Dubuque, Iowa - President Donald Trump on Sunday reiterated his threat to resume strikes against Iran, telling a campaign rally that he may have to give Tehran "the hammer" at some unspecified time.
"And the only reason why I'm not finished with Iran is I want to be nice. I want to try and save all those lives if I can...But at some point we're going to have to give them the hammer," the 80-year-old president told supporters during a rally in Iowa ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.
Trump has teased that the US could resume strikes on Iran following the midterms, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying on Saturday it is not a decision the White House is taking lightly.
Also on Saturday, the president said the US was not in a hurry to take offensive action because it had decimated Iran's military and nuclear program.
"We've knocked out their nuclear. We still have to take care of, I would say, one or two sites, but we can do that in 10 minutes," Trump told reporters at his Florida residence.
"You probably could look at Pickaxe Mountain, and you have to take care of that. We can do that all very quickly," he added, referring to a suspected underground nuclear complex.