A clipped video of United States President Donald Trump is being shared on social media with the false claim that he said Iran attacked the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford from “17 angles.”
BOOM found that in the original speech, Trump was referring to Venezuela and claiming to describe a Venezuelan general’s account of a US attack following operations that led to the abduction of former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.
The Claim:
The 39 seconds video is being shared claiming that Trump said Iran attacked the U.S. aircraft carrier.
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What We Found:
1) Original speech refers to US operation in Venezuela
We watched the original speech which was delivered by Trump on March 28, 2026, at the Future Investment Initiative in Florida.
In the below segment of the speech, it is clear that Trump is referring to Venezuela and describing a Venezuelan general’s account of a US attack following operations that led to the abduction of former Venezuelan president Maduro on January 3, 2026.
From the 20.25 minutes timestamp Trump can be heard saying, "When we hit Venezuela, and, you know, that’s a very strong military country. They have soldiers, if you’ve ever been there. I’ve been there. They have a lot of soldiers walking around all over the place. Everyone’s a soldier, very military kind of a place. And the general, there was a general, professional general, really good. And he said, we were all set for them."
Trump adds, talking about the Venezuelan general, “We knew there was a problem when we noticed at 1:00 in the morning, every 32 seconds, another airplane, a very fast plane, was coming off the deck of an aircraft carrier. That’s actually the biggest aircraft carrier in the world. And every 32 seconds, vroom, vroom, vroom. And it was 1:00 in the morning, so we said, ok, I think we’re in trouble. But they were ready for us, Johnny. And we were ready.”
“He said, we were ready and then they hit us and they came from 17 different angles. They were here, they were there, they we ran for our lives. It was over. And it was over,” Trump says, claiming to narrate the Venezuelan general’s account.
While Trump does mention the ongoing war with Iran elsewhere in his speech, he does not make any statement about Iran attacking a US warship.
The whole speech can be seen below:
2) USS Gerald R Ford's deployments
The USS Gerald R. Ford had been deployed as part of U.S. war against Iran, and had earlier taken part in missions in the Caribbean, including operations against Venezuela.
According to a report by The Guardian on March 18, 2026, a fire had broke out onboard the carrier during its deployment in the Red Sea, injuring sailors and damaging around 100 sleeping berths.
The carrier had been at sea for nearly nine months and was later moved toward the Greek island of Crete for repairs. The fire was reported to be non-combat related, having started in a laundry area onboard.