President Donald Trump doubled down on his threats to escalate the war in Iran on Monday if Iranian leaders do not agree to a broad ceasefire deal that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz by his Tuesday evening deadline, threatening that the U.S. would target every bridge and power plant still standing in the country.

Trump took a hawkish posture while speaking to reporters at the White House alongside senior U.S. defense officials about the ongoing war and diplomatic efforts to bring it to a close, warning that the U.S. has a plan to take out Iran’s entire transportation and energy infrastructure within “four hours” if Iran did not make a deal. 

“I can tell you they’re negotiating, we think, in good faith. We’re going to find out. … After [8 p.m. ET on Tuesday], they’re going to have no bridges. They’re going to have no power plants. Stone ages,” Trump said, referring to the deadline he set for Iran to agree to his terms, which has now been postponed three times.

The president said he extended the deadline from Monday to Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET because he “thought it was inappropriate” to demand a response “the day after Easter.” The comment came hours after telling reporters at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll that the Tuesday deadline was final and unlikely to have any additional extensions. 

“The entire country can be taken out in one night and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said from the briefing room. “We have a plan, because of the power of our military, [where] every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12 o’clock, and it’ll happen over a period of four hours if we want it to.” 

“We don’t want that to happen. We may even get involved with helping them rebuild their nation. If that’s the case, the last thing we want to do is start with power plants, which are among the most expensive things, and bridges,” he continued. “So do I want to do that? No. Do I want to destroy their infrastructure? No. It will take them 100 years to rebuild. Right now, if we left today, it would take them 20 years to rebuild their country and it would never be as good as it was. The only way they’re going to be able to rebuild their country is to utilize the genius of the United States of America.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who took part in the press conference alongside Trump, told reporters on Monday that, “per the president’s direction, today will be the largest volume which strikes since day one of this operation. Tomorrow, even more than today, and then Iran has a choice. Choose wisely, because this president does not play around.”

Trump repeatedly reiterated his commitment to ensuring that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon — after saying the country’s nuclear program was “obliterated” last June — and said that any agreement between Iran and the U.S. would need to adhere to his terms, including the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. “We have to have a deal that’s acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be [that] we want free traffic of oil and everything,” the president said.

“They’re not going to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said of Iran, arguing that his actions were an insurance policy for the U.S. “if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen, because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective and afraid of Iran.”

The president described the Iranians as “very good bulls*** artists, that’s why for 47 years they’ve been bulls***ing other presidents,” while defending his decision to take military action against the regime.

“I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They’re at the weakest point they’ve ever been,” Trump said, despite Iran’s continued missile strikes across the Gulf and in Israel. “In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiations is that they can’t communicate. … They have no method of communication. So we’re communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children bringing a note back and forth.”