President Donald Trump on Monday said the United States “may” have a new president in 2029 and compared the Iran war to “playing a banjo,” adding to speculation that the president may not be ready to pass the torch at the end of his second term as well as offering an unclear analogy to the military campaign in the Middle East.
Speaking at a General Motors proving ground in Milford, Michigan, Trump touted his economic achievements while offering brief remarks on the Iran war.
“We’re blowing it away this time,” Trump said of the economy. “You’re going to see the results very soon. I’m a little bit upset because in 2 1/2 years, you may have a different president.”
“May,” he emphasized.
The president has, on more than one occasion, refused to rule out a third term, something that could only happen if Congress were to change the 22nd Amendment, which establishes a two-term limit for presidents.
Trump explained that he was upset about the prospect of a new president entering the Oval Office after his term ends because that person could “take credit” for the economy he fostered.
“Will you please remember that I did it?” he told the crowd. “I did it. I’ll be sitting [at] home. … I’ll be having some guy like last time, a real idiot, stand up [and] say, ‘We are doing record business. We are making more automobiles.’”
Trump added that he expects the next commander in chief to “screw up” his success but said, “We’re not going to let that happen.”
On the Iran war, Trump highlighted his administration’s effort to bring fuel prices down and ease the cost burdens on families.
“When the fuel comes down, which it did for a little while, then they didn’t behave,” Trump said of the conflict with Iran. “I had to back, and now they’re behaving again. It’s like playing a banjo.”
Trump did not elaborate on his analogy likening the Iran war to the stringed instrument typically used in bluegrass music.
The war restarted after the collapse of a fragile ceasefire agreement between Washington and Tehran, which each country blames the other for violating. Both sides traded tit-for-tat blows for weeks until hostilities intensified in July.
The U.S. carried out a nearly two-week bombing operation, which ended Friday, and a U.S. official told the Washington Examiner that Iran had “begged” for the militaristic devastation to end. Trump characterized Iran’s response to U.S. military strikes in the same light, saying Tehran wants to meet with Washington.
Trump has said he was considering “a massive attack” and had publicly discussed focusing the military’s air campaign on Iranian infrastructure and possibly its energy and nuclear facilities, including Pickaxe Mountain, which the U.S. did not target last year during Operation Midnight Hammer.
During his speech in Michigan on Monday, Trump was heckled by an attendee who claimed he was a “pedophile protector,” a common label thrown at the president from the left due to Trump’s alleged ties to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump dismissed the heckler, calling him a “communist,” and carried on with his remarks.