President Trump told reporters the U.S. campaign against Iran is "very far ahead of schedule" and suggested the conflict could soon come to a close, just hours after completing a phone call with Vladimir Putin in which the Kremlin says Putin shared a proposal to quickly end the war.

Speaking at a Republican members conference in Doral, Trump painted a picture of an Iranian military that has effectively ceased to exist as a fighting force.

"I think the war is very complete, pretty much. They have no navy, no communications, they've got no Air Force ... Wrapping up is all in my mind."

He went further, claiming Iran's missile and drone capabilities had been neutralized by U.S. strikes:

"Their missiles are down to a scatter. Their drones are being blown up all over the place, including their manufacturing of drones. If you look, they have nothing left. There's nothing left in a military sense."

As reported by the Daily Mail, Trump described the operation as a brief but necessary intervention. "We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some evil," he said, adding: "How good is our military, right? Amazing. Short term. Short term."

The Putin call and what it signals

Details of the Trump-Putin conversation remain scarce. The Kremlin confirmed that Putin shared a proposal to quickly end the war during the call, but no specifics of the proposal have been made public. Trump himself offered nothing further about its contents.

What matters is the sequence. A call with Putin, followed within hours by Trump publicly framing the conflict as nearly finished. Whatever was discussed, the diplomatic signal is unmistakable: multiple channels are now active, and the president is setting the table for a resolution rather than an escalation.

This is how leverage works. You dismantle the enemy's capacity, then you talk. The conversation with Putin doesn't represent some back-channel dependency; it represents a president with options. When your adversary's military infrastructure lies in ruins, every phone call you take is from a position of strength.

Iran's crumbling regime

The ground has shifted dramatically inside Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead. His successor, 56-year-old son Mojtaba Khamenei, was appointed by the regime's 88-person assembly on Sunday. Mojtaba's wife, Zahra Haddad-Adel, was killed in strikes on the first day of the conflict. Israel has reportedly vowed to "eliminate" whoever succeeded the slain Ayatollah, leaving the new supreme leader facing existential pressure from the moment he took the title.

Thirty Iranian fuel depots were obliterated over the weekend. Seven American troops have been killed in Iranian retaliatory attacks since the death of the previous supreme leader. A planned summit between the U.S. and Israel was scrapped on Monday.

When Trump was asked whether he had a message for Iran's new supreme leader, his answer was cold: "I have no message for him. None, whatsoever." Asked separately about Mojtaba, Trump said he was "not happy with" the new leader but declined to elaborate. Pressed on whether further action was possible, he offered a controlled ambiguity that will keep Tehran guessing:

"I don't want to talk about it. I don't think it's an appropriate question. You know, I'm not going to answer it. Could there be? Possible, for very good reason."

Reports also indicate Trump told close aides he would support killing Iran's new supreme leader if he refuses to abandon the country's nuclear program. He has simultaneously backed off an earlier threat to send U.S. troops to destroy Iran's uranium stockpile at a secret nuclear facility near Tehran, suggesting he sees more than one path to the same objective.

The Strait of Hormuz and the economic stakes

Trump floated one of the more consequential ideas to emerge from this conflict: the possibility of a U.S. takeover of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman. A fifth of global oil flows through it. Iran has strangled the strait by launching drone and missile attacks at America's Arab allies, turning one of the world's most critical shipping lanes into a war zone.

Trump said he was "thinking about taking it over," though he added: "We haven't made any decision on that. We're nowhere near it."

Even floating the idea carries weight. It reframes the conversation from simply defeating Iran's military to securing long-term American and allied economic interests. Control of the strait would remove Tehran's most potent remaining leverage, its ability to threaten global energy supply, permanently.

The economic picture at home tells its own story:

• Oil plunged to $86 per barrel from $91
• The Dow closed up 200 points after dropping nearly 900 points at its session low
• The S&P jumped 0.8 percent
• The Nasdaq rebounded to 1.4 percent after crashing by as much as 1.5 percent
• Gasoline prices are averaging $3.40 per gallon, up from $2.90 before the war

Markets are volatile but recovering. A Trump adviser captured the domestic political calculus plainly:

"The president doesn't like the attack. He wants to save the oil. He doesn't want to burn it. And it reminds people of higher gas prices."

That's not weakness. That's a president who understands that military victory means nothing if Americans are punished at the pump for it.

The politics of a short war

Trump's approval sits at 44 percent, down four points since last week, according to a Daily Mail/J.L. Partners poll. The conflict had already pushed past its original four-week timescale, and Trump himself warned last week it could run longer. The political incentives to bring this to a close are obvious.

But the political incentives also happen to align with the strategic reality. Iran's military is gutted. Its supreme leader is a dynasty appointment whose wife was killed in the opening salvo and who is reportedly marked for assassination by Israel. Its fuel infrastructure is burning. Its drone manufacturing is being dismantled in real time.

There is no contradiction between wanting a short war and having achieved a decisive one. The left will spend the next several weeks trying to manufacture that contradiction, arguing that any move toward resolution is premature, or that Trump is declaring "mission accomplished" too early, or that the Putin call proves some nefarious dependence. They will hold both positions simultaneously: that the war was reckless and that ending it is also reckless.

That is the luxury of having no responsibility for outcomes.

What comes next

The Israeli reaction to recent developments was captured by a single unnamed Israeli official's response to events: "What the f***." The scrapped U.S.-Israel summit on Monday suggests the two allies are not fully aligned on endgame terms, which is worth watching but not yet worth alarming over. Wars create friction between partners. That's normal.

The real question is whether Mojtaba Khamenei, a man who inherited a shattered military and a regime running on fumes, has the standing or the sense to negotiate. If he does, this ends quickly. If he doesn't, Trump has made clear that further options remain on the table.

Seven American service members are dead. The strait is contested. Gas prices have climbed fifty cents. None of this is costless. But the Iranian regime is weaker today than at any point in its 47-year history, and the president is talking like a man who knows it.