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Trump Holds a Press Conference in Doral, Florida, Mar. 9, 2026

March 9, 2026 · The White House · 0:34:15

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump held a press conference in Doral, Florida on March 9, 2026, closing a two-day Florida stop. His account of Operation Epic Fury at day nine, as he stated it: “We’ve struck over 5,000 targets to date”; Iran’s naval power “almost 50 ships. I was just notified, it’s 51 ships” sunk; missile capability “down to about 10 percent, maybe less,” with “over 90 percent decline in the Iranian missile launchers” and an “83 percent drop in drone launchers”; and B-2 bombers dropping “dozens of 2,000 pound bombs” on buried missile sites. Leadership had been taken out “twice and maybe three times,” he said, and the campaign was “ahead of our initial timeline by a lot.”

His case for the war: Iran had refused to renounce nuclear ambitions even after Operation Midnight Hammer, had turned down “unlimited free nuclear fuel forever for civilian purposes,” and was reconstituting its program at a new, deeper site while building ballistic missiles — “the situation was very quickly approaching the point of no return.” He recalled his 2015 pledge: “I will stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons… all I’m doing is keeping my promise.” On energy, he said the Strait of Hormuz “is going to remain safe,” warned Iran against interfering with oil flow — “they’ll get hit at a much, much harder level” — and said the United States was offering political risk insurance to tankers during the disruption.

Why it matters

The Doral press conference is the President’s fullest self-contained statement of the war’s first nine days — the target and ship tallies, the nuclear case, and the Hormuz guarantee in one sitting, the day before the Press Secretary’s day-10 briefing formalized the same numbers. It is recorded on the Foreign Policy & Defense hub.

Scoreboard watch

The President’s day-9 tallies — 5,000-plus targets, 51 ships, missile capability at about 10 percent — and his Hormuz safety commitment, all as stated by the President, are recorded here as candidate items for the weekly scoreboard. The scoreboard entry itself remains review-gated.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Holds a Press Conference, Mar. 9, 2026,” The White House, March 9, 2026 (official upload, embedded above; Doral, FL, per the official description). All figures and characterizations as stated by the President at the press conference.