Trump says Iran retains missiles but its arsenal is smaller and drone production is struggling without electricity

President Donald Trump said Iran still possesses missiles but in reduced numbers and claimed its drone production is being disrupted by electricity shortages caused during the war.

“Their missiles are still there, but much less,” Trump said during a campaign rally in Chillicothe, Ohio. “The drones that they make, they’re having a hard time because they can’t get electricity anymore.”

Trump also repeated his argument that the United States did not start the current war with Iran, tracing the conflict back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution and subsequent attacks on Americans.

“We didn’t start this war,” Trump said, while again pledging that Iran would never obtain a nuclear weapon.

U.S. and Israeli strikes have inflicted significant damage on Iran’s missile, air-defense and military infrastructure since the war began in February. Earlier U.S. assessments indicated that a substantial portion of Iran’s missile arsenal had been destroyed, damaged or buried, although Tehran retains the capability to strike targets across the region.

During the same rally, Trump also returned to his past relationship with Jeffrey Epstein after a protester raised the issue.

“I threw Jeffrey Epstein the hell out of Mar-a-Lago,” Trump said, adding that he considered Epstein a “whack job” and had expelled him from the club years earlier.

Trump later described himself as “a very high-IQ person,” citing three cognitive tests he said he had passed without mistakes, and joked that media portrayals of him had shifted from an “evil genius” to a “total moron.”

He also praised his late uncle John Trump, a longtime MIT professor, and ended another portion of the rally by declaring that “everything is the best it’s ever been.”