First posted on Instagram
Wednesday, November 11, 2026
President Donald Trump laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday and delivered remarks honouring America's veterans and the service members who gave their lives for the country, at the 73rd annual National Veterans Day Observance.
The president was joined by First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Second Lady Usha Vance, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The wreath-laying took place at 11 a.m., with the president's remarks following at 11:30 a.m. in the Memorial Amphitheater.
In his remarks, Trump said America's service members have stood against every enemy to protect the country's freedom, and he reaffirmed his message of military strength and national pride, paying tribute to the fallen and to veterans of wars from the Second World War to Afghanistan.
Trump used the Veterans Day address to declare that the United States has already won its war with Iran, but insisted Washington would accept nothing less than a complete victory. "We won. We want to make sure we have a total victory, not a 93% victory," he said. "It's just a question of when we want to end it."
"America did not start a war with Iran," he said. "Iran has been waging war on America since 1979. This should have been taken care of a long time ago."
Trump said the American military campaign had inflicted damage on Iran that would take decades to repair. "It'll take them 25 years to rebuild back what we have destroyed, and hopefully we won't have to destroy any more of that country," he said.
The war, which began in February, has not been formally closed. Trump has declared victory in recent public remarks, including a 60 Minutes interview, while nuclear talks, discussions of a ceasefire and the campaign around the Strait of Hormuz have remained unresolved. After last week's midterm elections, Vice President JD Vance said the conflict helped explain Republican losses, and Trump said he did not disagree.
In a Veterans Day proclamation signed on Monday, the White House highlighted what it described as a record year for the Department of Veterans Affairs, saying it processed 3,111,399 disability claims in fiscal 2026, the highest annual total on record. The administration said the claims backlog had fallen by more than 70 percent since January 2025, with 47 new health facilities opened and nearly 52,000 homeless veterans housed last year.
The appearance came against a charged political backdrop. On Tuesday, the House of Representatives voted 211-204 to refer articles of impeachment against Hegseth to the Judiciary Committee, effectively shelving the effort for the remainder of this Congress. Democrats, who won both chambers in the November 3 midterm elections, are due to take control of the House and Senate on January 3.
The cemetery itself has also become the centre of a legal dispute over the president's proposed 250-foot memorial arch to mark America's 250th anniversary. Nine members of the Kennedy family have asked a judge to block the structure, arguing it would overshadow relatives' graves and obstruct the view from President John F. Kennedy's gravesite. A federal judge last week ordered a 14-day pause on construction.
Veterans Day is observed on November 11, the anniversary of the armistice that ended the First World War in 1918. It was renamed in 1954 to honour veterans of all wars.