Dasha Burns Grills Leavitt On How Trump Knows He’s Talking to the Right People in Iran

 

Politico’s Dasha Burns on Monday asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt how the president knows he’s negotiating with the right people in Iran.

In the first days of Operation Epic Fury, U.S. and Israeli forces killed several dozen members of Iran’s leadership. Among the dead was Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and his son Mojtaba Khamenei was chosen as his successor days later.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for regime change in the country, even though the U.S. also killed its preferred candidates to lead that change. Because of this, there’s been a great deal of speculation as to who’s actually leading the country.

Last week, the president revealed in a Truth Social post that he had productive peace talks with Iran. On Monday, Trump finally named who he’s been speaking to — Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Iran has denied that talks have taken place.

During Monday afternoon’s press briefing, Burns asked:

On Iran, the president has said that the administration is talking to a new and more reasonable regime. How confident are you that they are legitimate and have enough grip on power? Marco Rubio said earlier that he’s not sure and it’s not clear whether they will be in power. So are you also talking to other factions as the president is trying to make a deal? How do you ensure that you’re making a deal with the people who can actually implement it?

Leavitt said knowing they were talking to the right people was “part of the ongoing process,” adding:

Of course, anything that they say to us privately will be tested. We will ensure that they are being held accountable to their word, and if they are not, the president has laid out the military consequences that the Iranian regime will see if they don’t hold true to the words that we are hearing privately behind the scenes.

When the president says more reasonable, again, these folks are appearing more reasonable behind the scenes privately in these conversations, than perhaps some of the previous leaders, who are now no longer on planet Earth because they lied to the United States, and they strung us along in negotiations, and that was unacceptable to the president, which is why many of the previous leaders were killed. So again, this is another historic opportunity for Iran to do the right thing to rid themselves of their nuclear ambitions and to come to a deal with this president and the administration, or again they will see the grave consequences of the United States armed forces which they are continuing to see every day throughout this operation.

Watch above via Fox News

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