Trump’s nonstop public commentary harming Iran talks, his aides tell CNN

US President Donald Trump has been torpedoing the Iran negotiations with his nonstop public commentary about their content, several of his advisers told CNN.

The talks were nearing a breakthrough on Friday when Trump began commenting about them on social media and in marathon phone interviews with reporters, according to CNN, which cites several US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Trump in those interviews claimed that Iran agreed to every point of contention, including giving up its entire stockpile of enriched uranium.

Iranian officials quickly issued denials of Trump’s claims, with the US officials acknowledging to CNN that the talks were at a very sensitive stage when the president began weighing in and that his comments didn’t help alleviate the deep Iranian mistrust of Washington.

Responding to the report, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says, “The United States has never been closer to a good deal with Iran, unlike the horrible deal made by the Obama administration, thanks to President Trump’s negotiating ability. Anyone who cannot see President Trump’s tactics to play the long game are either stupid or willfully ignorant.”

The US officials suggested Trump caused further harm by continuing to take calls from reporters and posting dozens of times on Truth Social each day.

Trump on Sunday said that US Vice President JD Vance would not be attending the second round of Iran talks in Pakistan due to security concerns. The White House later clarified that Vance would in fact be leading the US delegation in Pakistan.

On Monday, Trump claimed in an interview that Vance had already departed for Islamabad when he in fact was still in Washington and now isn’t even supposed to leave until Tuesday.

Later Monday, Trump claimed that a deal with Iran would be reached later today, even though talks were not scheduled to begin until Tuesday at the earliest and Tehran has not even confirmed that it will attend.

He then told Bloomberg that the two-week ceasefire with Iran expires on Wednesday night, even though that would be one day later than the deadline that he originally set.