Trump Says Talks Are Iran’s ‘Last Chance’ After Threats

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:08)
This is Bloomberg Businessweek Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead, with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy, plus global business, finance, and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Businessweek Daily podcast with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. On Bloomberg Radio.

**Carol Massar** (0:32)
We have a great voice right in studio with us to get to all things, the President and the White House. With us is Bloomberg News White House and Washington correspondent, Jeff Mason here in studio. In the meantime, we will monitor, of course, the President's comments and bring you anything of substance. Jeff, good to have you here with us. I do want to- Good to be with you.
I guess it's, I think, fair, you've been listening to this press conference. Anything of note here that you think we should bring attention to?

**Jeff Mason** (0:58)
A handful of things, certainly first on Iran. He is suggesting that talks are going on even though Iran says talks are not going on, and that just becomes a situation of who do you believe? And it's hard to answer that question. But my understanding is there are at least some sort of context going on, but who that is or who it's with seems to be up in the air. It's also-

**Carol Massar** (1:21)
Do you even know where they are?

**Jeff Mason** (1:22)
Well, I'm not sure that they're physically, that everyone is in one place. There are a couple of intermediaries who have been part of this process from the get-go, Oman being one of them. And Iran recognized or acknowledged that Oman was-
that they were in touch with Oman about this. But it's just hard to know because the president says these things, and it's certainly very important to him to show that there's a pathway to peace, because he doesn't want this to go on forever. But it's tricky.

**Tim Stenovec** (1:58)
What is that pathway, though?

**Jeff Mason** (2:00)
Yeah.

**Tim Stenovec** (2:02)
It's unclear to me.

**Jeff Mason** (2:03)
I wish he were here so that we could ask him. I mean, and to go back to just some of the things that he said just now, he said that the Strait is going to open, the Strait of Hormuz is going to open tomorrow and that there will be no tolls or no fines. Well, that is the opposite of what Iran is saying. And it's also the opposite lesson, or it ignores the fact that Iran has learned the lesson over the last six months, that it has the control that it has. So it's pretty hard to imagine that they're just going to give that up. And the president is not acknowledging that at all.

**Carol Massar** (2:32)
What about are they going to give up their access to have nuclear weapons?

**Jeff Mason** (2:37)
You know, another piece of that is the president will say and then said over the weekend and may have suggested it again today that Iran is not going to have a nuclear weapon and we can do this quickly. It took a year and a half for what was called the JCPOA. The Iranian nuclear agreement that was done during the Obama years to be negotiated.
They are nowhere near that kind of an agreement right now. That I can say with full confidence.

**Carol Massar** (3:04)
And the president did say that would be the second stage. Opening the strait would be the first phase.

**Torsten Slok** (3:08)
Right.

**Jeff Mason** (3:09)
And because that first phase is probably more politically important to him to get that done because that's the Pandora's box that was opened after the war started. The war started by Israel and the United States. That was not a problem before this war and is now for the world economy and certainly for the United States.

**Tim Stenovec** (3:26)
Yeah, an important reminder, you know, as of February 27th of this year that the strait was open.

**Torsten Slok** (3:33)
Yeah.

**Tim Stenovec** (3:33)
So correct. It would be just going back to what it was before the war.

**Jeff Mason** (3:36)
Yeah. And it's just, you know, certainly the president wants that status quo to be returned, but the Iranians have shown really no willingness to go back to the status quo.

**Carol Massar** (3:49)
Jeff, there's been a lot of polling that has been done as of late in the last week or so, and people, the Americans, when it comes to the war, they say 31% say the Iran war is not worth it, or worth it, excuse me. 31% say it's worth it. 66% say it's not worth it. This is the Quinnipiac poll.