World
President Donald Trump said he believed Tehran wanted to make a deal to avoid military action, adding that the US “armada” near Iran was bigger than the one he dispatched to topple Venezuela’s leader.
“We have a large armada, flotilla, call it whatever you want, heading toward Iran right now, even larger than what we had in Venezuela,” Trump said during a press briefing in the Oval Office.
Asked if he had given Iran a deadline to make a deal on its nuclear program and ballistic missiles, Trump responded, “yeah I have” but added that only Tehran knew for sure what it was.
Trump cited what he claimed was Iran’s decision to halt executions of protesters—after a crackdown where rights groups say more than 6,000 people were killed—as evidence showing Tehran was ready to comply.
“I can say this, they do want to make a deal,” Trump said. However, he declined to say whether, if Iran did not reach a deal, he planned a repeat of the dramatic operation in Venezuela where US forces captured President Nicolas Maduro.
” I don’t want to talk about anything having to do with what I’m doing militarily,” he said.