Trump says he told Netanyahu not to bomb Iran with new nuke deal ‘very close': ‘Don't think it's appropriate right now'
WASHINGTON — President Trump confirmed Wednesday that he asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week not to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities to allow additional time for talks between Washington and Tehran.
'I'd like to be honest. Yes, I did,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
3 President Trump talks to Netanyahu in Washington on April 7, 2025.
REUTERS
Advertisement
'I said I don't think it's appropriate. We're talking, we're having very good discussions with them. And I said I don't think it's appropriate right now… if we can settle it with a very strong document,' the president added.
'I told [Netanyahu] this would be inappropriate to do right now because we're very close to a solution. Now, that could change at any moment. It could change with a phone call, but right now, I think they want to make a deal, and if we can make a deal, it could save a lot of lives.'
3 Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian visits Iran's nuclear achievements exhibition in Tehran, Iran April 9, 2025.
via REUTERS
Trump spoke with Netanyahu Thursday and said Sunday that there had been promising talks with Iranian leaders over the weekend, suggesting that a potential deal that would restrict Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon could be announced within days.
Advertisement
On Wednesday, the president clarified Wednesday it could happen in 'the next couple weeks.'
3 Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025.
via REUTERS
Trump pulled the US out of former President Barack Obama's Iran nuclear deal in 2018. Since retaking power in January, he has ordered the strict enforcement of US sanctions, including against oil exports, which was largely unenforced during the Biden administration.
Trump said a potential deal would be 'very strong' compared to Obama's 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which the US entered alongside China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom.
'I don't trust anybody, so no trust. I want it very strong where we can go in with inspectors,' he said. 'We can take whatever we want, we can blow up whatever we want, but nobody getting killed. We can blow up a lab, but nobody's going to be in the lab, as opposed to everybody being in the lab and blowing it up.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Politico
28 minutes ago
- Politico
A court halted his deportation. The Trump administration deported him 28 minutes later.
The Trump administration has admitted that it improperly deported another immigrant in violation of a court order — the fourth known case in which the administration deported someone erroneously or in breach of specific legal requirements. Jordin Melgar-Salmeron, an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador, had been in immigration detention since 2022 while deportation proceedings against him were pending. But on May 7, shortly after a federal appeals court ordered the government to keep him in the United States, immigration authorities deported him back to his native country. Matthew Borowski, a lawyer for Melgar-Salmeron, told POLITICO that he intends to ask the court to order the government to return his client from El Salvador and to hold government officials in contempt. In court papers this week, officials blamed a 'confluence of administrative errors,' including missed emails and an inaccurate roster of passengers on the May 7 deportation flight. The Justice Department declined to comment, and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. The deportation of Melgar-Salmeron was first reported by the Investigative Post, a nonprofit news outlet in western New York. The episode is reminiscent of three other deportations that courts have declared illegal or improper in recent months: In each of those other three cases, judges have ordered the administration to try to bring the deportees back to the United States so that they can receive due process. The administration says it is working to return O.C.G. but has resisted the orders to return Abrego Garcia and Lozano-Camargo, claiming they are powerless because the men are in Salvadoran custody. Melgar-Salmeron, who spent years living in Virginia, had been in immigration detention since 2022 following a prison sentence for possessing an unregistered shotgun, according to court records. Though he had originally also been charged with entering the country illegally, he was allowed to plead guilty in 2021 to only the firearms charge. After his prison sentence ended, Melgar-Salmeron was detained by immigration authorities while deportation proceedings against him were ongoing. In January 2024, the Biden administration put Melgar-Salmeron's proceedings on hold amid broader litigation over immigration policy. But in April, the Trump administration moved to lift that hold, court documents show. Melgar-Salmeron had a longstanding appeal pending at the New York-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. The administration asked the court to 'expedite' the appeal and indicated that it wanted to deport him by May 9 'at the latest' — but told the court it would not act before May 8. On the morning of May 7, a three-judge panel of the court ordered the government to keep Melgar-Salmeron in the United States while he pursued claims about fear of torture in his home country. Despite the court's order, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials at a staging facility in Louisiana loaded Melgar-Salmeron onto a plane and deported him to El Salvador. The flight departed at 10:20 a.m. — 28 minutes after the court's order. Melgar-Salmeron is now in a Salvadoran prison, Borowski says. When the court learned about the deportation, it sent pointed questions to the administration about what had happened. The court demanded sworn declarations from ICE officials responsible for the man's deportation and an explanation of why the court's order to block his deportation was apparently not conveyed to the people who put him on the flight to El Salvador. The judges noted that the administration had assured them that Melgar-Salmeron would not be deported until at least May 8. They demanded to know why his deportation was abruptly advanced to May 7 less than an hour after their order. In a letter to the court on Wednesday, the administration acknowledged that the deportation was erroneous. Kitty Lees, a Justice Department attorney, said there had been a breakdown at multiple levels of the process. 'Several inadvertent administrative oversights led to Petitioner's May 7, 2025 removal,' Lees wrote, 'despite the express assurance made by the Government to this Court that it would forbear removing Petitioner until May 8, 2025.' Among the errors: The haphazard circumstances around Melgar-Salmeron's case bear some of the same hallmarks of other high-profile deportations that judges have sought to reverse. In March, the administration deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador despite a 2019 immigration court order that barred the government from sending him there because he could be at risk of violence at the hands of a local gang. A Justice Department lawyer acknowledged in court that the deportation had been improper, and a federal judge ordered the administration to facilitate his release from El Salvador's custody. The Supreme Court largely upheld that requirement and noted that the deportation had been 'illegal.' A different federal judge has also ordered the administration to facilitate the return of Lozano-Camargo, who was deported to El Salvador in violation of a court-approved settlement agreement that protected certain immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors. (He is referred to in court papers with a pseudonym, but POLITICO previously identified him as Lozano-Camargo.) Abrego Garcia and Lozano-Camargo remain in Salvadoran prisons. The Trump administration has claimed in court that it has no ability to force the Salvadoran government to return them to United States custody. The administration, however, says it has taken steps to arrange a flight to bring back O.C.G., the Guatemalan man who was deported to Mexico in February. The man claims he was raped and otherwise targeted for being gay during a previous stay in Mexico. Administration officials initially claimed in court that he was given a chance to raise fears about being sent back to Mexico, but they later retracted that assertion and admitted they have no evidence that he was ever asked about whether he feared violence there. A federal judge ruled that O.C.G. had been deported without proper due process and ordered the government to facilitate his return.
CNN
29 minutes ago
- CNN
Fareed Zakaria breaks down Trump's tariff battle
Fareed Zakaria breaks down Trump's tariff battle CNN's Fareed Zakaria breaks down what's going on with President Donald Trump's battle with the Supreme Court over tariffs. 00:58 - Source: CNN Trump responds to Wall Street term 'TACO': Trump Always Chickens Out President Donald Trump was asked about "TACO," an acronym that means "Trump Always Chickens Out," which is used by Wall Street workers for his on-and-off approach to tariffs. Calling it "the nastiest question," Trump defended his tariff policy by calling it "negotiation." 01:13 - Source: CNN President Trump is on a pardoning spree President Donald Trump used his pardon power to grant clemency to a wave of individuals who had been convicted of crimes that range from public corruption, guns and even maritime-related offenses, according to multiple officials. CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports. 00:53 - Source: CNN Harvard students and faculty speak out against Trump Harvard students and faculty spoke to CNN ahead of commencement as Donald Trump said the university should cap foreign enrollment. The Trump administration has recently sought to cancel $100 million in contracts with the school. 02:03 - Source: CNN Trump says new Russia sanctions could hurt peace talks President Donald Trump expressed concern that levying new sanctions against Russia in response to their continued strikes in Ukraine could jeopardize peace talks between the two nations. 00:51 - Source: CNN Trump voter may lose his job because of Trump policies CNN's John King visits one of the country's top targets of the 2026 midterms — Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District — and speaks to a Trump voter who is in danger of being laid off due to the President's tariffs. 01:11 - Source: CNN He voted for the first time at 55. Hear why CNN's John King visits one of the country's top targets of the 2026 midterms — Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District — and hears why, at 55, one man felt compelled to vote in a presidential election for the first time in his life. 01:04 - Source: CNN DEI leader: Trump's agenda 'instills fear' CNN's John King visits one of the country's top targets of the 2026 midterms — Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District — where a leader of a DEI program tells him what she's doing to prepare for possible funding cuts. 00:48 - Source: CNN NYC Mayor Eric Adams defends Trump relationship New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks with CNN's Maria Santana about his controversial relationship with President Donald Trump, which has garnered close attention after the Department of Justice recommended his criminal charges be dropped. 01:07 - Source: CNN Trump directs federal agencies to cancel Harvard contracts The White House is directing federal agencies to cancel all remaining contracts with Harvard University – about $100 million in all, two senior Trump administration officials told CNN – the latest barb against the school as it refuses to bend to the White House's barrage of policy demands amid a broader politically charged assault on US colleges. 01:15 - Source: CNN Finland's president responds to Russian military activity along border CNN's Erin Burnett speaks with Finland's President Alexander Stubb about his country ramping up its military to deter potential Russian aggression. 02:16 - Source: CNN Trump pardons reality TV couple Todd and Julie Chrisley President Donald Trump has signed full pardons for imprisoned reality show couple Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were sentenced to lengthy prison terms in 2022 for a conspiracy to defraud banks out of more than $30 million, according to a White House official. CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports. 01:07 - Source: CNN Trump: 'I don't know what the hell happened to Putin' Speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, President Donald Trump said that he was 'not happy with what Putin is doing', after Moscow launched its largest aerial attack of its three-year full-scale war on Ukraine overnight. 00:50 - Source: CNN Trump visits Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day President Donald Trump honors fallen service members at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day. 00:27 - Source: CNN Johnson pressed on Medicaid cuts in spending bill CNN's Jake Tapper asks House Speaker Mike Johnson about who will lose Medicaid under President Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill'. Johnson defends the proposed cuts and argues the changes target "waste, fraud and abuse." 01:30 - Source: CNN Is the U.S. on the brink of fiscal crisis? President Trump's economic agenda is expected to add nearly $4 trillion to the US national debt. CNN's Phil Mattingly breaks down what that could mean for the economy. 01:48 - Source: CNN Trump says Apple will face tariffs if it doesn't make iPhones in US President Donald Trump told reporters Apple and other cell phone manufacturers will face 25% tariffs unless they manufacture their products in the US during an event interrupted by Trump's own iPhone ringing multiple times. 01:11 - Source: CNN Trump hosts lavish dinner for meme coin investors More than 200 wealthy crypto bros gathered for a private event at President Donald Trump's golf club just outside Washington, DC, on Thursday night — dining on filet mignon and halibut while the president stood at a podium regaling them with tales of his 2024 victory. 01:33 - Source: CNN
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The TACO Presidency
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. One way to trace the past nine years of Donald Trump is the journey from taco bowls to TACO bulls. (Hey, don't click away! This is going somewhere!) Back in May 2016, the then–GOP presidential candidate posted a picture of himself eating a Trump Tower Tex-Mex entree. 'I love Hispanics!' he wrote. Nearly everyone understood this as an awkward pander. Now, in May 2025, Wall Street is all over the 'TACO trade,' another instance of people realizing they shouldn't take the president at face value. 'TACO' is short for 'Trump always chickens out.' Markets have tended to go down when Trump announces new tariffs, but investors have recognized that a lot of this is bluffing, so they're buying the dip and then profiting off the inevitable rally. A reporter asked Trump about the expression on Wednesday, and he was furious. 'I chicken out? I've never heard that,' he said. 'Don't ever say what you said. That's a nasty question. To me, that's the nastiest question.' The reaction demonstrates that the traders are right, because—to mix zoological metaphors—a hit dog will holler. The White House keeps talking tough about levying new tariffs on friends and geopolitical rivals alike, but Trump has frequently gone on to lower the measures or delay them for weeks or months. Foreign leaders had figured out that Trump was a pushover by May 2017, and a year later, I laid out in detail his pattern of nearly always folding. He's a desirable negotiating foil, despite his unpredictable nature, because he doesn't tend to know his material well, has a short attention span, and can be easily manipulated by flattery. The remarkable thing is that it's taken this long for Wall Street to catch on. Even though no president has been so purely a businessman as Trump, he and the markets have never really understood each other. That is partly because, as I wrote yesterday, Trump just isn't that good at business. Despite much glitzier ventures over the years, his most effective revenue sources have been rent collection at his legacy properties and rent-seeking as president. His approach to protectionism is premised on a basic misunderstanding of trade. Yet Wall Street has never seemed to have much better of a grasp on Trump than he has on them, despite having many years to crack the code. (This is worth recalling when market evangelists speak about the supposed omniscience of markets.) Financiers have tried to understand Trump in black-and-white terms, but the task requires the nuanced recognition, for example, that he can be deadly serious about tariffs in the abstract and also extremely prone to folding on specifics. Although they disdained him during his first term, many titans of industry sought accommodation with Trump during his 2024 campaign, hoping he'd be friendlier to their interests than Joe Biden had been. Once Trump's term began, though, they were taken aback to learn that he really did want tariffs, even though he'd been advocating for them since the 1980s, had levied some in his first term, and had put them at the center of his 2024 campaign. Trump's commitment to tariffs, however, didn't mean that he had carefully prepared for them or thought through their details. The administration has announced, suspended, reduced, or threatened new tariffs on China, Mexico, Canada, and the European Union. All of this volatility is ostensibly a product of ongoing negotiations, but in many cases, it's also a response to market turmoil or because of a lack of clarity about details. (This week, two federal courts also ruled that the president was overstepping his authority by implementing tariffs under emergency powers.) This is where the TACO trade comes in. Rather than panicking over every twist and turn, investors have begun to grasp the pattern. But every Wall Street arbitrage eventually loses its power once people get hip to it. In this case, the fact that Trump has learned about the TACO trade could be its downfall. The president may be fainthearted, but his track record shows that he can easily be dared into taking bad options by reporters just asking him about them. One can imagine a bleak scenario here: Trump feels shamed into following through on an economically harmful tariff; markets initially don't take him seriously, which removes any external pressure for him to reverse course. Once investors realize that he's for real this time, they panic, and the markets tank. If the president stops chickening out, both Wall Street and the American people won't be able to escape the consequences of his worst ideas. Related: Trump almost always folds. (From 2018) Trump will never rule out a bad option. Here are three new stories from The Atlantic: The Nobel Prize winner who thinks we have the universe all wrong In Trump immigration cases, it's one thing in public, another in court. The tech bros have ascended to movie-villain status. Today's News The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to temporarily pause a Biden-era program under which more than 500,000 immigrants had been granted temporary residency in America. At a press conference on the last day of Elon Musk's tenure as a special government employee, President Donald Trump said that Musk is 'really not leaving' the administration and will be 'back and forth' to the White House. Massive wildfires are burning in western and central Canada. Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate. Dispatches The Books Briefing: Alternatives to the medical or economic status quo offer hope—and danger, Boris Kachka writes. Explore all of our newsletters here. Evening Read How to Look at Paul Gauguin By Susan Tallman The life of Paul Gauguin is the stuff of legend. Or several legends. There's the Romantic visionary invoked by his friend August Strindberg—'a child taking his toys to pieces to make new ones, rejecting and defying and preferring a red sky to everybody else's blue one.' There's the voracious malcontent whom Edgar Degas pegged as a 'hungry wolf without a collar.' There's the accomplished swordsman and brawny genius hammed up by Anthony Quinn in Lust for Life, who takes a break from bickering with Vincent van Gogh to growl, 'I'm talking about women, man, women. I like 'em fat and vicious and not too smart.' And there's the 21st-century trope of the paint-smattered, colonizing Humbert Humbert, bedding 13-year-old girls and sowing syphilis throughout the South Seas. Read the full article. More From The Atlantic Is Trump falling out of love with Putin? Trump's attacks threaten much more than Harvard. A victory for separation of powers What is a 'reverse Nixon,' and can Trump pull it off? The artist who captured the contradictions of femininity Culture Break Take a look. These photos of the week show a Wienermobile race in Indianapolis, beehive therapy in Turkey, a rare tornado touchdown in Chile, and more. Watch (or not). Horror movies don't need to be highbrow, David Sims writes. The new film Bring Her Back (out now in theaters) aims for a deeper meaning, but comes to life in its goriest sequences instead. Play our daily crossword. *Lead image credit: Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty; Yuri Gripas / Abaca / Bloomberg / Getty; Stefani Reynolds / Bloomberg / Getty; Chip Somodevilla / Getty; Win McNamee / Getty Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter. When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic. Article originally published at The Atlantic
