President Trump on Thursday continued projecting confidence in the U.S. war effort in Iran, suggesting online and during a high-level Cabinet meeting that Iran has been “obliterated,” that its leaders were “begging” for a deal, and that the U.S. is “roaming free” over Iran and “NEEDS NOTHING” from its European allies.
He also again delayed threatened U.S. attacks on Iranian power plants, based on talks that he said were going “very well.”
Trump’s description of the war as all but finished — he actually said “we’ve won” — stood in contrast to the facts on the ground, where Iran continued to launch attacks and threaten oil tanker traffic in the vital Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S. continued sending troops and warships to what is already the largest American military buildup in the Middle East in decades.
The president’s framing of the conflict also contrasted with that of Iranian officials, who have remained publicly defiant, downplayed negotiations and rejected several of his conditions for ending the war — as Trump has acknowledged, accusing them of saying one thing in private and another in public.
“They better get serious soon, before it is too late,” the president wrote on social media, “because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty.”
“They are begging to make a deal, not me,” Trump reiterated later Thursday, while hosting his first Cabinet meeting since the war began. “Anybody that sees what is happening understands why they are begging to make a deal.”
The president asserted that Iran’s military capabilities have been destroyed, and that the American mission is “ahead of schedule.” He said American forces were operating without opposition over Iran, and “there’s not a damn thing they can do about it” because they’ve been “beat to s—.”
He said that Iranian officials had requested he hold off on power plant attacks threatened for Friday as talks continued, and that he had agreed to wait 10 more days, until April 6.
Trump’s outward confidence, a defining feature of the war consistently echoed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other administration loyalists, continued despite growing concerns this week in Congress — and not only from Democrats.
Several Republicans emerged from a classified war briefing Wednesday clearly frustrated with the administration for not providing a clearer picture of the path out of the now monthlong war, or clear answers on whether it planned to deploy ground troops.
“We’re just not getting enough answers,” said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
“I can see why he might have said that,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Democrats have hammered the president over the war’s massive budget and death toll.
“Thirteen American lives lost and tens of billions of taxpayer dollars spent in just three weeks since Donald Trump plunged us into war without congressional authorization. There is still no plan, no clear justification, and no end in sight,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said. “Americans called for lower prices, not endless wars.”
For weeks, Trump, Hegseth and other war leaders have focused on U.S. wins in the conflict — tallying up Iran’s sunken ships and grounded planes, assassinated leaders and undermined missile capabilities.
In recent days, Trump has suggested that, because of those wins, Iran is buckling. He has said the U.S. is pushing a 15-point plan that will forever block Iran from developing a nuclear weapon or threatening the U.S. or its allies. And he and others in his administration have accused the media of ignoring battlefield wins to harp on losses instead.
Israel, America’s major partner in the conflict, has projected similar confidence while showing no signs of slowing its attacks on Iran. On Thursday it announced that it had killed several senior Iranian naval commanders, including Commodore Alireza Tangsiri, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ navy.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the deaths should send a “clear message” that Israel will continue to hunt down top Iranian military officials. Iran did not immediately acknowledge Tangsiri’s death.
The head of U.S. Central Command, Adm. Brad Cooper, praised Tangsiri’s killing. He said U.S. strikes would continue, and called on Iranian fighters to “immediately abandon their post and return home to avoid further risk of unnecessary injury or death.”
Meanwhile, death, destruction and environmental and economic damage from the war spread far beyond Iran, where officials recently raised their estimated death toll to nearly 2,000.
Israel was fighting off a barrage of incoming missiles Thursday, with booms heard in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and an impact reported in the central town of Kafr Qassem. Israel was also continuing its offensive against the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, where the death toll had risen to 1,116, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Thursday.
Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Tahsin al Khafaj on Thursday said 23 people had been wounded in a Wednesday strike on a military clinic in western Iraq’s Anbar province.
Israeli soldiers grieve during the funeral of Staff Sgt. Ori Greenberg, 21, at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem on Thursday.
(Odd Andersen / AFP via Getty Images)
Thousands of additional U.S. troops are on their way to the region, even as many of the tens of thousands already stationed there have had to move into hotels and other temporary housing — diminishing their war-fighting capabilities — after being displaced by ongoing Iranian attacks that have left the 13 regional military bases they call home “all but uninhabitable,” the New York Times reported.
Iran announced Thursday that it had launched drone and missile attacks on a U.S. military base in Kuwait and a separate air base used by American forces in Saudi Arabia.
Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi, the secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, accused Iran of charging fees for ships to safely transit the Strait of Hormuz, continuing the economic toll on global oil supplies. Environmental experts warned of massive pollution from burning oil and gas fields.
France’s Defense Ministry said Thursday that nearly three dozen countries had joined military talks about how to reopen the strait “once the intensity of hostilities has sufficiently decreased.”
Russia, emboldened by the Iran war, which has drawn resources away from Ukraine and led the U.S. to ease sanctions on Russian oil, has launched a renewed spring offensive against Ukraine.
The huge gap between U.S. and Iranian messaging about the war and their negotiations to end it — which foreign officials have said are occurring through intermediaries — has contributed to the tensions and the reluctance of allies to get involved, with some citing frustrations similar to those of congressional Republicans this week.
Many allies have largely stayed out of the conflict despite Trump vacillating between demanding their help and insisting it isn’t necessary.
In one of his social media posts Thursday morning, Trump blasted allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, for having “DONE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO HELP” in the conflict, and said the U.S. would “never forget.”
Asked during his Cabinet meeting about his desire to end the war soon, Trump said he was “the opposite of desperate” — “I don’t care,” he said — and that there “are other targets that we want to hit before we leave.”
Trump said that when the “right deal” is made with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz will reopen — while insisting that Iran no longer has any “mine droppers” that would threaten merchant vessels passing through the key oil route.
Steve Witkoff, one of Trump’s top advisors leading negotiations in the Middle East, said that the Iranians were looking for an “offramp,” that Pakistan is serving as a mediator between Washington and Tehran, and that the 15-point plan Trump had mentioned “forms the framework for a peace deal.”
“These are sensitive, diplomatic discussions and you have directed us to maintain confidentiality on the specific terms and not negotiate through the news media, as others do,” Witkoff said. “We will see where things lead and if we can convince Iran that this is the inflection point, with no good alternatives for them other than more death and destruction.”
Trump has declined to say whom Washington is negotiating with in Iran but described them as “very smart,” “not fools,” and “very lousy fighters, but great negotiators.”
He also said he knows they are “the right people” for the U.S. to be dealing with because they had given him a “present” — and proved they are in control — by allowing a total of 10 boats of oil to travel through the strait this week. He did not provide details.
Asked whether he intended to send U.S. troops into Iran to take its enriched uranium, he called it a “ridiculous question” that he wouldn’t answer.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he is confident that more merchant vessels will soon be able to safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz, and energy prices will drop when the war ends.
“Many people, especially the Democrats, underestimate the will of the American people for short-term volatility for 50 years of safety that we are going to have on the other side of this,” Bessent said.
Hegseth repeatedly slammed the media for framing the war effort as floundering or unfocused, saying Iran’s “air defenses are gone,” its leaders hiding in “underground bunkers,” and its fighters losing morale.
He said that Iranian officials in private are acknowledging “very heavy losses,” and that the U.S. and the world are benefiting from having Trump, whom he called the “ultimate dealmaker,” working toward a peace agreement.
In the meantime, Hegseth said, the U.S. military will “continue negotiating with bombs.”
