Rachel Abrams: Fox News alert. We have a deal for now.

Rachel Abrams: From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams and this is the daily.

Rachel Abrams: The US and Iran have both confirmed that they have agreed to a twow weekek pause.

Rachel Abrams: Appears Iran has accepted President Trump's terms subject to the immediate opening of the strait. Just in out of Iran, a statement read on staterun media instructing all military units to follow the Supreme Leader's order and stop firing.

Rachel Abrams: Just hours before a Trump imposed deadline that could have led to a massive escalation in the war with Iran, the United States and Iran appeared to reach a temporary ceasefire. Today, chief White House correspondent David Sanger explains what led to this last minute deal and what it would take to make it stick. It's Wednesday, April 8th.

David Sanger: David Sanger, thank you so much for taping with us at 9:35 p.m. on this Tuesday night.

Rachel Abrams: It's been a wild day, Rachel.

Rachel Abrams: I can imagine. David, it feels like the entire world has been holding its breath for the last two days as President Trump ratcheted up the threats on Iran to open the Straits of Hormuz, which included Tuesday morning when he basically threatened to wipe out the entire country. And just hours before the 8:00 p.m. deadline that the president had given Iran to make a deal, both the United States and Iran announced that they'd reached some kind of temporary ceasefire. What do we know about what they actually agreed to? Well, we've been trying to sort that out because the American accounts and the Iranian accounts, as you might imagine, don't completely match up. But what President Trump said was that Iran and the US have agreed to a 14-day ceasefire.

David Sanger: During that time, he said Iran would commit to making sure that the straight of Hormuz would be fully reopened. Mhm.

Rachel Abrams: And that that would allow this bottleneck of ships full of oil, full of fertilizer, full of helium for semiconductor production to begin flowing again and relieve these huge shortages that have been racking the world economy. We don't know exactly when that will happen, but the American bombing of Iran stopped almost immediately.

Rachel Abrams: Okay, so that is what Trump agreed to, David. But you mentioned that it did not really seem like both sides were on the same page when the ceasefire was first announced. What if the Iranians said that they agreed to?

David Sanger: Well, if you just read President Trump's announcement, you'd think that the straight of Hormuz was just being thrown wide open, the way it was before the war started. But if you read the statement that came out a few minutes later from Iran's foreign minister Abbas Aragi, who's quite experienced, has been involved in many of these negotiations over the years, he said that Iran will cease their defensive operation for a period of two weeks and that safe passage through the straight of Hormuz would only be possible by coordinating with Iran's armed forces. So that means that in the Iranian vision, the Iranian military will retain the control that it seized in the past five or 6 weeks. And who knows at what pace they're going to allow ships to pass. Whether or not they're going to allow them to just pass freely or charge them tolls, we just don't know.

Rachel Abrams: Okay. So obviously some daylight between these two statements, room for interpretation, but we have not talked about another country that is a major actor here and that is Israel. Israel of course attacked Iran along with the United States. That is how this war started. Has Israel said anything about this agreement? Do we know that they are party to it? Where do they stand?

David Sanger: Well, the White House told us that Israel had agreed to the terms and then later in the evening, the Israelis turned out a statement from the prime minister's office saying they support President Trump's decision. But it was interesting wording because they didn't say that they were terribly enthused about it.