Iran hits back at Trump ahead of Geneva talks
Trump’s comments on Iran have unsurprisingly provoked the ire of Tehran officials, which does not bode well for the nuclear talks scheduled for tomorrow.
The third round of indirect talks between the US and Iran will be attended by Trump’s special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, along with Iranian officials. It is set to be held in Geneva and mediated by Oman.
The talks are taking place against the backdrop of increasing US military presence in the Middle East, with Trump previously warning “bad things” would happen if Iran does not agree to a nuclear deal.
Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker, said his country remained committed to negotiations but that it was prepared to retaliate if the US threatened military action.
“If you choose the table of diplomacy – a diplomacy in which the dignity of the Iranian nation and mutual interests are respected – we will also be at that table,” he said, according to Iranian media.
“But if you decide to repeat past experiences through deception, lies, flawed analysis and false information, and launch an attack in the midst of negotiations, you will undoubtedly taste the firm blow of the Iranian nation and the country’s defensive forces.”
Earlier, Esmail Baghaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, likened the Trump administration to Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, for conducting a “disinformation and misinformation campaign” against Tehran.
“Whatever they’re alleging in regards to Iran’s nuclear programme, Iran’s ballistic missiles, and the number of casualties during January’s unrest is simply the repetition of ‘big lies’,” he wrote on X.
Key events
Donald Trump made history again on Tuesday evening, delivering the longest State of the Union address on record.
But while the president declared the ‘golden age of America’, many Democrats boycotted the event, telling the country Republicans are ‘making your life harder’.
The Guardian’s Jenna Amatulli talks to Rolling Stone’s Nikki McCann Ramírez about Trump’s claims, the Democrats’ rebuttal, and how the speech will land with a divided nation…
Iran’s negotiating delegation, led by foreign minister Abbas Araqchi, has left Tehran for Geneva to take part in a third round of nuclear negotiations, state media reported on Wednesday.
The United States has deployed a vast naval force near the Iranian coast ahead of possible strikes on the Islamic Republic. US president Donald Trump said last week that he was giving Tehran about 10 to 15 days to make a deal.
The talks are set to take place on Thursday in Geneva, a senior US official said on Monday, with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner slated to meet with the Iranian delegation for the negotiations.
Tom Phillips
Donald Trump has claimed authorship of the Mexican military raid that led to the killing of the country’s most wanted man, the cartel boss known as El Mencho.
The drug lord, whose real name is Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, died after a special forces operation in the Mexican state of Jalisco on Sunday which triggered an explosion of violence in at least 20 of Mexico’s 32 states.
“We’ve … taken down one of the most sinister cartel kingpins of all,” Trump boasted during his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
Mexico’s government has said the US provided “complementary intelligence” that led its troops to the cartel leader’s mountain hideout and the New York Times has reported that information about the drug trafficker’s location came from the CIA. But no US troops were directly involved in the assault and Mexico’s president has denied the operation was launched as a result of months of pressure and threats from Trump, calling such claims “almost laughable”.
However, during his speech the US president presented the killing of the leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel as one of his numerous “wins”, claiming his administration was “restoring American security and dominance in the western hemisphere”.
“For years, large swaths of territory in our region, including large parts of Mexico, really large parts of Mexico, have been controlled by murderous drug cartels. That’s why I designated these cartels as foreign terrorist organisations and I declared illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction,” Trump said.
“With our new military campaign we have stopped record amounts of drugs coming into our country and virtually stopped it completely coming in by water or sea.”
Trump also boasted of the capture of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro – who he had spuriously labelled a ‘narco-terrorist’ – at the start of the year.
“In January, elite American warriors carried out one of the most complex spectacular feats of military competence and power in world history. No one’s seen anything like it. Foreign leaders – I won’t tell you – called me and they said, ‘Very impressive,’” Trump said, calling the operation “an absolutely colossal victory for the security of the United States”.
Plenty of medals were dished out last night during Trump’s State of the Union address before Congress, with some of the recipients including service members and an Olympic athlete. The US president also expressed his continued interest in awarding himself the Medal of Honor, “but I was informed I’m not allowed to give it to myself”.
Here are some of last night’s honourees:
Iran hits back at Trump ahead of Geneva talks
Trump’s comments on Iran have unsurprisingly provoked the ire of Tehran officials, which does not bode well for the nuclear talks scheduled for tomorrow.
The third round of indirect talks between the US and Iran will be attended by Trump’s special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, along with Iranian officials. It is set to be held in Geneva and mediated by Oman.
The talks are taking place against the backdrop of increasing US military presence in the Middle East, with Trump previously warning “bad things” would happen if Iran does not agree to a nuclear deal.
Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker, said his country remained committed to negotiations but that it was prepared to retaliate if the US threatened military action.
“If you choose the table of diplomacy – a diplomacy in which the dignity of the Iranian nation and mutual interests are respected – we will also be at that table,” he said, according to Iranian media.
“But if you decide to repeat past experiences through deception, lies, flawed analysis and false information, and launch an attack in the midst of negotiations, you will undoubtedly taste the firm blow of the Iranian nation and the country’s defensive forces.”
Earlier, Esmail Baghaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, likened the Trump administration to Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, for conducting a “disinformation and misinformation campaign” against Tehran.
“Whatever they’re alleging in regards to Iran’s nuclear programme, Iran’s ballistic missiles, and the number of casualties during January’s unrest is simply the repetition of ‘big lies’,” he wrote on X.
David Smith
Why the longest-ever State of the Union address was the most inconsequential
He wanted to give the king’s speech. Donald Trump entered the US House chamber on Tuesday like a medieval monarch, with Republicans lined up eager to touch his royal robes (or, in two cases, grab a selfie with him). But within moments, the illusion was shattered.
As the US president strolled by, soaking up adulation, Democratic representative Al Green of Texas held aloft a handwritten sign: “Black people aren’t apes!” – a reference to Trump recently sharing a racist video depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama.
When the first State of the Union address of Trump’s second term got under way, Republicans moved in on Green menacingly and tried to tear the sign away. But he persisted until being escorted out for the second year in a row. As he departed, there were more acrimonious exchanges with Republicans, a few of whom tried to start a chant of “USA! USA!”
It was the first but not the last time that a person of color would take a stand during the wannabe autocrat’s record 107-minute speech while others remained silent or raucously egged him on. It was a night where Trump again sought to poison US politics and divide Americans along various fault lines, none more inflammatory than race.
Key takeaways from Trump’s State of the Union speech
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During his one hour and 47 minute speech, the longest State of the Union address ever delivered, Donald Trump proclaimed a “turnaround for the ages” in his first year back in office, despite low public approval ratings and voter concerns over the state of the economy.
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A resolute Trump sought to paint over the affordability concerns at the centre of upcoming midterm elections by insisting the good times are here. “Inflation is plummeting. Incomes are rising fast. The roaring economy is roaring like never before,” he said. Many voters, however, disagree, with recent polling showing the population harbouring significant doubts about his priorities.
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The US president took aim at the Democrats, branding them as “crazy”, unelectable and anti-American. Several Democrats walked out early – Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, posted on Bluesky that he “couldn’t sit through an hour of Trump’s lies”.
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Trump spent about three minutes talking about Iran without offering any clarity on his intentions regarding a possible attack against Tehran. He said he prefers to “solve this problem through diplomacy”, which did little to explain why he has assembled the largest US military presence in the Middle East in decades.
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The former reality TV star welcomed several guests during his speech to present numerous presidential medals to “extraordinary American patriots”. These included the men’s hockey team that just won gold medals at the Winter Olympics, and a national guard soldier who survived a fatal shooting in Washington.
We factchecked some of the claims made by Trump during his speech, click on the link below to find out more:
Opening summary
Good morning and welcome to our US politics live blog.
Iran has accused the US of spreading “big lies” about its missiles programme, after Donald Trump claimed Tehran was building weapons that could strike the US.
During his State of the Union speech last night, the US president said Iran has “already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach” the US.
He described Iran as “the world’s number one sponsor of terror” and claimed at least 32,000 protesters were killed during recent unrest in the country.
The Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei rejected those claims, without mentioning Trump directly.
“Whatever they’re alleging in regards to Iran’s nuclear programme, Iran’s ballistic missiles, and the number of casualties during January’s unrest, is simply the repetition of ‘big lies’,” he posted on X.
His remarks came just a day before Iran and the US are due to hold a third round of Oman-mediated nuclear talks in Geneva. Trump said he preferred to solve tensions through diplomacy but that the US has not heard Iran say “those secret words – we will never have a nuclear weapon”.
Iran has repeatedly denied seeking a nuclear weapon and maintains that uranium enrichment is a sovereign right, but evidence over the years suggests it has tested materials and components directly related to the development of nuclear weapons.
Trump did little to explain why he has amassed the largest amount of US military power in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. While he apparently has been weighing a military strike against Iran in recent weeks, he only spent about three minutes talking about Tehran in his near two-hour speech last night.
Read our full report on Trump’s State of the Union address here: