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PRESIDENT TRUMP left Washington for his Bedminster, N.J., golf club for the weekend, as Israel and Iran traded strikes for an eighth day.

Trump will attend a fundraiser on Friday night, with plans to receive intelligence briefings over the weekend in Bedminster.

The president will depart for next week’s NATO summit in the Netherlands on Monday, after saying he’ll make a decision within the next two weeks about whether the U.S. will intervene in the Israel-Iran war.

Trump said Friday if the U.S. does get involved, it would probably be limited to air strikes.

"I'm not going to talk about ground forces," Trump told reporters. "The last thing you want to do is ground force."

Officials from Europe and Iran huddled in Geneva on Friday in search of an off-ramp.

Foreign ministers from Germany, France and the United Kingdom met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, with the Europeans encouraging Iran to drop its nuclear ambitions.

The Associated Press reports that the meeting provided hope of further talks, but no concrete breakthrough.

Araghchi said Iran will not negotiate while it’s under attack.

“In the current situation, as the Zionist regime’s attacks continue, we are not seeking negotiations with anyone,” he said in an interview that aired Friday on Iranian state television.

Trump said Friday he wouldn't call on Israel to stop its airstrikes because they're winning the war.

"I think it's very hard to make that request right now," Trump said. "If somebody is winning, it's a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing, but we're ready, willing and able, and we've been speaking to Iran, and we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens."

French President Emmanuel Macron said diplomats would make a “comprehensive, diplomatic and technical offer of negotiation,” arguing that Israel won’t be able to accomplish its goal of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program all by itself.

“No one can seriously believe that this threat can be met with (Israel’s) current operations alone," he said. "Why? Because there are some plants that are highly protected and because today, no one knows exactly where’s the uranium enriched to 60%. So we need to regain control on (Iran’s nuclear) program through technical expertise and negotiation.”

The U.S. is capable of dropping a “bunker buster” bomb that penetrates the mountains where Iran's nuclear program is hidden, although Trump's two-week ultimatum is meant to buy time for a nuclear deal with Iran.

Politically, Trump is torn between the anti-war MAGA faction and traditional Republicans, who are eager to intervene.

Some Democrats, including Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), are eager to see the U.S. intervene to annihilate Iran's nuclear program.

Others are heartened by Trump’s restraint.

“The fact that we’re not reading about a U.S. attack on Iran right now actually gives me a little bit of comfort,” Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.), the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said in an interview with Jim Acosta.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said on CNN that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "has always wanted to drag the United States into a war with Iran."

Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) mocked Trump's two-week deadline.

“What a joke," she posted on X. "We’re dealing w/ a reality show dictator who uses Truth Social to notify/terrify a city of 10M people to evacuate then says the decision on war will be ‘made within two weeks.'”

“I don’t know how the US ever recovers from this blow to our credibility in the world,” she added.

💡Perspectives:

• Washington Examiner: If the U.S. did attack, would it work?

• Foreign Affairs: The right path to regime change in Iran.

• Responsible Statecraft: Israel is luring the U.S. into a trap.

• The Wall Street Journal: MAGA’s misguided isolationists.

• Fox News: Army celebration a startling split-screen for angry Dems.

Read more:

• Trump administration monitoring possible

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