OAN Staff Lillian Mann
3:47 PM – Wednesday, April 15, 2026

President Donald Trump said the Iran conflict is “very close to over,” expressing optimism that a diplomatic resolution could be reached amid a two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran.

On Wednesday, Trump expressed during an interview on “Mornings with Maria” with Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo that peace in the Middle East may be closer than we think.

“I think its close to over, yeah. I view it as very close to over,” he told Bartiromo.

Despite the lack of a breakthrough at last weekend’s peace talks led by Vice President JD Vance and a team of U.S. diplomats discussing issues regarding Tehran’s nuclear program and enrichment plans, negotiations are set to restart on Thursday.

“If I pulled up stakes right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild that country. And we’re not finished,” Trump said. “We’ll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal very badly.”

The president said the U.S. operation, dubbed “Operation Epic Fury,” was necessary to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons capabilities.

“I had to divert because if I didn’t do that, right now, you’d have Iran with a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “And if they had a nuclear weapon, you’d be calling everybody over there ‘sir,’ and you don’t want to do that.”

Trump also emphasized that oil prices – which have soared recently due to supply disruptions – would soon fall back down, predicting that as soon as the conflict subsides the “stock market is going to boom, it’s already booming.”

On Monday, Vance commented that despite the lack of agreement, U.S. officials and Iranian officials had made “a lot of progress” during their meeting. He claimed that what happens next in the conflict ultimately rests in Iran’s hands.

“The ball is very much in their court. You ask what happens next, I think the Iranians are going to determine what happens next,” Vance told Fox News.

VICE PRESIDENT VANCE says the ball is in Iran's court after peace talks collapsed: "We made very clear, look, these are the things that we're willing to give, but these are the things that we must have. We must have the enriched material out of Iran. We must have their conclusive… pic.twitter.com/DA9Je52Qu0

— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 13, 2026

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