Donald Trump delivers remarks in the Rose Garden at the White House on May 11, 2026 in Washington, D.C. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images Good news, everyone. Donald Trump says the Iran war will be over by the end of the week. “Two or three days,” he told reporters Monday night, adding that there are no “sticking points,” and that “we’re very close to having a very, very good, strong, powerful deal.”
The United States and Iran may indeed reach a peace deal in the near future, but there is ample reason to be skeptical — if not to totally dismiss — the president’s stated optimism.
One pretty good reason to be skeptical is that the day after Trump said a peace deal was “two or three days away,” he announced that Iran had shot down an American helicopter and that the U.S. military would respond in kind — which it did later on Tuesday.
It isn’t the first time Trump has insisted a deal to end the war is imminent, only for that to very much not be the case. He has been claiming the conflict would be brief since the U.S. and Israel launched a joint offensive against Iran in February. Meanwhile, the war has wrought havoc on the global economy, with Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz and choking the oil that moves through it, and the president’s approval numbers have cratered amid the resulting cost-of-living crisis.
Trump clearly wants to move on from the war, but he doesn’t seem to be willing or able to do the hard work to actually make it happen. He has instead made pathetic pleas on social media — “Israel and Iran must immediately stop ‘shooting,’” he wrote this week — while claiming a deal is just around the corner.
Here’s a brief, incomplete history of Trump stringing the American people along, starting almost immediately after the conflict broke out on Febr. 28:
March 1: “Four to five weeks,” Trump tells The New York Times the day after launching the offensive. It “won’t be difficult.”
March 5: “The United States military, together with the wonderful Israeli partners, continues to totally demolish the enemy far ahead of schedule and at levels that people have never seen before,” Trump says in remarks congratulating Inter Miami for winning the Major League Soccer title.
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March 9: “It’s going to be finished pretty quickly,” Trump claims in an address in Florida. “I think the war is very complete, pretty much,” he tells ABC News later the same day.
CNN put together a montage of Trump saying as far back as March 9 that his war against Iran "is going to be finished pretty quickly," then him saying that same thing over and over for the past six weeks pic.twitter.com/ZnTAQ0GIsA
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 20, 2026
March 11: “Let me tell you, we’ve won. You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. In the first hour, it was over,” Trump says at an event in Kentucky. The same day in Ohio, he tells a reporter that the ongoing hostilities were “an excursion that will keep us out of a war.”
March 13: Trump says the war in Iran will end “when I feel it, feel it in my bones” in a Fox News radio interview.
March 15: On Air Force One, Trump tells reporters that Iran is “decimated,” but that he wasn’t “declaring it over.”
March 19: Trump is asked why the Pentagon wants Congress to authorize $200 billion more for the war. “This is a very volatile world,” Trump says. “You could end this thing in two seconds if you wanted to.”
March 20: Trump lashes out at Pope Leo, telling reporters at the White House that he doesn’t want to “do a ceasefire” and that “you don’t do a ceasefire when you’re literally obliterating the other side.”
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March 21: Trump threatens Iran, writing on Truth Social: “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!”
March 23: Two days later, Trump claims that his administration and Iran have had “VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST.”
“I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD,” he adds in his Truth Social post.
March 24: “This war has been won,” Trump declares at the swearing-in ceremony of DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. “The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news.”
March 29: “I do see a deal, in Iran, yeah,” Trump says aboard Air Force One. “Could be soon.”
March 30: Trump writes on Truth Social that he is in “serious discussions” with Iran, and making progress. “But, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched.’”
April 1: “We are going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast, we’re getting very close,” Trump says in his first national address since the beginning of the war.
April 4: After Iran shoots down a U.S. fighter jet, Trump writes on Truth Social that “Hell will reign down,” on Iran if they don’t make a deal to end the war within the next 48 hours. We are now beyond the four- to five-week timeline Trump initially set.
April 5: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” Trump writes on Easter Sunday on Truth Social.
April 6: During a press conference, Trump comments on the supposed negotiations, telling reporters: “We have to have a deal that’s acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.” Trump floats potentially imposing a toll system on the Strait of Hormuz.
April 7: Trump threatens the total annihilation of Iran: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”
April 8: After widespread backlash to his threats to commit crimes against humanity, Trump writes on Truth Social that it was a “big day for World Peace” and that Iran had finally “had enough.”
“The United States of America will be helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz. There will be lots of positive action! Big money will be made. Iran can start the reconstruction process. We’ll be loading up with supplies of all kinds, and just ‘hangin’ around” in order to make sure that everything goes well,” Trump adds.
But within hours, Trump was once again threatening to resume military operations if a “REAL AGREEMENT” wasn’t reached.
April 16: “The war in Iran is going on swimmingly,” Trump says during a speech in Las Vegas, suggesting the war will end soon.
April 16: Trump says he’s not sure if the ceasefire with Iran needs to be extended, because the country “wants to make a deal.”
Q: Would you extend the ceasefire with Iran? TRUMP: With who? Q: With Iran? TRUMP: Ahhhhh. I'm not sure it needs to be extended. Iran wants to make a deal. pic.twitter.com/U0YrcKLoB5
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 16, 2026
April 17: “Iran has agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again,” Trump writes. “It will no longer be used as a weapon against the World!”
May 1: Trump says of Iran: “They want to make a deal, but I don’t — I’m not satisfied with it, so we’ll see what happens.”
May 23: Trump writes on Truth Social that he has talked to all the leaders involved and “an Agreement has been largely negotiated, subject to finalization. … Final aspects and details of the Deal are currently being discussed, and will be announced shortly. In addition to many other elements of the Agreement, the Strait of Hormuz will be opened.”
June 5: “It’s really not that much of a war, it’s a military conflict — it’s practice,” Trump says at a farming event.
June 7: The war crosses the 100-day mark. Trump touts, as he has been doing for weeks, that it is still short compared to other wars. “We were in Vietnam for 19 years and you’re telling me about three months,” Trump tells NBC News. “And their leaders, their leaders are gone,” he adds, referring to the U.S. killing Iran’s leadership.
