Trump casts doubt on renewing Iran strikes as Netanyahu reportedly presses for immediate action

US President Donald Trump on Monday cast fresh doubt on whether he would follow through on a threatened resumption of military strikes against Iran, saying he believed Tehran wanted a deal and that an agreement "could happen."

Speaking after an address at the Washington Reflecting Pool that was billed as his closing argument to voters ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections, Trump replied "no" when reporters asked if he was considering striking Iran after the vote. The war with Iran is a leading cause of high gasoline prices that are weighing on voters, and Trump is under pressure to end the conflict.

Iranian negotiators were in Doha on Sunday for a third consecutive day of talks with Qatari mediators aimed at securing a deal to end the war. Vice President JD Vance reported there had been "a number of good conversations with the Iranians."

"Look, the president and I both feel pretty good about the prospects for potentially coming to a negotiated settlement. We're going to keep on working at it," Vance said.

Trump stressed his bottom-line demand that Tehran never obtain a nuclear weapon. "We're not going to allow Iran ever to have a nuclear weapon, and they understand that. They've understood that, and they've said it even recently," he said. "If we allowed Iran to have a nuclear weapon, this country could never function in the same way. The whole world would be a different place."

He insisted the operation was not actually a war because "we've done very little fighting" since sweeping strikes months ago in which some Iranian leaders were killed. "We wiped out their leaders, first level of leaders, the second level of leaders, and they've asked us, please stop doing that, and we will," Trump said.

Trump's remarks came despite reported pressure from Jerusalem. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump spoke by phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday as Washington prepared for a possible resumption of strikes, days after Trump consulted senior US military commanders at the White House about options for restarting major combat operations.

Axios, citing one Israeli and one US source, reported that Netanyahu pressed Trump to resume strikes immediately after the midterms while the president preferred to let diplomatic negotiations with Tehran continue for the time being. The Israeli source described the call as "tough" and the US source characterized it as "direct." The White House and Netanyahu's office declined to comment, Axios reported.

Trump said Sunday that he had held a "very good" call with Netanyahu the previous day and confirmed the two had discussed Iran, without giving further details. He said negotiations were progressing but questioned Tehran's reliability, saying the Islamic Republic had previously reached agreements before backing away from them.

Trump added that Washington still needed to address "one or two" remaining sites in Iran, including the suspected nuclear facility at Pickaxe Mountain. "We can do that in 10 minutes. We have that planned. You can look at Pickaxe Mountain. We need to take care of that. We can do that very quickly," he told reporters. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday that Trump would "prefer to solve it diplomatically," while adding that the president has "incredible confidence" in military action if it is needed.