Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with a donation of any size.

Drop Site News’s Jeremy Scahill joins Democracy Now! to discuss the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, including President Donald Trump’s lies about U.S. strategy and negotiations with Iran, possible avenues of U.S. escalation and what Scahill has learned about Iranian strategy in conversations with Iranian officials. “They want to cause enough pain to the world economy … [so] that any nation that thinks of attacking Iran again is going to do so knowing that these are the consequences,” he explains.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has entered its 28th day. Iranian officials say the war has killed nearly 2,000 people in Iran. Earlier today, Israel’s defense minister said Israeli attacks on Iran will escalate and expand.

Meanwhile, President Trump has extended his deadline for Iran to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Trump is now threatening to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants on April 6th if the strait isn’t reopened. Trump claimed talks with Iran are going well. This is Trump speaking during Thursday’s Cabinet meeting.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They now have a chance to make a deal, but that’s up to them. And they’ll tell you, “We’re not negotiating. We will not negotiate.” Of course they’re negotiating. They’ve been obliterated. Who wouldn’t negotiate? They are begging to make a deal. We’ll see if we can make the right deal. And if they make the right deal, then the strait will open up, Hormuz Strait will open up.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They now have a chance to make a deal, but that’s up to them. And they’ll tell you, “We’re not negotiating. We will not negotiate.” Of course they’re negotiating. They’ve been obliterated. Who wouldn’t negotiate? They are begging to make a deal. We’ll see if we can make the right deal. And if they make the right deal, then the strait will open up, Hormuz Strait will open up.

AMY GOODMAN: Iran has repeatedly denied it’s engaging in direct talks with the U.S. Earlier today, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said friendly countries have conveyed messages between the two countries, but no dialogue has occurred. On Thursday, supporters of the Iranian government rallied in Tehran.

PROTESTER: [translated] Trump’s whole approach is psychological warfare. He’s only playing psychological and media games and making a mockery of himself in front of the world. Everyone knows that Trump is a bluffer and a major liar. That has been proven to everyone.

PROTESTER: [translated] Trump’s whole approach is psychological warfare. He’s only playing psychological and media games and making a mockery of himself in front of the world. Everyone knows that Trump is a bluffer and a major liar. That has been proven to everyone.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Jeremy Scahill. He’s been closely following the war in Iran and the reports about negotiations. Jeremy is co-founder of Drop Site News.

Report: Many Middle East US Bases “All But Uninhabitable” Due to Iran Strikes

Hi, Jeremy. Thanks so much for being with us. Why don’t you start off with the latest news that yesterday President Trump said, at Iran’s request, he’s extending the deadline for bombing Iran’s infrastructure by 10 days?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, Amy, within minutes of Trump posting that message on Truth Social, I spoke to a senior Iranian official who told me immediately that Trump is not being truthful and that Iran made no such request. And if it is the case that Trump is lying about this, it’s part of a multiweek pattern that has extended basically throughout the duration of this war that the U.S. and Israel initiated on February 28th.

What I’m told by Iranian officials is that on roughly the third day of the bombing, Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s special envoy, began sending WhatsApp messages and other messages through intermediaries to Iranian officials asking for talks about winding down the war. This is just in the initial first few days.

And, you know, there’s some indication that Trump believed that by assassinating Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other senior Iranian officials, that somehow the Iranian government was going to collapse quickly. And it seems that they really underestimated both Iran’s will to fight this war, but also its capacity to continue striking. Almost every day, you have War Secretary Pete Hegseth standing before the American people at the Pentagon and saying, “Iran’s missile capacity has been degraded by 90%, its drone capacity degraded by 95%.” And Iran continues to strike at U.S. military facilities across the Persian Gulf and is intensifying its attacks against Israel, while Hezbollah, which the world was also told was decimated by Israel a year ago, has continued to fire missiles and to inflict deaths and other casualties on Israeli occupation forces.

So, the U.S. is the party that has been consistently asking for talks. And early last week, I did a story, Amy, where I learned from Iranian officials that Steve Witkoff had been directly text messaging Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister. And when I went for comment to the White House........

© Truthout