“We’ve had such a victory, and we’ll put it away very soon, one way or the other,” Trump said. “Either they’ll make a deal, or we’ll just end it. End it — I guess you could say maybe the easy way”.

He repeated the line at a campaign rally in Salina, Kansas, telling the crowd: “Either they’ll make a deal, or we just end it. I guess you could say maybe the easy way”. And he made clear that the “easy way” was not a diplomatic breakthrough, but a military one—a new offensive that he suggested would be more successful than the previous ones.