DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — President Donald Trump’s met with advisers within the Scenario Room on Tuesday afternoon, a White Home official confirmed, as Israel and Iran proceed to commerce strikes.
The assembly got here hours after Trump arrived again in Washington after abruptly leaving the G7 summit in Canada early, citing tensions within the Center East and instructing his nationwide safety group on Monday night time to be prepared within the Scenario Room upon his arrival. Pool reporters obtained phrase that the assembly was happening simply after 2:20 p.m. ET, although the precise begin time was unclear.
Trump early on Tuesday denied having had contact with leaders in Iran, saying he hadn’t reached out a couple of potential ceasefire and that he was “not an excessive amount of within the temper” to barter with Iran.
Smoke billows from an explosion on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) constructing in Tehran on June 16, 2025.
Picture by -/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
“I have been negotiating. I instructed them to do the deal,” Trump mentioned. “They need to have achieved the deal. The cities have been blown to items, misplaced lots of people. They need to have achieved the deal. I instructed them do the deal, so I do not know. I am not an excessive amount of within the temper to barter.”
He additionally appeared to dismiss a latest evaluation from Director of Nationwide Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who had mentioned Iran wasn’t engaged on a nuclear weapon. Trump mentioned on Tuesday he thought Iran was “very shut” to having such a weapon.
Trump in a submit on his Fact Social community additionally mentioned that he hadn’t reached out to Iran “in any means, form or kind,” calling experiences that he had achieved so “fabricated.”
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters whereas flying aboard Air Pressure One en route from Calgary, Canada to Joint Base Andrews, Md., late Monday, June 16, 2025.
AP Picture/Mark Schiefelbein
“In the event that they need to discuss, they know how you can attain me,” Trump mentioned in a submit early on Tuesday. “They need to have taken the deal that was on the desk — Would have save a number of lives!!!”
Israel on Friday started an assault on Iran, launching a sequence of aerial strikes that Israeli officers described as a preemptive strike. Israeli leaders and Trump have individually referred to as for Tehran to place an finish to efforts to create nuclear weapons.
Diplomats from the USA and Iran held a sequence of talks in Muscat, Oman, starting in April, with the sixth spherical as a result of start final Sunday. These talks have been cancelled because the battle between Israel and Iran started.
Trump was requested on Tuesday about Gabbard’s testimony in March in entrance of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the place she mentioned Iran was not constructing a nuclear weapon.
When pressed about Gabbard’s feedback, Trump dismissed them.
“I do not care what she mentioned, I feel they have been very near having one,” Trump mentioned.
Trump has not dominated out American participation within the battle, though the U.S. has remained on the sidelines to this point. Trump has issued, nonetheless, a stern warning to Iran on Tuesday over U.S. troops and property within the area, instructing Tehran “to not contact our troops.”
“We’ll come down so exhausting in the event that they do something to our folks,” Trump instructed reporters aboard Air Pressure One.
It is a creating story. Please examine again for updates.
Israel targets extra Iranian leaders
The Israeli army claimed to have killed one other high Iranian common in a strike on Tehran.
Iran didn’t instantly touch upon the reported killing of Gen. Ali Shadmani, whom Israel described as probably the most senior army commander in Iran.
Shadmani was little-known within the nation earlier than being appointed final week to a chief-of-staff-like position as head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters. That appointment adopted the killing of his predecessor, Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, in an Israeli strike.
The Israeli army warned the inhabitants to remain near shelters as Iran fired new salvos of missiles, however officers mentioned most have been intercepted. Sirens blared in southern Israel, together with within the desert city of Dimona, the center of Israel’s never-acknowledged nuclear arms program.
Iran has fired fewer missiles in every of its barrages, with only a handful launched late Tuesday. It has not defined the drop in missiles fired, however the decline comes after Israel focused many Iranian launchers.
Israeli army spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin introduced a brand new wave of strikes on Iran on Tuesday night as explosions and anti-aircraft fireplace boomed all through Tehran, shaking buildings throughout the capital. The Israeli army mentioned its warplanes had focused 12 missile launch websites and storage services.
Outlets closed, traces for gasoline in Iran’s capital
Echoing an earlier Israeli army name for some 330,000 residents of a neighborhood in downtown Tehran to evacuate, Trump warned on social media that “everybody ought to instantly evacuate Tehran.”
Tehran is without doubt one of the largest cities within the Center East, with round 10 million folks, roughly equal to your complete inhabitants of Israel. Individuals have been fleeing since hostilities started.
Requested why he had urged the evacuation of Tehran, Trump mentioned: “I simply need folks to be secure.”
Downtown Tehran emptied out early Tuesday, with many outlets shuttered, even the traditional Grand Bazaar, which has closed solely in occasions of disaster, reminiscent of throughout the 2022 anti-government protests and the coronavirus pandemic.
On the roads out of Tehran to the west, visitors stood bumper to bumper. Many middle- and upper-class Iranians have been headed to the Caspian Sea, a well-liked getaway spot. Lengthy traces snaked from Tehran’s gasoline stations.
Indicators that Iran is proscribing entry to outdoors world
Iranian authorities gave the impression to be curbing the general public’s entry to the surface world. Cellphone and web service was disrupted, with landline telephones unable to obtain or dial worldwide calls. NetBlocks, an web monitoring group, reported that it had detected a major drop in web visitors from the nation.
Iran, which has crippled vital communications instruments in previous nationwide protests and throughout the Eighties Iran-Iraq battle, didn’t acknowledge any restrictions.
Worldwide web sites gave the impression to be blocked, however native web sites have been functioning, doubtless signaling that Iran had turned on the so-called “halal web,” its personal regionally managed model of the web aimed toward proscribing what the general public can see.
Iran’s state TV on Tuesday urged the general public to take away the messaging app WhatsApp from their cellphones, alleging with out proof that the app gathered consumer info to ship to Israel.
In an announcement, WhatsApp mentioned it was involved that “these false experiences will likely be an excuse for our providers to be blocked at a time when folks want them probably the most.”
Nuclear company experiences extra injury to enrichment website
The Worldwide Atomic Power Company mentioned Tuesday that it believed that Israel’s first aerial assaults on Iran’s Natanz enrichment website had straight affected the power’s underground centrifuge facility.
Satellite tv for pc imagery collected after Friday’s assaults confirmed “further parts that point out direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls,” the watchdog mentioned.
Positioned 220 kilometers (135 miles) southeast of Tehran, the Natanz facility was fortified by anti-aircraft batteries, fencing and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
The IAEA earlier reported that Israeli strikes had destroyed an above-ground enrichment corridor at Natanz and knocked out electrical gear that powered the power.
Nevertheless, most of Iran’s enrichment takes place underground to guard from airstrikes.
Israel has struck Natanz repeatedly and claims to have damage its underground services, which consultants assess include 10,000 centrifuges that enrich uranium as much as 60%. However Tuesday’s IAEA assertion marked the primary time the company has acknowledged injury there.
Iran maintains its nuclear program is peaceable, and the U.S. and others have assessed that Tehran has not had an organized effort to pursue a nuclear weapon since 2003. However the IAEA has repeatedly warned that the nation has sufficient enriched uranium to make a number of nuclear bombs ought to it select to take action.
Whereas Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Monday that Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear websites have set the nation’s nuclear program again a “very, very very long time,” Israel has not been capable of attain Iran’s Fordo uranium enrichment facility, which is constructed deep right into a mountainside.
Hitting Fordo would require the U.S. to become involved militarily and deploy B-2 stealth bombers to drop its bunker-busting bomb. The 30,000-pound (14,000-kilogram) GBU-57 Large Ordnance Penetrator makes use of its weight and sheer kinetic power to achieve deeply buried targets.
Trump leaves G7 early to concentrate on battle
Earlier than leaving the summit in Canada, Trump joined the opposite leaders in a joint assertion saying that Iran “can by no means have a nuclear weapon” and calling for a “de-escalation of hostilities within the Center East, together with a ceasefire in Gaza.”
French President Emmanuel Macron instructed reporters that discussions have been underway on a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, however Trump shot that down in his feedback on social media.
Macron “mistakenly mentioned that I left the G7 Summit, in Canada, to return to D.C. to work on a ‘stop fireplace’ between Israel and Iran,” Trump wrote. “Mistaken! He has no concept why I’m now on my option to Washington, but it surely definitely has nothing to do with a Stop Fireplace. A lot larger than that.”
Trump posted that there have been no plans to kill Khamenei “at the very least not for now.” Regardless of warning that U.S. “endurance is carrying skinny,” he indicated that diplomatic talks remained an possibility.
He mentioned he might ship Vice President JD Vance and particular envoy Steve Witkoff to satisfy with the Iranians.
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The Related Press contributed to this report.
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