Gorka: Trump hasn't met the Iran timeline because the US is "too effective."

Sebastian Gorka claimed the Trump administration had been “too effective” in its war in Iran, explaining why the conflict has stretched beyond President Trump’s initial prediction of a four-to-five-week timeline. Gorka, the senior counterterrorism director at the National Security Council, was responding to a question on how the American public should reconcile the original timeline with the current reality of an eleven-week war. “There’s a very simple answer to your question — we’ve just been too effective,” Gorka said on News Nation on Sunday. He blamed the delay on the two sides coming to a peace deal on the destruction of Iran’s traditional leadership. “This is a regime in ultimate collapse at the top. As a result, it makes communicating and getting that final deal, that acquiesces, that surrender a little bit more complicated. But rest assured, it is coming imminently,” he said. Washington and Tehran are currently in a ceasefire as Trump seeks an off-ramp to the war in Iran, which began Feb. 28 and caused the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping corridor. But Trump on Monday described the ceasefire as being on “life support” after he dismissed Tehran’s counteroffer on nuclear talks. “It’s unbelievably weak,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked if the ceasefire remains in place for the time being. The two sides are trying to hammer out the details of a peace deal, but Trump on Sunday rejected Iran’s latest demands, which reportedly include war reparations, Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, and U.S. sanctions ending, as well as the return of frozen assets. Trump on Monday called the counteroffer a “piece of garbage” and that he did not even finish reading. Iranian officials have resisted making any commitments to end its nuclear program as part of the initial negotiations, creating a roadblock to progress in the talks. But as the war continues to drag on, Trump faces continued criticism over ballooning gas prices and the conflict’s negative effect on the world economy. Critics also point to Trump’s shifting rationale in entering the fight, claiming that the lengthening conflict represents an intelligence failure in failing to foresee a closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and underestimating how quickly the U.S. could damage Iran’s nuclear program or trigger a regime collapse. Gorka, who last week called critics of the Iran war “testicularly challenged,” said it’s “utter complete hogwash. Garbage. Fake news of the highest degree,” that there was any such intelligence failure. “This action has been planned for decades by the president. Now he is in the chair,” he said on Sunday. “Everything you see has been planned out to the last scintilla. . . . Everything is happening exactly to plan.” Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.