President Trump summoned his entire cabinet — including outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard — for a Wednesday meeting over a crumbling Iran ceasefire. The meeting was originally scheduled for Camp David, then relocated to the White House because of weather. The trigger: on Monday, May 24, U.S. forces struck Iranian boats and missile launch sites just hours after Iranian officials arrived in Qatar for peace negotiations. CENTCOM characterized the strikes as defensive — vessels attempting to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz — but Iranian state media confirmed the strikes also hit Bandar Abbas, the country's key naval and air base complex.
Trump's response on Truth Social was “Back to the Battlefront and shooting, but bigger and stronger than ever before.” Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei replied that “America will no longer have a safe haven for mischief and the establishment of military bases in the region,” threatening American forces across the Middle East.
The meeting was scheduled to discuss broader administration accomplishments. The Iran crisis instead dominated. U.S. and Iranian negotiators in Doha had been working on a wider framework — reopening commercial transit through the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions relief, and a future track on Iran's nuclear program — when the U.S. struck. This is the latest in a documented pattern of U.S. military action timed against active peace negotiations (see Iran Tells Mediators Trump's Demands Are 'Unacceptable' After Two Rounds of Diplomacy Ended in Strikes, Trump Says He Doesn't Want a Ceasefire With Iran, Then Floats a 15-Point Plan to End the War. Iran Rejects It).