President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning reiterated his threats to strike Iran's critical infrastructure and criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a phone interview with Fox and Friends.
Trump is set to meet with Netanyahu in the Oval Office at 11 a.m. ET. The president criticized Netanyahu over media reports suggesting Netanyahu planned to discuss Israeli intelligence about potential Iranian excavation at Pickaxe Mountain, which lies one mile south of the Natanz nuclear enrichment complex near Isfahan.
"Well, I don't need Bibi to tell me that. Bibi is telling me that because he wants me to stay involved," Trump said.
"I heard Bibi announced that. I said, why don't you just tell it to me? Why do you have to announce it to the world? I know exactly what's going on at Pickaxe. It's not a big problem. We took out their nuclear sites and we'll have to take out Pickaxe if we don't make a deal," Trump added.
The president also again said that the U.S. and Iran were still talking -- something the Iranians have dismissed. But the president refused to address questions about who exactly the administration was speaking to in Iran.
"For some reason, we can be in the midst of a beautiful discussion and they'll come out and say, we're not talking or we didn't discuss nuclear. Well, that's all we discussed, because they'll never have a nuclear weapon," he said.
The president again floated strikes on Iran's power plants, bridges and desalination plants -- a threat he has previously walked back.
"I would say in two hours. Most of the bridges, the major bridges will all be gone. And the power plants in one day. And, you know, if I can avoid doing that, I'd like to do that," Trump said, giving a timeline for how long he said it would take for the U.S. to accomplish such an objective.
"And then there's always the desalinization plants. And who am I hurting there? I'm hurting the people. So I'm not looking to do that," he added.
Trump also acknowledged "a lot of competing factions" within the GOP on Iran. He said, "I have many Republicans that want me to keep going," while another group "says, this is actually a good time to make a deal for them," he added.
Trump later dismissed the war as a "little situation" and sought to assuage fears over the economic impact of the war. "This is going to be better soon as this little situation gets worked out. I believe it's going to be better. It already is better," he said.
-ABC News' Nicholas Kerr
