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  "path": "/post/207616/donald-trump-adviser-steve-witkoff-iran-nuclear-program",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-11T14:39:34.000Z",
  "site": "https://newrepublic.com",
  "tags": [
    "Breaking News",
    "Politics",
    "Republican Party",
    "Donald Trump",
    "Foreign Policy",
    "Middle East",
    "Iran",
    "War",
    "Negotiation",
    "Nuclear Weapons",
    "Iran Nuclear Deal",
    "nuclear power",
    "Steve Witkoff",
    "said",
    "June strikes",
    "questioned",
    "response"
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  "textContent": "U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is back showing just how clueless the Trump administration is when it comes to warmaking.\n\nAsked Tuesday night by Fox News’s Sean Hannity to explain America’s negotiations with Iran last summer, Witkoff said the Iranians “opened up by telling us they had the unalienable right to enrich. To which we responded … that we had the unalienable right to stop them from enriching.”\n\nWitkoff portrayed the Iranians as stubborn, alleging the country’s officials gloated about their enriched uranium. “It was a clear threat,” he said. “They were boasting about having it.”\n\nWitkoff then added: “They said to us—and this was some challenge—‘You’re not going to get from us diplomatically what you could not achieve militarily.’ Now, yes, we had destroyed their three main enrichment and conversion centers … that was clear. They, of course, didn’t want to admit it.”\n\nSetting aside the insinuation that Iranian officials were literally taunting the U.S. into going to war with them, Witkoff is somehow arguing that the Trump administration destroyed Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities with its June strikes but also that Iran was still actively enriching uranium, and bragging about its enrichment, after these facilities were destroyed.\n\nWitkoff has a track record of being concerningly obtuse on Iran. Previously, experts questioned whether Iran’s nuclear reactors could even produce the type of uranium he claimed they could.\n\nMore recently, Witkoff was asked by CNBC’s Sarah Eisen how he thought the war in Iran would end. His response? “I don’t know, Sarah.”",
  "title": "Trump Adviser Flails Trying to Defend Threat of Iran Nuclear Program"
}