In the 2026 State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Donald Trump mentioned 2025’s Operation Midnight Hammer attacks against Iran and vaguely alluded to negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program.
“My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy,” Trump said while addressing Congress. “But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon. Can’t let that happen.”
Trump added that “we are in negotiations with them [Iran]. They want to make a deal, but we haven’t heard those secret words: ‘We will never have a nuclear weapon.’”
Earlier Tuesday, Politico reported Democratic lawmakers, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on the other side of the aisle, held a classified briefing on Capitol Hill pleading with Trump to not only explain his strategy with Iran, but consult Congress on any military action. Currently, the U.S. has increased its forces outside the Middle East to a buildup of nearly one-third of the U.S. Navy’s actively deployed fleet, and the U.S. military, Congress and Tehran wait with baited breath for Trump’s next orders.
“As President, I will make peace wherever I can, but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever we must,” Trump continued. “That’s why, in a breakthrough operation last June, the United States military obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program with an attack on radiant soil, known as Operation Midnight Hammer.”
Trump is referring to an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites involving American B-2 bombers, which were reportedly used to drop Boeing 30,000-pound GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrators, colloquially called “bunker busters,” on the Fordow and Natanz facilities
Trump added that “after Midnight Hammer, they [Iran] were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program, in particular, nuclear weapons. Yet they continue starting it all over. We wiped it out, and they want to start all over again, and are, this moment again, pursuing their sinister ambitions.”
Trump’s speech, which lasted more than 90 minutes, focused mostly on domestic issues. The mentions of Iran did not come until around 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Earlier in the speech, Trump said he would seek to allow large tech companies to build their own power plants for data centers but did not specifically mention nuclear power.