Iran rejects. Trump wants the oil - weapons disappeared - and Tuesday is approaching

Iran has rejected the ceasefire proposal. The response was sent to Washington via Pakistan. Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, made it clear: We do not accept a mere ceasefire. We only accept an end to the war with guarantees that we will not be attacked again. The proposal of the Egyptian Pakistani Turkish mediators - 45 days pause, opening of the Strait of Hormuz, then negotiations - is therefore on hold for now. A regional diplomat involved in the talks said the efforts have not failed. They are still talking to both sides. What that means when one side has already said no remained open. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan spoke by phone with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi. Topic: the state of the war. No details were given.

Trump, meanwhile, was sitting at the Easter Egg Roll on the lawn of the White House and speaking with journalists. He said Iran simply does not want to give up. But they will. And if not, they will have no bridges, no power plants, nothing. He then added that there are other things, worse than those two - but he did not want to go into that further.

Shortly after, he said he would prefer to take Iran’s oil reserves. Just take them. The oil is there to be taken, there is nothing Iran can do about it. The American people do not want that, he said, so he will not do it. But if it were up to him.

Trump: "We have seen a complete regime change. The people there are now much more reasonable than the crazies you had in phase one … I think most people give us credit for that."

Fact check: Completely false. It is the same regime.

A sitting president, at Easter, talking about the annexation of a country.

Israel attacked three Tehran airports during the night - Bahram, Mehrabad, and Azmayesh. Dozens of helicopters and aircraft of the Iranian air force were destroyed according to Israeli statements. Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack on the petrochemical facility in Asaluyeh was part of a systematic campaign to destroy the financial machine of the Revolutionary Guards. Factories would be destroyed, activists and leadership figures eliminated. He also mentioned that he had spoken with Trump about the rescue of the two downed American crew members. Trump had thanked Israel for that.

Erdogan said in a televised address after a cabinet meeting that Turkey has intensified its efforts to end the war. They are trying to seize every possible opportunity, no matter how small, so that hostilities can stop and negotiations can begin. He did not give details. Israel, he said, is undermining all attempts to stop the fighting. This is not the first time he has said that.

Trump, meanwhile, defended his profanity filled post from Sunday, in which he had threatened Iran with the destruction of power plants and bridges. He said he chose the language to make his point. People have heard such words before. At the end of the post, he had written: Praise be to Allah. When asked what that meant, he did not answer.

Then Trump confirmed that the United States had tried to supply Iranian protesters with weapons after mass anti government protests broke out in the country in late 2025 and early 2026. Thousands of demonstrators were killed in the crackdowns by government forces. The weapons, Trump said, had been passed on through Kurdish groups. These groups kept the weapons. They were too beautiful to pass on. He did not provide an explanation of what that means and which groups are meant. Research that is not yet complete is ongoing. Trump said he is very angry at a certain group of people and they will pay a high price for it.

We sent them weapons. They were supposed to go to the people so they could defend themselves against these thugs. The people we sent them to kept them. I am angry at a certain group of people, and they will pay a high price for it.

A war in which weapons deliveries to protesters disappeared with intermediaries. A president mentioning this at the Easter Egg Roll. A deadline that expires in hours. And somewhere in Tehran, someone is sleeping with sleeping pills because the nights are otherwise unbearable.

The reality in Tehran is: constant bombs, air defense, drones. Many are now taking sleeping pills to get through the nightly bombardments. Many people at the beginning of the war still knew people who had hoped for an attack because they believed it could bring down the regime. These people no longer support the war. A woman from central Tehran describes how, after a strike in her neighborhood, she ran into the street and found it full of people in pajamas, some wrapped in blankets, some crying. War brings nothing but destruction and bloodshed, she said.

Journalist: How does it help the Iranian people if you bomb? - Trump: Who do you work for?

Journalist: PBS - Trump: That is a radical left group of lunatics. The people in Iran are angry when they do not hear bombs because they want to be free.

The Red Cross called for an immediate end to attacks on civilian infrastructure. President Mirjana Spoljaric wrote that possible threats to nuclear facilities are particularly alarming. Any miscalculation could have irreversible consequences for generations. The IAEA had already confirmed that a strike missed the Bushehr nuclear power plant by only 75 meters.

Beth Hammack, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, said the Fed may be forced to raise interest rates in view of rising gasoline prices and persistent inflation. That would be a significant reversal - before the war, the Fed had still planned two rate cuts for this year. Higher interest rates would make mortgages and car loans more expensive in the United States.

Israel’s Ministry of Defense announced that it will significantly increase production of interceptor missiles for the Arrow system. The war continues, and Israel is preparing for it to last for some time.