President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday night — hours after he'd threatened "a whole civilization will die tonight" and about 90 minutes before a deadline he set for Tehran to reach an agreement with the United States.
“Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Earlier in the day, Trump had warned on social media that "a whole civilization will die tonight" if there was no deal between the two warring countries.
That threat, Trump's most extreme public rhetoric in the conflict to date, had included a vow to launch attacks on Iran's infrastructure over its continued disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The two-week ceasefire, Trump said, is contingent upon Iran reopening the strait. For its part, Iran proposed a 10-point plan to end the war, which includes "controlled passage" through the strait, coordinated by Iran's armed forces.
Iran's plan also calls for compensation for damages and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from "all bases and positions in the region." On social media, Trump called the plan "workable."
In a statement, Iran's Supreme National Security Council said it has allocated two weeks for negotiations with the U.S. beginning Friday in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, with an extension possible "by mutual agreement."
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it supports the suspension of U.S. strikes "subject to Iran immediately opening the straits and stopping all attacks on the US, Israel and countries in the region." The office said the ceasefire does not include Lebanon, however, which Israel has invaded following attacks by Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in the southern part of the country.
After he extended the deadline multiple times for Iran to reopen the vital shipping route, which about a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas usually passes through, Trump announced 8 p.m. ET Tuesday as the final deadline for Iran to come to a deal.
In a post Sunday, Trump threatened Iran's power plants and bridges if it did not reopen the strait by the Tuesday deadline, using expletives and invoking Islam.
It was the latest in a series of escalating threats by Trump against Tehran, including threatening to bomb the country into “the Stone Ages” and calling the Iranian government “crazy bastards” while demanding that it open up the key shipping route.
Trump’s threat Tuesday morning sparked a wave of fierce and immediate condemnations from Democrats, who said such strikes on infrastructure would constitute war crimes.
“Donald Trump is completely unhinged. His statement threatening to eradicate an entire civilization shocks the conscience and requires a decisive congressional response,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a joint statement with his leadership team. “The House must come back into session immediately and vote to end this reckless war of choice in the Middle East before Donald Trump plunges our country into World War III.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and a group of Democratic ranking members of key Senate committees issued a rare joint statement warning Trump that he “must not follow through on this threat.”
“We speak today with one voice and one purpose: to condemn President Trump’s threat to extinguish an entire civilization,” the senators said. “Intentionally destroying the power, water, or basic infrastructure upon which tens of millions of civilians depend to punish the very civilians who suffer at the hands of the Iranian regime would constitute a war crime, a betrayal of the values this nation was founded on, and a moral failure.”
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., a former CIA analyst, had warned that targeting civilians on a mass scale “would be a clear violation of the law of armed conflict as laid out in the Geneva Conventions, as well as the Pentagon’s Law of War Manual,” and she revived her calls for service members to refuse illegal orders.
“I hope and believe our troops — especially those in command — will have the moral clarity to push back if they are given clearly illegal orders,” Slotkin said in a statement.
Meanwhile, most GOP leaders in Congress had little to say following Trump’s statement Tuesday morning. The offices of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., didn’t reply to messages seeking comment.
The official Senate Republican X account published an unsigned post saying: “Iran would be wise to take President Trump at his word. They can choose the easy way or the hard way.” (The handle is run by the staff of Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.)
Still, a number of MAGA influencers and Trump allies criticized Trump’s post earlier Tuesday on Truth Social and have increasingly pushed back against his Iran policy in recent days.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said Monday that he didn't want to see the U.S. attack Iran’s civilian infrastructure, marking a rare break with Trump.
“I am hoping and praying that President Trump, that this really is bluster. I do not want to see us start blowing up civilian infrastructure,” Johnson said on an episode of the “John Solomon Reports” podcast.
“I do not want to see that. We are not at war with the Iranian people. We are trying to liberate them,” he added.
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, a Trump ally-turned-critic, called for Trump to be removed through the 25th Amendment.
“25TH AMENDMENT!!!” she posted on X before the ceasefire announcement. “Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness.”
The 25th Amendment lays out the presidential succession plan, as well as a process for the vice president and members of the Cabinet to remove the president from office, potentially with the involvement of Congress, if the president “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
Trump spoke to Fox News' Bret Baier by phone Tuesday morning. "He said 8 p.m. is happening," Baier relayed on the air. "That’s what he said. He said it is — if we get to that point, there is going to be an attack like they have not seen. ... Now, he said if negotiations move forward today and there is something concrete, that could change, but at this hour — he didn’t want to put odds on it — but he said it is moving forward with the plans that we have."
Trump repeated threats against the country's infrastructure at a news conference Monday, telling reporters that the U.S. has a plan "where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business — burning, exploding and never to be used again."
International law experts concurred with Democrats that Trump's threats against things like power stations would be potential war crimes if they were carried out.
“Trump is openly threatening collective punishment, targeting not the Iranian military but the Iranian people,” said Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, noting that collective punishment of civilians during armed conflict is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
“Attacking civilians is a war crime. So is making threats with the aim of terrorizing the civilian population,” he said, explaining that threatening to carry out a war crime is potentially a war crime itself under international humanitarian law.
Some rank-and-file Democratic senators criticized Trump’s post Tuesday morning as “unhinged.” Others, including Sen. Ed Markey, of Massachusetts, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, of Michigan, called for Trump’s impeachment or removal from office.
Markey reiterated his push for Trump's removal even after the president announced the two-week ceasefire deal Tuesday evening, with several other congressional Democrats calling for similar action.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, Melanie Stansbury, of New Mexico, and Seth Moulton, of Massachusetts, said in their own social media posts that regardless of a ceasefire, Trump's remarks warranted removal from office.
"Temporary ceasefire or not, Trump already committed an impeachable offense," Moulton wrote on X. "Congress needs to get back to work and remove him from office before he does more damage to our country and the world."
Schumer did not call for Trump's removal on Tuesday evening but instead said in a post, "I’m glad Trump backed off and is desperately searching for any sort of exit ramp from his ridiculous bluster."
