President Donald Trump’s new strategy with Iran is already falling apart as his own team can’t agree on the basics.
Vice President JD Vance and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner appear to be pushing completely different demands in nuclear talks with Tehran, just a day before negotiations are set to resume.
Vance is insistent that Iran have zero uranium enrichment capacity, while Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff had recently floated a softer deal in which the U.S. would supply Iran with uranium for civilian use, according to Fox News.
“When JD Vance says that the president gave them clear guidelines, we understand that to mean that the U.S. needs to go in there and tell Iran: No enrichment, period,” White House correspondent Peter Doocy told America’s Newsroom.
“About six weeks ago, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were sitting there with the Iranians and said, ‘The U.S. will give you all the uranium you want for peaceful purposes. You just can’t use it to enrich a bomb.’”
Iran rejected that proposal outright, highlighting just how wide the gap remains and how muddled the U.S. position has become.
The split is emerging at a critical moment as Trump has dispatched Vance, Kushner, and Witkoff to Pakistan for ceasefire talks to stabilize a fragile truce after weeks of escalating conflict.
But even before those negotiations begin, there are signs they could unravel.
Tehran has already indicated it would prefer to deal directly with Vance over Kushner and Witkoff, reflecting deep distrust after earlier talks collapsed, according to CNN.
Iranian officials have also warned that key preconditions, including a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of frozen assets, have not been met, raising doubts that the talks will go ahead at all.
Iran’s military has warned it has its “fingers on the trigger” amid what it calls repeated breaches of trust, while regional skirmishes continue despite the supposed ceasefire.
Trump, meanwhile, has been sending a very different message.
“The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways,” the president wrote on Truth Social on Friday.
“The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!”
“The Iranians are better at handling the Fake News Media, and ‘Public Relations,’ than they are at fighting!” he wrote in another post.
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
The mixed messaging, with hardline demands from one envoy, concessions from another, and threats from the president, has left the administration looking divided heading into one of the most delicate negotiations of Trump’s presidency.
With so much still unresolved, the biggest obstacle to a deal may not be Iran, but the lack of a clear U.S. position.
