Donald Trump is defending his most explosive threat of the Iran war, claiming that warning of civilizational destruction is exactly what pushed Tehran to negotiate on nuclear weapons. The White House says it worked. Critics say it was reckless. And now the world is watching a two-week ceasefire that almost didn’t happen.
According to CBS News, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Wednesday that Iran ultimately came around once it understood the U.S. military had full control over its ability to export energy. “That type of threat is what brought them to the place where they effectively said, okay, we want to cut this deal,” Hegseth said. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed that framing, telling reporters that Trump’s hardline approach is “what has led to the result that you are all witnessing today.”
The remarks came days after Trump posted on Truth Social that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” if Iran failed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by his 8 p.m. Tuesday deadline. Less than two hours before that deadline expired, both sides announced a two-week ceasefire.
What Trump threatened and why it shocked the world
The April 7 post was Trump’s most extreme public statement since the war began on February 28, according to NBC News. Over the Easter weekend, he had already threatened to hit power plants and bridges across Iran if Tehran didn’t reopen the key shipping route. On Tuesday morning, he escalated further, warning that “something revolutionarily wonderful” could still happen, but that civilizational destruction was the likely outcome if Iran didn’t move.
The threat triggered immediate backlash. Democrats in Congress called it a “moral failure” and a potential war crime under international law. CNN reported that legal experts warned that targeting civilian infrastructure without military justification violates the Geneva Conventions. When asked about the war crime question on Monday, Trump brushed it off, saying the real war crime was “allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
Iran, for its part, publicly stayed defiant. A military commander called Trump’s threats “baseless” and “delusional,” and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard warned it would retaliate against any attacks on civilian targets. Hundreds of Iranian civilians reportedly formed human chains around the country’s power plants in the hours before the deadline.
The deal that pulled both sides back
With roughly two hours left on the clock, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif stepped in as mediator and asked both sides to step back. Iran agreed to allow passage through the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump announced he would “suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks.” Trump called Iran’s 10-point peace proposal “workable,” adding that “almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to.”
As TFF reported earlier, Chuck Schumer blasted Trump for his Easter social media posts as ranting “like an unhinged madman.” But the White House is now spinning those same posts as the pressure that produced results.
What’s still unresolved on nukes
The nuclear question remains the most contentious piece of any permanent deal. Hegseth suggested Wednesday that Iran may hand over its enriched uranium stockpile to the U.S. “voluntarily,” according to CBS News. Iran is believed to have roughly 1,000 pounds of uranium enriched to 60%, which would require only further processing to reach weapons-grade levels.
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff had said in the days before the ceasefire that Iran was “probably a week away” from having industrial-grade bomb-making material, per CNN’s earlier analysis. That claim drew scrutiny, given Trump’s own previous declarations that Iran’s nuclear program had already been “obliterated.” Iran’s conditions also explicitly include its right to continue nuclear enrichment, which the U.S. has not accepted.
The two-week window is set to include negotiations in Islamabad. Whether Trump’s “tough rhetoric” strategy can translate into an actual agreement, or whether it simply bought a temporary pause in one of the most dangerous standoffs in recent memory, remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, Karoline Leavitt told reporters Trump is always the most well-read person in any room when it comes to foreign policy, a claim that continues to draw mixed reactions as the ceasefire clock ticks down.
