After running on the promise of “no new wars” and spending the past few months bragging about all the conflicts he’d ostensibly stopped, over the weekend Donald Trump started a new war in the Middle East. So why exactly did the U.S. and Israel strike Iran? How long will the military campaign last? What’s even the goal here?

If you can’t answer any of these questions, you’re not alone. President Trump also seems confused about his justification for war and where things go from here. But he’s trying to work it out, seemingly by calling up lots of journalists he claims to hate.

Just two months ago, we saw the Trump administration immediately attempt to shape the narrative on the strike against Venezuela. Within hours of toppling Nicolás Maduro, Trump had delivered a formal press conference and called in to Fox & Friends for an on-air interview. The president’s brazenly imperialist remarks were shocking, especially to an American public accustomed to hearing some elaborate lies about WMDs prior to launching an attack. But Trump was quite clear about his aims; he declared that “we’re going to run the country,” U.S. companies would take over Venezuela’s oil business, and “nobody can stop us.”

That’s very different from how Trump interacted with the media in the first 48 hours of “Operation Epic Fury” against Iran. The president laid low at Mar-a-Lago during the initial strikes, releasing two prerecorded videos, posting updates on Truth Social, and putting out a sad photo of his makeshift in-home situation room:

President Donald J. Trump Monitors U.S. Military Operations in Iran: Operation Epic Fury, February 28, 2026 pic.twitter.com/OfnMkmBZ8G— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 28, 2026

President Donald J. Trump Monitors U.S. Military Operations in Iran: Operation Epic Fury, February 28, 2026 pic.twitter.com/OfnMkmBZ8G

Trump did not deliver any remarks at a live press conference over the weekend. Instead, as Politico reported on Monday morning, he called up nearly a dozen reporters:

What Trump has done is pick up the phone to speak with at least 10 different reporters while ensconced at Mar-a-Lago this weekend, taking calls that ranged from a single question to a six-minute back-and-forth. (For those keeping track, the callers included Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich, The Atlantic’s Michael Scherer, NBC’s Kristen Welker, ABC’s Jonathan Karl (twice), NYT’s Zolan Kanno-Youngs, the Daily Mail’s Nikki Schwab, MS NOW’s Mychael Schnell, Axios’ Barak Ravid, Libby Alon of Israel’s Channel 14 News and — as she reveals on today’s Playbook Podcast — Playbook’s very own Dasha Burns.)

What Trump has done is pick up the phone to speak with at least 10 different reporters while ensconced at Mar-a-Lago this weekend, taking calls that ranged from a single question to a six-minute back-and-forth. (For those keeping track, the callers included Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich, The Atlantic’s Michael Scherer, NBC’s Kristen Welker, ABC’s Jonathan Karl (twice), NYT’s Zolan Kanno-Youngs, the Daily Mail’s Nikki Schwab, MS NOW’s Mychael Schnell, Axios’ Barak Ravid, Libby Alon of Israel’s Channel 14 News and — as she reveals on today’s Playbook Podcast — Playbook’s very own Dasha Burns.)

And Trump did not offer a clear or consistent justification for the war in these rapid-fire chats.

In his recorded remarks to announce the war, Trump said, “Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.” (There’s no evidence that an attack was imminent.) He also said the U.S. would destroy Iran’s missile capabilities, “annihilate” its Navy, (again) prevent it from obtaining a nuclear program, and “ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces.”

Then the president told the Washington Post that the main concern was “freedom” for the Iranian people. Axios got two different rationales: First, Trump was upset about the breakdown of nuclear negotiations with Iran, and second, he took a look at Iran’s behavior over the past 25 years and “I saw that every month they did something bad, blew something up or killed someone.”

During the same five-minute Axios call, Trump suggested the war could be over this week, saying, “I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end [the war] in two or three days” if the Iranians agree not to rebuild their nuclear program. But on the phone with other journalists, Trump seemed to settle on sustaining the campaign on Iran for “four to five weeks,” as he told the New York Times.

And who’s going to run Iran when this is all over? Trump told the Times that he wanted a Venezuela-like setup, where the current regime stayed in charge but agreed to take orders from the U.S. He said he had “three very good choices” about who could lead Iran but wouldn’t name them. Then he told ABC’s Jonathan Karl that that actually wouldn’t work, because the U.S. and Israel had already killed them.

Pres Trump told me tonight the US had identified possible candidates to take over Iran, but they were killed in the initial attack."The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates," Trump told me. "It's not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because…— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) March 2, 2026

Pres Trump told me tonight the US had identified possible candidates to take over Iran, but they were killed in the initial attack."The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates," Trump told me. "It's not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because…

Trump finally gave live remarks on Iran at 11:30 a.m. on Monday. But he just spoke about the war for a few minutes at the start of a Medal of Honor ceremony, and, using a teleprompter, circled back to the initial objectives he outlined in a prerecorded video early on Saturday.

The president also insisted that anyone who thinks he’ll get bored and try to wrap up this war quickly has another thing coming. “We don’t get bored. I never get bored,” he said.

Trump on how long the US will be in Iran: “Right from the beginning we projected 4–5 weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that...Somebody said today, ‘Oh, president said he wants to do it really quickly. After that he’ll get bored.’ I don’t get bored—there’s… pic.twitter.com/YYq5riVU8Q— Crooked Media (@CrookedMedia) March 2, 2026

Trump on how long the US will be in Iran: “Right from the beginning we projected 4–5 weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that...Somebody said today, ‘Oh, president said he wants to do it really quickly. After that he’ll get bored.’ I don’t get bored—there’s… pic.twitter.com/YYq5riVU8Q

Moments later, Trump got tired of talking about Iran and started admiring the drapes. Then he mused about the ongoing construction of his White House ballroom:

Trump: "See that nice drape? When that comes down right now you see a very very deep hole, but in about a year and half you're gonna see a very very beautiful building. And there's your entrance to it right there. In fact, it looks so nice I think I'll leave it and save money on… pic.twitter.com/jZXTQ02lib— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 2, 2026

Trump: "See that nice drape? When that comes down right now you see a very very deep hole, but in about a year and half you're gonna see a very very beautiful building. And there's your entrance to it right there. In fact, it looks so nice I think I'll leave it and save money on… pic.twitter.com/jZXTQ02lib

So the bad news here is that the president doesn’t seem to have a clear, concise, consistent explanation for why he launched a new war in the Middle East, nor is he laser focused on the next steps. The good news is that he’s unusually open to chatting with both friends and foes about what he should do. So if you have a great idea for how to end this mess, maybe give Trump a call.

Democrats’ Hidden Divide on Trump’s War on Iran

The MAGA Backlash to Trump’s Iran War Has Begun

Trump’s Regime-Change Strategy for Iran Is Pure Fantasy

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