Trump sat down with Jake Paul to defend the Iran war, then invoked 47 years of LGBTQ+ executions to explain why he said he had to “wipe out evil”

President Donald Trump recently defended ongoing military action against Iran, telling YouTuber Jake Paul that the United States “had to do it” to “wipe out evil,” while also bringing up the Iranian regime’s record of executing LGBTQ+ people. The conversation was recorded on Wednesday and released on Friday, just ahead of a rally in Kentucky.

According to Mediaite, Trump pushed back against critics who have questioned the escalation, framing the military campaign as a long-overdue confrontation with Tehran. He pointed to roadside bombs, claiming 95% of them came from Iran, and referenced the 2020 killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, whom he blamed for those bombs.

“We did this excursion. We had to do it. Wipe out evil. Sometimes you have evil, and for 47 years they’ve been killing people, you know, in the most violent way,” Trump said. He also said that “all of this whole thing that we’re doing now is people have waited for 47 years for it to happen so we have to do it right.”

The Iran strikes drew support from Jake Paul but confusion over activist criticism

Jake Paul expressed surprise that some activists were criticizing the strikes. “I was a bit shocked too, like everyone else in the world was like, ‘This is the greatest thing.’ And I think what you’re doing is phenomenal,” Paul told Trump. 

He found it confusing that activists who claim to support women’s rights would then oppose what he described as the liberation of women in Iran. Trump even synced real Iran missile strikes to NFL highlights, a move that drew strong reactions.

Trump echoed Paul’s view and extended it to the LGBTQ+ community. “We support gays, but they throw gays off the buildings. Okay, we support this,” he said, adding that he believes he has “tremendous support on this,” calling it “incredible.”

Trump also claimed the operation had severely damaged Iran’s military. “We wiped out their navy. We wiped out their air force. We wiped out everything there is to wipe out,” he said. He also claimed that Iranian leaders had been killed twice while meeting to choose new leadership. Trump reiterated his position on the regime, saying, “We have to wipe out the evil. It’s an evil curse. They’re evil people.” 

Meanwhile, these military decisions are taking place against a difficult economic backdrop, with new GDP data revealing worrying US economic trends that complicate the broader picture of Trump’s presidency. “Now they’re looking for a third time. I don’t know. People say the son [of assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was reportedly selected as leader], but nobody knows where the son is,” Trump concluded.