Donald Trump hopped on a video call with other world leaders to loop them in on his war plans but wound up disorienting them instead.
Sources with knowledge of the president’s conservation with other G7 leaders—an intergovernmental forum that consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S.—told Axios Thursday that Trump came across as “ambiguous and noncommittal” about his administration’s new conflict with Iran.
“Some participants left thinking he wants to end the war, others felt the complete opposite,” the outlet writes.
French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking after the call ended, said: “It will be up to the president of the United States to clarify both his final objectives and the pace he intends to give to the operations.”
Trump launched his ongoing attacks against Iran on Feb. 28. He has since offered four different justifications for the conflict and provided no clear timeline for his campaign.
While he has already declared victory in the conflict, an unnamed source who spoke to him on Tuesday told Axios he was “enthusiastic” about keeping the war going for another three or four weeks.
His equivalence on Wednesday’s call was echoed in other comments he made throughout the day. Trump told Axios in the morning the war would end “soon” because “there is practically nothing left” of targets in Iran.
He later told other reporters, on the way from the White House to a Kentucky rally, that he is, in fact, “not done” and that the U.S. military will be pushing ahead with “more of the same.”
Trump then said of the conflict during a public address at that rally: “You never like to say too early you won. We won. In the first hour, it was over.”
Within minutes, he added: “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We gotta finish the job, right?”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt previously told Axios the media has been “pushing a fake narrative that there has been ‘mixed messaging.’”
