Trump Says He Is Choosing Between a Deal and Finishing It
Asked about Iran in a television interview on Sunday, the American president said he was weighing whether to make a deal or, in his words, “finish them off”. No date is attached to any of it. He has previously said strikes would not resume until after the midterm elections on 3 November, and Tehran responded by saying its policies are unchanged.
We declined a version of this story this morning because two outlets had converted a refusal to answer into a date, and the caution holds up: both approved outlets carrying today’s remarks state plainly that he has said any strikes would wait until after 3 November, and the last confirmed American strikes on Iran were on 1 September. There is a second reason for care. Three outlets render the same sentence three different ways — “finish it off”, “finish them off” and “finish the job” — and two of them reverse the order of its clauses, so only the short common phrase is quoted here and no full sentence is presented as verbatim. Iran’s foreign minister answered on the record: “Recently, there has been talk of a new war, but I am already thinking about the post-war period. Whether there is war or not, our policies remain the same.” His spokesman, asked about tomorrow’s Israeli election, said it made no difference who takes the helm. Watch 3 November, not this week.