Trump Rejects Iranian Memo Report as Fabrication — Iran Updates
Iran updates: The White House rejected Iranian media reports about a prospective memorandum of understanding to end the US-Israel war as a complete fabrication, while White House assistant press secretary Olivia Wales said US-Iran talks are proceeding nicely. Donald Trump said Iranian leaders want very much to make a deal and that he will only accept one that keeps Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Trump told reporters ahead of a cabinet meeting at the White House, “They want to just make a deal” and “I don’t think they have a choice.” He added, “So far, they haven’t gotten there. We’re not satisfied with it, but we will be. We will be,” then said, “Either that or we’ll have to finish the job.”
Olivia Wales on Red Lines
Wales said in an email that “As President Trump has said, negotiations are proceeding nicely and he has made his redlines clear” and that “President Trump will only make a good deal for the American people, which must ensure that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.” The White House rejection of the Iranian media report puts that line at the center of the current talks, with Trump framing any agreement around the nuclear issue rather than the reported memorandum.
Trump also said Tehran thought “they’d outwait me on putting together a deal,” a direct challenge to the idea that a draft understanding was already taking shape. That clashes with the media report the White House dismissed, and it leaves the public record split between Trump’s account of active negotiations and the Iranian report Wales described as false.
Netanyahu Trial and Gaza
The story sits alongside other developments involving Israel. An Israeli court agreed to cancel a scheduled hearing for Benjamin Netanyahu’s testimony in his corruption trial, which began with indictments filed in 2019. The same set of background facts also references the war in Gaza, where Israel killed more than 72,000 people in the Palestinian enclave over a two-year period starting in October 2023.
The next move belongs to the negotiators now under Trump’s red lines. If US-Iran talks keep advancing, the standard Wales set — no nuclear weapon for Iran — is the one that will decide whether the White House treats any draft text as a deal or rejects it as another false start.
