.jpg)
After a tumultuous morning during which US shares indices dropped and oil prices surged, the American president began speed-dialling reporters in an apparent effort to soothe nerves. His comments, however, were lacking in clarity even when he was pushed for more detail.
"I have a plan for everything, OK?" he told a reporter from the New York Post when asked about spiking oil prices. "I have a plan for everything. You'll be very happy."
To CBS News, he said the war "is very complete, pretty much".
"We're very far ahead of schedule," he added. When asked whether the operation could therefore end soon, Trump said: "I don't know, it depends. Wrapping up is all in my mind, nobody else's."
His telephone spree, at least in an economic sense, had the desired effect. Stock markets rallied, and the price of a barrel of oil – which had reached $120 earlier in the day - dropped below $90.
Just days ago, Trump said that he would not stop the war until Iran's "unconditional surrender". But after his comments on Monday, it appeared as though an end to a military operation that has roiled the Middle East and led to the near complete shutdown of shipping traffic through the Straits of Hormuz could be in sight.
"We could call it a tremendous success right now," he said. "Or we could go further. And we're going to go further."
He said the US was "very close to finishing" what he called an "excursion", but warned that the US would intensify its strikes if Iran continued to threaten oil tankers exiting the Persian Gulf.
"We will hit them so hard that it will not be possible for them or anybody else helping them to recover that section of the world," he said.
Trump also laid out an expansive mission for the war. His goal, he said, was to ensure that Iran could not develop weaponry to target the US, Israel or any American allies "for a very long time".
That ultimately might require the kind of regime change that Trump has been unable to secure so far, as the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been replaced as leader by his son.
Within a space of hours, the messaging from the president had been dizzying. Those looking for signs of when this massive military operation could end or clues as to its concrete goals were left with more questions than answers.
In a CBS interview on Sunday, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth outlined a next phase of the US-Israeli operation that included using more powerful ordnance. "The ability for us to be up over the top and hunting with more conventional munitions, gravity bombs, 500lb, 1,000lb, 2,000lb bombs on military targets," he said, "we haven't even really begun to start that effort of the campaign."
When Trump was asked on Monday about the apparent contradiction between his statements that the war was "very complete" and Hegseth's comments, he replied: "I think you could say both.""It's the beginning of building a new country," he said.