Trump Discloses New Deadline He Gave Iran

President Donald Trump said Thursday that Iran asked him to keep some details of their ongoing talks confidential, and he granted the country extra time to respond.

The Islamic Republic of Iran on Wednesday rejected a 15-point proposal from the Trump administration to end the ongoing war with the United States, according to state media, while the White House, through Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, said talks between the two sides remain active.

“They have nuclear, you know, plenty of money. They have a lot of money and they built nuclear, and they built regular power plants,” Trump said.

“But they’re massive and very expensive. Billions of dollars. And so I gave them a 10-day period. They asked for seven. You’re going to say, ‘Oh, Trump’s a terrible negotiator. They asked for seven. And I said, ‘I’m going to give you 10 because they gave me ships,’” Trump said. “We talked about the eight ships. You know, the president that I talked about the other day. But they asked for seven, and I gave them 10. You got 10 days. And they were very thankful about that. Now, they may say, ‘Oh, we’re not speaking that.’ I don’t like that because that wasn’t true the last time, as you found out. But we are speaking, and it’s going fairly well. And so I gave them 10 days.”

Trump outlined a series of military actions he said had already taken place.

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“The Iranians asked me to do that, and I was not happy with them because I made a statement that we’re having productive negotiations. I don’t know that they get there. Maybe they do. Maybe they won’t. In a certain sense, we’ve already won because we’ve knocked out their navy. We’ve knocked out their air force, completely knocked out their air force, just about completely knocked out,” Trump said. “We knocked out 154 ships and pretty good ships. In fact, I said, why don’t we just take them instead of sinking them? We could have used them ourselves, right? But they like showing how tough they are. They like them at the bottom of the sea, probably a little bit better.”

Trump said U.S. forces had significantly degraded Iran’s military capabilities, detailing strikes on key defense systems and infrastructure.

“We knocked out their air force. We knocked out most of their missiles. They’re down to about 9%. We knocked out their missile launchers, which is a big deal because without the missile launchers, the missiles don’t do very well. You can’t go to your window and say, ‘Let’s throw a missile out of the air,’” Trump said. “And we knocked out all of their communications, their telecommunications. And very importantly, we knocked out their anti-aircraft apparatus, which was very good. But it didn’t last long because we hit it the second night, and we’re just free flying right over the middle of Tehran, do whatever we want.”

Trump announced the launch of Operation Epic Fury in a Feb. 28 Truth Social post after negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program collapsed. His Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said Iranian officials indicated they would continue uranium enrichment and had amassed material for multiple “dirty” weapons. Trump later told reporters the United States would take custody of the materials. (RELATED: Watch Sen. Chris Van Hollen React After CNN Asks If He Trusts Iranian Officials Over Trump)

Trump on Monday outlined conditions for ending Operation Epic Fury and said the United States had begun talks with Iran, pausing a planned strike on Iranian power plants for five days.

Former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent criticized U.S. involvement in the war, saying that shifting red lines on Iran’s nuclear program and pressure from Israel pushed the conflict toward military action. He added that a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has prohibited Iran from developing a nuclear weapon since 2004.

“In this administration, I watched the Israeli media echo chamber and the Israeli government … I watched the red line move from no nukes to no enrichment. That basically short-circuited the ability for there to be a deal leading us basically to a military conflict that was driven by Israel,” Kent said.

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