Asked About Striking Iran After the Midterms, Trump Said "No" — and a Deal "Could Happen"
The president walked back weeks of hints about renewed attacks, pointed to three days of talks in Doha, and kept one bottom line: Iran must never have a nuclear weapon.
President Donald Trump raised doubts on Monday about whether he would follow through on a threatened resumption of military strikes against Iran, Reuters reported, and said a deal with Tehran could happen. In recent weeks he had hinted about renewing attacks on Iran after Tuesday's midterm elections — but after his speech at the Washington Reflecting Pool on Monday, asked by reporters whether he was considering striking Iran after the midterms, he replied "no."
The diplomacy behind the answer has been moving in plain sight. Iranian negotiators were in Doha on Sunday for a third consecutive day of talks with Qatari mediators aimed at pushing for a deal to end the war, and Trump said Monday he believed Iran wanted to make a deal and that such an agreement "could happen." Vice President JD Vance reported that there had been "a number of good conversations with the Iranians," adding: "Look, the president and I both feel pretty good about the prospects for potentially coming to a negotiated settlement. We're going to keep on working at it."
Trump paired the opening with his standing bottom line. "We're not going to allow Iran ever to have a nuclear weapon, and they understand that. They've understood that and they've said it even recently," he said. "If we allowed Iran to have a nuclear weapon, this country could never function in the same way. The whole world would be a different place." He also insisted the operation was not actually a war because "we've done very little fighting" recently, after sweeping strikes months ago in which some Iranian leaders were killed: "We wiped out their leaders — first level of leaders, the second level of leaders, and they've asked us, please stop doing that, and we will."
The answer lands on an electorate that goes to the polls Tuesday with the war in its wallet. Reuters has reported that the Iran war is a leading cause of the high gasoline prices weighing on voters — energy prices are up about 20% over the year — and that the president is under pressure to end the conflict. For South Florida drivers watching both the pump and the ballot box, Monday's one-word answer is the clearest signal yet that the administration's next move on Iran is a negotiation, not another round of strikes — a claim voters and negotiators alike will test in the days after the election.
