President Donald Trump this week declared victory in the Iran war but added that he hoped to win "by a bigger margin" and extract concessions from Iran.

Trump made the remarks in an appearance on Newsmax, in which he highlighted the military accomplishments of the U.S. in destroying Iranian military infrastructure.

“We’ve already won, but I want to win by a bigger margin,” he said. “We have to have guarantees they will never have a nuclear weapon.”

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, for his part, defiantly vowed to safeguard Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities in a public statement on Friday. Khamenei has not appeared publicly since the start of the war and is reported to have sustained severe injuries in an early U.S. strike.

He has, nonetheless, addressed the public through official statements via state channels. At present, Trump's goals and the stated positions of the Tehran government appear to be at loggerheads and negotiations in Pakistan have failed to yield a lasting agreement.

Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent at Just the News. Follow him on X.