Trump Addresses Iran War, Defends January 6 Payout Proposal in NBC Interview

Israel and Iran exchanged fire this weekend for the first time since a ceasefire began in April, and President Trump is now weighing in on where the U.S. stands.

Warning sirens rang out in Jerusalem on Sunday as Israel intercepted Iranian missiles, with Israel saying the Iranian strikes were retaliation for new Israeli attacks against Iran-backed militants in Lebanon. Axios reported that in an interview just hours before Israel fired back, Trump said he would have told Prime Minister Netanyahu not to retaliate in order to protect an ongoing peace deal.

In an interview taped Friday for NBC's Meet the Press, the president addressed what it would take for the U.S. to restart full-scale military action. "My red line would be if I think I wasn't going to make a deal, or if I wasn't going to make a deal fast enough," Trump said. "So we're having very good negotiations with the people that are leading the country now."

When pressed on his campaign promise of no new wars, Trump pushed back. "I didn't guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?" He also insisted gas prices would fall below pre-war levels once the conflict ends, though he acknowledged he wasn't sure whether prices had peaked yet. "It depends where the war goes," he said. Oil prices climbed higher Monday following the new strikes.

Trump also defended his administration's proposed $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund, and did not rule out whether January 6 rioters who attacked police officers could receive taxpayer-funded payouts. "If it was up to me, I'd pay them the kind of money that they deserve," he said. "People have been destroyed. Lives have been destroyed." Top Justice Department officials have since said the fund is "not going forward," and the proposal drew rare opposition from Republicans.

The interview ended abruptly after NBC's Kristen Welker challenged Trump on unsupported claims about election interference. Welker said she spoke with the president the following day, and that he agreed to return for a follow-up interview.