MS NOW Host Stunned By How Iran Moved Goalposts In Negotiations With Trump: ‘No Longer’ About ‘Denuclearization’

MS NOW host Alicia Menendez marveled on Monday at the latest impasse in the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran, expressing shock at how Iran appears to have moved the goalposts on the negotiations away from talks about denuclearization to simply reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

“President’s leverage over Iran dwindling right along with our weapons supply. That is the question today. As the Washington Post reports, the Pentagon is ordering U.S. defense manufacturers to rapidly escalate production of weapons, including high-end air defense interceptors and long-range missiles that have been running low because of the war. At the same time, Iran has issued a sweeping set of demands just to reopen the Strait of Hormuz,” Menendez began, adding:

That includes lifting the U.S. blockade, paying war reparations, and releasing frozen Iranian assets. It is worth noting these demands, just weeks ago, were attached to nuclear negotiations, not the strait, which was open and free before Trump’s war. I want to bring in MSNOW Pentagon reporter Priya Sridhar, and retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, and an MSNOW military analyst. It is good to see you both. Priya, first — just how dire is the situation with the weapons stockpiles?

“Alicia, it’s incredibly dire, regardless of what Trump administration officials want to say. We saw President Trump repeatedly trying to deny that these stockpiles were depleted, and vowing on Truth Social to go after any of the ‘treasonous’ individuals who are telling the press about these depleted stockpiles,” Sridhar replied, adding:

But we know from analyses by nonpartisan think tanks here in Washington, D.C., like the Center for Strategic and International Studies, that if you look at things like ADS, Patriots, and Tomahawks, we’ve used anywhere from 40 to 70% of our stockpiles. And really, what’s happening here is that it’s causing U.S. commanders in the region to have to make incredibly difficult decisions that could put our troops in danger. They’re having to decide how many missiles to launch to potentially try to intercept incoming Iranian missiles and drones.

And so we saw, over the weekend, as you mentioned earlier, Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg issue this memo to defense industry leaders, telling them that the timelines here when it comes to rebuilding and replenishing our weapons are not fast enough — so they have 21 days to figure out a way to try to replenish these supplies in a faster manner. But we know, Alicia, that they’re incredibly expensive, and they typically take anywhere from one to five years to complete.

“General, this has been an ongoing issue. You had the president on Sunday telling Axios the U.S. is, quote, ‘low-keying it’ with Iran. I don’t know what that means. He also said they are ‘semi-negotiating’ with them. I also don’t know what it means to semi-negotiate. I think what was notable was he didn’t threaten to attack Iran again, as he usually does,” Menendez added as she then turned to General Hertling’s take on some recent comments by Vice President JD Vance.

Menendez turned back to Sridhar for one last question, asking, “Priya, I have less than a minute left, but I am very confused by the vice president saying we are ‘in the middle’ of this, especially since it keeps feeling like one step forward, two steps back — especially the fact that the Iranians are now using the Strait of Hormuz no longer to negotiate over denuclearization, but rather to ask for a whole series of things that they want, separate and aside from that. We are now five and a half months in. Are we in a worse position than when we started?”

“Well, Alicia, the Iranians are watching what’s happening to our stockpiles and our military very closely, and they clearly feel like they are in a more powerful position, or else they wouldn’t be making these demands that we haven’t seen them make at all over the last five months. They’re very well aware how low our stockpiles are,” Sridhar replied, adding:

They’re well aware that our military has been stretched thin, and I think you’re seeing that play out with the demands that they’re making. It’s unclear at this point if they’re even negotiating directly with the United States. It’s very clear that, as Vice President Vance said, we are “in the middle.” And what Trump administration officials are saying publicly and what they’re saying behind closed doors are two very different things, because they know that what they are saying publicly is going to have political and economic ramifications as well, right here in the United States.

Watch the clip above via MS NOW.

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