On Wednesday, July 22nd, 2026, former President Donald Trump stated that soldiers killed in the Iran war had echoed his administration’s firm stance against allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.

Trump attended a dignified transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware honoring those soldiers who lost their lives in the conflict. Before boarding Air Force One, he told reporters they were honoring “great heroes” and claimed that “all of them” had expressed that the U.S. could not permit Iran to build a nuclear weapon.

“We’re going to Dover, some of you are going with us, to honor our heroes,” Trump said. “They said, and all of them said very strongly, ‘We can’t let, we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. They won’t have a nuclear weapon.’” He added, “So we’re going to honor them, and one of the hardest things to do — for me, it’s one of the hardest things to do as a president — but has to be done.”

Trump has consistently maintained that the U.S. must prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, with his White House having documented multiple instances of him making this argument. In a primetime address on April 1st, he recalled attending two dignified transfers in March, noting, according to ABC News, that “Every single one of the people, their loved ones, said, ‘Please, sir, please, finish the job.’ Every one of them. And we are going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast.”

However, it remains unclear what poll Trump was referencing in his remarks, as reported by The Independent.

Sources