President Trump throws out a new negotiating point with Iran even as he says he's "low-keying" the ongoing talks.

Transcript

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

President Trump wants Iran to pay the U.S. reparations for all the pain it's inflicted on the U.S. over decades.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Trump's request comes after Iran demanded the U.S. commit to, quote, "compensation" for violations of the framework agreement both countries signed in June that's meant to end the war. Here's what Trump told reporters at the White House Monday.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, we're going to ask for money for the damage they've done over a 50-year period, whether you go SS Cole or whether you go all of the people that were so badly hurt, so badly wounded or killed - many thousands of people.

FADEL: In response, Iran now says it's completely ruling out any future negotiations, declaring it will wait out Trump's remaining time in office.

MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Franco Ordoñez is here to tell us about all of this. So, Franco, it sounds like both sides are pretty dug in, so what does it say about the status of negotiations?

FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: Yeah, A. I mean, I think it reflects how quickly these talks can turn sour and, in this case, how it can all happen in a very public fashion. I mean, it was just a week ago that Trump was touting great progress, as he has before, and even boasted that he would soon be announcing an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. That's obviously not happening now. Instead, he's - you know, he's signaling a change in tactics, saying he's going to be low-keying negotiations, calling it a chess match and saying he's going to focus on economic pressure and also getting into this public spat about compensation. It all just does not project a terrible amount of confidence that a deal is around the corner, as he was suggesting last week.

MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. So President Trump got very defensive when he was asked for a timeline to reopen the strait. Let's listen to that.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TRUMP: The only one that has control of the Strait of Hormuz right now is the United States Navy. We have a blockade that's been infallible. It's a steel wall. And we let people in that we want to let in. And those people come in. And they've been coming in and they're going out.

MARTÍNEZ: So Trump said this on Monday. He keeps repeating this, Franco. I mean, it sounds like nothing more - that it's not tethered to reality.

ORDOÑEZ: Right. I mean, very few ships are going in and out of the strait. That is very clear. I think it really speaks to how desperate the president is to not only end the war but to also present the U.S. as strong and not caving to pressure from Iran, a much smaller and weaker nation. I mean, Iran has already survived so much that the U.S. and Israel has waged on them militarily, short of ground troops.

Kori Schake served in the National Security Council in the George W. Bush White House. She told me that Iran has rightly assessed the president's desperation, the shortage of munitions, and that they understand the political pressure that Trump faces ahead of the midterms. And she says they're using all that leverage to make maximalist demands, which also stretch out this process and continue to hurt the president politically. She likens it to the political pressure around the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis that helped take down another president.

KORI SCHAKE: It looks to me like the Iranian regime wants to turn President Trump into Jimmy Carter. It wants to impose the kind of humiliation on President Trump that they imposed on President Carter. And I think they're pretty much succeeding at that.

MARTÍNEZ: The one difference there is that Carter was running for reelection, lost to Ronald Reagan. President Trump is not running for reelection. So it seems like a pattern here, though. Trump talked up an imminent deal with Iran. That still has not happened. He also talked about a deal with Israel geared toward disarming Hamas that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now rejected. So what does that mean for the peace process?

ORDOÑEZ: I mean, it means no peace yet, A. I mean, it's a significant setback for Trump. It was less than two weeks ago that Trump was touting the plan as a major breakthrough. The idea was for Hamas to disarm and Israeli forces to withdraw from Gaza. The problem is neither side is willing to go first. But so far, Trump is kind of downplaying it all. He was also asked about this yesterday and said that the relationship with Netanyahu is good.

MARTÍNEZ: That's White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez. Franco, thanks.

ORDOÑEZ: Thanks, A.

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