Trump wants a deal with Iran, but could military strikes be coming?
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2026
⏱️ 22 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, and national security correspondent Greg Myre.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast for Thursday, February 12, 26. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. |
| 0:10.3 | And I'm Greg Myrie. I cover national security. And I'm Franco Ordonez. I cover the White House. |
| 0:14.9 | And today on the show, the Middle East. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was at the White House yesterday as talks continue between the United States and Iran about that country's military capabilities. |
| 0:26.1 | So, Franco, get us up to speed here. |
| 0:27.9 | What do we know about this meeting between President Trump and Netanyahu? |
| 0:31.2 | Yeah, it was about a two and a half hour meeting. |
| 0:34.1 | It was not public, but afterwards, Trump insisted that negotiations with Iran continue, |
| 0:41.9 | at least for now, to see if a deal on Iran's nuclear program can be reached. And Trump was |
| 0:47.8 | insisting because Netanyahu is more interested in military options. Now, the official line out of Israel is that Netanyahu was |
| 0:56.3 | there to ensure Israel's needs were included. Trump can obviously be very unpredictable in his |
| 1:02.7 | zest to strike a deal. So Netanyahu was there, you know, to talk about making sure that any, |
| 1:09.1 | you know, criteria such as limits on ballistic missiles were including this. Also, Israel wants to make sure that any, you know, criteria such as limits on ballistic missiles were |
| 1:12.5 | including this. Also, Israel wants to make sure that these military proxy groups like Hamas and |
| 1:17.7 | Hezbollah are not supported by Iran. But, you know, a person familiar with the matter also |
| 1:23.5 | told NPR that Israel really feels these talks are futile and that further military strikes are basically inevitable. |
| 1:31.4 | Greg, can you refresh us on what each side kind of wants to come out of this? |
| 1:35.9 | Sure. So this latest round began just last Friday in the Middle Eastern country of Oman. |
| 1:41.7 | President Trump's envoy, Steve Whitkoff, his son-in-law Jared Kushner were there. |
| 1:47.2 | Trump is saying he thinks there could be additional talks as soon as next week. |
| 1:52.3 | Nothing official has been announced. |
| 1:54.6 | Now, you could say these talks are just getting started. |
| 1:58.2 | On the other hand, this is an issue that the U.S. and Iran have been |
... |
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