WASHINGTON — In his sudden pivot to negotiations toward a deal with Iran, President Donald Trump has contradicted his own recent statements while declaring Tuesday that “regime change” had been achieved.

The U.S. commander in chief told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday that Iranian leaders were “all gone,” adding, “Nobody knows who to talk to.”

But he then contradicted that statement by saying, “But we’re actually talking to the right people, and they want to make a deal so badly.” He also appeared to preempt talks he said were ongoing when he stated, “I don’t want to say (it) in advance, but they’ve agreed they will never have a nuclear weapon.”

Trump has appeared this week to begin setting the stage to wind down the war, contending that Iran’s navy, air force, drone fleet and missile stores have been substantially degraded. He added a new part to that emerging victory sales pitch Tuesday: “We have, really, regime change. This is a change in the regime, because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with.”

That followed Trump’s comments to reporters Monday that led some analysts and Democrats to claim he might have embellished at best, or outright made false statements about a new round of negotiations.

“We have had very, very strong talks. We’ll see where they lead,” he said Monday. “They went, I would say, perfectly. I would say that if they carry through with that, it’ll end that problem, that conflict, and I think it will end it very, very substantially.”

Trump has said his administration is not working with Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, but he has declined to reveal the identify of “the top person” his team has allegedly been talking to or where that individual might be situated because “I don’t want them to be killed.”

Asked Monday what his designated negotiators, special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law and financier Jared Kushner, were looking for in the talks, Trump said: “We want to see no nuclear bomb, no nuclear weapon, not even close to it, low-key in the missiles.”

“We want to see peace in the Middle East. We want the nuclear dust, we’re going to want that, and I think we’re going to get that,” he added, referring to Iran’s remaining nuclear materials — which he also continues to assert were “obliterated” by U.S. military strikes he ordered last June.

Complicating Trump’s contention are public statements from Witkoff in which he has said Iranian officials made clear, during a round of talks before the war broke out on Feb. 28, that they intended to pursue a uranium enrichment program and a nuclear weapon. Tehran has never agreed to give up its entire nuclear program, frustrating every recent American president.

But Trump seemed eager to downplay those details.

“Yeah, and we want no enrichment, but we also want the enriched uranium. If this happens, it’s a great start for Iran to build itself back and it’s everything that we want,” he said of a possible peace pact. “And it’s also great for Israel. And it’s great for the other Middle Eastern countries — Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Qatar, all of them, Kuwait and Bahrain, in particular.”

It was not clear by Tuesday afternoon who was leading the alleged talks from the American side, as Trump told reporters that Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio also were involved.

‘All he’s doing is lying’

For their part, Iranian officials have denied that any formal negotiations have begun, telling reporters in the region that other countries have tried to intervene and passed some diplomatic messages.

“No negotiations have been held with the US, and fakenews is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped,” Iranian parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, reportedly a favorite of the White House to become even more powerful, wrote on X.

What’s more, Iran’s foreign minister signaled in a X post over the weekend that the Islamic Republic was dug in for a long fight.

“Our ancient civilization has three millennia of history of defending Iranians and the region from outsiders,” Abbas Araghchi wrote Saturday. “We are now writing a new chapter in that story.”

Trump over the weekend wrote on his own social media site that he would never make a deal with a “crazy” country like Iran.

Democratic lawmakers and analysts were not sold on Trump’s recent claims.

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen wrote on X on Monday that “3 weeks into Donald Trump’s war of choice in Iran, and all he’s doing is lying. He lied to get us into this war, and now he’s lying about getting us out of it,” adding: “It’s time to end this war NOW.”

Aaron David Miller, a former senior adviser at the State Department under Republican and Democratic presidents, said on X, “Trump’s war choice has not accomplished his military goals — Iran can still attack Gulf and manipulate Straits and will need to make compromises to open them. No nukes; no enrichment, good luck with that. A singularly incompetent use of America’s power.”

What’s more, there were reasons why the American leader’s description of the alleged weekend talks likely were too optimistic, according to Miller.

“Negotiations with Iran have two speeds — slow and slower,” Miller wrote on X. “Trump loves peace plans with double digit points. It will be fascinating to see if sanctions relief is on the table in addition to international guarantees even a UNSC Resolution. Iran goes from pariah to partner.”

_____

©2026 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Visit cqrollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.