President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he is hitting pause on his plans to destroy Iran’s power plants hours before his 5-day deadline was set to expire.
The move marks Trump’s second extension after first threatening to strike Iran’s energy infrastructure on Saturday. On Monday, he postponed, citing “very good and productive conversations” with Iran, which it denied.
Then, again on Thursday, Trump announced his second pause in a Truth Social post, writing, “As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time.” The deadline of the president’s previous pause was set to expire on Saturday morning.
He added that talks with Iran were “ongoing” and that despite “erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media... they are going very well.” Iran is yet to comment on Trump’s latest move.
Trump, 79, then attempted to push his narrative on Fox News, speaking via phone to Fox News’ The Five shortly after making the announcement and telling the panelists that Iran asked for a seven-day pause and that instead, he gave them 10.
“They asked for seven and I said I’m going to give you 10 because they gave me ships, we talked about the eight ships, the present that I talked about the other day,” he told the panelists. He had previously referred to a mysterious gift Iran had given him on Tuesday, and it was revealed on Thursday that the gift in question was granting passage through the strait to eight oil tankers.
“They were very thankful about that,” Trump said about the extended pause, adding, “We are speaking, and it is going fairly well, so I gave them 10 days.”
Reports have indicated that Pakistan has been attempting to broker an end to the conflict, delivering Trump’s 15-point plan to end the war to Iranian officials.
In response to the New York Times’ report on Pakistan’s involvement in negotiations, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the outlet, “As President Trump and his negotiators explore this newfound possibility of diplomacy, Operation Epic Fury continues unabated to achieve the military objectives laid out by the commander in chief and the Pentagon.”
Despite the president’s claims that talks with Iran are progressing well, Iran has consistently denied that talks are taking place at all.
On Tuesday, Iranian Lieutenant Colonel Ebrahim Zolfaghari responded to Trump’s claims that talks were taking place by asking the U.S., “Has the level of your internal conflicts reached the state of negotiating with yourselves?”
“Don’t call your failure an agreement,” he added, noting that there would be no return to normal “until our will is done.”
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has also denied that negotiations were taking place, but acknowledged that the U.S. had been “sending various messages through different intermediaries” for several days.
During his keynote speech at the National Republican Congressional Committee fundraising dinner in Washington D.C. on Wednesday night, Trump claimed that Iran was afraid to admit that talks were taking place.
“They are negotiating, by the way,” Trump told attendees. “They want to make a deal so badly but they are afraid to say it. Because they figure they will be killed by their own people. They are also afraid they will be killed by us.”
In contrast to his public statements, reports suggest that privately the president has told associates he hopes to end the war in the next couple of weeks and avoid a protracted conflict.
The president had told one associate the war was distracting from his other priorities, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, while another told the outlet that Trump appears ready to move on to his next challenge.
The Journal also reported that the president is worried about further U.S. casualties. 13 American service members have been killed and nearly 300 have been wounded in the month since the U.S. first began conducting its strikes on Iran.
