Trump Sets Deadline: Will Decide on Iran Strike by Fourth of July

President Donald Trump will decide within the next two weeks whether to strike Iran amid exploding tensions with Israel , White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

"Based on the fact that there's a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future," Leavitt said Thursday at a press briefing on behalf of President Donald Trump. "I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks ."

The two-week mark will roughly coincide with the Fourth of July when Americans celebrate their independence from Great Britain.

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A reporter followed up and asked whether people can trust that the president will follow through with this "two-week" threat, which he has taunted in the past while negotiating other conflicts such as the Ukraine war.

Leavitt circumvented the question by placing blame on the Biden administration for its "weakness" in allowing these wars to be stoked abroad.

"The president has spent a tremendous amount of time and effort cleaning up the crises that were caused by the last administration's complete dereliction of duty on the world stage in American weakness. Now, we have American strength again."

Trump's threats will turn up the pressure on Iran to strike a nuclear deal with the United States. During his first term in 2018, Trump notably tore up the original Iranian nuclear deal reached in 2015 among five key members of the U.N. Security Council.

However, some have cast doubt on whether Trump's negotiating tactics will usher a deal over the finish line.

Another reporter later asked whether the White House believes it can actually negotiate with Iran after faltering discussions that sparked Israel's ongoing attacks.

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"I'm not going into the reasoning and the rationale, the president believes that. But that's his position," Leavitt responded. "And he will make a decision within the next two weeks."

The remarks come as fears surge about U.S. involvement in a wider regional war in the Middle East alongside Israel, which critics have compared to the Iraq war.

Similarly, the U.S. was lured into Iraq under false pretenses about weapons of mass destruction (WMD), leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence officials do not believe that Iran seeks a nuclear weapon. Yet, both the U.S. and Israel are nuclear-armed nations.