Trump wouldn’t directly answer a question about whether the U.S. would attack Iran but said: “I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.”
“I can tell you this, that Iran’s got a lot of trouble. And they want to negotiate. And I say why didn’t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction,” he said outside the White House.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hours earlier said the United States will face “irreparable damage” if Trump joins the conflict and approves strikes against his country, rejecting the call a day earlier for “unconditional surrender.”
“It isn’t wise to tell the Iranian nation to surrender,” he said in a post on social platform X. “What should the Iranian nation surrender to? We will never surrender in response to the attacks of anyone. This is the logic of the Iranian nation. This is the spirit of the Iranian nation.”
Trump later in the day claimed that the Iranians are seeking a meeting with him at the White House and left the door open to talks.
“They do want to come and see us. They want to see me in the White House. That’s a big statement, but it’s very late,” he said in the Oval Office.
The president has spoken daily with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu six days into the Israel-Iran strikes.
“Look, we talk and I’d like to see everything done. I would have preferred having just an agreement, a strong agreement… it was such a shame, they were so close,” Trump added, about Iran signing a nuclear deal.
Asked if the destruction of the Fordow nuclear facility would be a prerequisite for a deal with Iran, the president stressed that he has not yet made a decision.
“We’re the only ones that have the capability to do it but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it at all,” he said.
An attack on Fordow would require the involvement of the U.S. because B-2 bombers dropping bunker busters are the only way to destroy the capabilities of a plant hidden deep in an Iranian mountain.
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
