President Trump speaks at Custer Farms in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, on Friday, June 5, 2026.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
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Mark Schiefelbein/AP
BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump dismissed the idea that launching war against Iran this year would betray his “No new wars” refrain that he repeated repeatedly while campaigning for the White House again.
Trump, in an interview broadcast Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said he “didn’t guarantee” there would be no wars if he returned to office.
“First of all, I didn’t guarantee there would be no war. Why would I have built the strongest army in the world?” Trump said.
Trump also defended plans for a now-scrapped $1.8 billion fund that would have compensated the Republican president’s allies and repeated his baseless claims of massive fraud in Tuesday’s lengthy primary vote count in California. He ended the interview abruptly when he became frustrated by NBC’s Kristen Welker’s reaction.
Iran “is not an endless war”
In his 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly called his Democratic opponents warmongers and said he was a president who would not start “new wars” and bring about an era of peace.
But Trump said in the NBC interview, taped Friday in Wisconsin, that as a candidate “I didn’t promise anything.”
“I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war. We have been doing this for three months,” he said of the war with Iran, which began on February 28.
Trump said he was “doing a service to the world” and “doing a service to our country” because he had to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. But elsewhere in the interview, Trump repeated a mixed message in which he said last year’s U.S. strikes “destroyed” Iranian nuclear sites.
He also defended his decision in his first term to withdraw from Democratic President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, an agreement he has sharply criticized, without negotiating the “better deal” he had promised to reach.
“It takes years to do these things,” Trump said.
Trump claims fraud in California vote without evidence
The notoriously lengthy vote count in California has been a magnet for election conspiracy theories, and since Tuesday’s election Trump has claimed without evidence that Democrats are rigging the election. Trump’s top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles said Friday that his office had opened “multiple voter fraud investigations.”
Late-counted Democratic-leaning mail-in ballots have affected the vote totals of Trump’s preferred candidates for governor and mayor of Los Angeles. While Trump has often said that changes in vote totals as late ballots are counted are a sign of fraud, they are simply a reflection of a slow vote-counting process.
In the interview, Trump continued to claim it was a sign of “cheating” and “a rigged election,” and became increasingly frustrated as Welker pressed him to present evidence to support that.
“All I have to do is look. All I have to do is look,” Trump said.
“But that’s not evidence,” Welker responded.
“And I listen. And I listen to the people. And let’s see what happens,” Trump responded.
“Anti-armamentism” fund
Trump defended plans his Justice Department said it had now abandoned to create a $1.776 billion “Anti-Arms Fund” as part of a deal to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday that the department was scrapping the plan. That announcement came after a judge put the plan on hold and after both Democrats and some Republicans said they were concerned about a lack of oversight of the fund and the possibility of payments being made to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
Trump told NBC that he thought the fund was “a great idea” and that he would be “disappointed” if it was not approved.
Asked if he thought people who attacked police officers on Jan. 6 should receive compensation, Trump said, “I wouldn’t be inclined to say it, but I have to see it.” He then began making false and unfounded claims about the riots and those who stormed the Capitol. Trump granted a broad pardon on his first day back in office in January 2025 to the more than 1,500 people indicted around January 6.
Rain interruptions and an abrupt end
The NBC interview took place in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, before Trump spoke at a roundtable with farmers. The interview was repeatedly interrupted when heavy rain fell on the metal roof of the barn where the recording took place, making hearing difficult at times.
Ultimately, Welker pressed Trump on the substance of the deal and his claims about the California election. Trump raised his voice and began calling Welker and the media “corrupt,” attacking their credibility and complaining about what he called “the dirty, fake press.”
While Welker attempted to change the subject, Trump continued and there was cross-talk between the two. Trump ended the interview by saying, “Let’s stop this.” He took off the microphone and told Welker, “Thank you, honey. Have a good time.” He said he had given the interview enough time, got up and walked away.
Welker said during the broadcast that she spoke with Trump on Saturday and he agreed that the rain had caused complications and said he would do another interview in the future.
