Trump says ceasefire with Iran is 'over'

**Ankur Desai** (0:00)
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Ankur Desai, and at 16 GMT on Wednesday the 8th of July, these are our main stories. President Trump warns the US will again hit Iran hard later today, after earlier declaring that the ceasefire was over, following fresh exchanges of military strikes. He was speaking on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, where speaking alongside President Zelensky, he also promised to license the manufacture of vital Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine. Elsewhere, French MPs have approved a new law, which would mean police are presumed to have acted legally when they shoot someone.
And also in this podcast, how do you follow Oscar-winning box office conquering movies like Oppenheimer?

**Christopher Nolan** (0:48)
My son walked into my office while I was writing on the OLC and said, where are your Oscars? And I said, well, I'm trying to write a new project, and if I've got Oscars sitting on the shelf, think about how daunting that would be. So he said, but you didn't win for writing.

**Ankur Desai** (1:00)
Hollywood director Christopher Nolan and his star studied cast talk about the new blockbuster movie, The Odyssey.
President Trump has warned the US will again hit Iran hard later today after earlier declaring that the ceasefire was over. He was speaking at the NATO summit in Ankara.

**Donald Trump** (1:22)
To me, I think it's over.
I don't want to deal with them anymore. They're scum. You know what scum is? They're scum. They're sick people. They're led by sick people.
And they're vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they'd use it. As far as I'm concerned, it's over. I'll speak to our negotiators. They want to negotiate. They're good people. Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner. But they have to come back to me. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them. They're liars. We make a deal. And if I make a deal with him, we have a deal. He goes out, he talks. We make a deal. Everyone's agreed. No nuclear weapon. We make a deal. They go outside, talk to the press. They say, we never even talked about it. There's something wrong with them. They're cuckoo.
As far as I'm concerned, it's over.

**Ankur Desai** (2:13)
Well, in the latest clashes, US Central Command said it fired at more than 80 Iranian targets. Iran said it targeted US military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait. The US strikes followed attacks earlier in the week on three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
A correspondent in Jerusalem, Caroline Davies, is monitoring developments. She told us what she made of President Trump's comments about the ceasefire.

**Caroline Davies** (2:37)
Firstly, to just say that President Trump almost seems to be saying two things in the course of his comments. Obviously, firstly and very clearly, he said when asked, is the ceasefire still holding? Is the MOU, the memorandum of understanding, which was signed only just last month, is that still in place? And he said that as far as he is concerned, it's over with his terms. But at the same time, he was then asked, does that mean the talks are finished? Are they over as well? And he said, well, they can continue to talk, but I think they're wasting their time. So he's not pulling his negotiators out of these talks and these conversations, which we know are ongoing. We know that that's part of the memorandum of understanding, that they've got 60 days, according to that, at the moment to continue to have these discussions. And that that process is not stopping, but that President Trump is saying that as far as he is concerned, the ceasefire and the MOU is no longer holding. So what exactly does that mean is going to happen next? And that's what's really unclear. Does it mean that we are going to see an increase in hostilities again? Does it mean that we are going to see further attacks, further escalation, further tit-for-tat? Or, and this isn't necessarily completely exclusive, is this also a potential negotiating position from President Trump? What this slightly reminds me of is the period when we had a ceasefire, but no MOU. So this was, the ceasefire was originally agreed back in April, and then was sort of continually extended. And during that time, we saw both sides accusing the other of violating that ceasefire. We saw lots of tit-for-tat back and forth with military bases being targeted. And it wasn't a sort of level of full hostility that we'd seen when the war started, the sort of US and Israel offensive began initially back in the end of February. And then, of course, the response from Iran, it wasn't that level of response, but we did see continual back and forth between the two sides during that in-between period. And during that time, we also heard from President Trump talking almost in a carrot and stick terms about this negotiation with the Iranians, saying that there are all these wonderful things that would happen if there was an agreement between the US and Iran, and if there wasn't, the sort of damage that he would inflict on Iran instead. So, is this him returning to a similar position, or is this genuinely a change in where we have been in the course of the last month or so, and that we are now moving towards more hostilities? That is what is still unclear.