00:00How close was President Trump to resuming attacks on Iran this week?
00:03Here's what he told reporters Tuesday.
00:05By the way, the noise you'll hear in the background is from construction of the White House ballroom.
00:10I was an hour away.
00:12We're all set to go. You're talking about yesterday.
00:14We were going to be striking very, it would have been happening right now.
00:18Yeah, it was all done.
00:19The boats, the ships are all loaded.
00:21They're loaded to the brim and we're all set to start.
00:25Sixty minutes is pretty much down to the wire.
00:27And notice he's still speaking in the present tense.
00:30Remember, the president said those attacks were delayed,
00:33but he's still ready to give a go order if peace negotiations falter again,
00:37which, if history is any indication, might be likely.
00:41The Post's Washington reporter, Caitlin Dornbos,
00:43filled me in on just where we are on that front as of Tuesday night.
00:46So President Trump on Tuesday said that he was only an hour away from making that decision
00:51on whether or not he would strike Iran on Tuesday.
00:55Now, that happened after the Gulf states got involved and asked him not to strike,
01:00saying that Iran was close to a deal.
01:03However, Tuesday morning we wake up and Iran has listed its demands out in public.
01:10They still want the right to enrich nuclear.
01:13They still want the right to a nuclear program.
01:15They say that they would keep it peaceful, but President Trump obviously doesn't believe that.
01:20They have a number of other issues that they're continuing to demand,
01:23including reparations for damages that the U.S. caused throughout this war.
01:28All of these things, President Trump has just said, they're no-goes for him.
01:32So we have the next 48 to 72 hours to really see whether or not the U.S. is going
01:40to have to move forward
01:42and strike Iran, or if Iran's going to come back to the table with a real offer that could see
01:48real progress
01:49in this matter and see an end of the war.
01:52In addition to keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, you'll recall that President Trump said
01:56that he launched the initial strikes to also defend the Iranian people being victimized by their brutal government,
02:02while a shocking new report outlines just how bad things are.
02:06Amnesty International says that in 2025, Iran executed more than 2,100 of its people.
02:11Let that sink in for a second. 2,100 human beings.
02:15That figure is more than double the number of people put to death by Iran in 2024, just one year
02:21prior.
02:21The staggering volume of killings pushed the total number of executions around the globe to a 44-year high.
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