the election,” he added.
“I’m ensuring that Iran will be very quickly ended,” the president said, promising that U.S. energy prices, which have soared due to the war, would be “rapidly, rapidly coming” down.
Mr. Trump said the U.S. was “trying to be nice” to Iran’s current leader, but “we don’t know who the hell to deal with, to be honest with you. Nobody wants to be president.”
The USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group and the USS Makin Island Amphibious Group are headed to the Middle East, a U.S. official confirmed to CBS News on Thursday.
That could mean a total of three U.S. carrier strike groups and two amphibious ready groups being deployed to the region at the same time, at least unless and until one of the groups is rotated out of the region.
A U.S. official told the Associated Press that some 7,000 sailors and 2,000 U.S. Marines were on their way as part of the deployment. That would bring the total number of U.S. forces in the region to approximately 20,000, along with hundreds of vessels and aircraft.
The forces could arrive by the end of October, the official told the AP.
The USS George H.W. Bush and the USS George Washington are already in the area, along with the USS Boxer amphibious readiness group.