Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Kristen Welker in Washington, and that was the closing bell on Wall Street,

with markets seeing green up roughly 600 points about the possibility of a peace deal between the

U.S. and Iran, with both sides today signaling potential signs of progress. Oil prices also falling

below $100 a barrel today in hopes that a potential deal could reopen the

Strait of Hormuz. That's where, of course, 20% of the world's oil and gas flow through.

Gas prices just hit a new high of the war, $4.54 a gallon. But in the last 24 hours, President

Trump has offered mixed messages about where

things stand, telling NBC's Garrett Haake during an event in the Oval Office this afternoon,

he believes Iran wants to make a deal, but also the U.S. has won the fight.

You're facing an opponent right now in Iran that has refused to submit.

You seem optimistic now. You may be closer to a deal. What's different about this moment now that in other moments where a deal has seemed close? Well, why do you say they refuse to submit? You don't know that. You don't know what's going on. They were firing on U.S. ships a few days ago. Yeah, a few days ago, it's a long time ago. you know, in the world of war a few days you go,

no, they want to make a deal badly. And we'll see if we get there. If we get there, they can't have nuclear weapons, you know, it's very simple, but what's not to submit? And their leaders are all dead. So I think we won. Now we have to get what we have to get. If we don't do that, we'll have to go a big step further. But with that being said, they want to make a deal. We've had very good talks over the

last 24 hours. And it's very possible that we'll make a deal.

It's starting to do a deadline. Never a deadline. It'll happen. It'll make a deal. It's not going to be there a deadline. We're doing deadlock.

What do you expect to Iran?

Never a deadline.

It'll happen.

It'll happen, but never a day.

In a post on social media this morning, President Trump warning Tehran, if it doesn't agree to a deal,

quote, the bombing starts and it will be sadly at a much higher level and intensity than it was before. For its part, Iran says it is reviewing the U.S. proposal, but has yet to convey its

response to Pakistani mediators. All of this comes after President Trump announced yesterday he was

pausing Project Freedom. That's the U.S. military operation to guide vessels through the Strait

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