Laura Ingraham: It sure looks like Iran blinked

Good evening, everyone. I'm Laura Ingram. This is the Ingram Angle. Thank you, as always, for joining us. We start tonight with a very big Fox News alert. The deadline is off, and we have what's being called a double-sided ceasefire,

a live report from the region in moments. Now, I want to tell you how we were scheduled to start the show. I spent all afternoon writing the script. Started like this, TikTok, T minus 59 minutes, 30 seconds,

until Donald Trump's 8 p.m. deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But just moments ago, Donald Trump posted this. And it's the entire Truth Social post, where essentially he says, based on conversations with Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Field Marshal A.C. Manoor of Pakistan,

and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran. And it continues to go on and on. And I just got off the phone with President Trump. And I will say this—we'll read the whole post later. He literally just had to rewrite the whole show.

He was extremely serious in my conversation with him just now. And he was also cautiously but seriously optimistic. He told me that the negotiations are and were incredibly complex. He does not want them jeopardized. There still needs to be an announced agreement. And of course, we all know in this part of the world,

anything can happen, but it sure looks like Iran blinked. So again, the Truth Social Post, now I will read it. Based on conversation with the Prime Minister, Shabazz Sharif and the Field Marshal Asim Munir of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off on the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the complete, immediate and safe opening of the Strait of Hormuz, that's key, I agree to suspend the

bombing and the attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double-sided ceasefire. The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all military objectives and are very far along with a definitive agreement concerning long-term peace with Iran and peace in the Middle East. So, he goes on to say, we received a 10-point proposal from Iran and believe it is a workable

one on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have now been agreed to between the U.S. and Iran, but a two-week period will allow the agreement to be finalized and consummated. On behalf of the United States of America as president

and also representing the countries of the Middle East, it is an honor," he wrote, to have this long-term problem close to a resolution. And our favorite, thank you for your attention to this matter.

Now, it's important that we—first of all, there's so much to unpack here, but the criticism of President Trump over the past 48 hours, a lot of it focusing on the language of his—of Truth Social posts that were also put on X. It was ferocious criticism. Some Republicans getting very concerned, Democrats. But it was the threat of flattening the country's infrastructure, something the president said he did not want to do, and repeated that again tonight to me.

That was ultimately what focused the mind of whatever is left of the Iranian regime, with whom they're continuing to have these negotiations. Now, Pakistan's role in all of this over the last several days, but especially over the last 48 hours, helped get this thing mediated to the point it's at right now. But President Trump's willingness — and this is critical, I'm going to address this at the end of the show as well,

his willingness to risk his entire presidency on eliminating Iran's nuclear threat by going to the brink was what got this to this point tonight. And, by the way, he was dealing with international pressure as, that was building.

And you saw it. The pope's emissary showed up in the Oval Office, delivered a message, basically, you know, don't bomb infrastructure, worried about the human chain, civilian targets, which is understandable. And the Italian PM, Giorgio Maloney, and close Trump friend, I might add, issued her own public statement saying it is crucial to clearly distinguish between the responsibilities of

a regime and the fate of millions of ordinary citizens. Iran's civilian population cannot and must not pay the price for the sins of its leaders, which a lot of people agreed with in Europe and many here in the United States. But as all of this criticism was swirling, the administration, whether it was a headfake or whether it was just a negotiating style, the administration itself remained united. J.D. Vance was in Budapest today.

We feel confident that we can get a response, whether it's positive or negative. We're going to get a response from the Iranians by 8 o'clock tonight. I hope they make the right response. We've got tools in our toolkit that we so far

haven't decided to use. The President of the United States can decide to use them, and he will decide to use them if the Iranians don't change their force of conduct.

And as the deadline loomed all day long, U.S. and Israeli forces, again, this was part of it, continued to pound Iranian targets, including

the critical real estate of Karg Island, out of which, what, 90% of Iranian oil is shipped. So, for its part, at the same time, Iran threatened to hit energy infrastructure in the Gulf if

the U.S. bombed tonight. I don't know how seriously we took that, but, nevertheless, that's what they said. So initially, Iran rejected this idea of a ceasefire without a permanent commitment from the U.S. They demanded a toll for the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. That was a total nonstarter. And total amnesty, as we understand it, for its—again, whatever is left

of its top officials. Both were not going to be given or guaranteed to—guaranteed by the United States. So, again, politically, militarily, everything was on the line. Because even some of President Trump's most committed MAGA supporters were — they're getting anxious, holding their breath. They're like, did he really mean that? Is he going to do that? And notoriously hawkish Wall Street Journal cautioned the president to pick tonight's

targets wisely. They wrote a whole editorial on this, saying, you know, try to distinguish between infrastructure that has a military purpose and infrastructure that could be destroyed and just completely ruin the lives of innocent people in Iran, the people we were supposedly trying to help. So naturally, as all this was happening, as all this was playing out, they were getting tons of support in the usual outlets, media outlets, et cetera, against President Trump, saying he's a war criminal.

Naturally, the Democrats thought, oh, this is our opening. We got it. We got MAGA cornered. We got Trump cornered. And then, after protecting Joe Biden—I love this—for four years, Democrats and AOC included, and the media were issuing these urgent demands all day long for members of Trump's cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment

and because of his posts on True Social to remove him from office. 30 House Democrats have signed on to this meaningless effort so far. And oh, by the way, as this was happening also, the 2028 Democrat field is staking out their position, silently betting that this ended up being the straw that broke Donald Trump's back.

We need to be demanding that Congress convene today and we need to be invoking the 25th Amendment.

This is a very dangerous moment and a very dangerous president.

We have someone who's completely unfit for office right now sitting in the White House. We should stop an out-of-control president who is causing such harm to the American people.

We have a completely unhinged president who is threatening massive war crimes.

Okay, so actually tonight's news is actually bad news for them. I'm sorry, I'm going to say it the way it is. They always underestimate Trump. And as for 2028 Van Halen, who we just saw, he has the charisma of a mollusk. So we were at the precipice here. We had to rewrite the script.

Donald Trump continues to rewrite the political script. Democrats believe they finally had Trump and the entire MAGA movement in a box. and the entire MAGA movement in a box.

But once again, the last laugh will be on them.