LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Here's one example of President Trump's inconsistent messages about the war with Iran. In a social media post on Monday, he wrote about how serious negotiations with Iran are and that he was probably going to make a deal soon. In that same sentence, he also threatened to, quote, "conclude our lovely stay in Iran" with more strikes if a deal is not reached. In a few minutes, we'll hear from the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jim Himes, about the president's messaging. We start with that social media post.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram is with us now to tell us about this. Good morning, Deepa.
DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So tell us more about what President Trump is saying now.
SHIVARAM: Yeah. Well, President Trump said yesterday on social media that the U.S. is in discussions with a, quote, "new and more reasonable regime" in Iran, though at the press briefing yesterday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to go into detail on what that meant.
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KAROLINE LEAVITT: Of course, anything that they say to us privately will be tested, and we will ensure that they are being held accountable to their word. And if they are not, the president has laid out the military consequences that the Iranian regime will see if they don't hold true to the words that we are hearing privately behind the scenes.
SHIVARAM: And the president's post said something similar to what he's been saying for weeks - that great progress has been made in the negotiations so far. But there isn't yet an agreement on opening the Strait of Hormuz, which is a critical route for oil transportation. And Trump had previously said that April 6 was this deadline for reopening the strait. Now in his post online, he's saying that a deal needs to be reached, quote "shortly." If it's not, the U.S., he says, will resume strikes on Iran, and Trump says they'll hit electric plants, oil wells and possibly desalinization plants.
MARTIN: So the timeline the administration has set for the war to end was roughly six weeks. This conflict is now in week 5, but thousands more troops were sent to the region this weekend. Do we have a sense of what the administration actually believes and is planning for?
SHIVARAM: Yeah, this is where some of that mixed messaging really comes in because the president has been saying things like, you know, talks with Iran have been moving forward. He thinks that a deal will be reached on the strait. He's even said that the U.S. is actually way ahead of schedule on achieving their goals in Iran, so maybe that means things would wrap up early. But while he's saying all that, he's sending thousands of U.S. troops to the region. There's going to be about 50,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East.
Now, Karoline Leavitt said yesterday that this is about giving the president options. It doesn't necessarily indicate any new decisions from the president. But it does leave a lot of questions as to how successful U.S. operations are going and how much longer this war is really going to last, how much more involved U.S. personnel might be on the ground. And I should note - while all of that is happening, Iranian leaders are denying that there are ongoing negotiations with the U.S. at all.
MARTIN: So the - as you just told us, the president has been touting this war as a success so far. But what do voters think?
SHIVARAM: Right. So for his base, Republicans are largely supportive of the war and support U.S. military action in Iran, but a majority of independents and, of course, Democrats oppose it. And that's according to polling from Quinnipiac from last week. The president continues to both do this dance - right? - of ramping up pressure on Iran, threatening more military action, while also trying to push negotiations. And whichever direction he goes in will have political consequences as well as massive impacts in the region. And here at home, midterm elections are just about six months away. I was talking to a Republican strategist, Alex Conant, who was telling me that war usually just brings in a lot of uncertainty, which isn't really boding well for the administration right now. But he says the election isn't tomorrow. There's still time.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Deepa Shivaram. Deepa, thank you.
SHIVARAM: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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