As the deadline hour approaches, Tehran rejects a temporary truce and counters with sweeping demands Washington will not accept; the President celebrates a historic rescue mission while warning of catastrophic escalation

President Donald Trump strode to the White House podium on Monday in a mood of barely contained triumph, flanked by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine — but even as he celebrated one of the most audacious combat rescues in American military history, the clock was ticking toward a Tuesday evening deadline that could tip the U.S.-Iran war into a far more devastating phase.

The press conference, called primarily to mark the successful recovery of two U.S. Air Force crewmen shot down over Iranian territory last week, was quickly overtaken by the looming diplomatic crisis: Iran had officially rejected a ceasefire proposal brokered by Pakistan, and Tehran’s state news agency IRNA reported that Iran had conveyed to Pakistani intermediaries its insistence on a permanent end to the war rather than any temporary pause. The response set the stage for what Trump threatened could be a sweeping assault on Iran’s civilian infrastructure beginning Tuesday night.

Trump opened the conference with an extended account of what he called “one of the largest, most complex, most harrowing combat searches ever attempted by the military.” An American F-15E Strike Eagle had gone down deep inside Iran on Thursday night during Operation Epic Fury. Both crewmembers ejected and survived. The pilot, designated “Dude 44 Alpha,” was recovered within hours in a daylight operation involving A-10 Warthogs, Jolly Green helicopters, and Air Force Special Warfare airmen flying seven hours over hostile territory under fire.

The weapons system officer — “Dude 44 Bravo,” described as a “highly respected colonel” — was a more harrowing case. Injured, he evaded capture for nearly 48 hours, scaling cliff faces while bleeding, treating his own wounds, and transmitting his location through a personal emergency beacon. The CIA, using what Ratcliffe described as “unique capabilities” including a deception campaign to mislead Iranian searchers, eventually spotted movement on a mountainside from 40 miles away and confirmed the officer’s location.

A second rescue mission involving 155 aircraft — including four bombers, 64 fighters, and 48 refueling tankers — descended on his position under cover of darkness on Easter Sunday and extracted him with no American fatalities.
“Shot down on a Friday, hidden in a cave all of Saturday, rescued on…Sunday,” said Hegseth. “A pilot reborn. God is good.”

Trump acknowledged that not everyone in the military had supported either rescue attempt. “There were military people that said you don’t go into the heart of a very powerful military,” he said. “Hundreds of people could have been killed.” He said he overruled the dissenters. “I decided to do it.”

The President was visibly moved describing the moment the contingency aircraft — brought in when the primary transports bogged down on a muddy, impromptu airstrip deep in Iran — landed and extracted the team with textbook precision. “Boom, boom, boom,” he said. “Right after another, like genius.”

Beneath the ceremony, the diplomatic picture was deteriorating rapidly.

A draft proposal formulated by Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey calling for a 45-day ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz had been sent to both Iran and the U.S. The framework, sometimes referred to as the “Islamabad Accord,” was described as a last-ditch effort ahead of Trump’s deadline. Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, was reported to have been in contact throughout the night with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as negotiators worked to avert catastrophe.

But Iran’s response, when it came, was a rejection. According to the official IRNA news agency, Iran delivered its response to the U.S. proposal via Pakistan, rejecting a ceasefire and underscoring the need for a permanent conclusion to the war. The response outlined 10 provisions, including ending regional hostilities, lifting sanctions, and supporting reconstruction efforts.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei called the earlier 15-point U.S. proposal “excessive, unusual and illogical,” and said Tehran was seeking “an end to the war and to prevent its recurrence.” He added that any diplomatic talks are “absolutely incompatible with ultimatums, crimes, and threats to commit war crimes,” a reference to Trump’s threat to bomb Iranian infrastructure.

A source familiar with the details told The Jerusalem Post: “The gaps are very significant.”

When asked about the Iranian response at the press conference, Trump acknowledged it without satisfaction. “They made a proposal, and it’s a significant proposal,” he said. “It’s not good enough, but it’s a very significant step.”

He confirmed the Tuesday evening deadline stands. “They have till tomorrow at 8:00 Eastern Time,” he told reporters. “After that, they’re going to have no bridges, they’re going to have no power plants. Stone ages.”

At the center of the impasse is the Strait of Hormuz, which Iranian forces have kept closed or threatened since the war’s opening weeks. Trump warned that attacking civilian infrastructure was something he hoped not to have to do, but added that he believed the Iranian public was willing to suffer more bombing in order to gain freedom, citing what he described as intercepted communications from Iranian citizens pleading for continued strikes.

When asked whether such targeting might constitute a war crime, Trump was direct: “No. I hope I don’t have to do it.”

Legal experts quoted in multiple outlets have warned that strikes on power plants and bridges with no direct military function would violate international law and U.S. military doctrine. Iranian officials, for their part, accused Trump of threats to commit atrocities. A spokesman for Iran’s president, Seyyed Mehdi Tabatabai, called Trump’s rhetoric a reaction of “sheer desperation and anger,” and said the Strait of Hormuz “will open when all the damage caused by the imposed war is compensated through a new legal regime.”

Iran’s 10-point counteroffer — a permanent ceasefire, full sanctions relief, reconstruction guarantees, and a new framework governing the Strait — represents terms the United States has shown no willingness to entertain. Mediators are attempting to work on partial confidence-building measures, but sources told Axios that the two core issues — the Strait and Iran’s uranium stockpile — are not ones Iran will fully concede in exchange for a 45-day pause.

Iranian mediators have made clear they do not want a situation “where there is a ceasefire on paper but where the US and Israel can attack again whenever they want to,” the Jerusalem Post reports.

Ranging widely during the conference, Trump took aim at NATO — calling it “a paper tiger” — for declining to join Operation Epic Fury, and listed South Korea, Japan, and Australia alongside European allies as countries that had failed to provide meaningful support. “They said, ‘Sir, we’d rather wait till you win,'” he said of British overtures. “I don’t need help after we win.”

He defended the military campaign’s scale, noting that U.S. forces had conducted more than 10,000 combat flights over Iran in 37 days and struck more than 13,000 targets. He credited the destruction of Iranian radar, air defenses, and naval capacity, though he acknowledged the Strait’s closure remained a vulnerability that airpower alone cannot easily resolve. “All you need is one terrorist with a truck full of water mines,” he said.

Trump expressed a measure of optimism about the changed Iranian political landscape following what he described as “regime change” — emphasizing that he considers the current Iranian leadership less radical than its predecessors — but warned that he would not allow any Iranian government to obtain a nuclear weapon.

He connected the current campaign to his first-term withdrawal from the Obama-era nuclear deal and the 2020 killing of General Qassem Soleimani, which he portrayed as foundational to the current military position.

“If I didn’t terminate the Obama Iran nuclear deal, they would have had a nuclear weapon,” he said. “Israel would have been extinguished. Large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished.”

Axios reported that the chances for reaching a partial deal in the next 48 hours are “slim,” but that this last-ditch effort may be the only chance to prevent a dramatic escalation that would include massive strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure and potential retaliation against energy and water facilities in Gulf states.
As of Monday evening, the diplomatic channel remains Pakistan, the sole intermediary with lines open to both sides. A White House official said Trump had not signed off on the mediators’ 45-day proposal, describing it as “one of many ideas,” and confirmed the military operation was continuing apace.

The two rescued airmen were back on American soil. The two governments were farther apart than the framework documents suggest. And by Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, the world will know whether the gap proved bridgeable — or whether Operation Epic Fury enters its next, and most destructive, chapter.