Trump warns the Houthis and says he might ask Turkey to help strike them

President Trump put the Houthis on notice on Tuesday, in words and in a social media post, and floated bringing Turkey into the fight.

Asked by a reporter whether he would ask Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to hit the Houthis, Trump said he might do it, and added that he has a lot of respect for the president of Turkey and believes Erdogan would do as he asks. Turkey fields the second largest army in NATO. In a Truth Social post the same day, Trump accused the Houthis of resuming attacks at the direction of Iran in order to drive up oil prices ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, and warned that he would never forget what the group has done in Saudi Arabia.

The warnings follow a week of Houthi missile and drone attacks on the kingdom, above all the Saturday strike on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. Over the weekend Trump said that attack killed 12 people, including one American citizen, and wounded more than 300, and that the United States was weighing retaliatory strikes. Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the attacks over the weekend and said Washington stands with Saudi Arabia and its people.

Trump has held off on striking the Houthis since the May 2025 ceasefire that halted attacks on American vessels in the Red Sea. Whether Tuesday's language ends that pause is the open question. The Houthis have also stepped up attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Bab al Mandab Strait, and Saudi Arabia struck the group's largest fuel depot in northern Yemen on Tuesday before the Houthis fired again at Riyadh and the south. A Turkish role, if it came, would widen a war that already runs from Yemen to the Red Sea shipping lanes.