It was Thursday that President Donald Trump said he would decide “within the next two weeks” about whether to order an US military strike in Iran’s nuclear facilities, apparently to give the diplomacy a chance, at least temporarily.
“According to the fact that there is a substantial possibility of negotiations that may or may not take place in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks,” Trump said in a statement that reads journalists by the press secretary of the White House, Karoline Leavitt.
On Friday, a journalist asked him to explain his thinking, he replied that it was to give time for the Iranians to “reach their senses.”
President Donald Trump goes to the Air Force One Board at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, New Jersey, on June 21, 2025, when he returns to the White House from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Mandel and/AFP
The president also dismissed the conversations held in Geneva on Friday between European diplomats and Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abbas Araghchi, playing the expectations already low for an advance.
“They didn’t help,” Trump said about discussions. “Iran doesn’t want to talk to Europe. They want to talk to us. Europe will not be able to help in this case.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi speaks with the media after his meeting with Group E3 of European Ministers, June 20, 2025 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Sedat Suna/Getty Images
He added: “We are ready, willing and capable and we have been talking to Iran and we will see what happens.”
When a journalist asked: “Do Iran have two weeks or could attack before that? Are you essentially giving them a two -week timeline?” Trump replied: “Well, I am giving you a period of time. Let’s see what that period of time is. But I am giving them a period of time, and I would say that two weeks would be the maximum.”
In recent days, Iran has rejected a permanent offer from the United States to resume nuclear negotiations.
The president’s announcement on Thursday about a possible delay in hitting Iran frustrated Israeli officials, who have been privately promoting their case for US military participation for months, according to officials familiar with the matter.
Meanwhile, as the strong differences between Israeli and American evaluations about Iran’s nuclear skills reached the avant -garde, Trump also showed distrust of his own intelligence community, including his own director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.
On Friday, Trump was asked about Gabbard’s testimony to Congress in March that the United States evaluated that Iran was not “building” a nuclear weapon and that Supreme leader Ali Khamenei had not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.
“She is wrong,” Trump said flatly.
Shortly after Trump spoke, Gabbard criticized the media, publishing in X: “The United States has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon in weeks or months, if they decide to finish the assembly. President Trump has been clear that it cannot happen, and I agree.”
President Donald Trump addresses the nation, together with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of the White House in Washington, on June 21, 2025.
Carlos Barria/Reuters
Speaking to La Nación on Saturday night, approximately two hours after announcing the strikes, Trump said: “Iran, the Middle East, now you must make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be much larger and much easier.”
