The war in Iran is going so badly for President Donald Trump that he is now making up conversations with former presidents to justify his ill-planned regime-change operation.
On Monday, Trump told reporters multiple times that he had spoken with an unnamed former U.S. president whom Trump claimed told him that they wished they had gone to war with Iran.
“I’ve spoken to a certain president—who I like, actually. A past president, former president. He said, ‘I wish I did it. I wish I did.’ But they didn’t do it. I’m doing it,” Trump said before a Kennedy Center board meeting.
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TRUMP: I've spoken to a certain president, who I like actually, a past president, he said, 'I wish I did it.' But they didn't do it. I'm doing it.
Q: Which president?
TRUMP: I can't tell you that. It would be very bad for his career even though he's got no career left.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-03-16T17:12:25.531Z
He made the comment again later Monday in the Oval Office, saying, “I spoke to one of the former presidents who I actually like. … And he said, ‘I wish I did what you did.’”
Reporters pressed Trump both times he told the story to reveal which president he spoke to, but Trump refused to say.
“I can't tell you that. I don’t want to embarrass him. It would be very bad for his career, even though he's got no career left,” he said at the Kennedy Center.
“I don’t want to say because a member of a party, a member of a party, they have Trump derangement syndrome, but it’s somebody that happens to like me, and I like that person, who’s a smart person, but that person said, ‘I wish I did it.’ Okay, but I don’t want to get into who. I don’t want to get him into trouble,” Trump said in the Oval Office.
Trump refused to say because the supposed conversation almost certainly never happened.
People close to each of the four living former presidents—George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden—all denied that the former commanders-in-chief had spoken with Trump since the war began, NBC News and The New York Times.
Lying about something so easy to disprove is a wild move. But it's par for the course for Trump, who is notorious for inventing conversations with all manners of people to try to make himself look good.
Of course, former presidents didn't go to war with Iran because of the risks such a conflict would pose—including the inflationary oil and gas crisis that is playing out right now.
Indeed, top military officials warned Trump that Iran's geography would allow them to choke off the Strait of Hormuz, which is a transportation route for oil. In 2025, around 34% of the world’s crude oil supply passed through the strait, according to the International Energy Agency. Since the war began, tanker traffic through the strait has plummeted.
Even Republicans are worried that Trump’s self-inflicted inflation crisis could lead to another forever war and cost Republicans their congressional majorities.
Polling shows Republicans’ fears are well founded.
A Economist/YouGov survey released Tuesday found that just 36% of Americans approve of the way Trump is handling the situation in Iran, with an even lower 33% saying they support the war.
In fact, a member of Trump's administration resigned in protest of the war, saying that he "cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives."
"I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby," Joe Kent, the now-former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, wrote in a post on X.
In a fiery resignation letter, Kent urged Trump to "reverse course" or else “allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos."
Trump lashed out at the now-former national security figure after his resignation, telling reporters in the Oval Office, “I always thought he [Kent] was weak on security." Okay, so why did you hire him in the first place?
Ultimately, Kent may be a raging white supremacist and antisemite, whose statement absolved Trump of culpability in the Iran mess and blamed it instead on Israel and the “media.” But he's right that this war is a disaster.
And an invented conversation with a former president likely won’t change many minds about whether launching a war with Iran was the right move.
