Live updates: Trump holds presser on Iran war ahead of Strait of Hormuz deadline

As the deadline for Iran to agree to a deal averting its possible demolition ticks down to Tuesday evening, Trump steered clear on Monday of offering details about what those peace talks entail.

“I can’t talk about a ceasefire. I can tell you that we have an active, willing participant on the other side. They would like to be able to make a deal. I can’t say any more than that,” he said.

There are several rumored ceasefire or peace deal proposals in the works that have been reported as Iranian negotiators eye an 8 p.m. Tuesday deadline to come to the table, including plans detailed by Axios and Reuters. During the briefing, Trump emphasized ensuring the Strait of Hormuz is opened as a “very big priority” in peace talks. He also named poor communication caused by strikes on power lines as one of the greatest barriers to talks advancing.

“The biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can’t communicate,” Trump said. “We’re communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago, with children bringing a note back.”

Trump said that Iran has “great negotiators” who have been tough for the U.S. to deal with for decades. He argued that a deal or blowing up the country’s critical infrastructure is essential to keeping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

“What I want to see is, I want to have a safe world, and you’re not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone, and then they’re coming for Europe,” the president warned of Iran. “For 47 years, they’ve been negotiating with these people. They’re great negotiators, and because they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon.”

The White House’s press conference on the Iran war lasted around one and a half hours and featured Trump, top military leaders, and the country’s intelligence chief.

But little new information on the war was revealed, including what is being discussed in peace negotiations between the United States and Iran, whether ground troops could be deployed to the country, and how the Strait of Hormuz can be reopened. Trump reiterated the deadline that Iran faces and emphasized that the strait must be opened as part of any deal.

“We have to have a deal that’s acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else,” Trump said, referring to the strategic waterway being opened. “Essentially, they have till eight o’clock tomorrow night Eastern time, but we are dealing with them. I think it’s going well.”

The president told Iran that if it does not comply, “every bridge” and every power plant in the country will be destroyed “by 12 o’clock tomorrow.”

“I mean complete demolition by 12 o’clock, and it’ll happen over a period of four hours, if we wanted to,” Trump said. “We don’t want that to happen.”

The press conference wrapped around 2:30 p.m. Monday afternoon, with Trump leaving the briefing room after sending Iran a final warning.

The current deadline for Iran to sign off on negotiations is 8 p.m. Tuesday evening. If the country does not agree to a peace deal, Trump said the United States could carry out Iran’s “complete demolition by 12 o’clock, and it’ll happen over a period of four hours.”

“Do I want to do that? No,” Trump told reporters shortly before he departed. “We don’t want that to happen. We may even get involved with helping them rebuild their nation. And you know what? If that’s the case, the last thing we want to do is start with power plants, which are among the most expensive thing, and bridges.”

Trump and Hegseth both downplayed Iran’s current capabilities even after the country shot down multiple U.S. aircraft in recent days.

Iran shot down an F-15 fighter aircraft, forcing both airmen to eject from the aircraft. The pilot was recovered in a matter of hours, but another aircraft, an A-10 Warthog, took fire during the search and rescue operations.

“We control the sky,” Hegseth said. “Do you see we flew for seven hours in daylight over Iran to get the first pilot, and we flew seven hours in the middle of the night to get the second, and Iran did nothing about it.”

Despite the incidents over the weekend, Trump maintained, “They have no navy, they have no air force, they have no anti-aircraft weaponry, they have no radar. They have no communication.”

It’s unclear how Iran would have been able to shoot down the American aircraft if it had no radar or anti-aircraft capabilities.

After getting “hit by enemy fire,” the “pilot continued to fight, continued the mission, and then upon exit, flew his aircraft into another country and determined that the airplane was not landable,” Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said. “This was one of our A-10 Sandy aircraft. The pilot then made the decision to eject over friendly territory, and was quickly and safely recovered and is doing fine.”

Trump suggested that the United States may charge a toll on ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz, as Iran has reportedly begun doing, after the war concludes.

Trump was asked during his Monday press conference whether he would allow Iran to charge tolls on commerce through the strait in the event of a ceasefire agreement, to which he responded, “What about us charging tolls?”

“I’d rather do that than let them have them. Why shouldn’t we? We’re the winner. We won. OK?” he told reporters. “They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of, ‘We’re going to drop a couple of mines in the water.'”

“We have a concept where we’ll charge tolls,” he continued.

Trump joked during the press conference that once he is done with his second term in the Oval Office, he could run for another presidential term — in Venezuela.

“The people of Venezuela, they say, if I ran for president of Venezuela, I’m polling higher than anybody has ever polled in Venezuela,” Trump said. “So after I’m finished with this, I can go to Venezuela, I will quickly learn Spanish.”

He continued, “It won’t take too long. I’m good at language.”

Trump reiterated that Iran has until Tuesday night to make a deal to either pause or end the war or face escalatory U.S. attacks.

The president has repeatedly pushed back his ultimatum for Iran, though he has warned that the United States would target Iranian bridges, infrastructure, power plants, and more if the deadline passes without an extension of the agreement.

“We have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night. Where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean, complete demolition by 12 o’clock,” Trump said Monday afternoon. “And it will happen over a period of four hours, if we wanted to. We don’t want that to happen. We may even get involved with helping them rebuild their nation.”

“This is a critical period,” Trump said earlier in the press conference. “We’re giving them until tomorrow, eight o’clock.”

Iranian leaders, for their part, have not shown public interest in negotiating a deal, though U.S. officials maintain the negotiations are moving forward with successors who are more willing to make an agreement.

In just one day of warfare, the president said Iran aimed 100 missiles going at 2,700 miles per hour at one of the U.S. Navy’s largest warships, the USS Abraham Lincoln.

U.S. forces shot down all of the missiles, according to Trump, as he praised the United States’s “unbelievable technology.”

“You know, we have, in terms of technology, we had one day, 101 missiles flying at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. One hundred and one missiles out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology 10 years ago, five years ago, I don’t know if that would have been possible,” Trump said. “One hundred and one missiles heading to a ship that’s not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shut down all 101.… We have weaponry that’s unbelievable.”

Trump said he did not favor assistance from Kurdish forces in targeting Iran, telling reporters they “bring with them some problems.”

“I’d rather have them stay away. I’d rather have them stay away because I think they bring with them some problems and some difficult — and I know they bring death, I mean, you know to themselves,” the president said.

The Kurds are an ethnic Iranian minority. Many are living in exile in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.

Trump said Monday there were some military personnel who did not believe conducting a rescue operation for a downed pilot in Iran was a “wise” decision.

The president said Hegseth and Caine wanted to conduct the operation, but that some military leaders warned him about the risks it carried.

“Hundreds of people went into this journey,” Trump said. “Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment. A lot of equipment. Nobody cares. Hundreds of people could have been killed. So we had people that were within the military that said, ‘This is not a wise’ — and I understood that, but I decided to do it.”

Trump argued that “stupid people” such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) should be more supportive of the war on Iran, pointing out that the radical Islamic regime is anti-woman and anti-gay.

“You want to see women’s rights? You’re not going to see it there. It’s amazing when I see some of the stupid people like, you know, AOC plus three, all that group they talk about, ‘Oh, freedom for Iran. They don’t tell you the real facts, women, men, gays. … How about gays for Iran? They kill the gays. They throw them off buildings.”

Addressing concerns that U.S. strikes on Iran are hurting civilians, Trump said that protesters “want us to keep bombing.” Trump recounted a story when hundreds of thousands of Iranian women were protesting in Iran, when he said snipers shot women “right between the eyes.”

“They want us to keep bombing, even if it jeopardizes, because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it’s very hard for them to protest,” the president said.

Hegseth revealed on Monday that the United States is carrying out its largest strikes against Iran since the war began on Feb. 28.

The war secretary promised strikes would intensify on Tuesday. He warned Iran to “choose wisely” as it mulls a peace deal. Trump has threatened to unleash “hell” if Iran does not agree to the deal by Tuesday at 8 p.m.

“Per the president’s direction, today will be the largest volume of strikes since Day One of this operation tomorrow, even more than today, and then Iran has a choice. Choose wisely, because this president does not play around,” Hegseth said.

Hegseth drew parallels between the rescue of the American soldier downed in Iran and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The secretary noted that the F-15 operator was forced to eject himself into hostile territory “on a Friday — Good Friday” and was “hidden in a cave — a crevice — all of Saturday.”

“And rescued on Sunday. Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday, a pilot reborn,” he continued. “All home and accounted for. A nation rejoicing. God is good.”

His comments came not long after Trump told the reporters that he believed God was watching over the rescue operation, also noting the proximity to Easter.

Trump said that Iranians have pleaded for the U.S. to continue its operation throughout the country, for the sake of freedom.

“We’ve had numerous intercepts: ‘Please keep bombing.’ Bombs that are dropping near their homes. ‘Please keep bombing. Do it,'” Trump said Monday. “And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave, and we’re not hitting those areas, they’re saying, ‘Please come back. Come back. Come back.'”

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed on Monday that American service members involved in the rescue missions for the F-15 pilot stranded in Iran were injured, even though Trump said the United States suffered no casualties.

The U.S. military dispatched 155 aircraft, including four bombers, 64 fighter aircraft, 48 refueling tankers, 13 rescue aircraft, and more for the mission to recover the missing weapons systems officer, Trump revealed, underscoring the immense effort involved in his rescue.

“The HH60, Jolly Green fight was engaged by every single person in Iran who had a small arms weapon, and one of the aircraft, the trailing aircraft, took several hits. The crew sustained minor injury, and they are going to be fine,” Caine said during Monday’s press briefing.

He contradicted the president’s remark that U.S. forces “destroyed all threats and exited Iranian territory while taking no casualties of any kind.”