How Trump shifted from threatening Iran’s power plants to touting peace talks | CNN Politics

As President Donald Trump was departing Washington last week for Florida, ending the war with Iran appeared the last thing on his mind. “You don’t do a ceasefire when you’re literally obliterating the other side,” he said Friday from the White House South Lawn before getting in his helicopter and flying away. Three days, one ultimatum and — in his telling — a few conversations with a mystery official in Tehran later, Trump had adopted a different view. “They want to settle, and we’re going to get it done,” he declared before a crowd in Memphis, Tennessee, on Monday, before touring Elvis’ Graceland. The sudden turnabout and, according to Trump, rapidly advancing peace talks made for an abrupt shift in the administration’s approach to the war after the president threatened Saturday evening to hit Iran’s power plants if the Strait of Hormuz wasn’t opened in 48 hours. And now there is an even a proposal for Pakistan to host a meeting between the US and Iran later this week, which Vice President JD Vance could attend, two sources said. CNN has reached out to Vance’s office. The change in US posture came after warnings from Gulf allies that the striking civili