President Trump expressed satisfaction that his administration was dealing with the “right people” in its alleged ceasefire negotiations with Iran, even as some official Iranian sources have denied being involved in talks.
[NOTE: Trump himself raised questions about Iranian leadership and chain of command when he said the U.S. didn’t know who was in charge after U.S. and Israeli attacks decapitated the leadership of the previous regime, and its presumed successors.]
“We don’t know who their leader is,” Trump said early in the war. “We have people wanting to negotiate. We have no idea who they are.”
As oil prices rose and re-opening the Iranian-controlled Strait of Hormuz increasingly became a main stated goal in a war where U.S. goals often shifted, Trump said Thursday that video he saw on Fox News of oil tankers sailing in the Strait gave him confidence that his negotiators were talking to the “right people” — those who control Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.
As Trump recounted: “I watched [Fox News] and they said something’s unusual happening. There are eight boats that are going right up the middle of the strait. Eight big tankers are going loaded up with oil right through. And I said, well, I guess, I guess they were right. And they were, they were real. And I think they were Pakistani flagged. And, I said, well, I guess we’re dealing with the right people.”
[NOTE: Pakistan is said to be mediating between the U.S. and Iran.]
Yet the flow of tankers, which reportedly fulfilled what Trump portrayed as a promise deriving from the negotiations, did not keep the U.S. President from bashing the Iranian negotiators, saying they were “very different and ‘strange’” and asserting that they are “begging” the U.S. to make a deal.
Trump says it is “WRONG!!!” that Iran is merely “looking at our proposal” and warns in a Truth Social post that they “better get serious soon, before it is too late.”
While ships sailing in the Strait of Hormuz gave Trump confidence, that confidence was not evident in Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose speech at the cabinet meeting came with reminders that “the people who run [Iran] are radical Shia clerics, these are religious fanatics. Look what they’re doing now at their weakest point. Iran has never been weaker. This is the weakest Iran has ever been and…they’re attacking embassies. They’re attacking hotels. Imagine if they had a nuclear weapon.”
Rubio then claimed Trump’s attacks on Iran isn’t just a “favor” to the United States. “This is for the world,” he said.
Rubio on Iran: The people that run this country are religious fanatics. pic.twitter.com/AWcqerD2mL
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 26, 2026