Iran Immediately Shuts Down Trump’s Ceasefire Talk Claims

Donald Trump’s plan for Iran is changing by the minute.

Iran’s newly installed leadership immediately refuted Trump’s claims that the country was open to a ceasefire, informing state media Wednesday morning that the idea was “false and baseless.”

Iran’s revolutionary guard issued a separate statement with regard to the Strait of Hormuz, writing that the oil passageway “is firmly and decisively under the control” of Iranian forces.

“This strait will not be opened to the enemies of this nation through the ridiculous spectacle by the president of the United States,” the revolutionary guard wrote.

The notice came moments after Trump boasted online that Iran had requested a ceasefire, which the U.S. leader insisted would not happen unless the strait opened up to trade.

“Iran’s New Regime President, much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!” Trump wrote Wednesday morning. “We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”

It is possible that Trump’s morning remarks were in response to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who suggested Tuesday that his country had the “necessary will” to end the war but would first need guarantees that the conflict would not repeat itself. Pezeshkian is not new to his presidential role, nor is he the new Supreme Leader of Iran—that would be Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of previous Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated in February by a U.S.-Israeli joint operation. The junior Khamenei is considered even more extreme, and has been described as his father “on steroids.”

The White House’s stance Wednesday was even more bewildering in light of comments that Trump had made the night before. He claimed he was entirely uninterested in the strait and was considering backing out of Iran even while the waterway remains closed, effectively delaying the conflict for a future administration.

“We will be leaving very soon, and if France or some other country wants to get oil or gas, they will go up through the strait, the Hormuz Strait, and will be able to fend for themselves,” Trump said. “But we have nothing to do with that. What happens in the strait—we aren’t going to have anything to do with it.

“There is no reason for us to do it,” he said.

Situated between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, the Strait of Hormuz is the single most important energy transit point in the world, funneling approximately one-fifth of all crude oil shipments. In 2024, the U.S. imported roughly 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day through the strait, accounting for about 7 percent of total U.S. crude imports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The price of oil and gas has skyrocketed in the weeks since the war began. On Tuesday, gas prices eclipsed $4 a gallon across the nation, hitting Americans in their wallets.

While the United States inflicts death on Iranian civilians and devastates Cubans with its oil blockade, President Trump is busy trying to classify antifa—a leaderless group that has become an umbrella term for any kind of anti-fascist resistance—as a counterterrorism threat. 

Puck News reported Tuesday that the administration is pushing to add the group to the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, which the intelligence community has used to prioritize its targets—and determine who to spy on—since 9/11. That framework is traditionally made up of groups like Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS. Now a vague group that even law enforcement and counterterrorism “experts” have struggled to define may share equal status to them. “They’re putting antifa on the list and bumping them up in the queue in a way that doesn’t correspond to threats,” a national security official told Puck.

The vagueness seems to be the point. By painting this broad brush, they can cast anyone in their way—regardless of any kind of connection to “antifa”—as a literal domestic terrorist, opening the door to repression of the highest order.  

A “trigger happy” Pete Hegseth has used the conflict in Iran to boost his own position in the Trump administration, CNN reported Tuesday. 

After the Signalgate scandal, Hegseth found himself in the doghouse of Donald Trump’s Cabinet, spiraling about leaks and scrambling to justify missile strikes on foreign boats. But in recent weeks, the secretary has been able to reestablish himself by becoming the number one cheerleader for Trump’s plan to join Israel in launching a military campaign against Iran. 

“Once the president made the decision, [Hegseth] was the no. 1 supporter of it, as he should be,” one senior White House official told CNN. “He’s still responsible for making sure it’s a success.”

Not only did Hegseth validate the president’s idea to strike, he also downplayed the risks of the conflict spiraling out of control, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Weeks later, and the world has watched as Iran has launched a barrage of retaliatory strikes that have shuttered the Strait of Hormuz and upended global trade.

Now Hegseth is the star of press briefings where he waxes poetic about the lethality of warfighters and the fate of the free world. 

“He’s very trigger happy,” one source familiar with Hegseth’s current mindset told CNN. The defense secretary believes that “blowing shit up” is the best way for him to keep his job, the source added.

This sounds like a pretty good strategy for keeping up with a president obsessed with spectacle. Earlier this month, Trump suggested that Hegseth wants to keep the fighting going.  

“You know, the only two people that were quite disappointed, I don’t want to say this, but I have to,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Pete and Gen. Razin’ Caine, I think this thing’s going to be settled very soon.’ They go, ‘Oh, that’s too bad, right?’ Pete didn’t want it to be settled.”

A White House source pushed back on the implication that Hegseth needed to be worried about his job. “The president is very pleased with him, and was before the Iran situation,” the source said.

A Trump administration official continues to insist that he once teleported to a Waffle House, despite being mocked. 

As CNN reported in late March, Phillips has spoken on multiple podcasts about his teleportation activities, which include having gone to a church and to the breakfast restaurant chain. On one of the podcasts, Phillips, who serves as associate administrator for the Office of Response and Recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Association, said, “Teleporting is no fun. It was real.” But a follow-up CNN report reveals that Phillips has since doubled down, posting repeatedly on social media that the experience is real and connected to his religious beliefs. 

On Truth Social late last month, Phillips wrote, “I know what I’ve experienced, I know Who I serve.” Replying to another detractor, Phillips posted, “I have no regrets for my words nor my faith in my Savior, Jesus Christ. The Bible has many examples of the power of God.” In still another post, Phillips cited a passage from the New Testament’s Book of Acts where the Holy Spirit “snatched” away the apostle Philip after a baptism on a road between Jerusalem and Gaza, and Philip is then described as showing up in the city of Azotus, miles away. 

On a podcast in January 2025, Phillips said of the Waffle House experience, “I was with my boys one time, and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House. And I ended up at a Waffle House—this was in Georgia, and I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was.” 

Phillips’s job at FEMA has a lot of responsibility, dealing with emergency aid, restoring infrastructure, search and rescue operations, and distributing disaster assistance amounting to billions of dollars. At least one high-ranking official at the agency has praised his efforts, calling him “FEMA’s best hope at this moment” when he was hired back in December. 

But Phillips’s past—aside from his teleportation fixation—is controversial. As a major proponent of the “Big Lie,” the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump only lost the 2020 election because it was rigged against him, he had a prominent role in Dinesh D’Souza’s election-denial flop film 2000 Mules. And in January 2025, he said on a podcast regarding President Biden, “I would like to punch that b*tch in the mouth right now. He is a nasty, shitty, crappy human being, and he deserves to die. And I hope he does.”  

Last week, Phillips was supposed to testify at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing, but after CNN’s initial report, he was taken off of the schedule. Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson said at the hearing that Phillips’s “violent rhetoric and wild conspiracy theories are troubling for someone who holds a leadership position at DHS.” 

Thompson was joined by Democratic Representative Tim Kennedy, who said Phillips was “wildly unfit for his role as head of FEMA response and recovery” because of “his violent statements about former President Biden” and “deeply troubling bigoted comments about immigrants.” 

“All of which, to me, makes him wholly disqualified to hold his position on its own—but only to be outdone by his claims of being teleported to a Waffle House,” Kennedy added.

There will be zero consequences for the Army pilots that decided to fly their helicopters around Kid Rock’s house during a No Kings protest on Saturday.

Two Apache attack helicopters first flew over a protest in Nashville, Tennessee. They then hovered outside the MAGA musician’s nearby 27,000-square-foot mansion, a replica of the executive estate that Rock has dubbed the “Southern White House.” The incident was caught on tape by someone at the house, who also filmed Kid Rock saluting the choppers.

The crew of the aircraft was suspended Tuesday as a result. An Army spokesperson said that the incident was under administrative review, and “appropriate action” would be taken if any violations are discovered.

That review has since been thrown out the window at the behest of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“​​Thank you @KidRock,” Hegseth wrote on X Tuesday evening, sharing the country rapper’s video. “@USArmy pilots suspension LIFTED.”

“No punishment. No investigation,” Hegseth added, along with an American flag emoji. “Carry on, patriots.”

The Army identified the aircraft as AH-64 Apache helicopters that were operating around Nashville. A military spokesperson told NBC News Monday that the aircraft flew from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to the Nashville area, and that the flyby and showboating over the musician’s house was entirely coincidental.

Donald Trump weighed in on the vehicles’ odd flight path Tuesday, telling Fox News’s Peter Doocy that “they probably shouldn’t have been doing it” and that the Army is “not supposed to be playing games.” But, in an apparent defense of their behavior, Trump suggested that “they like Kid Rock. I like Kid Rock. Maybe they were trying to defend him. I don’t know.”

“I’m sure they had a good time,” Trump said.

Rock, a country rapper from Detroit, has become an increasingly prominent figure in the MAGA scene in recent years. He played at the Republican National Convention in 2024, was present in the White House as Donald Trump signed an executive order to curb ticket scalping in March 2025, and headlined Turning Point USA’s counterprogramming to Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show in February.

He’s also gotten close with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., playing a prominent role in a series of agency-sponsored “Make America Healthy Again” adverts that featured Kennedy and Rock chugging milk and swimming in a pool with pants on.