Americanswers… on 5 Live! Trump claims Iran wants to "make a deal" to end the war
Americast
BBC
4.3 • 3.1K Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Donald Trump has told reporters there have been talks between the US and Iran in which the two sides had “major points of agreement” and both wanted “to make a deal”. The US president says his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner talked to Iran on Sunday and that discussions would continue on Monday. However, the Fars news agency, which is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, denied any such talks took place, saying there were neither direct nor indirect communications with the US. Iran’s foreign ministry reportedly said that Trump’s statements were “part of efforts to reduce energy prices and buy time to implement his military plans”, with state media saying they showed the US president was “backing down”. Trump said the US is talking to a “top person” within the Iranian regime to try to end the war, but this person was not the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. In this episode, Justin, Sumi and Marianna answer your questions with Matt Chorley on 5 Live and discuss what might be going on with the conflicting statements behind the scenes. This comes after a Trump ultimatum issued on Saturday evening - for Iran to fully open the Strait of Hormuz by Monday midnight, or have its power plants bombed. The team also answer questions on who’s influencing Trump, what is public opinion in the US and where this war puts Vice President JD Vance.
HOSTS: • Justin Webb, Radio 4 presenter • Sumi Somaskanda, North America Correspondent • Marianna Spring, Social Media Investigations Senior Correspondent
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This episode was made by Purvee Pattni and Alix Pickles. The technical producer was James Piper. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:07.2 | We get it. Life is busy. You want to keep up with the news, but there's just too much going on. |
| 0:13.0 | Which is where newscast comes in. We do the work, and when you're ready to dig deeper into the day's news, you just pop us into your ears. |
| 0:22.3 | It does mean we have to put in the hard work though. Listen to newscast every day on BBC Sounds. Are there talks, serious talks |
| 0:27.9 | happening between the United States and Iran? And if there are, could they actually lead to anything? |
| 0:34.1 | In public, both sides are talking about what they think the talks are and are not. |
| 0:39.8 | We ask, what's going on behind the scenes? What is really happening? We also answer your questions |
| 0:45.6 | today on Five Live, but before we get into that, Sumi and I kick off with the most |
| 0:50.7 | consideratory remarks from Donald Trump since his war on Iran started. |
| 0:56.3 | He has postponed his threatened strikes against Iranian power plants, which had a midnight |
| 1:02.8 | deadline due to what he said were productive talks with Iran, which of course Iran has denied. |
| 1:09.8 | But let's listen to the President. |
| 1:11.4 | We're going to get together today by probably phone because it's very hard to find a country. |
| 1:19.6 | It's very hard for them to get out, I guess. But we'll at some point very soon meet. |
| 1:25.6 | We're doing a five-day period. We'll see how that goes. And if it goes well, we're gonna end up with settling this. Otherwise, we'll just keep bombing our little hearts out. They called, I didn't call, they called, they wanna make a deal. And we are very willing to make a deal. It's gotta be a a good deal. And it's got to be no more wars, |
| 1:44.2 | no more nuclear weapons. They're not going to have nuclear weapons anymore. They're agreeing |
| 1:48.8 | to that. Any of that stuff, there's no deal. We've had this voice note from Mark in Guilford and |
| 1:54.0 | Surrey in England. What options remain for diplomatic dialogue to stop the current war? Do any |
| 2:00.6 | back channels exist and which countries, if any, are likely to be able to broker a |
| 2:06.6 | peace deal to bring the war to an end? |
| 2:09.2 | It's a good question from Mark and Guilford and actually it's a question that brings up |
| 2:13.3 | the fact that this is all very fast moving and could have moved faster and further in various |
... |
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