{"id":204421,"date":"2026-03-17T13:23:58","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T13:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-said-he-spoke-to-a-former-president-about-bombing-iran-four-denials-suggest-otherwise-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T13:23:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T13:23:58","slug":"trump-said-he-spoke-to-a-former-president-about-bombing-iran-four-denials-suggest-otherwise-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-said-he-spoke-to-a-former-president-about-bombing-iran-four-denials-suggest-otherwise-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump said he spoke to a former president about bombing Iran. Four denials suggest otherwise. – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

news Alerts
There are no new alerts at this time
WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a> told reporters Monday that one of his predecessors told him he wished he had been the one to bomb Iran<\/a>.
It appears he did not speak to any of the four former presidents.
An aide for George W. Bush told NBC News that \u201cthey haven\u2019t been in touch,\u201d while an aide to Bill Clinton told NBC News that whoever Trump was referring to was not Clinton.
An Obama aide said \u201cno recent conversations\u201d have taken place between Barack Obama and Trump, and a source familiar with the matter said the former president Trump was referring to was not Joe Biden.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the denials Monday night.
Earlier in the day, Trump claimed twice to have spoken to a former president about Iran.
\u201cI\u2019ve spoken to a certain president \u2014 who I like, actually. A past president, former president, he said: \u2018I wish I did it. I wish I did.\u2019 But they didn\u2019t do it. I\u2019m doing it. Yeah?\u201d Trump said at a lunch for Kennedy Center board members.
Later in the day, Trump repeated the claim in the Oval Office, saying: \u201cI spoke to one of the former presidents who I actually like.\u201d
\u201cI actually speak to some,\u201d Trump said. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018I wish I did what you did.\u2019\u201d
Asked by a reporter to elaborate on which president he was speaking to, Trump did not specify. He said it wasn\u2019t Bush and then said \u201cI don\u2019t want to say\u201d when he was asked it was Clinton.
\u201cI don\u2019t want to say because a member of a party, a member of a party, they have Trump derangement syndrome, but it\u2019s somebody that happens to like me, and I like that person, who\u2019s a smart person, but that person said, \u2018I wish I did it.\u2019 OK, but I don\u2019t want to get into who. I don\u2019t want to get him into trouble,\u201d Trump said.
\u201cYou know, it\u2019s interesting. And maybe he\u2019d be proud,\u201d Trump said about the former president. \u201cAnd I could even ask him that: \u2018Would you like me to reveal your name?\u2019\u201d
Monica Alba is a White House correspondent for NBC News.
Chief Justice and National Affairs Correspondent
Raquel Coronell Uribe is a breaking news reporter.\u00a0
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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

news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeWASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump told reporters Monday that one of his predecessors told him he wished he had been the one to bomb Iran.It appears he did not speak to any of the four former presidents.An aide for George W. Bush told NBC News that \u201cthey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":204422,"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-204421","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\/204421","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=204421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}