'They're scum, liars, sick people': Trump declares Iran ceasefire 'over' after overnight strikes

President Donald Trump fueled a round of concerns around the stability of the ceasefire with Iran, suggesting that it was over on Tuesday. "I don't want to deal with them anymore. They're scum. They're led by sick people, and they're vicious, violent people. If they had a nuclear weapon, they'd use it. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them. They're liars," he told reporters during the NATO summit, but clarified that negotiations will continue in the meantime.

Trump said he will speak to negotiators (Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner), who he said want to continue the discussions, but said that they ultimately have to report to him. "We make a deal. Everyone's agreed—no nuclear weapon. They go outside and talk to the press. They say, 'We never even talked about it.' There's something wrong with them. They're cuckoo," he said, adding on Wednesday that the U.S. is planning to hit Iran again tonight. "I'll give them a little warning," he asserted.

How did we get here?

The President's comments come in the wake of the U.S. military launching offensive strikes against Iran, in which it claimed to have hit over 80 targets in retaliation for Iran's attacks on commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz. "... struck Iranian air defense systems, command and control networks, coastal radar sites, anti-ship missile capabilities, and more than 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats in and near the strait," U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

The move was meant to neutralize Iran's ability to attack international commerce flowing through the trade corridor. The U.S. also revoked a license that enabled Iran to conduct oil sales in U.S. dollars for the first time in years, as part of the interim deal signed weeks earlier, according to the Associated Press, which added that the price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, shot up by more than 5%.

The statement referred to Tehran's targeting of three commercial vessels, which included the Marshall Islands-flagged M/T Al Rekayyat, the Saudi Arabia-flagged M/T Wedyan, and the Liberian-flagged M/T Cyprus Prosperity. "The unwarranted aggression by Iranian forces is a clear and dangerous violation of the ceasefire and undermines freedom of navigation," the statement continued.

Such attacks have been exchanged in the past following the ceasefire in April, but they highlight the tenuous nature of the interim agreement and the negotiations to reach a permanent deal within 60 days. The process nearly unraveled after Iran's delegation walked out of the negotiating site in protest after President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to threaten Tehran over its support for proxies in Lebanon. The walkout did not derail the talks entirely.

Meanwhile, Iran's parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said the U.S. has repeatedly violated the memorandum of understanding signed between the two parties. "Violating Iranian adjustments in the Strait. Persistent threats of further strikes. Reinstating oil sanctions. Attacks on southern Iran. Continued Zionist aggression on 🇱🇧. The era of bullying and extortion is over. It leads nowhere. We don't fold," he wrote on X.