Iran-US war latest: Tehran responds after Trump says they must choose between a peace deal and ‘annihilation’
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Donald Trump said that US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff held a productive meeting with Iranian officials — just hours after threatening to “annihilate” the Middle Eastern nation.
“It was a meeting that lasted for three hours”, the US president told reporters Tuesday while in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly.
“Very good meeting”, Trump added. “I can't imagine why they wouldn't want to. It's greatness, potential greatness, or obliteration”.
Earlier on Tuesday, the 80-year-old Republican delivered a combative speech at the UN, during which he said he could “annihilate” the Iranian government and “drive them into hell” if a peace deal is not reached.
He said that Tehran is now “weak and desperate”, adding: “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon”.
The Iranian delegation is reported to have walked out of the meeting upon hearing the threats, according to The Independent’s White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg.
Meanwhile, Iran has said it is willing to reopen the beleaguered Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the US lifts military pressure and the blockade on Iranian ports, a senior Iranian official told Reuters Tuesday.
US Vice President JD Vance has said people are “very excited” about his administration’s handling of the Iran war, despite Republican candidates in the midterm election breaking with Donald Trump over the issue.
A reporter asked Vance for a response “about a growing number of Republicans in battleground states, calling for an end to the Iran war”.
“I haven't seen what you're talking about”, Vance said during a press conference Tuesday. “What I've seen is people who are very excited about what we've done. And, frankly, who don’t want to give control of Washington, D.C., over to the far-left Democrats”.
US senator Bernie Sanders has said that annihilating the population of Iran, as threatened by president Donald Trump, would amount to a war crime and an act of barbarism that the United States must never be associated with.
Writing on social media, Mr Sanders said: "No, Mr President. We should not 'annihilate' the people of Iran. That is a war crime. That is barbarism. And it is something the United States must never be associated with."
Mr Sanders described the current conflict with Iran as "illegal and unconstitutional" and called on Congress to act immediately to bring it to an end.
On Monday, US Rep. Ashley Hinson, Donald Trump’s endorsed nominee in Iowa’s Senate race, made a public break from the president, calling for an end to the Iran war.
That was surprising considering that just last week, before Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed the House of Representatives a day early, Hinson voted against a War Powers Act resolution to rein in Trump’s war. This came despite two of her Iowa Republican colleagues running for re-election — Reps. Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks — voting for the resolution.
But the pain at the gas tank is becoming too much across the board.
On Tuesday, Republicans’ reasons for breaking with the US president on Iran became clear. Marist University released a poll showing Josh Turek, the Paralympian-turned Democratic nominee for Senate, besting Hinson by eight points. Lest anyone think that poll is an outlier, a YouGov poll showed Turek with a one-point lead in Iowa.
All of this seems to show that Iowa, which has undergone a political transformation in the past 15 years to become a staunchly Republican state, is prime for a Democratic takeover.
Iran engaged with the United States through a Qatari mediator in New York and conveyed its conditions for peace, including an end to the fighting on all fronts and a halt to American "acts of aggression", Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told state news agency IRNA.
Baghaei said Iran's conditions also included an end to the naval blockade and economic warfare, and the release of Iranian assets.
US President Donald Trump’s conflict with Iran continues to grow increasingly unpopular, shattering what was previously thought to be the barrier to how the president’s ratings could go, new polling suggests.
While Trump’s own general approval rating has held steady in the 30s, disapproval of the war in Iran continues to grow, threatening Republican midterm prospects and the president’s own political capital going forward.
A CNN/SRSS poll released Tuesday found that just about one in four Americans approve of the administration’s handling of the war in Iran, compared to nearly three quarters who disapprove. Trump’s rating on foreign affairs overall is only a few points higher, at 29 percent.
The president spoke about the war Tuesday as he railed against Iran at the United Nations General Assembly, threatening to “annihilate” the country and making a claim that Tehran was waiting to see how the midterm congressional elections turned out before returning to the table.
US envoy Steve Witkoff has said he hopes talks with the Iranian delegation on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday “prove constructive and promising”.
Exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has warned that there's no peace under the current regime.
“As long as this regime continues to exist, peace cannot be attained”, Pahlavi told Fox News.
Pahlavi said the Iranian regime’s “only means of survival is to repress its people at home and use any means at their disposal to bully the world”.
When the US and Israel began striking Iran nearly seven months ago, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed. Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Iran’s late supreme leader, replaced his father.
