Trump gave Iran an ultimatum but has made no final decision on war

President Donald Trump delivered an “ultimate ultimatum” to Iranian leaders to dismantle their nuclear program, he told reporters on Wednesday. But he said he has not made a final decision about whether to strike Iran and draw Washington into a new conflict in the Middle East.

Standing on the South Lawn of the White House, Trump was coy about his plans for a potential war with Iran. He said that “the next week is going to be big” and maintained that Iranian officials are eager to negotiate, but explained that after Iran reached out to him, he warned them that “it’s very late to be talking.”

“Will you strike the Iranian nuclear component, and what time exactly, sir?” Trump replied mockingly when asked if he was moving toward ordering U.S. forces to bomb Iran, adding he couldn’t seriously answer the question.

Trump’s musings on the momentous decision of whether to draw the nation into war came against a less consequential backdrop: the installation of an 88-foot flagpole on the South Lawn, which Trump described as his gift to the nation. After fielding a question on Iran, Trump turned toward a group of men in neon yellow T-shirts and hard hats who were there to install one of two flagpoles he had commissioned.

“Sir, would you strike it?” Trump quipped to the workers as he mocked the question. “Would you please inform us so we can be there and watch?”

The president, wearing a white “Make America Great Again” ball cap in 80% Washington humidity, then addressed reporters again.

“You don’t know that I’m going to even do it,” Trump said, the flagpole lying on the ground behind him. “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.”

The impromptu outdoor news conference, which Trump called ostensibly to show off the property’s new hardware, came at a pivotal inflection point in his presidency. He campaigned on a promise of ending wars, not starting them, and he spent the first months of his presidency seeking a diplomatic path toward limiting Iran’s nuclear program.

But Iran has shown no interest in voluntarily reducing its nuclear capability, Trump said. And conditions have made the prospects of a successful attack on its nuclear facilities better than they have been in decades: After more than 20 months of war in Gaza and major strikes against Hezbollah and Iran itself, Israel has degraded Tehran’s defenses and regional proxies, likely leaving Iran at its weakest in generations.

Asked by The Washington Post whether he had issued an ultimatum to Iran, Trump pouted his lips and thought for a moment.

“You could say so. They know what’s happened,” Trump said. “Maybe you could call it the ultimate — the ultimate ultimatum, right?”

He declined to elaborate later on what that warning consisted of. “Look, I don’t want to say,” Trump replied. “I mean, give me a break.”

Later Wednesday, in the Oval Office, the president said his deliberations over whether to strike Iran began with the most recent exchange of missile attacks between Iran and Israel, which he described as “devastating” from the first night.

Israeli leaders have vowed to push as hard as they can at Iran’s nuclear program, with or without U.S. involvement. But they are still dependent on Washington for the most powerful bombs and long-range capabilities that stand a chance of destroying Iran’s most protected facilities, which are buried deep underground — and underneath mountains.

One person familiar with Trump’s habits in recent days said that he has consulted with a wide array of advisers, calling up not just Cabinet secretaries but also right-wing media hosts such as Mark Levin to collect arguments for and against taking military action.

The president unspooled a string of comments as he stood outside alongside gathered reporters, responding to questions about Israel and Iran alternately while narrating the flagpole installation. He declared his love for construction, urged the business-attired reporters to step off the grass so as not to ruin their shoes and explained that’s why he’s changing some of the landscaping around the White House — to protect visitors’ shoes.

“It’s such a beautiful pole,” the president said. “This is about the largest you’ll ever see.” An insurance company in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, has a 400-foot flagpole on its property.

Later, Trump remarked, “We’re going to do a flower bed around it, a beautiful flower bed.”

Turning back to the Middle East, Trump mused aloud about why Iran didn’t negotiate with him earlier.

“Why didn’t you negotiate with me two weeks ago? You could have done fine. You would have had a country,” Trump said. “It’s very sad to watch this. I mean, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Trump also said Iranian officials had contacted him and expressed a desire to meet in person at the White House, which he said was “courageous” but “it’s, like, not easy for them to do.”

High-level meetings between Iranians and administration officials in Washington would break precedent, given that the U.S. has not recognized Iran diplomatically since the Iranian Revolution 45 years ago. But the idea would match some of the president’s first-term enthusiasm for unusual and high-stakes diplomatic encounters, including his unrealized proposal to host the Taliban at Camp David and his repeated meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“I may do that,” he said Wednesday about an Iranian visit to the White House.

He later said that he was headed into the Situation Room Wednesday afternoon to further consider his options regarding Iran.

Trump also told reporters that he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday night, and that Putin “actually offered to help mediate” the current conflict between Iran and Israel.

“I said, ‘Do me a favor, mediate your own. Let’s mediate Russia first, OK?’” Trump recalled, referring to the war between Russia and Ukraine that Trump has also promised to help end. “I said, ‘Vladimir, let’s mediate Russia first. You can worry about this later.’”

The possibility of a U.S. attack on Iran came up on Capitol Hill, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in Senate testimony that the Pentagon had made preparations for what would happen after strikes on nuclear facilities.

Trump told reporters that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been “treated very unfairly” and that his patience with Iran had “already run out.”

He declined to tip his hand, however, on how much he is leaning toward directly attacking Iran. “Nothing’s finished until it’s finished,” Trump said. “You know, war is very complex. A lot of bad things can happen. A lot of turns are made.

“So I don’t know,” he continued. I wouldn’t say that we won anything yet. I would say that we sure as hell made a lot of progress.”

-

• Abigail Hauslohner contributed.