"We're in a little skirmish military. I call it a skirmish, because Iran has no chance. They never did. They know it," Trump said during an Oval Office event on physical fitness among American kids.

Trump often touts the conflict as a resounding success, insisting for example that Iran's navy has been destroyed.

He sometimes openly calls it a war but more often tries to minimize it because the war is unpopular at home.

On Monday he called it a "mini-war."

And last month he described US military operations against Iran as "a little excursion."