‘We’ve Agreed to That’: Trump Claims Iran Willing to Give Up Nuclear Aspirations

 

President Donald Trump took questions from reporters on Monday before boarding Air Force One, following his surprise announcement that the U.S. has had “constructive” talks with Iran and that he would postpone bombing Iranian energy infrastructure for five days as the talks proceeded.

Trump’s announcement sent the price of oil moving downward as the stock market surged and recovered some of its losses since the war began.

The president struck an overwhelmingly optimistic tone while gaggling with reporters and went so far as to claim that Iran has agreed to give up pursuing nuclear weapons. Iranian state-run media has denied talks took place, saying, “There has been no direct or indirect contact.”

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Trump, “What exactly are you looking for in these talks, Mr. President?”

“We’re looking for all of the things that we’ve been talking about. We want to see no nuclear bomb, no nuclear weapon, not even close to it. Low-key on the missiles. We want to see peace in the Middle East,” Trump replied, adding:

We want the nuclear deal. We’re going to want that, and I think we’re going to get that. We’ve agreed to that. Yeah, we’ve agreed to that.

“Do you want the enriched uranium before you can end this?” Collins followed up.

“And we want no enrichment. But we also want the enriched uranium. We—if this happens, it’s a great start for Iran to build itself back, and it’s everything that we want. And it’s also great for Israel, and it is great for the other Middle Eastern countries—Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, all of them, Kuwait, and Bahrain in particular. So it’s great for all of those,” concluded the president.

Trump refused to say exactly who in Iran the U.S. is negotiating with, only saying the U.S. is not speaking to the new ayatollah, but instead to “the people that seem to be running” Iran.

Watch above via C-SPAN.

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Alex Griffing is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Send tips via email: alexanderg@mediaite.com. Follow him on Twitter: @alexgriffing