Trump Plans to Address Nation on Iran Wednesday Night

President Trump says the end of the Iran war is near, and the White House says plans to explain what comes next in a prime-time address Wednesday night. In a post on X, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump "will give an Address to the Nation to provide an important update on Iran" at 9pm Eastern. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said the US would wind down its military campaign in Iran within "two or three weeks" and again brushed off the closure of the Strait of Hormuz as a problem mainly for other nations.

• "We will be leaving soon," Trump said, though the New York Times reports that he mentioned different timelines. He said it would be "maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer to do the job. But we want to knock out every single thing they have."

Trump, who has repeatedly cited four or five objectives for the war, said he "had one goal: They will have no nuclear weapon and that goal has been attained," the AP reports. Later Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US was ahead of schedule with multiple objectives, including wiping out Iran's missile and drone factories, CNN reports. "We're well on our way. We are on or ahead of schedule on each of those four objectives and we can see the finish line. It's not today, it's not tomorrow but it's coming," Rubio told Sean Hannity in a Fox News appearance.

• Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told European Council President Antonio Costa on Tuesday that Iran had the "necessary will" to end the conflict with the US and Israel if "guarantees" were in place, Euronews reports. "We possess the necessary will to end this conflict, provided that essential conditions are met, especially the guarantees required to prevent repetition of the aggression," Pezeshkian said, according to a statement from his office.
• On the ground, the fighting showed little sign of wrapping up on Tuesday, the Times reports. A large airstrike hit the Iranian city of Isfahan, triggering a massive blast, and a Kuwaiti oil tanker went up in flames after a drone attack at a Dubai port, which Kuwaiti officials blamed on Iran. In Washington, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the US has begun flying B-52 bombers over Iran for the first time in the conflict, describing it as evidence that Iranian air defenses have been badly weakened.