Trump backs Pete Hegseth amid renewed tensions with Iran – as it happened

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Donald Trump said today that he had paused US strikes on Iran to give diplomacy another chance, but he was ready for strong military action" if diplomacy fails.

Washington was in very deep talks with Iran", the president told Axios, but, he added: If they don't work out, we will be go back to very strong military action."

I am going to talk to Bibi about the fact that if I weren't president, Iran would have had nuclear weapons by now and Israel would have been destroyed.

Without me, there would be no Israel.