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  • 2 months ago
Transcript
00:00Good morning, everybody. And let me say a couple of notes of appreciation. First of all,
00:04to the Prime Minister of Pakistan and to Field Marshal Muneer, who were both incredible hosts.
00:11And whatever shortcomings of the negotiation, it wasn't because of the Pakistanis who did an
00:16amazing job and really tried to help us and the Iranians bridge the gap and get to a deal.
00:22We have been at it now for 21 hours, and we've had a number of substantive discussions with the
00:30Iranians. That's the good news. The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement. And I think
00:35that's bad news for Iran much more than it's bad news for the United States of America. So we go
00:39back to the United States having not come to an agreement. We've made very clear what our red
00:44lines are, what things we're willing to accommodate them on, and what things we're not willing to
00:48accommodate them on. And we've made that as clear as we possibly could. And they have chosen not to
00:55accept our terms. Questions?
00:57Sir, Nick Robinson from CNN. Precisely what have they rejected here? Can you help us understand it a little
01:06bit?
01:07Well, I won't go into all the details because I don't want to negotiate in public after we negotiated for
01:1221 hours in private. But the simple fact is that we need to see an affirmative commitment that they
01:18will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly
01:23achieve a nuclear weapon. That is the core goal of the President of the United States, and that's what
01:28we've tried to achieve through these negotiations. Again, their nuclear programs, such as it is,
01:34the enrichment facilities that they've had before, they've been destroyed. But the simple question
01:40is, do we see a fundamental commitment of will for the Iranians not to develop a nuclear weapon,
01:46not just now, not just two years from now, but for the long term? We haven't seen that yet. We
01:50hope
01:51that we will. Jen?
01:52Was there a framework on anything, and also did the Iranian frozen assets come up, and did you reach any
01:57conclusions on those frozen assets?
01:59We talked about all those issues, Jen, and we talked about a number of issues beyond that. And so
02:04certainly those things came up. But again, we just could not get to a situation where the Iranians
02:11were willing to accept our terms. I think that we were quite flexible. We were quite accommodating. The
02:16President told us, you need to come here in good faith and make your best effort to get a deal.
02:22We did that. And unfortunately, we weren't able to make any headway. Preston.
02:27Mr. Vice President, how often did you communicate with President Trump throughout the negotiations?
02:31There were reports that there were multiple rounds where there were breaks in between negotiations.
02:37How often did you communicate with the President throughout those rounds, and what was he saying
02:41as you were going through these negotiations that you said fell short?
02:43Yeah, obviously, we were talking to the President consistently. I don't know how many times we
02:48talked to him, a half dozen times, a dozen times over the past 21 hours. We obviously also talked to
02:53Admiral Cooper, to Pete, to Marco, to the entire national security team. We talked to Scott
02:57Vecina a number of times. So look, we were constantly in communication with the team because we were
03:02negotiating in good faith. And we leave here, and we leave here with a very simple proposal,
03:09a method of understanding that is our final and best offer. We'll see if the rate is accepted. Thank you.
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