After his Truth Social post on the morning of March 23 announcing a five-day postponement of strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure, President Trump spoke to reporters for an extended session before boarding Air Force One for Memphis. While virtually all of the details of his claims remain unconfirmed, we report here the gist of Trump’s remarks regarding the changing situation with Iran.
Trump claimed that U.S. and Iranian officials 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.” He revealed that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were the point people for the negotiations. “We’re doing a five-day period. We’ll see how that goes. And if it goes well, we’re going to end up settling this. Otherwise, we just keep bombing our little hearts out.”
When he was asked about Iran’s denial that any negotiations had taken place, Trump responded: “They’re gonna have to get themselves a better public relations person.” He otherwise said “perhaps that hasn’t been conveyed” because “they’re unable to talk to each other” due to how badly their infrastructure has been destroyed.
Trump, however, claimed they were talking to a “top person,” who is “the most respected” in the country, but wouldn’t name him because he “didn’t want him to be killed.” He specified it wasn’t Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
Asked about the terms of agreement, he said: “We want to see no nuclear bomb, no nuclear weapon—not even close to it—low-key in the missiles. We want to see peace in the Middle East. We want the nuclear dust”—referring to the stockpile of highly enriched uranium Iran possesses.
The President insisted that “they called. I didn’t call. They called. They want to make a deal.” When asked whether Israel will accept the deal or not, he said, “I think they’ll be very happy. This will be peace for Israel. Long-term peace. Guaranteed peace.”
Trump ended by making a claim which betrays his failed outlook and promises to doom his approach (if it hasn’t already). He was asked who will control the Strait of Hormuz, to which he replied: “It’ll be jointly controlled,” by “me and the Ayatollah.” He then added: “Look, there’ll also be—a very serious form of a regime change. Now, in all fairness, everybody has been killed from the regime. They’re really starting to go—there’s automatically a regime change. But we’re dealing with some people that I find to be very reasonable, very solid… They’re very respected. And maybe one of them will be exactly what we’re looking for. Look at Venezuela, how well that’s working out… maybe we’ll find somebody like that in Iran.”
Multiple media have named the alleged Iranian official as the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf. These include the Jerusalem Post, Reuters, Al-Monitor, and Axios. The reports claim that the U.S. has specifically requested a meeting with Ghalibaf, with some claiming that the contact has already begun. However, Iranian officials have denied these claims, and Ghalibaf himself rejected them in a post on X, writing: “No negotiations have been held with the US, and fakenews is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped.”
