Trump on Iran talks: ‘I don’t know who the hell we’re negotiating with’

President Trump said Wednesday night at a rally in Montana that he wasn’t sure who U.S. officials were negotiating with in their efforts to bring an end to the Iran war.

“They don’t have a navy. They don’t have an air force. Their army is decimated. Their leaders are gone,” the president said, referencing the state of the Iranian military while discussing the conflict. “I should have probably left their leaders because I don’t know who the hell we’re negotiating with.”

Trump arrived in the Treasure State Wednesday evening to campaign for Montana Republican Aaron Flint, who is vying to replace retiring Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) and will face Democrat Sam Forstag in November.

The Iran war, which nears its eighth month, has put the GOP in tricky political territory heading into the midterm elections. The conflict has strained the global economy and raised fuel costs for Americans, who increasingly blame the president’s policies for rising prices.

But deliberations between the U.S. and Iran have stalled in recent weeks.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News’s Rachel Campos Duffy on Sunday , “I don’t know how this ends. You never know how this ends.”

Following unsuccessful talks at the United Nations General Assembly late last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Iranian delegation “overstayed” its welcome and ordered its members to leave the U.S.

Vice President Vance said earlier this month that Iranian leadership must take serious steps to dismantle any pursuit of nuclear weapons.

“I think if they want to show a commitment to not building a nuclear weapon, they would do something meaningful on their enrichment capacity,” Vance told Reuters.

“In other words, the United States is not going to do things for mere promise of actions on the Iranian side. We need to trade actions for actions here, and we’ll see what the Iranians do,” he later added.