President Donald Trump is continuing to publicly keep his options open on Iran, telling reporters at the White House Wednesday morning that Iran is interested in negotiations but that he may or may not order a U.S. military strike.
“I may do it, I may not do it, I mean, no one knows what I’m going to do,” Trump said in response to a reporter who asked about a possible strike. “I can tell you this — Iran’s got a lot of trouble. And they want to negotiate.”
The statement comes as the world waits for the Trump administration to make a decision about whether or not to get involved in an escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. Trump said Iran is now asking to restart nuclear talks, but that he “said it’s very late to be talking.”
“I said to the people, ‘Why didn’t you negotiate with me two weeks ago? You could have done fine,’” Trump said.
The potential of further U.S. involvement in the Middle East has ignited a firestorm within the Republican Party, where interventionists are clashing with the “America First” crowd. While Trump has continued to waver on whether or not the U.S. should or will get involved, the White House has been adamant that Trump’s position on the central issue — Iran having access to nuclear capabilities — has not changed.
“Look at my history, if you go back 15 years, I was saying we cannot let Iran get a nuclear weapon. I’ve been saying it for a long time. I mean it more now than I’ve ever meant it,” Trump said.
The president said there will be more to come soon, and that it was not too late to restart talks with Iran.
“Nothing’s finished until it’s finished,” he 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, I wouldn’t say that we won anything yet, I would say we sure as hell made a lot of progress. And we’ll see, the next week is going to be very big. Maybe less than a week, maybe less.”
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Violet Jira is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.