A deal to end the Iran war seemed close. Then Trump started posting on social media

By Alayna Treene, Kevin Liptak, CNN

(CNN) — As the weekend approached, the US and Iran appeared to be closing in on a deal to end the seven-week war.

Then President Donald Trump did exactly what his staffers have repeatedly said they wouldn’t do: He seemed to try negotiating via the press, posting about ongoing talks on social media and speaking to several reporters by phone Friday morning as Pakistani intermediaries updated him on ongoing talks with Iranian officials in Tehran.

He claimed Iran had agreed to a host of provisions that sources familiar with the talks said have not yet been finalized. He also asserted that Tehran had agreed to many of the most contentious US demands — including that it had agreed to hand over the enriched uranium — and declared an imminent end to the war.

Iranian officials outwardly rejected many of those assertions and denied they were preparing for another round of talks, rapidly tanking the rising optimism for a deal. Now, it’s unclear where the peace talks go from here.

Some Trump officials privately acknowledged to CNN that the president’s public commentary has been detrimental to talks, noting the sensitivity of the negotiations and the Iranians’ deep mistrust of the US. Compounding matters: American officials suspect there is a divide between Iran’s negotiating team, led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, leading to questions about who can ultimately sign off on a deal.

“The Iranians didn’t appreciate POTUS negotiating through social media and making it appear as if they had signed off on issues they hadn’t yet agreed to, and ones that aren’t popular with their people back home,” one person familiar with the talks told CNN, adding that the Iranians are particularly concerned about appearing to look weak.

Among the president’s claims: Trump told Bloomberg that Iran had agreed to an “unlimited” suspension of its nuclear program. He told CBS News Tehran “agreed to everything,” and would work with the US to remove its enriched uranium. And he told Axios a meeting would “probably take place over the weekend,” adding, “I think we will get a deal in the next day or two.”

The fragile ceasefire between Washington and Tehran was tested once again on Sunday when a US guided-missile destroyer fired on and seized an Iranian cargo ship after it tried to get past the US naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman, further angering the Iranians.

Now, as the expiration date of a two-week ceasefire looms, Trump is again facing a decision: whether to accept a deal, even an imperfect one, or to escalate a conflict he once said would be over by now.

By Monday, officials in Iran sounded less resistant to more negotiations. But the contours of any pending agreement remained unclear.

“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,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “Anyone who cannot see President Trump’s tactics to play the long game are either stupid or willfully ignorant.”

Trump has set several red lines for the negotiations, including that Iran freeze its uranium enrichment and surrender its stockpile of near-bomb-grade material. Tehran, meanwhile, insists it be allowed to maintain control over the Strait of Hormuz while also demanding the US lift sanctions.

During the first round of talks, American negotiators proposed a 20-year pause on Iran enriching uranium, a source familiar with the discussions said. Iran responded with a proposal for a five-year suspension, which the US has rejected, according to a US official.

One recent proposal from the Iranian side would involve a 10-year pause on enrichment, followed by another decade where Iran would agree to only enrich to levels well below weapons grade, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Meanwhile, Trump has told reporters that he wants no enrichment indefinitely and is against even the 20-year pause.

The Trump administration is also considering unfreezing $20 billion in Iranian assets as part of ongoing negotiations with Tehran, CNN previously reported. The step would come in exchange for Iran turning over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

How flexible each side is on their terms will ultimately dictate whether a deal can be reached. For Trump, one imperative is not agreeing to a deal that could be likened to the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an Iran nuclear deal he withdrew from in 2018 and has continuously derided as weak.

At the least, negotiators hope to produce a framework understanding between the US and Iran that would then lead to more detailed talks over the coming weeks on the finer points of a deal. That approach has its detractors, however, who warn that Iran could be drawing out the discussions as a play for time as it unearths some of its missile systems that have been buried over the course of the war.

Trump insisted Monday he wasn’t feeling pressure to reach a deal, despite the war’s rising unpopularity among the American public and the role it’s played in higher gas prices.

“I am under no pressure whatsoever, although, it will all happen, relatively quickly!” he wrote on Truth Social.

It was unclear as of Monday afternoon whether any advisers had shared concerns with the president that his penchant for posting could be damaging to the talks. By midday, he had posted multiple times on Truth Social about the war, totaling more than 900 words.

His public comments have only continued to add to the uncertainty surrounding negotiations.

At one point Sunday morning, Trump told a series of callers that Vice President JD Vance would not participate in this round of talks, citing unspecified security concerns. Simultaneously, two senior officials in his government — United Nations Ambassador Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright — appeared on television to say Vance would, in fact, be leading the delegation in Islamabad, as he had for the first round.

It turned out they were right and Trump was wrong. “Things changed,” a White House official told CNN when asked what had happened.

A day later, Trump offered another confusing update, this time about the whereabouts of his No. 2. He told a reporter calling from the New York Post that Vance was in the air and preparing to touch down in Pakistan within hours for the talks. Moments later, Vance’s motorcade — with the vice president inside — arrived at the West Wing.

“We expect the delegation to be on the road soon,” a White House official explained.

People familiar with the plans said Vance is now planning to depart Washington on Tuesday for the talks, which Trump claimed on Sunday would occur Monday evening.

But negotiations are now on track to commence Wednesday morning in Islamabad. In something of an understatement, the sources cautioned the situation remains “fluid.”

So, too, is the fate of the two-week ceasefire, which is set to expire soon. When, exactly, its deadline falls has also seemingly changed, based on a phone conversation Trump had with a reporter on Monday. He originally announced the ceasefire at 6:32 p.m. ET on April 7, putting the two-week mark on Tuesday evening in Washington.

But Trump told Bloomberg the truce ends “Wednesday evening Washington time,” allowing for an extra 24 hours of talks before he must choose whether make good on his threat to blow up Iranian bridges and power plants, a possible war crime. He added that it was “highly unlikely” that he would extend it further.

But he previously went back and forth on whether he would agree to extend the ceasefire. During one question-and-answer session with reporters last week, he was asked five separate times whether he would extend the ceasefire, and offered three different answers:

“If there’s no deal, fighting resumes,” he said definitively at one point. Later, he offered that he would offer an extension if necessary: “If we need to, I would do that.” In another answer, he suggested the question was moot, given the state of negotiations: “We’ll see. I don’t know that we’ll have to. Ideally, we won’t.”

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