After ordering strikes on Iran, Donald Trump turned not to a Presidential address or a Pentagon briefing, but to a scene from a 1999 television drama written by one of his most vocal liberal critics.
On Tuesday, 9 June 2026, US Central Command confirmed that it had launched 'self-defence strikes against Iran' at 17:00 ET at Trump's direction, following the downing of a US Army Apache helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz the previous day. CENTCOM described the operation as 'a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression.'