Trump’s Iran Power Play

February 17, 2026

What A Day

What A Day

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U.S. officials met with Iranian envoys in Switzerland Tuesday to negotiate the fate of Iran’s nuclear program — and came away with a “set of guiding principles,” according to Iran’s foreign minister. But trying to figure out what, exactly, each country wants in these talks is confusing at best. Both President Donald Trump and Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have made not-so-veiled threats of military action toward the other country. So what, exactly, is everyone doing here? Do they want a deal – or a war? To find out, we spoke to Nahal Toosi, the senior foreign affairs correspondent and columnist for Politico.

And in headlines, CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert calls out his own network, President Trump lashes out over a sewage leak in the Potomac River, and Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin is leaving the Trump administration.

Show Notes:

Check out Nahal’s work – www.politico.com/staff/nahal-toosi
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For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Wednesday, February 18th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What A Day, the show that says, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., stop working out in jeans and stop filming yourself working out in jeans. Actually, just stop. Whatever you’re doing, stop. [music break] On today’s show, President Donald Trump lashes out over sewage leaking into the Potomac River. Sounds like he still hasn’t figured out how to drain the swamp. And Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin is leaving the Trump administration. Goodbye, you will not be missed. But let’s start with Iran. U.S. Officials met with Iranian envoys in Switzerland Tuesday to negotiate the fate of Iran’s nuclear program. But it turns out the two sides didn’t actually meet. Here’s MSNow’s Ines de La Cuetara

[clip of Ines de La Cuetara] They were indirect talks so the American and Iranian delegations never actually came face to face instead they were talking to the Omani foreign minister who was mediating those negotiations.

Jane Coaston: Not a great sign when you need an intermediary just to agree on a, quote, “set of guiding principles,” which by the way, is what we got out of Tuesday’s meeting, according to Iran’s foreign minister, trying to figure out what exactly the Trump administration wants out of these negotiations is confusing at best. I mean, last year, President Trump said that U S airstrikes had, quote, “obliterated Iran’s nuclear facilities.” So if that’s true, why would we need a deal on its nuclear program now? And Iran’s gestures are just as mind-bending. As officials were meeting in Switzerland, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threatened to blow up US warships on Twitter and said this in Iranian state media. The following interpretation is from CNN.

[clip of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s interpreter by CNN] The strongest army in the world may sometimes get slapped so hard that it cannot stand up straight.

Jane Coaston: Sounds promising. So what exactly is everyone doing here? Do they want a deal or a war? To find out, I spoke to Nahal Toosi. She’s the senior foreign affairs correspondent and columnist for Politico. Nahal, welcome to What a Day.

Nahal Toosi: Hey, thanks for having me.

Jane Coaston: So we’re in this weird moment where the U.S. and Iran are engaged in indirect talks over Iran’s nuclear program, but at the same time, President Trump sent a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East last week saying, quote, “In case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it.” So in your view, is the US on the brink of a deal or a strike?

Nahal Toosi: Look, sometimes you need leverage when you’re engaging in diplomacy, and what provides leverage more than a couple of aircraft carriers, right? I think that Trump sees having military force as a way to show the Iranians that he is serious. And I also think he is very willing to use the military force if there is no deal. And I’m not sure the Iranians fully understand that just yet.

Jane Coaston: The funny thing is that the US had a nuclear deal with Iran, and Trump pulled out of it during his first term back in 2018. Is there anything different the US is seeking with this new deal that wasn’t in the old Iran deal?

Nahal Toosi: So the U.S. says that it wants this deal to cover nuclear weapons as well as put limits on Iran’s ballistic missile program, as well as basically stop the Islamist regime in Tehran from funding these militias and proxies in the region and hopes that that means that these militias will wither away and basically go away. That might be an overstated hopes. My understanding is, look, the regime really does not have the money that it used to. But also because of Israeli actions over the past couple of years, a number of these militias such as Hezbollah and as well as Hamas have been severely weakened from what they used to be. But they don’t always take instruction from Iran. They kind of do do their own thing, especially the Houthis. So even if Iran says, okay, fine, we’re gonna stop funding these groups, that doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily gonna vanish. The Iranians say the only thing they’re willing to talk about is the nuclear situation. And I think that’s one of the things that they’re going to have to try to figure out. Part of the thing about diplomatic talks is you spend a lot of your time in the beginning just talking about what the talks are gonna be about.

Jane Coaston: To that point about how Iran is struggling financially. Things in Iran are not great. Late last year mass protests broke out against the Iranian regime and some estimates say as many as 30,000 protesters were killed. In January President Trump posted on Truth Social and told Iranian protesters quote, “help is on its way.” But it wasn’t. Outside of more lip service and sending those aircraft carriers, he hasn’t really done anything. Why?

Nahal Toosi: My understanding is that basically the Pentagon, not to mention the Israelis and others, went to Trump and they said, look, we get why you want to hit the regime, but we don’t have enough assets in place, right? We’ve been focusing on Venezuela. We’ve been sending these ships elsewhere. We just don’t have what we need for what could potentially lead to retaliation from Iran and could become a much bigger conflagration than a one-and-done strike. But Trump made these comments. Iranians, many of them went out hoping that he would back them up. Thousands died and some feel betrayed. But I have to tell you, Iranians for the most part, my sense is that at the end of the day, they blame the regime way, way, way, way more than they blame Trump or the United States.

Jane Coaston: What is the Iranian government’s strategy in all of this?

Nahal Toosi: It’s a really good question. I’m not sure that they entirely know what they’re doing. They seem to be thinking, let’s just buy some time. Let’s just buy some time, lets see if we can talk about talks and talk about setting up new talks and see how far we can drag this out and maybe we can rebuild some of our assets and become more of a threat. I don’t know where that’s gonna lead. It’s possible that they think, well, maybe we could convince Trump to agree to like a JCPOA light, JCPOA being the lingo for the Iran nuclear deal. Something smaller that gives us some sanctions relief and we can say, okay, fine, we won’t enrich for a while. Well, they’re not enriching uranium as it is because of the last US strikes on their nuclear program. That wouldn’t actually be much of a difference. So maybe they think we can get some sort of a small deal and Trump will be like, hey, I got my deal. And the Iranians can be like we have some sanctions really if we can rebuild our economy, we can ease the pressure a little bit. Honestly, I, all they’re doing, I think, is just delaying another round of fury from the Iranian people, which I think is is inevitable.

Jane Coaston: At the same time that all of this is going on, there are multiple opposition movements, and one is growing around the son of Iran’s former Shah, Reza Pahlavi. He’s been living in exile in the United States since the revolution in 1979, but last weekend an estimated 250,000 of his supporters across Europe showed up to a rally in Munich. How big of a threat is he to the current Iranian regime, given that, one, he hasn’t lived there since 1979, but also, I seem to remember the Shah of Iran not being very popular in the first place which is how we got here.

Nahal Toosi: Look, everything is relative when it comes to Iran, right? The Iranians today think, well, yeah, the Shah wasn’t amazing, but compared to what we have now, he was much better. And yes, maybe he was repressive, but at least we had a halfway decent economy back then, right. And at least, we weren’t isolated on the global stage back then. So there’s a bit of nostalgia for the Shah era. And Pahlavi has over the past several years, I’ve watched him as he has grown in stature and esteem and organization, especially in the diaspora. And there is there are some polls that say he has some support uh within the Iranian population. Now, can he actually land in Iran right now and go out onto the streets without any fear? I don’t think he’s at that stage yet. So there’s a lot of unknowns about what Reza Pahlavi can do. But in terms of a symbol, absolutely. He is someone that Iranians are very much rallying around. And one thing I’m noticing when I talk to Iranians is, especially in the diaspora, when I raise questions about Pahlavi’s strengths and abilities and some of the way the people around him behave, they don’t want to talk about it because they’re like, why would you even question him? You can’t damage him. He’s the only chance we have right now to take down this regime. That’s how they feel.

Jane Coaston: At the rally in Germany, Pahlavi said, quote, “I am here to guarantee a transition to a secular democratic future.” Now, I know that well you know, we’re talking about like a hypothetical on top of hypotheticals, but what does government actually have the wherewithal to guarantee a democratic future? We’re talking about a country where the role of religion in the state has been so complex. What would that even begin to look like?

Nahal Toosi: Look, I do think Iranians would be very, very capable of adopting a secular democracy. The ones inside the country, absolutely, for the most part, I think, the regime, the Islamist regime, the Islamist experiment has lost legitimacy for most of the population. So you have a group of people who just does not really believe in the idea of mosque and state being combined. Okay, that’s one thing. The other thing to remember about Iran is it’s actually a multi-layered governance system, right? So there is the religious layer, but this is a country that also has a parliament. It has a president. It has elections, right? There are definitely some limits on that currently based on the current system. But people know how to vote. People expect a certain level of democracy even within this system. And so, you know, you kind of take off that one layer and you can absolutely have a vote or a constitutional referendum. But at this stage, the Iranian people have just suffered so much. And what you hear is like, look, we will make a deal with the devil. We don’t care. We just have to get rid of this regime. I can’t stress enough how upset and angry and desperate the Iranian people are. It’s really tough.

Jane Coaston: There is so much going on here, as we’ve been talking about, inside and outside of Iran. Where do you think this goes in the coming days, weeks, months for the negotiations with the U.S.?

Nahal Toosi: It’s very hard to predict with President Trump. Let’s not forget that last June he joined the Israelis in striking Iran, and he told us afterward, the Iranian nuclear program has been obliterated. We’ve resolved this. It is done. And now, months later, he wants a deal on the Iranian Nuclear Program. So I I just don’t know. I do think when I talk to people in the military, or formally in the military, the thing they do say is like, look, he has brought so much weaponry out there. We just can’t imagine that he won’t use it somehow. It’s also possible that he might do one small strike and then the Iranians might fold and say, let’s have a deal. And he’s like, great, lets have a deal. It’s this could go any number of directions, and I will do my best to report it.

Jane Coaston: Nahal, thank you so much for joining me.

Nahal Toosi: Thank you for having me.

That was my conversation with Nahal Toosi, senior foreign affairs correspondent and columnist for Politico. More news is on the way, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Spotify and Apple podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today.

[sung] Headlines.

[clip of Stephen Colbert] You know who is not one of my guests tonight? That’s Texas State Representative James Talarico. He he was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast. Then, then I was told in some uncertain terms that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on. And because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.

Jane Coaston: CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert is calling out his own network for its handling of an interview he recorded with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico. The network has pushed back on his claims, saying that they simply quote, “provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal time rule.” The equal time rule has traditionally excluded late night shows, but guidance released last month by the Federal Communications Commission says that’s no longer the case. Despite that, Colbert told his viewers that late night political candidate interviews are still fair game for now. It’s worth noting that in this instance, CBS was not pressuring Colbert to have any Texas Republicans on his show. The network claims they presented him with an option to give equal time to two of Talarico’s Democratic primary challengers, including Representative Jasmine Crockett. But Colbert didn’t want to play ball with what he sees as FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s attempt to muzzle hosts. Colbert’s feistiness might be related to the fact that CBS announced plans to cancel his show last year. So, instead of broadcasting the Talarico interview, his show uploaded it to its YouTube channel and left television viewers with an unsettling image in its place.

[clip of Stephen Colbert] I’m not even sure I can say the words James Talarico. But what I can show you is what we always show when we have to pull material at the last minute. This tasteful nude of Brendan Carr.

[clip of President Donald Trump] No, I don’t like the job that Wes Moore is doing. I don’t like the the job he’s doing with the bridge. I don’t like the fact that he did that horrible, you know, with the pipes and the Potomac. And he’s not doing the job. They got to do it, and we’re gonna, I’m gonna have to get the federal government involved in getting it fixed because he can’t fix anything.

Jane Coaston: President Trump lashed out at Maryland’s Democratic Governor, Wes Moore, while speaking to reporters on Air Force One Monday. His comments come after a pipe rupture last month soiled the Potomac River with sewage. The pipe is part of a utility based in Washington that’s federally regulated and under the oversight of the Environmental Protection Agency. A spokesperson for Moore said in a statement that EPA officials did not participate in a recent legislative hearing about the cleanup, adding, quote, “Apparently the Trump administration hadn’t gotten the memo that they’re actually supposed to be in charge here.” Trump wrote on Truth Social that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would help coordinate a response, but added that FEMA is impacted by the DHS shutdown. A United States district judge has blocked ICE from taking Kilmar Abrego Garcia back into custody. Last year, the Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in violation of a 2019 court order. That order protected him from being sent to the Central American country due to threats of gang violence against his family. In Tuesday’s ruling, which the Department of Justice can still appeal, the district judge wrote that the Trump administration has, quote, “made one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success.” One empty threat, after another, with no chance of real success? Sounds like the Trump Administration in a nutshell. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin is stepping down from her position. I’ll hold for cheers and applause. According to two DHS officials that spoke with Politico, McLaughin told colleagues on Tuesday that she plans to leave the agency next week. But that’s so far away. In a statement to Crooked Media’s Matt Berg, McLaughlin thanked Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem for the opportunity, writing, quote, “I look forward to continuing the fight ahead.” McLaughlin’s work as DHS Assistant Secretary included staunchly defending and lying about the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. According to Politico, DHS sources said her departure was originally discussed last December, but she stayed after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed by DHS officers in Minneapolis. In response to McLaughin’s departure, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries simply wrote, quote, “another MAGA extremist forced out of DHS. Noem next, keep the pressure on.” One down and so many more to go. And that’s the news. [music break] One more thing. The Reverend Jesse Jackson passed away Tuesday at his home in Chicago. He was 84. Jesse Jackson was not born to wealth or privilege in any way, shape, or form. His mother was a teenager when he was born in Greensboro, South Carolina. His father was a married man who lived next door. When his mother remarried and had another child, Jackson was sent to live in a shack around the corner with his grandmother. But Jackson would ascend to some of the highest heights in American politics and culture. He became a critical figure in the civil rights movement, serving alongside the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Jackson was present when King was assassinated in 1968. And he ran for president twice in 1984 and 1988, both times gathering millions of primary votes, despite the fears of even Democratic party insiders that a Black left-leaning candidate just couldn’t win. He repeatedly used his own experiences of poverty and deprivation to inspire others to, quote, “keep hope alive.” Here is part of his speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention.

[clip of Jesse Jackson] Every one of these funny labels they put on you, those of you who are watching this broadcast tonight in the projects, on the corners, I understand. Call you outcast, low down, you can’t make it, you’re nothing, you’re from nobody, subclass, under class. When you see Jesse Jackson, when my name goes in nomination, your name goes in nomination. I was born in the slum, but the slum was not born in me. And it wasn’t born in you, and you can make it.

Jane Coaston: He believed firmly that everyone, regardless of their financial status or belief system, regardless of who they were or where they were from, mattered. He even took that message to Sesame Street in 1972.

[clip of Jesse Jackson] Ready on the stump?

[clip of kids on Sesame Street in 1972] Yeah.

[clip of Jesse Jackson] Okay. Here we go. I am.

[clip of kids on Sesame Street in 1972] I am!

[clip of Jesse Jackson] Somebody.