President Donald Trump on Monday confirmed he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding Iran and the ongoing negotiations.

In speaking to reporters after the call he said he reiterated to Netanyahu Washington’s push to make a deal to avoid direct conflict. 

“We’re trying to make a deal so that there’s no destruction and death. And we’ve told them that, and I’ve told them that, and I hope that’s the way it works out,” Trump said. “But it might not work out that way. 

“We’ll soon find out,” he added. 

Trump claimed that Iran had already returned a counter-proposal to the U.S. following its rejection of a proposal given to them last week, though the president said “it’s just not acceptable” and that more negotiations are needed, particularly regarding enrichment-related demands. 

The call came after the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, which is charged with monitoring all nations’ nuclear programs, warned on Monday that it cannot verify whether Tehran’s program is “entirely peaceful” despite the regime’s claims.

US SANCTIONS MONEY LAUNDERING NETWORK AIDING IRAN AS REGIME FACES NUCLEAR REPRIMAND AT IAEA

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, on Monday issued a warning statement that the agency has not only long been barred access to old and new nuclear sites, but that Iran has scrubbed locations in an apparent move to cover up its activities.

In 2020, the IAEA found man-made particles of enriched uranium at three sites, including Varamin, Marivan and Turquzabad. The locations were previously utilized in Iran’s nuclear program and gave the agency credence to believe Tehran had once again turned to deadly nuclear ambitions. 

“Since then, we have been seeking explanations and clarifications from Iran for the presence of these uranium particles, including through a number of high-level meetings and consultations in which I have been personally involved,” Grossi said. “Unfortunately, Iran has repeatedly either not answered, or not provided technically credible answers to, the Agency’s questions. 

“It has also sought to sanitize the locations, which has impeded Agency verification activities,” he added. 

Grossi, who confirmed during an April trip to Washington, D.C. that the IAEA has not been involved in nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, said on Monday that he has been working “closely and intensively” with both parties in “support of their bilateral negotiation[s].”

The warning comes after the IAEA in a report late last month, also confirmed that Iran had drastically increased its stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium by nearly 35% in three months. 

IRAN’S KHAMENEI REJECTS US ZERO URANIUM ENRICHMENT DEMAND AS ‘100% AGAINST’ ITS INTERESTS

This photo released on Nov. 5, 2019, by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran shows centrifuge machines in the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran.  (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP, File)

In February, the IAEA assessed that Tehran possessed 274.8 kilograms (605.8 pounds) worth of uranium enriched to 60%, but on May 17th it found Iran now has some 408.6 kilograms (900.8 pounds) – meaning the regime is just a technical step away from being able to make up to 10 nuclear warheads. 

Last week, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei came out in strong opposition to a U.S. proposal submitted to Tehran to end its nuclear program, though it remains unclear what details were included in the document, including on enrichment capabilities, and on Sunday, Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf claimed the proposal didn’t include any sanction relief.

The White House has remained tight-lipped about what was included in the document, though according to some reporting, President Donald Trump gave Iran until June 11 to reach a deal with the U.S., though Fox News Digital could not independently verify these claims. 

On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed that “The U.S. proposal is not acceptable to us. It was not the result of previous rounds of negotiations.”

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei attends a press conference in Tehran, Iran, on May 26, 2025.  An interim nuclear agreement between Iran and the United States is not on Iran’s agenda, Baghaei said. (Shadati/Xinhua via Getty Images)

“We will present our own proposal to the other side via Oman after it is finalized. This proposal is reasonable, logical, and balanced,” Baghaei reportedly said.

Some reporting has also suggested Iran might submit their proposal as soon as June 10, though the Iranian UN mission in the U.S. would not comment on or confirm these claims. 

The Pentagon will send a Marine battalion to Los Angeles in a major escalation of US President Donald Trump’s response to anti-immigration enforcement protests, the United States military has said.

The statement on Monday confirmed the “activation” of 700 Marines to help protect federal personnel and property in the California city, where Trump had deployed the US National Guard a day earlier.

The update came despite opposition from state officials, including California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, who had earlier mounted a legal challenge to the deployment of the National Guard troops.

In a statement, the military said the “activation of the Marines” was meant to help “provide continuous coverage of the area in support of the lead federal agency”.

Speaking to the Reuters news agency, an unnamed Trump administration official said the soldiers would be acting only in support of the National Guard and other law enforcement.

The official said that Trump was not yet invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807, which would suspend legal limitations that block the military from taking part in domestic law enforcement.

Speaking shortly before the reports emerged, Trump said he was open to deploying Marines to Los Angeles, but said protests in the city were “heading in the right direction”.

“We’ll see what happens,” he said.

Reporting from Los Angeles, Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds said protests on Monday organised in the city centre by union groups were peaceful.

He noted that the National Guard which Trump had deployed to the city on Sunday played a minimal role in responding to the protests, only guarding federal buildings. That raised questions over why the Trump administration would feel a Marine deployment was needed.

“[The National Guard] didn’t engage with the protesters. They didn’t do much of anything other than stand there in their military uniforms,” Reynolds said.

He added that there is an important distinction between the National Guard, a state-based military force usually composed of part-time reserves, and the more combat-forward Marines, which are the land force of the US Navy.

“Now the Marines, this is a whole different thing. The United States sends Marines overseas where US imperialist interests are at stake, but not to cities in the United States,” he said.

California Governor Newsom’s office, meanwhile, said that according to the information it had received, the Marines were only being transferred to a base closer to Los Angeles, and not technically being deployed onto the streets.

Still, it said the “level of escalation is completely unwarranted, uncalled for, and unprecedented – mobilising the best in class branch of the US military against its own citizens”.

California mounts challenge

The updates on Monday came shortly after Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the state had filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles.

Newsom has maintained that local law enforcement had the capacity to respond to protests over US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Los Angeles and the nearby city of Paramount that first broke out on Friday.

The Democratic state leader accused Trump of escalating the situation, saying in a statement that the president was “creating fear and terror by failing to adhere to the US Constitution and overstepping his authority”.

“This is a manufactured crisis to allow him to take over a state militia, damaging the very foundation of our republic,” Newsom said.

The California lawsuit argues that the legal authority Trump invoked to deploy the National Guard requires the consent of the state’s governor, which Newsom did not provide.

For his part, Trump indicated he would support Newsom being arrested for impeding immigration enforcement, responding to an earlier threat from the president’s border czar, Tom Homan.

Trump’s response to the protests represented the first time since 1965 that a president deployed the National Guard against the will of a state governor. At the time, President Lyndon B Johnson did so to protect civil rights demonstrators in Alabama.

Protests continue

Protests against Trump’s crackdown – as well as his overall immigration policy – continued on Monday.

Standing in front of Ambiance Apparel in Los Angeles, one of the sites raided by ICE agents last week, Indigenous community leader Perla Rios spoke alongside family members of individuals detained by immigration agents.

Rios called for due process and legal representation for those taken into detention.

“What our families are experiencing is simply a nightmare,” Rios said.

Meanwhile, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) called for protests in cities across the country over the Trump administration’s response to demonstrations, which included the arrest of the union’s California president David Huerta.

Huerta was detained on Friday during immigration raids and charged with conspiracy to impede an officer during immigration enforcement operations.

“From Massachusetts to California, we call for his immediate release and for an end to ICE raids that are tearing our communities apart,” the SEIU said in a statement.

Protesters also gathered in New York and Los Angeles in response to Trump’s latest ban on travellers from 12 countries, a policy critics have decried as racist.

Speaking at a protest in New York City on Monday, Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, said the policy was “a continuation of the Muslim and travel ban under the first Trump administration, which separated families and harmed our communities”.

The policy, he said, was creating “an immense amount of fear”.