Trump said US military officials told him sinking Iranian ships is 'more fun' than capturing them

In March 2026, social media posts shared a clip of U.S. President Donald Trump speaking about military action against Iranian ships; the posts (archived) appeared on X, Reddit and Facebook.

“Trump delivered the line in a joking tone, suggesting he may not have intended it to be taken literally”

Snopes

The quote — including the line "It's more fun to sink them." — was correctly attributed to Trump, and he said it as part of a March 9, 2026 speech.

Snopes

The White House uploaded the speech to its YouTube account and put the video on its website.

At 15:15 in the YouTube video, the article reproduces Trump’s remarks:

"The Navy is gone.

Snopes

It's all lying at the bottom of the ocean, 46 ships.

Can you believe it?

In fact, I got a little upset with our people.

I said, "What quality of ship?" "Excellent, sir. Top of the line."

I said, "Why don't we just capture the ship? We could use it. Why did we sink them?"

They said, "It's more fun to sink them."

I said [unclear] .

They like sinking them better.

They say it's safer to sink them.

I guess it's probably true.

But think of it, we knocked out 46 and actually took three and a half days."

Snopes says Trump delivered the line in a joking tone, suggesting he may not have intended it to be taken literally.

“Trump delivered the line in a joking tone, suggesting he may not have intended it to be taken literally”

Snopes

The article text provided here is truncated: the sentence beginning "The anecdote drew" is incomplete in the excerpt, and the excerpt ends before Snopes' further commentary.

Snopes also notes it has previously fact-checked other claims about Trump quotes and Iran.