HYGO News Trump on Speaker Johnson with Sicilian ancestry & on Iran permanent solution not ever problem again
Trump on Speaker Johnson’s Sicilian Ancestry & on Iran: “Permanent Solution, Not Ever Problem Again”
On 3/17/2026, President Trump hosted Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin at the White House for St. Patrick’s Day. During the event, Trump made remarks about Speaker Mike Johnson’s ancestry and spoke extensively about Iran’s nuclear threat.
On Speaker Johnson’s Sicilian Ancestry
POTUS to Speaker Johnson, who earlier discussed his Sicilian ancestry:
“Well, I didn’t know about your Italian roots either. I thought he was a super WASP, you know, to me. No, to me, Mike was always a WASP. Now I learned that this is serious Italian stuff, right? Well, that’ll be good for you, I think. Your image, his image has changed a hell of a lot very quick. He’s great.”
On Iran: “We Don’t Ever Want to Have That Problem Again”
Trump spoke about making the impact on Iran “permanent” so future presidents don’t face the same challenge:
“Frankly, as somebody said, they could leave today and it would take 10 years to rebuild the damage that’s been done. But I think we have to make it a little bit more permanent because no other president has to go through this and we shouldn’t have any other president having to go through this kind of a thing. And if they didn’t want to do it, if for some reason they didn’t want to do it, we’d have the same problem. We don’t ever want to have that problem again, not with lunatics. We can’t have lunatics controlling nuclear weaponry.”
On Former National Security Officials and Iran as a Threat
Trump criticized an unnamed former official who said Iran was “not a threat”:
“I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security. When I read his statement, I realized that it’s a good thing that he’s out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat. Every country realized what a threat Iran was.”
Trump also referenced the Iran nuclear deal and cash payments:
“If I didn’t terminate Obama’s horrible deal that he made, the Iran nuclear deal, you would have had a nuclear war four years ago. You would have had nuclear holocaust. And you would have had it again if we didn’t bomb the site.”
On NATO allies who acknowledged Iran as a threat but declined to help:
“When they say it was a threat and it was a major threat, every one of them, I think every one of them — but when they say it was a threat, but we’re not going to help, I think they’re very foolish.”
Context
These remarks came during a White House St. Patrick’s Day event hosting Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin. The comments on Iran reflect the ongoing US military and diplomatic pressure campaign against Iran’s nuclear program in 2026.