President Donald Trump sharply rebuked Iran’s claim that no talks have transpired to end the war after reporters questioned him over the conflicting messaging on Monday morning.

Trump made the comment after he said earlier in the day in a Truth Social post that he had ordered the Department of Defense to pause military strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure for five days following “very good and productive conversations” with Iran regarding ending “hostilities” in the Middle East.

Iranian officials denied that Tehran is in talks with the president shortly after Trump made the claim. Iranian Parliament speaker Mohammad Qalibaf also said that “reports claiming otherwise are fake news aimed at influencing financial and oil markets and distracting from the challenges facing the U.S. and Israel,” according to state media.

Ahead of boarding Air Force One on Monday, a reporter asked Trump about Iran’s remarks that he was “not telling the truth when it comes to ‘productive conversations’ to end the war,” prompting the president to take a jab at the Middle Eastern country.

“Well, they’ll have to get themselves better public relations people,” he shot back. “We have had very, very strong talks. We’ll see where they lead. We have major points of agreement, I would say almost all points of agreement.”

Trump argued that the U.S. strikes against Iran could’ve made the country’s internal communications nonexistent after it was “blown to pieces,” adding, “They are unable to talk to each other.”

Trump then told the press that special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner had conducted “very strong” talks, alleging that they went “perfectly.”

“I would say that if they carry through with that, it’ll end that problem, that conflict. I think it’ll end it very, very substantially. We have very much in mind our partners in the Middle East. We have had great relationships with a lot of them, as you know. A lot of them were surprisingly hit. I was surprised to see it and so was everyone else ... they are very much in mind in the discussions,” he said.

Telling reporters that the talks happened on Sunday, Trump went on to claim that Iran “very much [wants] to make a deal.”

“We would like to make a deal, too. We will get together today, by probably phone because it is very hard to find a country, it’s very hard for them to get out, I guess. But we’ll at some point very soon meet. We are doing a five-day period, we’ll see how that goes and if it goes well, we’ll end up settling this. Otherwise we will keep bombing our little hearts out,” Trump added.

Elsewhere in his chat with reporters, Trump refused to answer which Iran leadership official Witkoff had spoken with. He then noted that it’s “a little tough” because “we’ve wiped out everybody.”

“Nobody [has] heard [from] the second supreme leader, the son [Mojtaba Khamenei],” Trump continued. “We don’t know if he is living. But the people that seem to be running [Iran], and they seem that based on, really, fact because things they’ve said have taken place.”

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