{"id":203849,"date":"2026-03-12T12:20:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-tells-kentucky-rally-irans-military-and-nuclear-capabilities-degraded-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T12:20:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:20:36","slug":"trump-tells-kentucky-rally-irans-military-and-nuclear-capabilities-degraded-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-tells-kentucky-rally-irans-military-and-nuclear-capabilities-degraded-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump tells Kentucky rally Iran\u2019s military and nuclear capabilities degraded – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

While offering no details to hundreds of supporters, US president seemed to suggest conflict would not end soon
Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox<\/a>
Donald Trump<\/a> told hundreds of supporters assembled inside a packaging plant in northern Kentucky on Wednesday that Iran\u2019s military and nuclear capabilities had been significantly degraded.
\u201cTheir drones are down 85%, we\u2019re blowing up their factories,\u201d he told an ecstatic audience in Hebron.
\u201cThey don\u2019t know what the hell hit them,\u201d said Trump.
Without offering further details on when the 10-day-old conflict may end, Trump seemed to suggest that might not be soon.
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to go back every two years. We\u2019re going to finish the job,\u201d he said.
With Trump and his fellow Republicans under pressure, according to polls, due to a stuttering economy, immigration crackdowns and the Iran conflict, the president noted this year\u2019s midterm elections \u201care going to be very, very important\u201d.
He highlighted \u201cclean, beautiful Kentucky<\/a> coal\u201d and new jobs he said his administration has helped create in the construction and pharmaceutical industries.
Amid thunderstorms and a tornado warning, hundreds of people lined up to see the president. One supporter was Chuck Wills, a 76-year-old Vietnam veteran who waited in the spring rain for three hours Wednesday morning to secure a front-row seat.
\u201cIt was worth it,\u201d he said from a seat just feet from Trump\u2019s podium.
Wills, who lives locally, admitted that the economy under Trump could be in a better place.
\u201cThere\u2019s going to be a little pain before [the economy] turns around,\u201d he said. On the war on Iran, Wills believes it\u2019s a necessary intervention, saying: \u201cHe\u2019s the first one to take on Iran. It\u2019s the price to pay. I have no issues with it.\u201d
Wills, who is retired from having worked for an oil company, said the rising cost of gas due to the Iran war was not a huge price to pay. \u201cIt\u2019s a few dollars here, a few dollars there,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they gotta get it over with quick. We hope it will be short term.\u201d
Kentucky, a deep-red state, has emerged as an important testing ground for Trump\u2019s agenda before a much-anticipated primary election in May.
On Wednesday, Trump posted on Truth Social his support for Ed Gallrein, a Kentucky farmer and Republican challenger running against Thomas Massie, a long-time Trump critic and one of the leading Republican voices calling for the full release of the Epstein files. On Wednesday, Trump called Massie the \u201cworst Republican congressman\u201d in a Truth Social post.
Gallrein, who spoke briefly at the Trump event in Hebron, claimed Massie has worked with Democrats to \u201cdestroy our nation\u201d. The primary on 19 May is expected to be a tight race.
But even in Kentucky, where in 2024 more than 64% of voters backed Trump, the effects of rising prices have not gone unnoticed.
The Kentucky Republican party said the purpose of the president\u2019s trip was, in part, to \u201clay out the work he\u2019s doing to make America affordable again\u201d, comments that highlight the challenges facing the administration amid rising prices and the Iran conflict.
Trump also visited a pharmaceutical company outside Cincinnati on Wednesday where he claimed his tariffs regime had brought businesses back to the US.
In Kentucky, Trump spoke for about an hour and 10 minutes and was acclaimed by hundreds of supporters carrying signs reading \u2018lower prices\u2019 and \u2018bigger paychecks\u2019.
Corina Petty, a nurse who drove two hours from Bullitt county, approved of Trump\u2019s handling of the economy.
\u201cHe\u2019s only been in a year. When he got in, the economy was so bad. He\u2019s already done a lot of good things. It\u2019s just going to take a little more time,\u201d she said.
Petty, who was in line at 9.30am \u2013 more than eight hours before Trump arrived to speak \u2013 also thought the war on Iran was a necessary conflict and wanted it to continue \u201cfor as long as it takes\u201d, which she estimated would be about three weeks.
\u201cIran needed to be dealt with. They fund terrorist groups. President Trump is the only president we\u2019ve had with the nerve to go in,\u201d she said.
Later, as Trump denigrated Barack Obama, people in the crowd behind him began calling for medics after an older woman collapsed directly behind him, causing him to stop his speech for more than five minutes.
Medics assisting the woman included Mehmet Oz, the former TV presenter and administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who was attending the gathering.
For 18-year-old college student Troy McCoy, who drove from Louisville with two friends to see the president, the choice of political leaders in general in the US today wasn\u2019t great but he still supported Trump.
\u201cThere are a lot of young people today who see him as the lesser of two evils,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019ve followed him for a long time, and I agree with a lot of what he says.\u201d<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While offering no details to hundreds of supporters, US president seemed to suggest conflict would not end soonSign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxDonald Trump told hundreds of supporters assembled inside a packaging plant in northern Kentucky on Wednesday that Iran\u2019s military and nuclear capabilities had been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":203850,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-203849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}