Trump calls Iran strikes on Qeshm a small attack as US midterm voting opens

Strikes on Qeshm

Donald Trump told Fox News that the strikes on Qeshm, an Iranian island, were a small attack rather than a war. He said the targets were air defense systems that US forces had watched being built before destroying them. No victims had been reported so far. Trump said a large-scale attack on Iran remains possible if there is no progress toward a peace agreement, though he added that he did not want to kill many people.

Talks and the nuclear question

In a telephone interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump described the conflict with Iran as a soft war, noting that no shots had been fired for months and that talks were under way. He said Washington was negotiating from a position of total strength, could end the offensive at any time, and that Tehran had much to gain from a deal, while warning that fighting could resume without one. He called the 2015 nuclear agreement a disaster that opened a path to an atomic weapon, and said Tehran had been two weeks away from acquiring one. Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency have rejected that assessment. The United States and Israel launched their offensive against Iran at the end of February, and Iran has answered US attacks with missiles and drones aimed at American interests in the region.

Venezuela, oil and the cost of the war

Trump pointed to the January operation in Venezuela, which left more than 100 dead and ended with the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. He said the war there was over in 48 minutes and suggested Iran could follow the same path. Critics have pointed to a cost of $30 billion (26.8 billion euros) for the war with Iran, which Trump dismissed as peanuts compared with what he said the US had gained from Venezuela. He claimed Washington now has total control there and that, counting US and Venezuelan oil together, the country controls more than 50% of the world's oil reserves. He also said Greenland had been secured after a deal with Denmark. He said Iran's defenses have disappeared and that the June 2025 operation Midnight Hammer destroyed its nuclear potential, adding that a strike on a suspected nuclear facility in the Pickaxe mountain might be needed, a site Iran has denied exists.

Midterm voting

Voting in the US midterm elections takes place on Tuesday, 3 November, renewing all 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats. Republicans hold narrow majorities in both chambers, and Democrats are seeking control of both, which would let them check Trump's legislative agenda for the last two years of his term. On the eve of the vote, Trump posted dozens of messages in about an hour backing Republican candidates, describing many as MAGA warriors, while attacking their Democratic rivals. At his final political event before the vote, held on 2 November at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, he called Democratic candidates the most extreme and dangerous in American history. He also claimed oil had dropped $10 that day, the largest fall in history.

A second term measured against its promises

Trump's second term is now being judged against his campaign pledges. Reporting on the record notes that the cost of living has not fallen, that immigrants have been deported, that free health insurance has been cut, and that the wars in Ukraine and Gaza were not ended within 24 hours as promised. The US economy grew 2.1% in 2025, its weakest reading in five years, and diesel prices rose 40% over the past year. At a forum in Barcelona organized by PRISA, former US ambassador to Spain Julissa Reynoso said voters had reacted to the current government.

“The American people are very aware of what has happened and have opened their eyes to the government we have.”

Reynoso linked the discontent to economic hardship, saying ordinary Americans find daily life much harder.