President Donald Trump speaking before participating in a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo)
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that Iranian leadership “wants to talk” amid America and Israel’s joint strike on Tehran but the Republican leader said, “It’s too late.” Trump added that Iran’s “air defense, Air Force, Navy, and Leadership is gone.”
This comes following Trump’s earlier comments that US has “the capability to go far longer” than its projected four-to-five-week time frame for its military operations against Iran.
The US president earlier suggested in an interview to New York Post that he was not ruling out the possibility of sending US military on ground and left open the possibility for a more extensive US military operation.
“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump said. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ (or) ‘if they were necessary.’”
A black plume of smoke rises from a warehouse at the industrial area of Sharjah City in the United Arab Emirates following reports of Iranian strikes in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (Photo/AP)
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth in a press briefing on Monday had said that Trump administration would not get into the “foolish” exercise of telegraphing “what we will or will not do.”
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Trump on talks with Iran leadership
Donald Trump had erstwhile said that Iran’s political leadership had agreed to talks after the US-Israeli joint strikes on Tehran’s military and political infrastructure killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
A plume of smoke rises after a strike in Tehran, Iran, on Monday.
In an interview Atlantic Magazine on Sunday, Trump said “They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them. They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that “49 of the most senior Iranian regime leaders” have been killed in the US-Israeli strikes on Tehran and declared that “killing terrorists is good for America”.
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President Donald Trump speaking before participating in a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo) 
