We're giving them until tomorrow, 8 o'clock Eastern Time.

And after that, they're going to have no bridges.

They're going to have no power plants.

That was President Donald Trump's threat on Monday morning.

By Tuesday, the rhetoric had escalated.

On truth social, Trump posted, quote,

a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again, end quote.

But then as the deadline approached, Trump tried a different tact and announced a two-week ceasefire.

Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerp. I'm Cody Godwin in for Dana Taylor.

Today is Thursday, April 9th, 2026.

Many questions are swirling in the wake of Trump's whipsaw strategy with Iran.

Here to help us take a step back and take stock of what may be next,

I'm now joined by USA Today White House correspondent Zach Anderson.

Zach, it's great to have you back on the excerpt.

Great to be back.

There's a lot to dig into here.

Let's start with some of the broadstrokes.

These are complicated negotiations.

So who are the players here and what do we know about them so far?

Yeah, complicated is an understatement. This is a really complex geopolitical issue that the United States is trying to resolve here. Obviously, you have the U.S., you have Iran, you have Israel,

but then you have players like Pakistan, the prime minister of

Pakistan who has brokered these negotiations. You have a lot of other Middle Eastern countries

...