Trump fumes at Iran after overnight attacks: I think MOU is over, they’re ‘scum’

US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, July 8, 2026. (Filip Singer, Pool Photo via AP)

US President Donald Trump fumes at Iran following overnight US strikes on the country in response to Tehran’s attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, saying he thinks the US-Iran memorandum of understanding “is over.”

“To me, I think it’s over,” Trump says of the MOU while taking questions from reporters ahead of a summit of NATO leaders in Ankara. “I don’t want to deal with them. They’re scum.”

“They’re sick people. They’re led by sick people. And they’re vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over,” the president says.

He condemns Tehran for attacking ships despite assurance by the  US that it wouldn’t escalate the conflict during funeral processions of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated at the start of the US-Israeli war: “We said, ‘Go and do your funeral stuff,’ and instead of that, they start shooting rockets at ships yesterday. And so we hit them very hard last night, very hard.”

Trump also charges that Iran seeks to assassinate him, saying he appears on certain “lists” in Iran. It’s unclear what Trump refers to exactly, though circulating footage of Iranian mourners calling for his death at Khamenei’s funeral has received widespread attention this week.

“They want to take out the US leader — me. I’m on whatever list. I saw this morning I’m on every single one of their lists. And so far, I guess I’ve been a bit lucky, but maybe that doesn’t last very long,” he says.

“These are evil, sick people. And we have to root out that cancer. That cancer. You know what you do? You’ve got to cut out cancer early. And that’s the way I feel,” the president says.