President Trump is planning to deliver a prime-time address Wednesday night to “provide an important update on Iran,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on X.
Leavitt did not give any other details on the address, which is set for 9 p.m. ET. But it comes at an important time in the monthlong conflict with Iran, as Mr. Trump publicly signals that he is looking to strike a deal with Iran and wrap the war up in a matter of weeks — and as he privately weighs whether to use ground forces, CBS News reported earlier this month.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier Tuesday that the “upcoming days will be decisive.”
Mr. Trump told reporters Tuesday afternoon he expects the war with Iran to end in “two weeks, maybe three,” arguing that the U.S.’s core objective of degrading Iran’s military has largely been achieved. He has also said any countries that rely on Middle Eastern petroleum should be responsible for getting their oil through the Strait of Hormuz themselves, hinting that the U.S. may not take a leading role in reopening the key waterway, which Iran has effectively shut down.
The president told CBS News’ Weijia Jiang on Tuesday he isn’t prepared to withdraw U.S. forces from efforts to push Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz “quite yet,” but other countries “have to come in and take care of it.”
Mr. Trump has also expressed some optimism about the state of U.S.-Iran peace talks in recent days. Iran has denied that it is negotiating with the U.S., but confirmed that the two sides have exchanged messages through mediators.
At the same time, hundreds of U.S. Special Operations Forces — including Navy SEALS and Army Rangers — are now in the Middle East, along with Marines and Army paratroopers, giving Mr. Trump options to potentially expand the scope of the war, CBS News has reported.
Earlier this month, Pentagon officials began preparing options for deploying ground forces to Iran. The Trump administration has strategized whether to launch a high-risk mission to use Special Operations Forces to seize Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, sources told CBS News earlier this month, though he had not appeared to make a decision at that point.
There’s also been public discussion about whether the U.S. will order some kind of operation against Kharg Island, an Iranian territory that handles most of the country’s oil exports.
“Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched,'” the president wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday.
