South Dakota, July 4 -- US President Donald Trump on Friday (local time) punctuated his address with a sharp, provocative swipe at Iran, claiming to have given the nation a "week off" for the funeral ceremony of slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Touching on the ongoing tensions in the Middle East during his address marking America's 250th Independence Day at Mount Rushmore, the President claimed that US pressure had "broken the spirit" of the Iranian leadership, leaving them "dying to settle." Trump asserted that the US had granted a temporary suspension of hostilities for humanitarian reasons, stating that "we are nice people."

"We knocked the hell out of Iran. They're dying to settle. We gave them a week off for a f...