Trump — not Iran — was 'begging' for a ceasefire: report

President Donald Trump, not Iran, is the one who was “begging” for a ceasefire, and had been for weeks before he announced a “double sided” end to hostilities late Tuesday evening, according to The New Republic, citing a report in the Financial Times.

That report reveals that “the Trump administration had been privately pushing for a ceasefire for weeks to alleviate the economic strain caused by Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, and depending on Pakistan for mediation.”

Citing five people familiar with a diplomatic back channel to Pakistan, which had been negotiating for peace between Iran and the U.S., Trump had been asking for a ceasefire since March 21, 22 days after he began the war.

“This contradicts virtually everything the Trump administration has claimed about Iran—that Trump’s constant bombings and threats of extinction caused a wounded, demoralized Iranian regime to limp to the negotiating table, desperate for a deal with the U.S.,” The New Republic reported.

“And just so we set the record straight,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting two weeks ago, “because I’ve been watching the Wall Street Journal’s fake news, and all these stories that get printed like, ‘Oh, I want to make a deal.’ They are begging to make a deal, not me.”

Trump went on to call Iran “lousy fighters” but “great negotiators” who “are begging to work out a deal.”

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to do that,” he continued. “I don’t know if we’re willing to do that.”