Michael Bubaro: From the New York Times, I'm Michael

Bubaro. This is the Daily.

Despite his threats of escalation,

President Trump seems increasingly

determined to end the conflict in Iran

through negotiations. His problem: Iran

isn't on the same page.

Today, David Sanger on the standoff over

when to turn from war to diplomacy.

It's Monday, March 30th.

David Sanger: Mr. Sanger, thank you for making time

for us on a Sunday of all days.

Great to be with you, Michael. What a

month.

Michael Bubaro: Yes, indeed. And it's been exactly

pretty much a month since this war

began. And David, I want to start with

what should be a simple yes or no

question under ordinary circumstances,

but there's open debate about it and

genuine confusion. Is the United States

currently negotiating with Iran to bring

this war to an end?

David Sanger: Well, as you suggest, Michael, it's a

more complicated question than it sounds

like. And I would say the simple answer

is that the United States is engaging in

operations right now to shape a

negotiation with Iran, but I wouldn't

say the negotiations have yet started.

David Sanger: Well, let me highlight some of the

source of the confusion. Last week, we

had this very explicit claim from

President Trump. I'm going to quote him.

I am pleased to report that the United

States of America and the country of

Iran have had very good and productive

conversations regarding a complete and

total resolution of our hostilities in

the Middle East. Okay, that's that's an

explicit claim of negotiation. A few

hours later, Iran's government issues a

statement that says the precise

opposite. quote, "We deny what US

President Donald Trump said regarding

any negotiations between the United

States and the Islamic Republic of

Iran."

Michael Bubaro: So, they were, both fibbing to some

considerable degree,

David Sanger: huh? Both

the president, aren't you shocked? Who

are you going to believe here? The

president of the United States or the

Iranian government? And in this case, I

would not really believe either. The

president wants to make it sound as if

he has forced the Iranians

through the show of brute strength, that

has resulted in 11,000 targets being hit

to finally come to the negotiating

table.

David Sanger: The Iranians want to show for reasons of

national pride and good strategy at this

moment that they are not coming to the

negotiating table on America's terms. H

David Sanger: and so we're at a bit of a standoff in

which the Iranians are fundamentally

saying, "Hey, we're winning by virtue of

the fact that we're still alive."

Michael Bubaro: Mhm.

David Sanger: And the president is in the unusual

position here of having to move from

calling for an unconditional surrender

to calling for some kind of talks,

Michael Bubaro: right?

David Sanger: And talks almost always mean compromise.

David Sanger: Well, let's focus for a little bit on

why the president seems so invested in a

diplomatic off-ramp to this war. Because

despite striking 11,000 targets in Iran,

the US has discovered not just the

limits of its military force in Iran,

but the blowback and how problematic

it's become. And just to summarize what

we have established in previous

episodes, the Iranian regime is badly

diminished, but it's not collapsing.

Regime change is not in the offing at

the moment. The war has locked up the

straight of Hormuz and paralyzed the

global energy industry. Economic

repercussions of this war have grown

week by week. And US allies are not

answering Trump's call to get involved.

So Trump is looking for a diplomatic way

to end all of those problems.

Michael Bubaro: Yeah. He has put himself in a real box

here where he has discovered as you

suggest that the kind of military power

that he's exercised has not brought

about the kind of political result that

he envisioned and it certainly hasn't

brought it about in the time period he

had in mind.

David Sanger: Mhm. that he can do all of this bombing,

but it doesn't necessarily lead to

regime change. That he can try to speed

along a capitulation,

but if the Iranians play it right, the

economic impact just keeps snowballing.

David Sanger: Well, David, with that in mind, help us

understand what the US efforts to bring

Iran to the negotiating table, as messy

as they've been so far, what they

actually look like, kind of technically

speaking, what the US outreach has been.

David Sanger: Well, Michael, the outreach so far has

pretty much been limited to a two-page

document that had 15 items on it. Mhm.

12 of them were demands on Iran and

three of them were offers to Iran. But

the essence of them is this, Michael,

that Iran gives up any hope of ever

being able to enrich nuclear fuel, do

any of the steps that could lead to a

nuclear weapon, that it limit its

arsenal of missiles to a very limited

number that can't reach Israel. And in

return, the US has provided some

incentives, starting with the lifting of

sanctions that would give Iran a pathway

to re-entering the global international

economy.

Michael Bubaro: Got it. And what has Iran's response

been to that 15-point proposal?

David Sanger: You know, the response was kind of a

nonresponse, Michael. It was five of

their own points that basically started

with, "Let's talk about compensation for

all of the damage you've done to Iran's

infrastructure and people over the past

month. And oh by the way, we want you to

recognize our sovereignty over the

entire straight of

Michael Bubaro: Hormuz,

David Sanger: which we think is a pathway to expanding

what the Iranians have been doing in

recent days, which is charging a very

large toll for any ships that want to

make it through.

Michael Bubaro: Right. That doesn't sound like two sides

being anywhere near close to even

agreeing on what they're negotiating.

David Sanger: That's right. And it might explain why

you've heard the president move from

making the case that the Iranians want

to talk to making the case that if the

Iranians don't talk, he's going to hit

them even harder. But behind the scenes,

the US is thinking ahead toward what a

negotiation would look like. And in

fact, they had hoped that one might

begin as early as this weekend, but it

didn't happen. Well, to the degree that

the US has a plan for negotiation and

assumes that at some point in this

conflict there will be a negotiation,

who do they see as being the face of

these negotiations for the US and what

would that negotiator be empowered to

get and give up?

David Sanger: Well, they haven't said precisely who

would participate in the negotiations,

but what they have dangled is that JD

Vance, the vice president, would lead

the effort. and administration officials

have said to me that this is an effort

to signal to the Iranians that this is a

serious conversation that we're sending

the country's number two official

empowered to make decisions and to get

President Trump on the phone on one

ring.

Michael Bubaro: Wow.

David Sanger: To actually negotiate. What's

fascinating about this is we haven't

seen Vice President Vance involved in

any of the negotiations to this point.

And of course, it's Vance who is widely

reported to have been the least

enthusiastic

about getting into a conflict with Iran

to begin with, right? Does the fact that

he has been skeptical of this war

potentially give him greater credibility

in bringing it to an end? or is this

simply just the fact that he's the

number two in our system that's supposed

to lend some prestige and credibility to

the idea of him as a negotiator?

David Sanger: I think it's all the above, Michael. The

Iranians view him as probably the one

they'd most like to talk to because they

think he opposed this idea from the

start. I think to President Trump, its

an opportunity to show to the Iranians

that he's serious about these talks. And

I think the third message that it sends

is actually to the MAGA base.

David Sanger: It's don't worry, this is under control.

JD Vance, who was the most outspoken in

favor of staying out of foreign wars, is

the one we've put in charge of ending

this one.

Michael Bubaro: It seems difficult to close out the

conversation about the US plans for

negotiation without mentioning Israel.

its partner in this entire operation.

And my sense is that Israel's enthusiasm

for ending this war may not be the same

as President Trump's because Israel has

simply more going on in this conflict.

It's got ground troops in Lebanon even

as it's also continuing to assault Iran.

has more of an an agenda in this conflict

in a way. With every passing week of

this war, the differing objectives of

the US and Israel have become more and

more evident to us.

President Trump is obviously quite

concerned about the effects on the stock

market, the effects of oil and gas not

making it through the straight of

Hormuz, the backlash that he's getting

from the Europeans, from Asian allies.

Israel really isn't concerned about

almost any of those,

David Sanger: right? To them, the one question here is

at the end of this process. Is Iran so

defanged that it couldn't even think of

striking beyond its borders again? The

US has an interest in an Iranian

government emerging from this that is at

least cohesive enough to make decisions

and engage in international

negotiations. The Israelis might be

perfectly happy with sheer chaos

Michael Bubaro: that would then lead to enough social

upheaval in Iran that it would overthrow

the current regime. And better yet, as

far as the Israelis are concerned, might

result in such internal upheaval that

Iran can't even think about Israel. M

David Sanger: but what's really interesting to me,

Michael, is that while this dance takes

place about whether and where and when

negotiations would take place, the

Israelis are using every available

minute to hit more targets across Iran.

On Friday, they went after a number of

nuclear sites. And the Iranians, for

their part, are using every moment to go

after American targets in the Gulf. And

they had one big success from their

point of view, which is they took out

two major American aircraft. One a

in-air refueling aircraft and the other

one of these command centers that cost

half a billion dollars or more. Wow.

Michael Bubaro: That are used to go defend the Gulf

against incoming drones and missiles.

And they did that on the same day that

they were exchanging messages about

where negotiations may take place.

which sounds like the opposite of Iran

getting ready for negotiations.

David Sanger: Well, it could be or it could be a

negotiating gambit in itself.

We'll be right back.

David Sanger: David, as I think we pretty clearly

established here, Iran's position at

this moment is basically saying to the

US, "Good luck with your negotiated end

of this war. You started it. We're not

going to help you quickly end it." And

you had suggested at the beginning of

this conversation that that could be a

function of pride or strategy. Let's try

to get to the bottom of that question.

If President Trump is offering Iran an

end to a daily barrage of attacks that

took out its supreme leader, have

decimated its military, have crippled a

lot of its infrastructure, why isn't

Iran somewhat eager to take up that

offer?

Michael Bubaro: You know, Michael, this is the

question the president seems to ask his

aids very regularly, which is why

haven't they capitulated yet? And I

think the answer is complicated. But the

first part of it is that the surviving

Iranian leadership asked the question,

why should we trust them in the

negotiations?

David Sanger: Back in June of last year, they were

engaged in negotiations and it got cut

short by the attack on Fordo, Natans,

and Isvahan, the three major nuclear

sites. Nuclear sites. Yep,

Michael Bubaro: that's right.

David Sanger: In February, they were negotiating on a

broader agreement, and suddenly the

Israelis and the Americans team up on

what was clearly a wellplanned,

well-coordinated attack on the entire

country.

Michael Bubaro: Right? negotiations are kind of a cover

for the US to attack Iran

David Sanger: and to buy the time to assemble the

forces. And so the Iranians are saying,

"We're not going to listen to what you

say. We're going to look at what you

do." And currently what they're seeing

is that the US is sending thousands of

more troops to the region, starting with

two Marine Expeditionary Units. And so

from the Iranian point of view, they're

looking at this and thinking, well, the

president is building up to another

attack while he's urging us to

negotiate.

Michael Bubaro: Right. Here we go again.

David Sanger: Yeah. Right. And of course, Michael, we

don't know if the president is actually

planning to go use these troops or

whether he's just using them for

leverage for whenever those negotiations

start up.

Michael Bubaro: Dave, can I ask you because

you've covered a lot of diplomacy in

your day, is it understood that if you

attack people, not once, but twice

during formal negotiations, you're

really disincentivizing them from ever

seeing diplomacy as anything other than

a Trojan horse.

David Sanger: Well, in most

administrations I've covered, and this

is the fifth president I've covered,

that would have been the case. But in

the Trump administration, I think

there's sort of a more general view that

force isn't necessarily the last resort.

It could be an early tool that you use

before you come back for negotiations a

second time and say, "Want that again?

Want worse?"

David Sanger: And so I think that this administration

views the use of force as truly an

element of the negotiations.

I'm not sure that their adversaries

always see it the same way.

Michael Bubaro: Okay, so that's a major reason why Iran

would be reluctant to engage in

negotiations. But beyond that, what does

Iran gain from the war lasting any

longer given that the pain of it is so

disproportionately felt by that

government?

David Sanger: Well, there could be an

element of pride to this as we've

suggested and this is a deeply unpopular

government. Probably at any given point

in time, as we've discussed on past

episodes,

something like 80% of Iranians would

give you a long list of complaints about

economic mismanagement, corruption, and

the sheer brutality of the Iranian

government. Right? So the idea that

foreign actors are coming in to attack

the core of the society, terrorize

ordinary Iranians who are just trying to

get by.

Michael Bubaro: Interesting. So, not necessarily just

pride, but kind of a strategic

understanding that the longer the war

goes on, the more likely it is that

Iranians alienated from this regime

might start to look to it as a source of

strength or see it as the victim of US

excess. And in that sense, time is just

on their side.

David Sanger: Well, that's right. And there's another

thing that time buys the Iranians. The

ability to hurt Donald Trump where it

counts the most. Watching markets slide,

watching oil prices go up, watching

international anxiety increase, watching

the Western Alliance fracture.

David Sanger: And all of that takes time. So take a

look at what happened just at the end of

last week. The president late on

Thursday said that he was going to allow

another 10 days for negotiations to take

place. And you might expect the markets

to jump the next day, saying, "Oh,

there's an ending to this coming."

Instead, the markets kept their meltdown

underway. The president is now presiding

over what people are going to begin to

call the Trump slump or the Iran slump.

And the Iranians understand that if the

markets continue to melt down, if the

price of oil continues to go up, that

only gives them more leverage whenever

negotiations begin.

Michael Bubaro: David, just play that out. So, let's

presume that the 15point proposal from

Trump is actually something that

represents the US position in any

negotiations

and Iran has the war play out for a few

more weeks, maybe even longer. oil

prices stay really high, markets are

gyating. I mean, does Iran think that

suddenly they're gonna get one of those

proposals removed, that sanctions are

going to be taken away faster? I mean,

like, just logistically, what are they

going to gain that would compensate for

the losses that they're going to be

taking every single day to their

infrastructure, to their military, to

their people?

David Sanger: I can't crawl inside their heads, but I

can just take a guess from having

covered negotiations with Iran before.

One of the big hang-ups has been this

question of whether Iran

will permanently give up its right to

enrich nuclear fuel. And the US has

insisted no. This time the Iranians have

to agree they'll never again make

nuclear fuel. only Iranians have had a

consistent position that they're a

signatory to the nuclear

non-prololiferation treaty that all

signitories have a right to enrich

uranium as long as they are not

diverting it to bomb projects. They

maintain that they've long committed to

never building a nuclear weapon. None of

us believe that, but that has been their

formal commitment. I think they believe

that the administration may well relent

on this point and that they will get a

pause of a few years in which they agree

not to produce any nuclear fuel and then

some limited amount of enrichment after

that that they would stay in the game.

Now, if the Trump administration agreed

to that, it would be a big backing away

from their position. It would also end

up looking a lot more like the agreement

that President Obama got out of Iran in

2015 in which the Iranians shipped

almost all their nuclear fuel out of the

country but kept low-level enrichment. I

suppose since you mentioned nuclear

enrichment and nuclear weapons, we

should probably acknowledge the point

that this entire war so far has no doubt

increased the incentive for Iran to seek

out a nuclear weapon. It's not exactly a

strategic secret that when you have a

nuclear weapon, you're a lot less likely

to be attacked by the US and Israel than

when you don't.

Michael Bubaro: Absolutely. The Iranians cannot have

missed the point that the Trump

administration has not attacked North

Korea. North Korea has missiles that can

reach the United States. Not sometime in

the future, but now. North Korea has 60

or more nuclear weapons. Not at some

point in the future, but now. And that's

the very reason that the US wouldn't

even consider an attack like this on

Pyongyang. And so, you know, depending

on how this all plays out, we may have

just given Iran every incentive to

follow the North Korean model. David, I

want to end just by asking you to

reflect on something that you know very

intimately, which is that the US and

Iran did engage in very serious and

successful negotiations back in 2015.

And you got a really uplose view of

those talks. I remember reading your

coverage of that. You were there during

the negotiations as they reached their

apex and this deal was signed. A

historic deal between these mortal foes.

So we know these two countries are

capable of serious highlevel history

making diplomacy if they want to. They

are capable of it. Michael and I did

cover that negotiation for the year and

a half or two years that it went on and

it was long and painful and in the end

it resulted in an agreement that the

Iranians largely kept to until President

Trump pulled out of the accord in 2018.

And historians will be debating for a

long time whether you can draw a

straight line from that decision in 2018

to this attack.

David Sanger: Right? because that that diplomacy was

intended to ensure we never had a war

like this and he tore it up and now we

do.

David Sanger: It was intended to make sure that the

Iranian program stayed in a box and that

you would have at least a year's notice

if the Iranians were racing for a bomb.

Then President Trump pulled out and the

Iranians stayed in accord with the

agreement for a year or two. Then

decided they were chumps to do that and

they did race right to the edge of a

bomb. Right.

David Sanger: But you know, Michael, I've been

thinking about this and

there's no chance that we can go back to

the kind of negotiation that took place

in 2015.

Michael Bubaro: Why

David Sanger: that was quite limited. It was just

focused on the Iranian nuclear program.

And even the effort by the US to expand

it out to missiles failed.

But today, the war has unleashed so many

more issues beyond the nuclear program

itself. I mean, first the Iranians have

demonstrated a huge ability to disrupt

the global economy to shut off the

straight of Hormuz. That's now going to

become a focus of negotiation in a way

it wasn't even a month ago.

Michael Bubaro: Right.

David Sanger: In 2015, there was very little trust

between the Iranians and the Americans.

Unpopular as the Obama deal was in

Washington, it was even more unpopular

in Tehran. We forget that because no one

believed the US would carry through and

lift sanctions. Today, there's even less

trust.

Michael Bubaro: Mhm.

David Sanger: Back then, the Iranians committed as

part of the 2015 agreement that they

would never seek a nuclear weapon. I'm

not sure that the new government of Iran

could get away with that today. H

David Sanger: and finally I think we have to recognize

that after war has started after you

have shattered a government after you

have bombed its people

that you've then unleashed a whole

series of new political forces that none

of us really understand.

Maybe this will end the way President

Trump envisioned and B.B. Netanyahu

envisioned on February 28th with an

uprising against the Iranian government.

But it's very possible that we have

triggered the opposite effect. And we're

just not going to know that for months,

maybe years to come. So, as infinitely

complicated and delicate as the 2015

negotiations that you covered were, what

lies ahead between Iran and the US will

be even more so.

Michael Bubaro: Wildly more complicated. Michael,

before we were just negotiating over the

status of their nuclear program. Now,

we're negotiating over their future

survivability as a state. And that is

completely existential for the Iranians.

And it's going to add dramatically

to the complexity of bringing this war

to an end.

David Sanger: Oh, David, thank you very much.

Appreciate it as always. Thanks,

Michael.

Michael Bubaro: On Sunday night, the Times reported that

several hundred US special operations

forces, including Army Rangers and Navy

Seals, have arrived in the Middle East

as President Trump weighs his options.

In the latest sign of how far off

diplomacy may be, the speaker of Iran's

parliament, a potential partner in any

negotiations with the US, warned that if

the United States deploys any ground

troops into Iran, that Iran would quote,

"Set them on fire."

Michael Bubaro: We'll be right back. Here's

what else you need. Senator Day. I

protest all of Trump's illegal, immoral,

reckless, and feckless, endless wars.

Michael Bubaro: We're out here because we feel that the

Constitution is under threat. In small

towns and big cities across the US,

protesters gathered on Saturday for

thousands of rallies against President

Trump, his domestic policies, and his

use of the military at home and

overseas. And I'm afraid that a wannabe

king who is busy building himself and

his billionaires

a ballroom

intends to use ICE as his own private

army to do his bidding to make him king

but he is not a king.

Michael Bubaro: Organizers said that the no kings

rallies drew millions of people. Among

the speakers were lawmakers, activists,

and performers, including Bruce

Springsteen, who addressed crowds

outside Minnesota's state capital in St.

Paul.

Bruce Springsteen: This is still America,

and this reactionary nightmare and these

invasions of American cities will not

stand.

Michael Bubaro: And President Trump's emergency order to

pay airport security screeners signed on

Friday is expected to end the crisis of

wait times at the country's airports.

But it's unclear exactly how long it

will take for the security lines to

return to normal. Meanwhile, a permanent

solution remains elusive because the

Department of Homeland Security remains

largely shut down.

Michael Bubaro: Today's episode was produced by Mary

Wilson and Stella Tan. It was edited by

Chris Haxel with help from Rachel

Quester and Maria Burn. Contains music

by Diane Wong and Marian Lozano. Our

theme music is by Wonderly. This episode

was engineered by Alyssa Moxley.

That's it for the daily. I'm Michael

Aboro. See you tomorrow.