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U.S. President Donald Trump stated on Sunday that a nuclear-armed Iran would "blow us up" and destroy Israel "in minutes," declaring that preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon was the reason his administration undertook the war.
He announced that he had halted U.S. diplomatic travel to peace talks and told Iran it could reach Washington by phone, adding: "They cannot have a nuclear weapon. Otherwise there's no reason to meet."
Trump made his most explicit public case for the war's necessity.
"Iran's having a nuclear weapon would put the entire world in great danger. We would be blown up. Israel would be destroyed within minutes from the moment Iran had that weapon. This is why we can never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon," he said during an interview with Fox News.
He said previous U.S. presidents had failed to act on the issue for 47 years. "Nobody moved a muscle on this. It fell to us to take this on. We are going to come out of this with a big victory," he said, adding he believed the war would end "very soon."
Trump confirmed he had canceled Witkoff and Kushner's planned trip to Islamabad after Iranian FM Araghchi departed Pakistan without meeting his U.S. counterparts.
"We have all the cards. If they want to talk, they can come to us, or they can call us. You know, there is a telephone. We have nice, secure lines," Trump said.
"We are not sending people to travel 18 hours when we hold the stronger negotiating position," he added.
He said Iran knew what was required. "They cannot have a nuclear weapon. Otherwise there's no reason to meet. We're going to take their nuclear dust. We're gonna take it," he said.
Trump offered a stark estimate of the blockade's impact on Iranian energy.
"Iran's oil infrastructure has about three days before it blows up" due to technical problems caused by storage tanks filling and pipelines having nowhere to divert crude, he said, adding that the naval blockade was producing successful results.
Trump acknowledged the opacity of Iran's internal decision-making structure.
"Iranian leaders are very strange, sometimes you never know who you're dealing with. Some of the people we're currently talking to on Iran are very reasonable, some are not. I hope Iran will act wisely," he said.
Trump said he did not believe China had provided significant support to Iran in the war.
"They could help a lot more. I'm not overly disappointed. We also help people, we helped Ukraine, though we shouldn't have done that as extensively," he said, drawing a parallel to U.S. involvement in other conflicts.
Trump said the WHCD shooter Cole Allen "had a lot of hatred in his heart for quite a while" and described his motive as "strongly anti-Christian."
He said Allen's sister Avriana Allen had told authorities that her brother frequently spoke of "planning to do something to solve the problems of the world."
Trump suggested the family "probably should have reported him a little bit more strongly."
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