White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended President Donald Trump’s threat to wipe out “a whole civilization” as “a very strong threat that led to results” — specifically, Iran’s agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz.
But as she spoke those words in a Wednesday press briefing, Iranian state media said traffic through the critical oil choke point was closed again. Leavitt said that the Iranians were saying something different in private and that those reports were false. In fact, four dry cargo carriers and zero oil tankers navigated the waterway since the ceasefire was announced, according to the ship-tracking company Kpler.
The fast-moving developments Wednesday tested the White House’s ability to prop up a truce between two sides that did not even agree on its terms. The Trump administration, while claiming to have already accomplished its military objectives, is entering negotiations with the same demands as before the war, while Iran is staking new claims for control over the Strait of Hormuz.
After Trump called a 10-point Iranian proposal a “workable basis” for negotiations, Iranian state media released a version that was completely at odds with U.S. positions. Leavitt said that proposal was different from the one Trump considered on Tuesday.
But by the time Leavitt left the lectern, Iran’s parliamentary speaker accused the United States of violating the terms she said weren’t valid, casting fresh doubts on whether the ceasefire could hold and negotiations could move forward.
“The very ‘workable basis on which to negotiate’ has been openly and clearly violated,” the speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said in a statement Wednesday. “In such a situation, a bilateral ceasefire or negotiations is unreasonable.”
The two governments also gave opposing answers to whether the ceasefire covered Lebanon, which Israel, a partner in the U.S. war on Iran, continued to bomb Wednesday. Vice President JD Vance called the discrepancy a “legitimate misunderstanding” because Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who served as a mediator, said the ceasefire included Lebanon, which the U.S. and Israel didn’t agree to.
“I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t,” Vance told reporters during a visit to Hungary on Wednesday.
Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will travel to Islamabad for negotiations with Iran that will start Saturday, Leavitt said.
The talks are poised to center on the fate of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium that could be used to make a nuclear bomb. Leavitt said the Iranians indicated openness to surrendering the material, while Iranian officials insist they won’t budge on defending their right to enrich uranium, arguing it’s for peaceful civilian purposes.
Before the war, Witkoff said Trump directed him to make a deal that included “no enrichment whatsoever” and “turning all enriched material over to us.” Before those talks fell apart, Iranians floated the idea that they might agree to dilute their 60 percent enriched stockpile to a lower level that they could use in their research reactors.
Trump and other officials repeatedly said the war’s goals included “ensuring that the world’s number one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon.” Leavitt said Wednesday all those objectives had been accomplished. At the same time, she acknowledged the U.S. was still negotiating to obtain Iran’s enriched uranium.
“The president’s red lines, namely the end of Iranian enrichment in Iran, have not changed,” she said. “We hope it will be through diplomacy.”
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine notably did not include the nuclear issue as one of the operation’s military objectives Wednesday. He listed those as destroying Iran’s ballistic missile and drone capabilities, navy and defense industrial base. “The joint force achieved the military objectives as defined by the president,” Caine told reporters.
Iran’s retention of uranium undermined Trump’s claim to victory in the eyes of Natan Eshel, a former chief of staff and close confidant to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“This is not a victory! This is a disgrace!” Eshel told reporters Wednesday. “America doesn’t know how to finish the job. You didn’t destroy the weapons, you left the ballistic missiles, and you left the uranium.”
Trump lashed out at what he called “total Fraudsters, Charlatans, and WORSE,” warning of an unspecified “Federal Investigation.” He said Iran agreed to many of the U.S. demands and the countries would work together to “dig up and remove all of the deeply buried (B-2 Bombers) Nuclear ‘Dust.’”
“There is only one group of meaningful ‘POINTS’ that are acceptable to the United States, and we will be discussing them behind closed doors during these Negotiations,” he said on social media.
Adding to the confusion Wednesday, Trump expressed openness to allowing Iran to collect tolls from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously ruled out that idea.
“Not only is this illegal, it’s unacceptable,” Rubio said March 27 at a meeting of his counterparts from the Group of Seven nations. “It’s dangerous for the world, and it’s important that the world have a plan to confront it.”
Leavitt said Wednesday the idea would be discussed during the two-week ceasefire.
“But the immediate priority of the president is the reopening of the strait without any limitations, whether in the form of tolls or otherwise,” she said — referring to a waterway she had said minutes earlier was reopened after Trump’s threat that “a whole civilization will die.”
Karen DeYoung in Washington and Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
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