Trump confirms IRGC backchannel, but calls for Iran's 'white flag of surrender'

The 60-day ceasefire deadline is expiring Monday, but President Donald Trump's resolve on ending Iran's nuclear weapons aspirations is not, he told Fox News on Monday morning, where he confirmed there is a backchannel for peace talks with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

"They should put up the white flag of surrender," Trump said in a phone interview, confirming reports of the IRGC backchannel talks that bypass mediators and Iranian political officials.

While the 60-day ceasefire expires Monday, Trump said there is still time for peace and Iran's relenting to Trump's primary demand: "The number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon," as he wrote on Truth Social around the time of the exclusive call with Fox News' Trey Yingst.

"I have no time schedule," Trump told Yingst. "I'm not in a hurry."

While Trump has long lamented reaching peace with a fractured Iranian regime that has had multiple levels of leadership killed in past strikes, he confirmed U.S. officials are communicating directly through a backchannel with IRGC officials.

"They're good poker players, but they're dying," Trump said.

"Midterms have nothing to do with my thinking," he told Yingst.

Trump told Yingst that the U.S. has a "direct backchannel" to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for negotiations, despite public pronouncements from Tehran that it has no interest in negotiating with the United States.

Trump also issued an extraordinary warning to Oman when asked about the Gulf nation's role in talks involving Iran.

"If Oman gets in the way, we'll bomb the s--- out of them," Trump said.

Trump also pushed back on concerns over the strain the conflict might be placing on U.S. weapons stockpiles, playing down the amount of American firepower used so far.

"What we've used is peanuts," Trump said. "We have a lot of mid-level weapons."