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US President Donald Trump has signaled he's open to protracted peace talks with Iran saying he won't be swayed by domestic political pressure to end the war. Our North America correspondent Lauren Day is in Washington for us. Lauren, the president's just held another pretty lengthy cabinet meeting. What did he have to say? Well, Emma, I have to admit these press conferences are starting to feel a bit like Groundhog Day. Again, we've heard the president expressing confidence that a deal with Iran is very close but saying that he's not yet satisfied with the terms of that agreement and that he's willing to resume strikes on Iran if US demands aren't met. Now, the White House claims this draft proposal that Iranian
state media has been reporting about is a complete fabrication but just a reminder of what was in that draft MOU. Uh that would basically stipulates that Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz in return for the US lifting its naval blockade and that Iran would control the strait along with Oman. Now, Donald Trump said in this press conference uh that wouldn't happen that no one would control the strait. He was also asked about the highly enriched uranium and what would happen to that stockpile and he said that he uh had concerns about or he wasn't comfortable with that going to either Russia or China. Now, he's previously said that he was open to the uranium either being destroyed in
place or going to a third party country. So, that was a slight change in his position on that matter. Now, he was also asked about whether he was worried that the economic impacts of the war could hurt Republicans chances in the upcoming midterm elections and here's what Donald Trump told reporters earlier today. They thought they were going to outwait me, you know, we'll outwait him. He's got the midterms. I don't care about the midterms. Look what happened last night. That was the prelude to the midterms. Now, what he's referring to there is the latest stop on his revenge tour. Last night, he had endorsed this candidate in a Texas Senate primary, Ken Paxton, a scandal-plagued candidate to run against
the establishment incumbent, John Cornyn. He had a success there. That is just the latest in several of these successes that Donald Trump's had. So, he's got a lot of confidence from that. But, funnily enough, so do the Democrats because they see Ken Paxton as a much more beatable candidate in that race that has really given their candidate, uh, James Talarico a bit of hope of actually picking up that Senate seat in Texas, which is seen as a bit of a holy grail. But, Donald Trump says that he's not worried about the midterms. He's not thinking about the midterms when he's making these decisions on Iran. He's previously said he's not worried about, uh, the impact on Americans' finances.
But, certainly American voters are worried about how this war is impacting them. And we're seeing that constantly in the opinion polls. So, there will certainly be people within the Republican Party who are very worried about the costs of this war, not just politically, uh, not just economically, but also politically as well.
