The news cycle has gotten strangely quiet about the war in Iran since Pete Hegseth's press briefing yesterday morning. Perhaps a little too quiet.
Donald Trump's unilateral ceasefire extension will expire sometime in the next 48 hours. Trump will spend the evening at the White House Correspondents Dinner, the first time he has attended the annual event as president. That timing alone seems, well, a bit curious for a wartime commander-in-chief:
President Donald Trump is set to attend White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner for the first time as commander-in-chief, surrounded by the journalists he routinely berates and threatens.
Until now, Trump had been the only president in the event’s century-long history not to attend at least once while in office. In years past, presidents have typically endured a light roasting from the dinner’s headliner, typically a comedian.
This year, the correspondents’ association opted to book mentalist Oz Pearlman. The association also didn’t have a comedian perform last year, instead focusing on its journalism awards.
Why choose this year? Perhaps Trump wants to generate some buzz as the midterm cycle begins to pick up steam. He might just have decided to attend anyway, since the war has kept him in DC more on the weekends rather than at Mar-a-Lago. The decision didn't come at the last minute; the White House announced last month that Trump would attend, which means his acceptance of the invitation may not have necessarily been strategic.
That doesn't mean Trump can't use it strategically, however. And right now, it appears Trump will have that opportunity.
Iran's regime still refuses to negotiate on any of Trump's terms, as the attempt by Pakistan to hold Islamabad II: Taqiyya Boogaloo has flopped. Abbas Araghchi has already left Pakistan to continue his Anywhere But Tehran When The S*** Goes Down tour, while Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner are just arriving in Islamabad:
Iran’s delegation has left Pakistan, two Pakistani government sources have told Reuters.
Tehran had denied direct talks with Washington would take place in Islamabad and that Iran’s position would be communicated to Pakistan’s mediators instead.
Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said that talks with Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday were a “warm, cordial exchange of views on the current regional situation”.
Araghchi arrived in Islamabad for discussions about the future of a deal with the US but Tehran denied that the negotiations would encompass “direct talks” with American counterparts and said that their position would instead be conveyed by Pakistani officials.
Araghchi may have had a "warm, cordial exchange" with Pakistan's PM, but he didn't warm up on the idea of good-faith negotiations. Reuters reported just before Araghchi left that the regime "will not accept maximalist demands," ie, any discussion of removing the highly enriched uranium and ending the development of nuclear weapons. The IRGC isn't even allowing Araghchi to meet with the US negotiating team, a point they made clear all week after calling Araghchi an "idiot" over the ceasefire agreement the week before.
That leaves Witkoff and Kushner with little to do in Islamabad. Trump will still have them meet with Sharif and his team, but unless Araghchi passed notes under the table to the Pakistani PM, this will only result in frequent-flier miles bonuses:
Mr. Trump, Vice President JD Vance, who has been leading the talks with the Iranians, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio “will be waiting here in the United States for updates,” Ms. Leavitt added.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, arrived in Islamabad on Friday, Iranian state media reported. He was carrying a written response to a U.S. proposal for a peace deal, according to two senior Iranian officials familiar with his plans.
Earlier, the Iranian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, said Mr. Araghchi had been expected to meet with Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner this weekend. But later, a spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, Esmail Baghaei, said in a post on X that no meeting was planned between Iran and the United States in Pakistan and that Iran would convey its position through Pakistani officials.
It's possible that Araghchi passed along major concessions privately while maintaining defiance publicly. But why bother? If IRGC chief/Nepo Babytollah puppetteer Ahmad Vahidi had decided to concede on the nuclear issue – which is Trump's very clear red line – the regime could just announce it and demand an end to the blockade on that basis. Vahidi doesn't have to worry about a hardliner reaction to compromise, in what I call the Michael Collins Conundrum; Vahidi is the hardliner reaction. And Araghchi would have waited to deliver that message personally to Kushner and Witkoff, not bugged out for Muscat or the Muscovites before they even arrived.
Given the circumstances, Araghchi's note most likely contains the same-old tertiary-or-lesser tier of concessions Iran has used to stall the war while demanding that the US and the world recognize the IRGC's sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. His departure makes it clear that the regime has no interest in further negotiations, which is either impressive chutzpah, sheer suicidal insanity, or both. That leaves Trump to decide whether to keep extending the ceasefire while forcing open the Strait of Hormuz and maintaining the blockade's slow strangulation of the IRGC, or to chuck it and go back to the original shock-and-awe consequences Trump threatened to get the ceasefire agreement two weeks ago.
Nothing will happen while Witkoff and Kushner are in Pakistan. But they can be on a plane and into friendly airspace before the first bad joke gets told at Nerd Prom tonight, and Trump might be inclined to use it as a setup for whatever strategic surprise can be squeezed out of it.
Update: Maybe Trump is ready to act now:
🚨 BREAKING: President Trump just told me over the phone he has unilaterally cancelled Witkoff and Kushner’s trip to Pakistan to meet with the Iranians.
— Aishah Hasnie (@aishahhasnie) April 25, 2026
"I've told my people a little while ago they were getting ready to leave, and I said, 'Nope, you're not making an 18 hour…
"I've told my people a little while ago they were getting ready to leave, and I said, 'Nope, you're not making an 18 hour flight to go there. We have all the cards. They can call us anytime they want, but you're not going to be making any more 18 hour flights to sit around talking about nothing'."
I wondered about that, too. This also confirms that Araghchi didn't offer anything of value to Sharif in their meeting. If Araghchi had made any serious concessions on peace talks, Witkoff and Kushner would have flown to Islamabad to get personally briefed by the Pakistani PM. Trump doesn't sound inclined to play along with Taqiyya Boogaloo for much longer.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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