Joe Biden’s 2020 warning about Donald Trump dragging the U.S. Into war with Iran has resurfaced as American forces remain engaged in conflict with the country.
The former president, now 82, made the prediction during his first White House run against Trump, then seeking a second non-consecutive term. Biden served from January 2021 through January 2025 before Trump returned to office.
Speaking in the resurfaced 2020 footage, Biden laid out his fears about Trump’s escalating behavior. “The world has changed because of what Trump has done,” he said. “And the American people, including Independents and some Republicans, know how bad he is, know how much he’s misrepresented, know how he’s getting close to getting us in a war.”
Biden continued with a specific concern that has drawn fresh attention. “I said, as the walls close in on this man, I’m worried he’s going to get us to war in Iran,” he went on. “Unfortunately I may have been right. The fact of the matter is there’s a lot at stake in this election.”
Those remarks have circulated widely after Trump ordered strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, plunging the two nations into sustained military confrontation. Long-running hostilities between Washington and Tehran date back decades, but the direct strikes marked a significant escalation.
Biden also foresaw shifting Republican attitudes toward Trump, a prediction that has similarly played out in visible ways. Former devout supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene offered a blunt assessment of her party’s private stance during a 60 Minutes interview last year.
“I think they’re terrified to step out of line and get nasty Truth Social posts about them,” she said of her Republican colleagues.
Greene expanded on the transformation she had witnessed among her peers. “We’ve watched a lot of my colleagues go from making fun of [Trump], making fun of how he talks, making fun of me constantly for supporting him,” she continued. “When he won the primary in 2024, they all decided to start kissing his ass and putting on a MAGA hat for the first time.”
The Georgia congresswoman’s own break with the party came weeks after that interview. Greene officially resigned from the Republican Party and relinquished her seat representing Georgia’s 14th congressional district, a move that underscored the fractures Biden had anticipated.
Trump’s standing within his party has softened measurably since his return to the White House. An Ipsos report from September found Republican approval of his overall job performance had dropped from 86 percent in January 2026 to 73 percent just weeks before the survey.
The same report tracked steeper declines on economic management. Republican approval of Trump’s handling of the U.S. Economy fell from 80 percent to 56 percent, while his marks on cost of living plummeted from 70 percent to 44 percent.
“More broadly, Trump’s approval rating stands at 32% among all Americans, a low point in the outlet/Ipsos polling fielded across his first and second presidency,” the report noted.
The current Iran conflict follows years of tit-for-tat tensions including the 2020 drone strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani during Trump’s first term. Biden’s administration had pursued renewed diplomatic engagement with Tehran, only for Trump to abandon that approach upon reclaiming office and ultimately order direct military action against Iranian nuclear sites.