President Donald Trump says he’s now “much less confident” about reaching a deal with Iran, he told the New York Post in an interview.
“I don’t know,” Trump told the Post‘s Miranda Devine, who asked Monday if Iran would agree to a deal to shut down its nuclear program. “I did think so, and I’m getting more and more—less confident about it.”
“They seem to be delaying, and I think that’s a shame, but I’m less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago,” Trump went on. “Something happened to them, but I am much less confident of a deal being made.”
The remarks come as both House Republicans and Democrats have called on the Trump administration to reject any nuclear deal with Iran that permits uranium enrichment. A bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote in a Friday letter that “we wholeheartedly agree that Iran must not retain any capacity to enrich uranium or continue advancing its nuclear weapons infrastructure,” noting that “there is widespread bipartisan support for this requirement.”
In May, 177 House Republicans issued a joint statement reiterating the GOP’s longstanding support for a deal that prohibits Iran’s uranium enrichment and entirely dismantles the country’s nuclear program.
The Trump administration has sent mixed signals on whether it will allow Iran to continue enriching uranium as part of a deal. While Trump officials have publicly called for completely dismantling Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, news reports emerged earlier this month that the latest U.S. proposal to Tehran allows limited, low-level enrichment on Iranian soil for an undetermined period.
Trump said in the Monday interview that Tehran won’t have an atomic weapon regardless of whether it agrees to a deal. “If they don’t make a deal, they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “If they do make a deal, they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon, too, you know? But they’re not going to have a new nuclear weapon, so it’s not going to matter from that standpoint.”
“But it would be nicer to do it without warfare, without people dying, it’s so much nicer to do it,” Trump went on.
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