President Donald Trump offered a new description of the Iranian sites targeted by U.S. bombers, telling supporters at a rally in Durant, Oklahoma, on Thursday night that Iran was “doing drugs.”
The president has been leading the current war on Iran, which he launched alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February. Earlier that month, Netanyahu made his case to Trump for the conflict in the White House Situation Room, where he claimed the Islamic Republic was ripe for toppling.
After the war began, Trump said Iran was weeks, if not days, away from obtaining a nuclear weapon. U.S. intelligence did not substantiate that claim.
At Thursday’s rally, Trump touted the elimination of what he described as Iran’s “nuclear threat.” In 2025, the president said that threat had been “totally obliterated” by bombings he ordered last year.
Trump walked the crowd through that mission, praising the U.S. military and the pilots who carried it out.
“We did it in one night with those beautiful B-2 bombers,” the president said. “The left Missouri. They flew both ways, 37 hours. They were refueling. We have the greatest tankers. We have the greatest military in the world.”
The president continued to describe the operation in detail.
“They went from Missouri and then at one o’clock in the morning, with no moon, dark as can be, these unbelievable machines led by the most incredible pilots in the world, they unloaded every single bomb, went right down air chutes into this, uh, drug factories, really,” Trump said.
He then elaborated on what he said the targeted sites were being used for.
“That’s what they were doing. They were nuclear and drugs. They were doing drugs, but they were doing the nuclear,” Trump said. “These drug factories/nuclear factories were hit so hard.”
The remarks appear to mark the first time Trump has pointed to “drug factories” in Iran as targets of U.S. airstrikes.
The president has previously highlighted U.S. strikes on alleged drug trafficking ships in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific. International law experts have said those strikes are of questionable legality.
Trump’s comments at the Oklahoma rally tied together two themes he has frequently emphasized: the strength of the U.S. military and his administration’s actions against drug trafficking. In describing the B-2 mission, the president highlighted the 37-hour round trip from Missouri, the refueling support from U.S. tankers and the skill of the American pilots who flew in the dark at one o’clock in the morning.
The description of the sites as both nuclear and drug facilities, however, adds a new element to the president’s explanation of the strikes. Until now, Trump had focused on Iran’s alleged nuclear program, insisting that the country posed an imminent threat and later declaring that its nuclear capabilities had been obliterated.
The war with Iran, which began in February, followed Netanyahu’s push in the White House Situation Room earlier that month. Trump’s claim at the time that Iran was close to acquiring a nuclear weapon was not backed up by U.S. intelligence.
Thursday’s remarks offered supporters in Oklahoma the president’s latest account of the mission, with Trump crediting the military for a strike he said hit the targeted factories “so hard.”
