BREAKING: Trump Announces ‘Major Combat Operations’ Against Iran: ‘A Vicious Group of Very Hard, Terrible People’

Roughly an hour after joint U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iranian targets were launched on Saturday, President Donald Trump posted a speech in which he announced “major combat operations” against the Islamic Republic and warned Iranian troops that they could “lay down your weapons and have complete immunity … or face certain death.”

The move comes after talks in Geneva apparently reached an impasse. On Friday, after the talks seemed to have stalled amid a U.S. military buildup in the region, Trump said he was “not thrilled” with Tehran’s stance.

In the early hours of Saturday morning U.S. time — after both American and Israeli forces carried out a series of daylight strikes against targets all over Iran, including Tehran — Trump posted a video recorded at Mar-a-Lago in Florida that went far beyond simply saying he wasn’t happy with the Iranians.

“Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime — a vicious group of very hard, terrible people,” Trump said in the eight-minute address.

“Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world. For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted ‘death to America’ and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops, and the innocent people in many, many countries,” he continued, adding that one of “the regime’s very first acts was to back a violent takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, holding dozens of American hostages for 444 days.”

“From Lebanon to Yemen and Syria to Iraq, the regime has armed, trained, and funded terrorist militias that have soaked the earth with blood and guts,” Trump said. “It was Iran’s proxy, Hamas, that launched the monstrous Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, slaughtering more than 1,000 innocent people while taking 12 of our citizens hostage.”

Trump made the case for the combat operations, including Iran’s stubborn refusal to give up — or even acknowledge the existence of — its nuclear program, even after a June 2025 attack “obliterated the regime’s” capacity to produce a weapon.

“After that attack, we warned them never to resume their malicious pursuit of nuclear weapons, and we sought repeatedly to make a deal,” Trump said.

However, Iran continually waffled on it while saying that talks were going well. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that “good progress” had been made in the talks on Thursday.

It was widely seen in the West, however, that both Iranian negotiators and Omani mediators were “likely seeking to avert a U.S. threat to launch strikes from its fleet of aircraft and warships that have massed in the region,” as the U.K.’s Guardian reported.

That didn’t work. And, while the extent of the strikes is unclear as of the early Saturday U.S. time, what is clear is that the Trump administration wants regime change in Tehran.

“The United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicket, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests,” Trump said in the address.

President Donald J. Trump on the United States military combat operations in Iran: pic.twitter.com/LimJmpLkgZ

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 28, 2026

“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again, obliterated. We are going to annihilate their navy. We are going to ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world,” he continued.

“It’s a very simple message: They will never have a nuclear weapon.”

Trump added that while his administration had “taken every possible step to minimize the risk to personnel in the region,” there likely would be casualties.

“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost,” Trump said. “We’re doing this for the future.”

He then called upon the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the regime — and warned the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other Iranian military forces to “lay down your weapons and have complete immunity … or face certain death.”

“To the proud people of Iran, I say, tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump said. “Stay sheltered. Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere.

“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations,” he added. “For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it … Now you have a president who is giving you what you want. So let’s see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force.”

News of the attacks broke shortly after 10 a.m. Tehran time (about 4 a.m. in Washington), with explosions reported near facilities used by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei coming first, according to The Associated Press.

🚨 Breaking: Khamenei’s residence in Tehran destroyed 👇 pic.twitter.com/PoEWcWDxcW

— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) February 28, 2026

Sirens and explosions had been reported all over Iran since the attack began, and they were also heard across Israel as well.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack, jointly carried out by the United States and his country, was to “remove an existential threat” posed by the Islamic Republic.

But he, too, called for regime change: “Our joint operation will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their fate into their own hands,” Netanyahu said.

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