Trump says US-Iran deal ‘could be soon’

U.S. negotiations with Iran are “very good” and a deal “could be soon,” President Donald Trump said on Sunday.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One en route to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, the president updated that talks with Tehran earlier in the day went well and that Washington is “getting a lot of the things that they should have given us a long time ago. We’ll see how it works out. But they’re very good. They are moving along very nicely.”

He added that both direct and indirect negotiations were taking place, while cautioning that “we can never know with Iran because we negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up.

“We will probably, I think we’ll make a deal with them. Pretty sure. But it’s possible we won’t,” Trump said.

Asked later by a reporter whether he predicts a deal will be reached with Tehran this upcoming week, he said, “I do see a deal in Iran, yeah. It could be soon.”

Trump briefly discussed the ongoing military campaign against the Iranian regime, saying that “they’ve destroyed a lot of additional targets today. The navy’s gone. The air force is gone. We know that. We destroyed many, many targets today. It was a big day.”

He later posted to his Truth Social account: “Big day in Iran. Many long sought after targets have been taken out and destroyed by our GREAT MILITARY, the finest and most lethal in the World. God bless you all! President DJT.”

The president said there had already been “regime change,” saying earlier leadership groups had been “decimated” and replaced by new figures he described as “more reasonable.” The original leaders were “dead or gone,” he said, adding that the current group represents a third iteration of leadership that he views as fundamentally different from its predecessors.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week that Trump’s preference “is always peace,” but that if Iran “fails to understand they have been defeated militarily and will continue to be, President Trump will ensure they are hit harder than they have ever been hit before.” Leavitt said that the president “is prepared to unleash hell” on the Iranian regime.

She added that the Iranian regime’s last miscalculation “cost them their senior leadership, their navy, their air force and their air defense system. Any violence beyond this point will be because the Iranian regime refused to understand they have already been defeated and refused to come to a deal.”