{"id":204725,"date":"2026-03-20T04:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T04:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-makes-pearl-harbor-joke-during-meeting-with-japanese-prime-minister-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T04:00:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T04:00:21","slug":"trump-makes-pearl-harbor-joke-during-meeting-with-japanese-prime-minister-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-makes-pearl-harbor-joke-during-meeting-with-japanese-prime-minister-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump makes Pearl Harbor joke during meeting with Japanese prime minister – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

news Alerts
There are no new alerts at this time
President Donald Trump<\/a> on Thursday invoked Japan<\/a>\u2019s December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor when speaking about recent U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran<\/a> during a bilateral meeting at the White House with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi<\/a>.
Asked by a reporter why the U.S. didn\u2019t tell Japan or other allies about its decision to strike Iran before it did so, the president said: \u201cWe went in very hard and we didn\u2019t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? OK, why didn\u2019t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?\u201d
\u201cYou believe in surprise, I think, much more than us,\u201d Trump added, referencing the 1941 attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor<\/a> in Hawaii that precipitated the United States\u2019 entry into World War II.
Despite fighting on opposite sides of the war, which culminated in the United States\u2019 dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima<\/a> and Nagasaki<\/a> in August 1945, the U.S. and Japan signed a peace treaty in September 1951 and have been allies since.
Trump\u2019s comment drew a few laughs from around the Oval Office, which was occupied by Vice President JD Vance<\/a>, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth<\/a> and other administration officials. Members of the Japanese delegation and members of the U.S. and Japanese press corps were also in the room.
The president went on to explain further why the element of surprise was important in the ongoing war with Iran, which began late last month after the U.S. and Israel launched a joint operation.
\u201cWe had to surprise them, and we did, and because of that surprise, the first two days we probably knocked out 50% of what we \u2014 much more than we anticipated doing. And if I go and tell everybody about it, it\u2019s no longer a surprise,\u201d Trump said.
Trump also joked about the war with Iran last week, telling NBC News in a phone interview <\/a>that the U.S. military had \u201ctotally demolished\u201d most of Kharg Island in earlier strikes, but \u201cwe may hit it a few more times just for fun.\u201d
Kharg Island is a strategic island off the coast of Iran that houses some of the nation\u2019s oil infrastructure.
During the bilateral meeting, the president answered several other questions about U.S. military operations in Iran, including questions about an upcoming funding request from the Pentagon and rising oil prices that have stemmed from the ongoing war.
The Washington Post reported<\/a> Wednesday that the Defense Department plans to request $200 billion from Congress to support ongoing military operations in Iran.
The president confirmed that number, but said the request for that amount is \u201cfor a lot of reasons, beyond even what we\u2019re talking about in Iran.\u201d
\u201cThis is a very volatile world, and the military equipment, the power of some of this weaponry is unthinkable. You don\u2019t even want to know about it. Oh, you could end this thing in two seconds if you wanted to,\u201d Trump added.
He also said that oil prices have not jumped as high as he anticipated they would after the war began. The president\u2019s comments come as prices have surged in recent weeks<\/a> as Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, a vital maritime passageway in the Middle East.
\u201cEverything was going great, the economy was great, oil prices were very low, gasoline was dropping too,\u201d Trump told reporters. \u201cAnd I saw what was happening in Iran and I said, \u2018I hate to make this excursion, but we have to do it,\u2019 and I actually thought the numbers would be worse.\u201d
While making a decision to strike Iran, the president said he thought, \u201cOil prices will go up, the economy will go down a little bit.\u201d
He added, \u201cI thought it would be worse, much worse actually,\u201d before saying, \u201cIt\u2019s not bad and it\u2019s going to be over with pretty soon.\u201d
Alexandra Marquez is a politics reporter for NBC News.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timePresident Donald Trump on Thursday invoked Japan\u2019s December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor when speaking about recent U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran during a bilateral meeting at the White House with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.Asked by a reporter why the U.S. didn\u2019t tell Japan or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":204726,"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-204725","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\/204725","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=204725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}