Trump Holds Situation Room Meeting As U.S. Weighs Iran Options
The conflict between the United States and Iran may be entering a far more dangerous phase after President Donald Trump convened his top national security advisers for a high-level Situation Room meeting.
The closed-door session came as U.S. forces continued military operations against Iranian targets and the president publicly warned that even more devastating strikes could be on the horizon if Tehran refuses to negotiate.
President Trump met Tuesday with senior members of his national security team to discuss plans for a significantly expanded military campaign against Iran, according to multiple sources familiar with the meeting.
Axios first reported that the discussions centered on military options extending well beyond the current U.S. strikes around the Strait of Hormuz, with the goal of increasing pressure on Iran to reopen the strategic waterway and accept U.S. demands regarding its nuclear program.
According to the report, those attending the meeting included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, White House envoy Steve Witkoff and other senior national security officials.
The White House declined to comment on the meeting or the reported military discussions.
The meeting took place as U.S. forces carried out a fourth consecutive day of strikes targeting Iranian air-defense systems, radar installations, anti-ship missile positions and drone launch sites near the Strait of Hormuz.
According to U.S. officials, those operations are intended to significantly reduce Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping through one of the world’s most important energy corridors.
Iran has continued retaliatory attacks against U.S. positions in the region, including missile and drone strikes targeting American bases in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain, while also threatening broader disruptions to Middle Eastern energy exports.
On Tuesday, the United States also implemented a naval blockade targeting Iranian ports as part of its broader military response.
Before entering the Situation Room, Trump signaled that the current campaign could expand dramatically if Iran refuses to negotiate.
“The U.S. military is going to hit Iran hard over the next three days,” Trump said during an interview with Fox News.
He added that the campaign could broaden even further afterward.
“Next week, it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants,” Trump said.
“Next week comes the bridges. We’re gonna knock out all their power plants. We’re gonna knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.”
Trump also discussed Pickaxe Mountain, a heavily fortified underground site that U.S. and Israeli officials have long viewed as a possible component of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
The president said U.S. intelligence continues monitoring activity at the facility but indicated there is currently little movement there.
“If there’s even just a small amount, we’ll hit it and we’ll hit it hard,” Trump said.
According to Trump, U.S. negotiators also communicated with Iranian officials Tuesday, delivering a blunt warning that Tehran must return to negotiations.
“I said, ‘You better make a deal, or you’re not gonna have anything left,'” the president said.
No final decision on any expanded military campaign has been publicly announced.
However, Tuesday’s Situation Room meeting underscores that the administration is actively weighing additional military options as both diplomatic efforts and combat operations continue simultaneously, Axios reported.
Whether Iran chooses renewed negotiations or the conflict escalates into a broader regional war could depend on decisions made in the coming days by leaders in both Washington and Tehran.
Trump ‘Briefed With Options’ Amid Stalled Iran Talks
The Trump administration on Wednesday continued to express optimism about negotiations with Iran, even as Iranian officials insist that no direct talks have taken place, according to reports.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister said no face-to-face meeting had occurred in Doha and that no direct negotiations with the United States were currently planned.
Despite Tehran’s position, President Donald Trump described the discussions as “very good,” apparently referring to indirect contacts involving U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner communicating through third-party intermediaries.
Vice President JD Vance struck a firmer tone the same day, warning that the United States could escalate its response if Iran refuses to cooperate or takes actions that further destabilize the Middle East.
His remarks underscored the administration’s message that while it remains open to a diplomatic resolution, additional measures remain on the table if negotiations fail.
“If Iran attempts to rebuild its nuclear program, threaten its neighbors and support terrorism, President Trump has options to deal with it,” Vance noted, without elaborating.
Earlier, a Wall Street Journal report claimed that Trump had been briefed on several military options, including “all-out war,” but Trump said he wanted to give diplomacy more time.
Vance additionally stated that the US “dropped bombs on Iran because it fired on ships, and we used leverage to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.”
He went on to suggest that the U.S. could take that course of action again.
Vance also said the current talks are “to discuss the details and flow of maritime traffic.”
The vice president, addressing U.S. military personnel at a naval base in Virginia on Wednesday, also said that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back decades.
“If you look at what our own intelligence says about their nuclear program, they are further away from developing a nuclear bomb than they have ever been since basically the last 20 or 30 years,” Vance said, though he stopped short of Trump’s claim that the program had been “totally obliterated.”
“What the president asks you to accomplish is to destroy the defense industrial base of that country, so that if they ever decided to rebuild their military, or if they ever decided to rebuild that nuclear program, they would be harmless to do it. You did that exactly as well,” Vance added, per the Times of Israel.
The VP went on to say that Trump is now “negotiating from a position of strength because of you.”
“If the Iranians try to rebuild the nuclear program, the President’s got options. If the Iranians try to threaten their neighbors or fund terrorism, we’ve got options,” Vance continued.
“But what we must never do is drop bombs just for the sake of dropping bombs. And that is what the president will never ask you to do,” Vance added.
“He’ll ask you to go to war, yes. But when he asks you to go to war, he’ll tell you exactly what you’re going for,” the veep noted further.
“And I think that is what you should expect out of your political leadership.”
“What I noticed about the people who are attacking the administration for negotiating is that they are the very same people who, for example, encouraged us to just go a little bit further and just drop a few more bombs in places like Afghanistan,” he said.
“If you go back to the mistakes that were made, those very same people refused to say what we were dropping bombs for,” he added.
“We dropped some bombs a couple of days ago… Because the Iranians were shooting at commercial ships… We applied some leverage, and we’ve had free commercial transit for the last three days,” Vance told the naval personnel.
