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Trump says the US is in “very friendly negotiations” with Iran after both sides held off on strikes for a third straight day.

Getting into it: While speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday, Trump said he suspended the US strikes on Saturday because mediating countries had asked him to give diplomacy another chance, and he warned that Washington would go back to bombing if the talks collapsed.

“We’re having good talks,” he said. “I think there’s a good chance that something could happen, and if it does, good, if it doesn’t, we go back to doing what we were doing two days ago.”

At a Michigan rally later that day, he framed it as pressure rather than détente. “You can’t bribe them. You’ve got to beat them, and we’ll beat the hell out of them,” Trump said. “But we’ll see how it turns out. Right now, there are very friendly negotiations going on.”

Iranian officials are telling a very different story. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said there are no direct negotiations underway. Spokesman Esmail Baghaei called reports that Iran requested talks “fabricated” and said “this is not in our DNA,” though he acknowledged messages are still moving through mediators. A senior Iranian official said Iran would keep its own strikes paused as long as the US pause held.

This all comes as reporting suggests the about-face had less to do with diplomacy and more with running low on things to hit. A US official said commanders had reached the end of their target list and that Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had grown concerned about how low stockpiles had gotten.

Trump has pushed back on this, telling reporters Monday that the US has more than enough firepower to sustain the campaign.