Trump extends pause on striking Iranian energy plants; Witkoff floats 15-point peace proposal

Israel’s military said its forces carried out “a wide-scale wave of strikes targeting the infrastructure of the Iranian terror regime in the heart of Tehran” early on Friday.

This came as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Friday they had carried out missile and drone strikes the previous day targeting sites in Israel and military facilities in the Gulf used by U.S. forces.

A maintenance facility for a U.S. Patriot air defence system was targeted in Bahrain, the Guards said in a statement carried by Iranian news agencies.

Early Friday, an Israeli strike hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, according to Lebanese media. Agence France-Presse correspondents heard several explosions from the Hezbollah stronghold that Israel has repeatedly struck since war erupted.

And the Saudi defence ministry said it had “intercepted and destroyed” four drones over the kingdom’s east early Friday.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid is warning that the war is taking too high a toll.

“The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) is stretched to the limit and beyond. The government is leaving the army wounded out on the battlefield,” Lapid said, echoing a warning delivered a day earlier by military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir.

“The government is sending the army into a multi-front war without a strategy, without the necessary means, and with far too few soldiers,” Lapid said.

In a televised briefing, Israeli military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said: “On the Lebanese front, the forward defensive zone that we are creating requires additional IDF forces. … For that, more combat soldiers are needed in the IDF.”

Australia’s leader said Friday it was not consulted over the war with Iran, which was having a “massive global economic impact”, responding to President Trump’s swipe that the U.S. ally was not doing enough.

Mr Trump has urged nations to dispatch warships to secure crucial oil supply routes through the Strait of Hormuz.

Although many have baulked at Trump’s proposal, Mr Trump included criticism of Australia as he vented his frustrations over lack of British support.

“Australia was not great. I was a little surprised by Australia,” Mr Trump said Thursday during a cabinet meeting at the White House.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia was in close contact with Gulf states under attack from Iran, providing a surveillance aircraft to help defend the United Arab Emirates, where many Australians live.

“There has been no request made to Australia that has not been agreed to,” Albanese told reporters in Canberra on Friday local time.

“I also want to emphasise that Australia did not receive any consultation prior to the initiation of this action.” I respect that; that’s a matter for the United States,” he added.

The U.S. is Australia’s main security ally and a partner with Britain in the trilateral AUKUS pact to build more nuclear submarines to counter China.

“We do want to see a de-escalation and we do understand that this war is having a massive global economic impact,” Albanese said.

One day after walking out of a House Armed Services Committee briefing on Iran, Republican Rep Nancy Mace of South Carolina told CBS News she has “grave concerns about the Washington war machine getting us into another 20-year-plus endless war.”

Mace said in an interview with CBS News congressional correspondent Nikole Killion on “The Takeout” that she would oppose sending ground forces into Iran and argued the military needs to explain how the war could end. She said Wednesday’s briefing with military officials “left most of our questions unanswered”.

“I haven’t seen an exit strategy yet,” said Mace, who is currently running for South Carolina governor. “And I think that’s where a lot of us share the heartburn.”

Mace added that she remains a strong supporter of President Trump and believes the U.S. operation against Iran has been successful at degrading the country’s missile capabilities. But she wants Mr Trump to “declare victory” rather than allowing it to turn into a “never-ending war”.

And she was critical of a fellow South Carolina Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is a Trump ally and long-time Iran hard-liner. She said Graham “has an outsized role” in advising Mr Trump and “needs to be taken out of the room”.

Stocks fell sharply Thursday, and oil prices rose as doubt took over again from hope on Wall Street about a possible end to the war with Iran.

The S&P 500 slumped 1.7% for its worst day since January and is back on track for a fifth straight losing week. That stretches back to before the Iran war began, and it would be the longest such losing streak in nearly four years.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 469 points, or 1%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 2.4% to fall more than 10% below its all-time high set early this year. That’s a steep enough drop that professional investors have a name for it: a “correction”.

Stock markets likewise tumbled across much of Asia and Europe.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil climbed 4.8% to settle at $101.89 as hopes dimmed for a potential return to normal for the Strait of Hormuz. That’s up from roughly $70 before the war began. Benchmark U.S. crude rose 4.6% to $94.48 per barrel.

President Trump told Fox News on Thursday that he extended a pause on striking Iranian oil infrastructure because talks with Iran are “going fairly well” and Iran asked for “more time”.

“I gave them a 10-day period,” he said on Fox News’ “The Five.”

He continued: “They asked for seven, and I said, ‘I’m going to give you 10,’ because they gave me ships,” referring to several oil tankers that he says Iran allowed through the Strait of Hormuz as a show of good faith.

The U.S. will extend a pause on strikes on Iranian energy plants until April 6, President Trump announced on Truth Social. The president said he’s extending the pause at the request of the Iranian government.

The president had previously announced a five-day pause on striking Iran’s energy infrastructure Monday, which was set to expire on Saturday.

“As per the Iranian government’s 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,” he wrote. “Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the fake news media and others, they are going very well. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Rubio criticizes NATO’s lack of involvement in Strait of Hormuz

Secretary of State Marco Rubio criticised NATO for not being more involved in efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as he departed the U.S. for a G7 Foreign Ministers’ meeting in France.

Rubio said that European leaders have said the war in Iran is not their war.

“Ukraine is not America’s war, but we are contributing more than anyone else,” Rubio said. He also said he is not attending the G7 meeting to please his European colleagues.

“The people I am worried about making happy are the American people,” Rubio said.

When asked about Russia’s support for Iran and their role in the Iran war, Rubio said he believes they are concentrating on the Ukraine war.

During Thursday’s Cabinet meeting, President Trump said he was “disappointed” in NATO over what he said was a lack of support.

“Because this was a test for NATO,” Mr Trump said. “This was a test. You can help us; you don’t have to, but if you don’t have – you know, if you don’t do that, we’re going to remember. Just remember. Remember this in a number of months from now; remember my statements.”

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who is on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Thursday that he has gotten “no clarity” about whether the Pentagon will be requesting potentially $200 billion for the Iran war.

Speaking to reporters at the Capitol, Blumenthal said he comes away from classified briefings “knowing less than when I went into them, because they are so confusing, muddled and chaotic in the presentation of objectives of this war.”

Blumenthal said he was going to “do everything I can as a member of the Armed Services Committee to call out the confusion and chaos and make sure that Americans realise what is actually happening.”

“For American boots on the ground in Iran, Americans should be shocked and fearful by the prospect of American sons and daughters on the ground in Iran, in the most risky and perilous situation in recent military history, and on a mass scale, with thousands of troops heading for that region right now,” Blumenthal said. “Americans should not only be shocked; they ought to be resisting and expressing their anger and apprehension because we still have time to stop the potential catastrophe.”

Answering reporters’ questions during his Cabinet meeting, President Trump said the U.S. doesn’t know if Iran has actually dropped any mines in the Strait of Hormuz. But he acknowledged they may be out there.

“We don’t know that they’ve dropped any mines, by the way, because we blew up all their mine droppers, right?” he said. “We blew up every one of them.”

“We don’t know; there could be a few of them out there, but that’s a lot,” he said. “You know, if you have a billion-dollar ship and you get hit by a mine, it’s not the greatest thing in the world… If you think there may be a mine, that’s a bad thought, and it stops things up.”

U.S. officials told CBS News earlier this week that there are at least a dozen underwater mines in the vital passageway, which has been effectively closed.

President Trump insisted during his Cabinet meeting that Iran is eager to make a deal, even as Iran makes no such suggestion publicly.

“The reason they want to make a deal is they have been just beat to sh–,” he said

Trump says he’s not “desperate” to make a deal and the U.S. has more targets to hit before leaving

President Trump insisted he’s not “desperate” to make a deal on Iran, blasting a Wall Street Journal report that said he’s told aides he wants a speedy end to the war.

“I’m the opposite of desperate,” he said. “I don’t care. In fact, we have other targets we want to hit before we leave. We’re hitting them on a daily basis. I don’t talk about it; I can’t talk about specifics.”

Speaking to reporters during his Cabinet meeting, President Trump said that controlling Iran’s oil is “an option” but “I wouldn’t want to talk about it.”

“It’s an option,” he said when asked if he’s considering taking over Iran’s oil. “I mean, I wouldn’t talk about it but it’s an option.”

The president was asked if he’d thought about it.

“Well, in Venezuela, we’ve done very well working with Venezuela, certainly,” he said. “We’ve taken in billions and billions of dollars.”

After teasing that Iran had given the U.S. a “present”, President Trump asked U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff whether he could reveal what it is. “You can do anything you want”, Witkoff said, to laughs. So the president proceeded.

“They said, ‘To show you the fact that we’re real and solid and we’re there, we’re going to let you have eight boats of oil, eight boats. Eight big boats of oil. This was two days ago. And they’ll sail up tomorrow; that was three days ago. And I didn’t think much about it.”

The president said he then watched Fox News reporting tankers were proceeding through the Strait of Hormuz.

“I said, ‘Well, I guess we’re dealing with the right people,'” Mr Trump said.

The president said Iran then sent two additional vessels, suggesting it had permitted 10 tankers in total to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

He did not say which country or countries the oil was from, or where it was heading.

Iranian officials have said repeatedly this week that only vessels belonging to or deemed connected to the U.S. Iranian officials have repeatedly stated this week that they were only preventing vessels belonging to or deemed connected to the U.S. or Israel from transiting the strait. Two days ago, the naval commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard forces said a cargo ship was prevented from accessing the strait as it had failed to gain clearance. An Israeli strike killed that commander on Thursday.

Trump not ready to suspend federal gas tax but it’s “something we have in our pocket”

President Trump was asked whether he would consider suspending the federal gas tax to help American consumers as the Iran war continues impacting global energy markets. He suggested states like California should suspend their gas taxes first.

Mr Trump said he had “thought about” suspending the federal gas tax but that he had expected the war to result in a “short-term hit” to prices.

“The gas tax, people have talked about it,” he said. “It’s something we have in our pocket if we think it’s necessary.”

Federal taxes are 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon on diesel fuel, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

President Trump ridiculed a reporter during his Cabinet meeting for asking whether the U.S. would send troops into Iran to secure its enriched uranium stockpiles, believed to be buried deep under the rubble of facilities severely damaged by the June 2025 U.S.-Israeli strikes.

“Let’s assume I was or I wasn’t,” he said. “Why would I ever answer a question? What kind of a question?”

“How could you possibly ask a question like that and expect an answer?” he said. “I don’t know. But, I don’t know, I think you’re a friendly person, too; it’s just such a ridiculous question.”

Jared Kushner said Thursday he’s technically a “volunteer” for the White House and has not actually joined the administration. He has been one of the top U.S. negotiators trying to reach a deal with Iran.

“Like other businessmen who volunteer to help the government when asked. Uh, the level of engagement has definitely been a lot more than I anticipated,” Kushner said at the Saudi-backed FII Priority investment summit in Miami, which was livestreamed on YouTube.

He said toward the end of his appearance that he had been asked by President Trump and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff to stay in his volunteer capacity “with more intensity”.

He was also dismissive of public statements made by Iranian officials during the war.

“The one thing with the Iranians, and we’re seeing this even now, is you have to … just ignore a lot of what they say publicly, because I think that their statements are usually more for their domestic audiences,” Kushner said.

The EU’s top diplomat on Thursday accused Russia of providing intelligence support to Iran in the Middle East war to “kill Americans”, calling on the U.S. to increase pressure on Moscow.

“We see that Russia is helping Iran with intelligence to target Americans, to kill Americans, and Russia is also supporting Iran now with the drones so that they can attack neighbouring countries and also U.S. military bases,” Kaja Kallas told journalists at a G7 meeting outside Paris.

“These wars are very much interlinked … If America wants the war in the Middle East to stop and Iran to stop attacking them, they should also put the pressure on Russia so that they are not able to help them in this,” she added, referring to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Kallas spoke hours after Britain’s defence chief said, citing UK intelligence, that Russia had not only provided Iran with intelligence but also training before the war began and that he saw the “hidden hand of Putin” behind Iran’s war effort.

Multiple sources, including a senior U.S. official with direct knowledge, told CBS News just six days into the war that Russia was providing intelligence to Iran regarding U.S. positions in the Middle East. That information came days after six U.S. service members were killed in an Iranian strike on an installation in Kuwait.

Asked about the reports of Russia sharing intelligence with Iran, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told CBS’ 60 Minutes that President Trump was “well aware of who’s talking to whom” and that “anything that shouldn’t be happening, whether it’s in public or back-channelled, is being confronted and confronted strongly.”

The U.K. Secretary of Defence told BBC News on Thursday that he sees the “hidden hand of Putin” behind Iran’s war effort, and he said the Russian autocrat’s regime provided not only intelligence but also training to Iranian forces before the war began on Feb. 28.

Secretary John Healey told CBS News’ partner network there was an “axis of aggression” between Russia and Iran as he revealed the cooperation between the two nations, citing British intelligence agencies.