President Donald Trump said Monday he is not ruling out sending U.S. ground troops into Iran if deemed necessary, declaring that American strikes under “Operation Epic Fury” are running “way ahead of schedule.”
“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump told The New York Post after launching weekend strikes aimed at decapitating Iran’s military and political leadership.
“I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”
The president said the operation, which he approved after talks in Geneva collapsed Thursday, has already eliminated 49 Iranian leaders — a timeline he claimed had originally been expected to take four weeks.
“It’s going to go pretty quickly,” Trump said. “We’re right on schedule, way ahead of schedule in terms of leadership — 49 killed — and that was, you know, going to take, we figured, at least four weeks, and we did it in one day.”
Trump told the Daily Mail over the weekend that he estimated the conflict could last “four weeks or so,” but suggested Monday that the timetable may shrink as operations advance.
He said the final decision to strike came after what he described as serious negotiations in Geneva broke down and U.S. intelligence indicated Iran had resumed work on nuclear enrichment at an undisclosed alternate site.
“We had very serious negotiations, and they were there, and then they pulled back,” Trump said. “They wanted to make a nuclear weapon, so we destroyed them completely.”
He added that previously targeted permanent facilities had been “obliterated,” but intelligence later identified what he described as a “totally different site” where enrichment efforts were continuing.
“I said, ‘Let’s go,’” Trump recounted.
The president dismissed concerns that Iran could retaliate through terrorism.
“We’ll take it out. Whatever. It’s like everything else, we’ll take it out,” he said.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted over the weekend found 27% of Americans approved of the strikes, while 43% disapproved and 29% were unsure. Polling conducted prior to the operation showed similarly limited support for a potential war.
“I think that the polling is very good, but I don’t care about polling. I have to do the right thing. I have to do the right thing. This should have been done a long time ago,” Trump said.
Trump argued that preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon outweighed political risk, saying he “did the right thing,” warning that allowing “crazy people” to obtain a nuclear weapon would have posed a greater danger than even a regional conflict.
More over at The New York Post:
Trump won't rule out sending US troops into Iran 'if necessary'- tells The Post 'I don't care about polling' https://t.co/00lrdCjdIQ pic.twitter.com/tTyiXVQHSo
— New York Post (@nypost) March 2, 2026