Americanswers… on 5 Live! Trump claims Iran wants to "make a deal" to end the war

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30And to think, that's just a small taste of what Schwab offers. Because Schwab knows that when it comes to your finances, choice matters. No matter your goals, investing style, life stage or experience, Schwab has everything you need, all in one place, so you can invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Are there talks, serious talks, happening between the United States and Iran? and if there are, could they actually lead to anything? In public, both sides are talking about what they think the talks are and are not. We ask, what's going on behind the scenes? What is really happening? We also answer your questions today on Five Live, but before we get into that, Sumi and I kick off with the most consideratory remarks from Donald Trump since his war on Iran started.

1:23He has postponed his threatened strikes against Iranian power plants, which had a midnight deadline, due to what he said were productive talks with Iran, which, of course, Iran has denied. But let's listen to the president. We're going to get together today by probably phone because it's very hard to find a country. It's very hard for them to get out, I guess. But we'll at some point very, very soon meet. We're doing a five-day period. We'll see how that goes. And if it goes well, we're going to end up with settling this. Otherwise, we'll just keep bombing our little hearts out. They called. I didn't call.

2:03They called. They want to make a deal. And we are very willing to make a deal. It's got to be a good deal. And it's got to be no more wars, no more nuclear weapons. They're not going to have nuclear weapons anymore. They're agreeing to that. Any of that stuff is no deal. We've had this voice note from Mark in Guildford and Surrey in England. What options remain for diplomatic dialogue to stop the current war? Do any back channels exist? And which countries, if any, are likely to be able to broker a peace deal to bring the war to an end? It's a good question from Mark and Guildford. And actually, it's a question that brings up the fact that this is all very fast moving and could have moved faster and further in various directions by the time you're listening to this.

2:47But, I mean two things number one Donald Trump has made it very plain in his view that something has happened there is some kind of contact behind the scenes number two the Iranian leadership such as it is and we're again not entirely sure who that is at this stage but they seem to be suggesting that there is nothing nothing at all no talks are taking place but number three and this I think in a way Sumi is the most important side of it because this is someone who in a sense isn't involved in the direct flight, well, isn't involved in the direct flight, and has in the past been involved in diplomacy.

3:21And that is Oman, this Gulf state, which is slightly removed from all of this, has reasonable relations with Iran, has reasonable relationships with the wider West as well and with Donald Trump, and was trying to do some sort of a deal involving the Iranians before the war broke out. And now the Omani foreign minister has used X to say that there is some sort of a potential deal to be done over opening the Strait of Hormuz. So, Sumi, it's wrong to say, isn't it, that there is absolutely nothing happening publicly, that we can't see any evidence of anything happening. But it's also true to say, isn't it, that it's all a bit opaque.

4:02Yeah. And President Trump was actually asked about the Iranians saying there are no talks happening. And he said, well, we've blown up their radars and telecommunications. So could be, he was indicating that they don't know or parts of the Iranian leadership don't know about talks taking place. And he said that his special envoy, Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and advisor, that they have been spearheading these indirect talks. And interesting also, Axios here in the U.S. has been reporting that Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan are all playing a role now. They've been passing messages between the U.S.

4:33and Iran. Of course, they're not in contact directly. But interesting to see that these three countries, according to Axios, are playing a role and that Pakistan indeed is even, according to this reporting from Barak Ravid, is even talking about bringing Iranian and American negotiators together in Islamabad. Imagine that. So, of course, Pakistan is one of the countries that has been impacted by the Strait of Hormuz being closed. But, you know, the point has also been made that President Trump could say, well, I'm not happy with the conditions that the Iranians are laying out, or his negotiators could say that, and this war could continue.

5:08But it does appear at this point that there is some movement on the diplomatic front. Yeah. And he, just to make it plain that he could walk away, the thing that he has said now, hasn't he, again, relatively recently, is his public position is that Iran is signing up to no future nuclear effort on its part and to getting rid of all the nuclear material that it's got. And if that is the case, then that's a big deal. And it's a big ask. There are plenty in Iran who wouldn't go with it. It is also important to note that analysts I've spoken to who worked on the previous nuclear agreement negotiated under President Obama and his administration say that is a completely unrealistic expectation.

5:51There's no way Iran would sign up for absolutely no enrichment, especially after this attack. What incentive would they have to do so? That doesn't mean that they don't feel at this point that they're cornered and perhaps have to make those types of concessions. But on President Trump's side, he was asked also about this. And he said, if it goes well, we're going to end up with settling this. Otherwise, we'll just keep bombing our little hearts out. So that gives you an indication of just how volatile this entire process could be, especially if President Trump sees that no enrichment is not going to be on the table.

6:21And it's just worth saying finally, isn't it, Simi, on this, that for the Trump administration, for the politics of all of this in America, which is our principal interest on AmeriCast, this really does matter. You can see the immediate impact, even the hint of potential talks to have on world markets. And from the point of view of Donald Trump's political standing and the MAGA movement and the wider issues about whether or not this war is supported. This stuff really does matter. It does. And there's such an impact, not just here in the US, but across the world. We've seen the impact already on oil and gas markets.

6:57But Justin, just think about what the knock-on effects will be. We've talked about, you know, fertilizer, but also on food and other goods. If this war continues, you just have the sense that President Trump is going to face increasing pressure at home and abroad. OK, let's get on to more of your questions now with Matt Chorley and Marianna as well. So who is Trump listening to when it comes to the war? What do Americans think? Where is the U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance? Welcome to America Answers. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. You hear that sound? Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money.

7:35We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. This is a big cover-up, and this administration is engaged in it. This guy has Trump arrangement syndrome. I have four words for you. Turn the volume up.

7:53Hello, AmeriCast. It's Bob in Minneapolis. Is President Trump getting good advice as he makes decisions about the Iran war? We've read about the reduced effectiveness of the State Department and various U.S. intelligence agencies as experienced professionals depart to be replaced by Trump loyalists. Do his advisors have the regional knowledge needed to develop effective strategies? and will the president listen to them? Who is advising Donald Trump on the decisions he's making? I think it's really interesting because the difference in Donald Trump's administrations this time around and the team around him versus the first time.

8:25This time around, a lot of the people that Donald Trump is working with are people that he kind of has a close relationship with and they don't seem to fall out quite nearly so much. But that impression of competence is slightly different this time around just because there's that feeling of, hang on a second, like, what is Hegseth up to? Why, you know, he's the Secretary of State for Defense. Like, you know, what expertise does he have? How is he making the decisions that he's making? I don't know what you think, Justin or Sumi, about the way that Americans perceive it versus what's actually happening.

8:56Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point, because on the one hand, you're absolutely right, Marina, that this time, this presidential term for Donald Trump, of course, he has a completely different set of advisers. Those who are mainly there to support what he wants to do. He is listening to his chief of staff, Susie Wiles. He's listening to his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, who arguably is the most powerful person in the administration after Donald Trump. Also, we know that he does think highly of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Cain. But if you think about that, Dan Cain, actually, we heard in the week before the war started, had been warning the Trump administration, had been warning President Trump himself about the risks of starting a war with Iran.

9:38And yet the wars, the attacks with Israel, of course, went ahead anyways. And so the sense you have now is that President Trump is not necessarily looking at expertise in the region. He's not necessarily looking at those who know Iran well or perhaps had anything to do with negotiations with Iran in the past. He's looking at what the transaction is that he can make here. Yeah. And just to follow through on that, Matt, the thing that they want, of course, that he can then say this is all we ever wanted. although his war aims right at the beginning were pretty unclear and they changed from day to day.

10:10But if they have, if they could get them to agree to give up all their nuclear material and to not make any effort at all in that direction in the future, then that would be more than anyone's achieved in the past. Let's turn our attention to, because we've had quite a lot of questions and comments about how this is playing out inside the US. Mary in Kentucky has sent us this voice note. Certainly, I'm beginning to notice at my gas station in northern Kentucky, the price of regular gas has gone up 60 cents per gallon since the war started. And in the Cincinnati area, where I attend grad school, average gas prices have increased over a dollar since the conflict started.

10:50So what did the team think about Trump's message? And is it even feasible for Trump to pull out at this point? Cheers, y 'all. Well, excellent y 'all there for Mary in Kentucky. I mean, the same way that it's been played out in the UK as well. People notice their gas or petrol prices more than perhaps anything else because it's there. It's written on the side of the road and you'll know, you know, you notice every time you fill up. So what is Donald Trump taking America with him on this? Or do you think that actually it's your Mary's in Kentucky noticing gas prices going up is having any impact on his decision making?

11:22I think it very likely will do. Look, the jury's still out on whether President Trump is taking the American public with him on this. To this point, it is clear that this war, according to the polls that we've seen, is pretty unpopular with the American people. You have to remember that this is coming off the back of the fact that prices still remain pretty high here in the U.S. when it comes to groceries, housing. And energy prices had come down. Gas prices had come down. Now they're shooting back up. And so there's real frustration with these gas prices. I've been watching U.S. media reports where you see people stopped as they're filling up their tank and asked about who they voted for and how they feel about gas prices.

11:59And you see some pretty upset President Trump supporters, people who voted for him who say, you know, he lied to us and this is not what I signed up for. That being said, President Trump's message has been, look, this is short term pain. And in a few weeks, in a few months, things will be back to normal. Will Americans give him that leeway? It's hard to say. And it really depends on whether President Trump can wrap the war up in a way that he feels is successful and also be able to stabilize those oil markets again, which oil and gas experts we have spoken to say that takes a little time. Sumi, to what extent does Keir Starmer sort of impact on the psyche in America?

12:36I would say in the broader psyche of the American public, not much. I can say that the debate between the UK and the US right now and the pressure that President Trump has been putting on the UK hasn't really played out in the American public. Among lawmakers here, I speak to Democrats and Republicans regularly. Democrats are upset with what they say is undue pressure that President Trump is putting on one of the US's closest allies. But among Republicans and particularly those who support President Trump's mission here, they see a real sense of betrayal. actually. You know, President Trump always says, of the special relationships we have with other countries, this is the most important one, the US and UK.

13:12He called it the Rolls Royce, didn't he, of partnerships that the US has. And in the administration, there is a real sense that the UK has let the US down. But beyond President Trump and his administration and some of those Republican members of Congress that I mentioned, it's not getting a whole lot of attention, perhaps far more in the UK than here. Can I also just add to that, Matt, Yeah, that one of the things, one of the places, away from the politics of it all, one of the places that you do hear it is having an impact is just at the sort of technical level of Britain's ability to be useful in a military crisis.

13:47And that is somewhere where the Pentagon, you know, they've always talked about, I don't know, our special forces, our kind of commitment to being able to do stuff. And they've been aware that our armed forces have come under a lot of pressure recently. But there is some real concern, actually, just about where Britain is, even if we wanted to do the things that Donald Trump wanted us to do, whether actually we'd be capable of doing them. And that, I think, does seep through into the thinking in the Pentagon. Can I ask about Donald Trump's mobile number? Because it seems like everyone in Washington has it.

14:22It's the worst kept secret, isn't it? And particularly British journalists just phone him up and say, do you want to say something rude about Keir Starmer? And he obliges. And then, you know, it creates a whole new cycle. Sue Me, have you got it? Do you want to share it with the rest of us? I don't have it. He is eager to give it out, appears, or you can actually contact other reporters and ask them for it. But to what extent they're getting interesting and unique insights from President Trump on the phone, I'm not entirely sure. OK, it is 001. No. I knew Justin had it. I knew it. We'll give him a bell on America.

14:56It's not funny though, is it? The simple fact, Matt, that Theresa May was asked for her mobile phone number to give to Donald Trump and she said no. Did she? When was that? Well, when she was Prime Minister. Yeah. Yeah. No, she said no, it's OK. We'll just go through the usual channels. Thank you very much. Well, we've seen it. Do you remember those screenshots of the messages that seemed to be from Macron to Donald Trump where they were just texting away. Yes, that's why I don't text him. You never know where it's going to end up. Is there something, Justin, in the incredible accessibility to Donald Trump?

15:29It's part of the whole story, isn't it? Yeah, you're dead right. And it's worth just underlining how, and we've kind of got used to Donald Trump now, haven't we? But he is just completely different to anything that there's been before in so many ways. And part of it is that he understands that we live in an information economy now, that you've got to capture attention. And one way of doing it is just to be staggeringly available. You know, there are plenty of people, serious academic students of politics and of media, who would say that is very much the modern world. And it could be that future presidents of both political stripes in the States have to be, in a sense, similar.

16:09And a conversation is very different if you think it might be screen grabbed and go viral on social media. And or people can now just AI generate images that look like real text conversations as well. So once it's known that, you know, these leaders are in direct communication with each other, it's incredibly easy to make a fake that sort of takes off and everyone thinks, oh, was that real? Was it not real? Who knows? So I wonder if it's sort of diminishing returns on it, because the thing I really noticed last week was, or maybe the week before, it started with Donald Trump's being rude about Keir Starmer, and that was like a massive story.

16:40And then by the time you saw the eighth day of Keir Starmer, Donald Trump being rude about Keir Starmer, it was sort of baked in. Does the American media, American public hang on his every word? Or is there any sort of sense of... You can't. You can't? You just can't keep up with it? You can't because his every word means listening to Donald Trump about eight hours a day. Of course, we hear from him when he is getting on an airplane. We hear from him when he's getting off an airplane. We hear him at the Oval Office. And it is very much part of the strategy. Remember when President Trump came back to office and we heard this flood the zone strategy?

17:11As many policies, as many different initiatives as possible, that's also part of the communication strategy. So obviously we have to move with President Trump and what he's saying every minute, every hour of every day.

17:29Right, we've come off air with Matt Chorley on Five Live, but we've got plenty more still to talk about. So let's start with this voice note that we've had from Leslie in London. I wondered if Trump's personal popularity is falling and the MAGA coalition is fracturing, are voters likely to plump for Trump's anointed successor? Or are there signs that traditional Republicans might reclaim their party before the next presidential election? Or is that just wishful old fashioned thinking? Keep on cursing. Bye. It's such a good question that, Sumi. And what we've we've sort of teased around it a bit on pods recently, where we've suggested that if things really do go badly for Trump, then J.D.

18:10Vance potentially will have the same problem that Kamala Harris had. In other words, you've attached yourself and you've got to explain somehow that you were never there or you never really thought about the things that were happening at the time and you didn't support them, etc. And that's really difficult to do, particularly when you still are the vice president. I don't know. What's your thoughts about J.D. Vance in particular and indeed who the runners and riders might be if he were to take a popularity tumble? So I have to say, you know, it's a great question indeed, Leslie, but it's far too early to talk about the demise of President Trump.

18:44Yes, if you look at the right wing influencer circle, MAGA circle, there are plenty of people who are not happy about the war in Iran, as you guys have been discussing on the pod, who are not happy about grocery prices, who are not happy perhaps with some of President Trump's immigration policies. At the same time, President Trump still wields enormous power over Congress, over the vast majority of his base. And the proof of that is if you look at polling when it comes to MAGA President Trump supporters, they still almost unanimously support his policies. So there is that aspect. And then the question of whether the quote unquote traditional Republican Party might reclaim their power over the base before the next presidential election.

19:28That is an ever rarer breed here in Washington. I have to say that traditional Republican. And this is President Trump's party. This is the MAGA party now. That is something that has become very clear, you know, in the last few years in particular, but especially now that President Trump is back in office. As for J.D. Vance, yes, it is true that he is in a very good position, of course, to be able to move forward if President Trump were to give him the green light. But as of now, he hasn't done that. I think, Justin, it's always important to keep in mind, President Trump wants the spotlight and he's not going to give that up very easily, even if the next presidential election is just a few years away.

20:05If you look then at the people, because we ought to just say something with all the caveats, you said that it's way too early and anyone could come from anywhere, including possibly outer space in the modern age. But just I mean, it just seems to me that Ted Cruz, who people, AmeriCasters are educated about America. They'll certainly have heard of him and quite a few will know quite a lot about him. And he's obviously a very big noise in the Senate and has been for some time. I it's the thing the people that interest me are people like Ted Cruz and how they if the war doesn't go well how they seek in the next few months to peel themselves off from Trump.

20:48And I just wonder whether there might in the end actually to your point just be more people in it than just Rubio and Vance are the ones we always talk about at the moment. Indeed. At the moment, of course, it's J.D. Vance, it's Marco Rubio. Those are the main figures who were talked about as the possible successors for President Trump and the MAGA mantle to carry that forward. And this has always been a question of timeline, hasn't it, Justin? If this war continues on for another two, three weeks and then even further on to another two, three months, there is a real possibility for a different candidate.

21:19And there is the prospect that particularly Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, who has really supported President Trump vocally in this war and has been one of the key messengers in this war in the first weeks, that he stands to lose from that. J.D. Vance has, in a way, we've seen the reporting that he has separated himself a bit from President Trump. President Trump himself has said that, you know, he has some differing opinions from J.D. Vance on this war. So that is perhaps something that J.D. Vance can play up, if you will. But it does open the door for other figures of the Republican Party to really rise up.

21:55If they say we are truly America first, we were never for this war in the first place. We'll listen to a bit of J.D. Vance, actually, because his position is so fascinating on all of this. So this was Vance talking last week in the Oval Office. He's standing right next to Donald Trump. And he's asked, is he on board with the war in Iran? I know what you're trying to do, Phil. You're trying to drive a wedge between members of the administration, between me and the president. What the president said consistently, going back to 2015, and I agreed with him, is that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.

22:27We have taken this military action under the president's leadership. I think all of us, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, should pray for success and pray for the safety of our troops. That's the approach that I've taken. Make it as successful as possible. So there's no hesitation, given your past statements, with the current operation? What do you mean there's no hesitation with my past statements? Given your skepticism of more adventurism, you were a critic of the global war on terror previously. Well, I think one big difference, Phil, is that we have a smart president, whereas in the past we've had dumb presidents, and I trust President Trump to get the job done, to do a good job for the American people, and to make sure that the mistakes of the past aren't repeated, absolutely.

23:05He didn't exactly say there, did he, I completely support this action, which he could have done. and he didn't. That's right. I find this messaging from J.D. Vance so interesting. He's saying, well, because this war is President Trump's war, it's different. We had these, quote, dumb presidents in the past. President Trump isn't that. And that really underlines, actually, if you talk about some sort of foreign policy strategy that President Trump has, it's very much based on his own vision of what he thinks works. It's his own intuition. Remember when he said, this war will end when I feel it in my bones, deeply in my bones.