Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?

Summary

Summary of "Trump Trashed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Will His Be Any Better?"

Podcast: The Daily
Host: Michael Barbaro
Release Date: April 16, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of The Daily, host Michael Barbaro delves into the complexities surrounding former President Donald Trump's decision to dismantle the Iran nuclear deal established during the Obama administration. With negotiations resurfacing years after Trump had previously revoked the agreement, the episode explores whether Trump's approach to a new deal could lead to a more effective outcome for the United States and its allies.

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Background on the Iran Nuclear Deal

Michael Barbaro sets the stage by highlighting Trump's longstanding criticism of the Iran nuclear agreement. During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump labeled the deal as "the worst deal ever made by any country in history" (00:48). Upon assuming office, he followed through by revoking the agreement, citing its inadequacies.

David Sanger, a colleague, provides historical context, explaining that the original 2015 deal was intended to cap Iran's nuclear advancements temporarily while lifting economic sanctions as an incentive. However, the deal had inherent flaws, allowing Iran to progress its nuclear capabilities under certain conditions (05:35).

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Trump's Shift Towards Negotiation

Contrary to his previous stance, Trump has initiated new talks with Iran in April 2025. Barbaro questions this unexpected move, especially given Trump's earlier efforts to portray Iran as a significant adversary. Sanger reveals that Trump's change in approach is influenced by updated intelligence reports indicating that Iran is much closer to developing a nuclear weapon than when he left office in 2021 (08:15).

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Current Negotiations and Objectives

The negotiations are led by Steve Witkoff, a former associate of Trump with limited experience in nuclear issues. Initially, Witkoff expressed interest in merely capping Iran's nuclear program, reminiscent of the Obama-era deal (19:56). However, U.S. demands have escalated to seeking the complete dismantlement of Iran's nuclear infrastructure (20:40).

Notable Quote:
Steve Witkoff stated, "I'm just interested in capping the program and making sure that we could verify that the Iranians were not producing uranium at 60% purity, but instead at a much lower number what you'd use for power plants" (19:56).

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U.S. Demands vs. Iran's Conditions

The United States, under Trump's directive, demands the total destruction of Iran's nuclear facilities, aiming to eliminate any potential for Iran to develop nuclear weapons in the future. This stance starkly contrasts with Iran's position, which seeks to retain some level of nuclear capability as a deterrent against potential threats (18:50; 19:21).

Iran, reeling from regional setbacks such as the destruction of its proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah, and the weakening of its defense systems following missile exchanges with Israel, finds itself in a precarious position (12:16; 13:58). These developments have exposed Iran's vulnerabilities, making the negotiation atmosphere tense and urgent.

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Incentives for Iran to Negotiate

Despite making significant strides towards nuclear weaponization, Iran faces immense external pressures. The recent missile exchanges with Israel revealed that Iran's missile defenses are compromised, and its offensive capabilities are limited (13:58). Additionally, the continued imposition of economic sanctions has strained Iran's economy, limiting its oil exports and access to international markets.

Notable Quote:
David Sanger explains, "They are vulnerable to the Israelis going to President Trump and saying, see, we told you they weren't serious. So the only solution here is a military one" (25:21).

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Potential Outcomes and Future Scenarios

Sanger assesses the likelihood of reaching a new agreement, noting the historical challenges in Iran-U.S. negotiations. While there is optimism about a possible deal, skepticism remains due to internal factions within Iran and the unpredictable nature of Trump’s administration.

If negotiations falter, the possibility of a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities looms. The U.S. has positioned B2 bombers armed with bunker-busting bombs as a deterrent, signaling a readiness to escalate if necessary (24:32).

Notable Quote:
Trump warns, "This is one of the worst deals ever made by any country in history" (00:48) and later emphasizes the potential consequences of not reaching a deal, stating, "I am forced to do the obvious" (15:20).

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with an exploration of the high stakes involved in the renegotiation of the Iran nuclear deal. As both the U.S. and Iran navigate their respective demands and limitations, the international community watches closely, aware that the outcome will have significant implications for regional stability and global security.

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Key Takeaways

• Trump's Shift: Former President Trump, previously a staunch critic of the Iran nuclear deal, has initiated new negotiations amid changing geopolitical dynamics.
• U.S. Demands: The U.S. seeks the complete dismantlement of Iran's nuclear infrastructure, a more aggressive stance than the original 2015 agreement.
• Iran's Vulnerability: Regional conflicts and weakened defenses have left Iran exposed, incentivizing it to consider negotiating despite advancements in its nuclear program.
• Negotiation Challenges: The disparity between U.S. and Iranian objectives, coupled with internal political pressures, presents significant obstacles to reaching a new accord.
• Potential for Conflict: Failure to secure a deal may result in military action, further destabilizing the already volatile Middle East region.

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Notable Quotes

• Donald Trump: "This is one of the worst deals ever made by any country in history." (00:48)
• David Sanger: "Nothing less than full dismantlement." (18:50)
• Steve Witkoff: "I'm just interested in capping the program and making sure that we could verify that the Iranians were not producing uranium at 60% purity..." (19:56)
• Donald Trump: "I am forced to do the obvious." (15:20)
• Michael Barbaro: "Is it fair to say that Iran only got this far because Trump tore up the last nuclear deal?" (11:12)

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This summary is intended to provide a comprehensive overview of the podcast episode for those who have not listened to it. For a more in-depth understanding, listening to the full episode is recommended.

Transcript

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[Michael Barbaro]

New York Times, I'm Michael Balbaro. This is the Daily for years, President Trump has mocked the Obama administration for the nuclear deal that it reached with Iran.

[Donald Trump]

This is one of the worst deals ever made by any country in history.

[Michael Barbaro]

A plan he disliked so much that he revoked it. Now, as Trump embarks on talks with Iran to reach a nuclear deal of his own.

[Donald Trump]

We had a meeting with him on Saturday. We have another meeting scheduled next Saturday.

[Michael Barbaro]

The question is whether he can achieve anything that's actually better.

[David Sanger]

Got a problem with Iran, but I'll solve that problem.

[Donald Trump]

That's almost an easy one.

[David Sanger]

Today.

[Michael Barbaro]

My colleague David Sanger takes us inside the negotiations. It's Wednesday, April 16th.

David, always a pleasure.

[David Sanger]

Great to be back with you, Michael.

[Michael Barbaro]

Appreciate you making time for us. I think for a lot of people, the concept of President Trump suddenly wanting to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran is genuinely surprising because it was just a few years ago during his first term as president, that he tore up the last nuclear deal that the US And Iran had reached very painstakingly, and since then has made a point of portraying Iran as basically evil. And yet here we are, there are actual talks happening between Iran and the United States right now.

[David Sanger]

You know, Michael, it's nothing short of mind blowing that this is coming out of Donald Trump and his team, especially when you consider the fact that in 2024, during the campaign, if you believe the Biden administration's Justice Department, the Iranians had actually hired some contract killers to try to assassinate Trump.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right. To say that there is no love between these two sides is a historic understatement.

[David Sanger]

That's right. So what's happening now is in some ways completely unexpected because of course, during the first term, Trump not only tore up the old agreement, but it was pretty clear from the Iran hawks he surrounded himself with, like Mike Pompeo, the secretary of State, that what they really wanted to do was crush the Iranian regime, force it into huge changes. Yet now the strategic circumstances are quite different and Trump's approach is different.

[Michael Barbaro]

Well, give us the context, we need to understand both why Trump tore up the original nuclear deal and why he would now want to essentially redo it.

[David Sanger]

So no country has put more effort into building a nuclear weapon for a longer period of time than the Iranians have. When you think about it, it's taken them, well, more than two decades, far longer than it took the Israelis, the Indians, the Pakistanis to go build a bomb. And that, in part has been because they've been of two minds about it. On the one hand, they want a weapon. Israel has nuclear weapons. And so they felt that they should have them, but also because they believed that as one of the Middle East's biggest, oldest powers, they should be a senior member of the nuclear club. But at the same time, they've been nervous about it because they know that as soon as they get too close to a weapon, the chances that the Israelis attack, maybe with American support, is very high. So in 2003, for example, after the United States had invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq, the Iranians deeply feared they may be next. And their political leadership sent out a message to the scientists running the nuclear weapons program that says, hey, maybe this isn't such a great idea. Let's take a pause on this whole thing. And so they continued to produce nuclear fuel, uranium. But they did so relatively slowly. And in 2013, President Obama started a secret series of talks, and that turned into a negotiation that two years later turned out to be a way to cap the Iranian nuclear program.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right. Just kind of stall it out. Freeze it in place.

[David Sanger]

Freeze it in place. And ship 97% of the fuel that they had already produced out to Russia. Russia. And this was an agreement that had some flaws in it. Over time, the Iranians, under the agreement, were allowed to begin to figure out how to make uranium more efficiently. And basically, by 2030, they would have no restraints at all. But Obama thought this was actually a pretty good bet. After all, Ayatollah Khamenei was old. He was believed to be suffering from cancer. And this would buy some time. And in return, years of sanctions approved by the United nations and enforced by the US And Europe would get lifted. So for them, there was a lot of inducement to reach the deal.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right? And this, of course, is the deal that Donald Trump comes along as president, looks at and says, this is terrible.

[David Sanger]

Actually, he did it as candidate. It was one of his earliest positions in 2016, that this deal was a giveaway. It was negotiated by idiots and never should have been agreed to. In fact, at one point, Maggie Haberman and I were interviewing him in 2016 in, I think, one of his first foreign policy interviews, and he said, you know, I would have gotten up from the table and walked away on parts of that agreement. And so I remember pulling out a copy of the agreement, and the Obama agreement was not short. It was like 150 detailed pages.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right?

[David Sanger]

And I said, what part of this would you have walked away from? Well, of course, he fumbled around for a bit, but eventually when I said, well, is it long enough? He said, no, no, no, it doesn't last long enough. And, you know, it doesn't actually dismantle any. Those were his complaints. But the fact of the matter is, when he came in as president, his own aide said to him, hey, this thing is working. They're not producing enough fuel to make a single weapon. So we understand that you hate it, but maybe you shouldn't tear it up.

[Michael Barbaro]

But of course, he finds it objectionable enough that he does tear it up. So, with all that history in mind, knowing that the original deal was imperfect but was fundamentally working, and how much contempt there is between both sides of this, why suddenly, In April of 2025, all these years later, does Trump want to do it all over again?

[David Sanger]

Well, you know, Michael, since he left office In January of 2021, a lot has changed for the United States, for Iran, for the state of its nuclear program, even for the Israelis, who, of course, have long been trying to slow this down and threatening to destroy Iran's facilities.

[Michael Barbaro]

Well, let's start with the US and what basically has changed in Trump's view of this situation?

[David Sanger]

Well, the main thing that's changed in Donald Trump's perception of it is that he's been given a lot of intelligence reports that suggest that Iran is wildly closer to a weapon than it was when he left office.

[Michael Barbaro]

Huh. How much closer?

[David Sanger]

Way closer. So to make a nuclear weapon, you need, most importantly, the fuel. For it, you need uranium or plutonium. The Iranians have been working on enriching uranium at various sites, some of them deep underground. And usually you make uranium at a low enrichment level that enables you to produce nuclear power in a power plant. But what the Iranians have done is enrich to just short of bomb grade. They've gone up to what the scientists call 60% enrichment, and that's a very short leap, just days or weeks to the 90% you need to make a bomb.

[Michael Barbaro]

So, in other words, they can go into the kitchen, and here I'm being a little facetious, and pretty quickly whip up the amount of enriched uranium to Get a nuclear bomb.

[David Sanger]

That's right. Now, the fuel alone does not make a weapon. You then have to fabricate it, turn it into a metal, fit it into a warhead, design a triggering system and so forth. And one of the concerns that Trump got in the intelligence that the Biden administration left for him was that the Iranians were racing ahead to a faster, cruder way to build a weapon. Maybe they could make one in just months. And, you know, I think Trump recognized if they did that it's not just the Middle east that changes, the world changes. Right. Because all of a sudden, this regime which still says it is looking for death to America and an end to the Zionists in Israel. And that's why a series of American presidents back to Bill Clinton and George Bush have said one can never let Iran have a bomb.

[Michael Barbaro]

Is it fair to say that Iran only got this far because Trump tore up the last nuclear deal?

[David Sanger]

Well, Donald Trump wouldn't say that. He'd blame it on Joe Biden. But I would certainly say, having followed this thing for a couple of decades, that Trump's decision to walk out of the agreement in 2018 eventually gave the Iranians the opening to go race ahead. They said, look, if you're not going to abide by the rules in this agreement, we certainly aren't.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right.

[David Sanger]

So we're in a situation now where they're far closer to a weapon than they were when the US negotiated this agreement in 2015.

[Michael Barbaro]

So that explains why the US perspective and level of anxiety about this has changed. What incentive, David, would Iran have to negotiate a new deal after, as you just said, making all this progress towards its long held goal of having a nuclear bomb?

[David Sanger]

Well, the simplest answer to that, Michael, is the Iranians suddenly have never been more exposed. After the October 7, 2023 terror attack on Israel, the Israelis systematically destroyed Hamas and then last fall, Hezbollah, the two terror groups that were funded and basically proxies of the Iranians.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right. Kind of the shield that Iran had in the entire neighborhood around it.

[David Sanger]

That's right. And then the Assad government in Syria fell, and Assad was the closest single ally that the Iranians had.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right.

[David Sanger]

And then one more thing changed, and this was probably the biggest of all. You'll remember that last year there were these series of direct missile exchanges between Iran and Israel that had never happened before. But two things happened in this. The first is the Iranian missiles, which we thought were pretty fierce and hard to defend against, did not pierce the anti missile defenses that Israel and the United States had carefully assembled. Around the region, almost nothing got through. And then in late October of last year, the Israelis retaliated. They very carefully did not attack the Iranian nuclear facilities, but instead they took out all of the Iranian air defenses that were around the nuclear facilities and around Tehran.

[Michael Barbaro]

Got it.

[David Sanger]

So here were the Iranians, without their proxies, without their missile defenses, totally exposed.

[Michael Barbaro]

So if you're Iran, you're thinking to yourself, we, because Trump tore up the last nuclear deal, are getting really close to a nuclear bomb which might trigger Israel or I guess the United States to come after our nuclear facilities, attack them, try to destroy them. And because of what you just said, they've never been less capable of defending against that attack or capable of mounting retaliation. Because like you just said, if they go attack Israel, we kind of know it will mostly be a dud.

[David Sanger]

That's exactly right. So when you add all of this together, President Trump decided, let's give this one try at a non Obama, very Trumpian agreement. And he sat in the Oval Office editing a letter to Ayatollah Khamenei that basically said, I'm going to send my representatives. You guys have just a couple of months to do this. I'm not going to let it drag on. But let's try one thing before. As the President said, I am forced to do the obvious.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right? Obvious meaning a military attack?

[David Sanger]

That's right. And this worked. Steve Witkoff, Trump's old friend and favorite negotiator, goes from talking to Vladimir Putin in Moscow to flying to Oman, meeting the Iranian foreign minister. And this Saturday, they are going to begin the first serious discussions on a new Iran deal.

[Michael Barbaro]

We'll be right back.

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[Michael Barbaro]

So, David, now that these negotiations are actually happening, what exactly do both sides want out of them? And what would represent a good deal to both of them, the US and to Iran? And how far apart are those two visions?

[David Sanger]

So, of course, there's no unanimity inside any of these groups, inside Iran and inside the United States. But given that what the Iranians want is something as close to the 2015 agreement with Obama as they can get, while recognizing that Donald Trump isn't going to take anything that looks exactly like something Barack Obama negotiated, they would like to hold onto their facilities the way they did in the Obama era. They are willing to back off on their big enrichment of near bomb grade fuel, but they want to retain their capability because frankly, as they have said, they don't trust the United States and they don't trust Donald Trump because he walked away from the last agreement the US Signed. So they want to give some space between them and a bomb, but without giving up the capability of racing forward if everything turns south.

[Michael Barbaro]

Okay, I'm gonna guess that this is not what President Trump wants.

[David Sanger]

Well, we don't know exactly yet what President Trump wants. There is a lot of strategic incoherence inside the Trump administration.

[Michael Barbaro]

Well, what have they said so far?

[David Sanger]

Well, they started off by saying what they want is full dismantlement of the Iranian nuclear infrastructure. Nothing less than full dismantlement.

[Michael Barbaro]

And what does that mean, though?

[David Sanger]

So what the United States would like to do is blow up the facilities, take all the fuel that they've got in the country and ship it out again, and basically leave the Iranians with nothing that they could rebuild quickly.

[Michael Barbaro]

So what the US Wants is not just a setback to Iran's nuclear program, but its destruction. Is that plausible? It would seem that Iran would have very little reason to agree to that.

[David Sanger]

That's right. They're not interested in giving up everything. And they made it clear as the negotiation started, if you're asking for us to give up the whole program, then might as well stop this negotiation now.

[Michael Barbaro]

Okay, well, given how far apart the two sides are, Iran wants basically the original 2015 deal that freezes its nuclear program. The US says, We want a public demolition of your entire infrastructure. What do we know so far about the actual negotiations and how on earth they might somehow meet in the middle?

[David Sanger]

So, Michael, it's been really fascinating because Steve Witkoff, who really had no experience in dealing with nuclear issues before, announced on Fox News the other day that actually he's just interested in capping the program and making sure that we could verify that the Iranians were not producing uranium at 60% purity, but instead at a much lower number what you'd use for power plants.

[Michael Barbaro]

David, that sounds a lot, a lot like the deal Obama reached.

[David Sanger]

If it sounds a lot like the old Obama agreement, it's because it's a lot like the old Obama agreement.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right.

[David Sanger]

But, you know, the demands keep changing. So on Tuesday, Witkoff backed off of his comments about merely capping the nuclear program, and he repeated the call for eliminating the entire nuclear program. So we don't know yet what the exact terms will be, but I'm sure that there will be features that let Trump claim he got a lot more than Obama did, that his deal's really different.

[Michael Barbaro]

Hmm. But in reality, he may be renegotiating the exact deal he tore up seven, correct my math, years ago. And that allowed Iran to leap forward as much as it has toward a bomb.

[David Sanger]

That's certainly right. So he's going to have to prove that it's longer and stronger. Remember, the original deal was going to expire in 2030. Well, that seemed a long way away when they were doing this in 2015. But it's only five years from now. It's not very long. So it would certainly have to have a much longer timeline. And then there's something harder because you can measure how much nuclear fuel they have. But Witkoff also said that they needed to verify that they weren't working on what he called nuclear triggers, the technology to make a weapon. And that's really hard to go do because you can hide that work in a million different places and you can do a lot of it virtually on computers. Oh, and by the way, you can buy nuclear triggers from a willing seller who are among the Iranians best new friends in recent times, the North Koreans. And they've mastered this technology.

[Michael Barbaro]

David, assuming that Trump can accept a deal that ultimately looks a lot like the deal he has railed against for years and years and years, let's talk about Iran for just another moment. What would Iran get out of a deal that freezes all of its nuclear program? Not destroy it, but just freezes it, that would make it worth its while.

[David Sanger]

What they would get, Michael, is relief from these crushing economic sanctions that have limited the amount of oil that Iran can ship around the world, that has made it impossible to go invest in Iran, that has left their air fleet without spare parts, that has made it difficult to get even medical help. And that has stopped their connections to the world's banking system. So they would want all, all of these kind of sanctions, which Trump reimposed in 2018 when he pulled out of the deal. They would want all of those lifted.

[Michael Barbaro]

So, David, at this point, recognizing that these talks are in very early stages, what are the chances in your mind that a deal gets reached?

[David Sanger]

I think the chance is pretty good. But the history of Iranian nuclear negotiations is that people walk right up to sealing a deal. And then in the end, it's the decision of one man, Ayatollah Khamenei, who previously forbid even direct discussions with the United States, but now is issuing cautious sounding statements saying, well, let's basically play this out and see what they're willing to offer.

[Michael Barbaro]

But if there is no deal, based on everything you've said here, what would happen is that the United States and Israel would eventually need to undertake some sort of military operation to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. And Iran is pretty powerless to stop it or to meaningfully retaliate against it. And so is that scenario all that problematic for the US And Israel?

[David Sanger]

Well, you know, Donald Trump is a big fan of coercive diplomacy. So what's he done in recent weeks as they have gotten ready to have this discussion? He's taken the American fleet of B2 bombers and he's put them on an American base that is within reach of Iran. And the Iranians know just what that plane means because it's the only plane capable of lifting this enormous bunker busting bomb the US Developed just for Iranian and North Korean facilities. And the message to the Iranians is, if you don't strike this deal, this thing's going right through the deep underground facilities you have built.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right. Iran is backed into a corner. One way or another, it's going to have to give up its nuclear program at the stage it's in right now.

[David Sanger]

That is the message the US Is sending. But I'm sure that there are some factions within Iran that says this is a bluff. Donald Trump doesn't want to get sucked into another war in the Middle East.

[Michael Barbaro]

That's a very big bet. You're suggesting that Iran might take to kind of play chicken with Donald Trump and those B2 bombers and the very real possibility that we might attack it.

[David Sanger]

Well, you know, Michael, for the Iranians, this is really a you bet your country moment. If they say no deal, we can't put up with the American demands, then they still have the sanctions on them. They are vulnerable to the Israelis going to President Trump and saying, see, we told you they weren't serious. So the only solution here is a military one. On the other hand, if they do cap the program, then of course their entire position in the region as a power to be reckoned with is really harmed. So the Iranians are up for a really tough choice here and their big question is, can they find a face saving way to avoid military conflict? Can they manage an unpredictable President Trump and a diminished set of defenses?

[Michael Barbaro]

Or David, thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

[David Sanger]

Thank you, Michael.

[Michael Barbaro]

We'll be right back.

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This episode is supported by HubSpot. Growing a business can feel impossible, but HubSpot's customer platform can help. It's powered by Breez, their suite of AI tools so you can generate more leads, close more deals, and scale your service fast. With Breeze agents handling the busy work, customers are cutting sales cycles in half and saving hours on work each week. Best of all, you can see results in days, not months. Visit HubSpot.comai to learn more.

[Jasmine Ulloa]

My name is Jasmine Ulloa, and I'm a national politics reporter for the New York Times. I grew up in Texas, on the border with Mexico, and I've been reporting in the region since I was in high school. Now I travel the country looking for stories and voices that really capture what immigration and the nation's demographic changes mean for people. What I keep encountering is that people don't fall into neat ideological boxes on this very volatile issue. There's a lot of gray, and that's where I feel the most interesting stories are. I'm trying to bring that complexity and nuance to our audience, and that's really what all of my colleagues on the politics team and every journalist at the New York Times is aiming to do. Our mission is to help you understand the world, no matter how complicated it might be. If you want to support this mission, consider subscribing to the New York Times. You can do [e-mail] subscribe.

[Michael Barbaro]

Here'S what else you need to know today. On Tuesday, President Trump escalated his standoff with Harvard University by threatening to remove its tax exempt status after the school refused to comply with his demands for policy changes. Such a decision over time, could cost Harvard billions of dollars. It's unclear exactly how Trump could carry out the threat. Under federal law, a president is prohibited from directly ordering the IRS to conduct the kind of investigation that might result in Harvard losing its tax exempt status.

[Donald Trump]

And fewer than 100 days. This new administration has made so much, done so much damage, and so much destruction it's kind of breathtaking. It could happen that soon.

[Michael Barbaro]

In his first speech since leaving office, former President Joe Biden criticized the Trump White House for its drastic cuts to the government bureaucracy, focusing in particular on how many workers it has forced out of the Social Security administration. That, Biden said, now threatens to break the program's sacred promise to the tens of millions of Americans who rely on Social Security.

[Donald Trump]

In the 90 years since Franklin Roosevelt created the Social Security system, people have always gotten their Social Security checks. They've gotten them during wartime, during recessions, during a pandemic, no matter what, they got them. But now, for the first time ever, that might change. It would be calamity for millions of families, millions of people.

[Michael Barbaro]

Today's episode was produced by Rachelle Banja and Mary Wilson. It was edited by Patricia Willins, contains original music by Dan Powell and Pat McCusker and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for the Daily I'm Michael Balboro. See you tomorrow.