Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East envoy negotiating with Iran, told FNC’s Lara Trump in an interview this weekend that the president is “frustrated” that Iran hasn’t “capitulated” in the face of a massive military buildup in the region.

LARA TRUMP: The future of the Middle East depends on what happens in Iran. I know you’ve been deep in talks with Iran. We saw the Geneva conversation, but there have been hard red lines drawn. The U.S., of course, wants to dismantle the nuclear arsenal, and Iran says that’s a nonstarter. So based on what you’ve seen in the negotiations you’ve been in, what could a deal actually look like? STEVE WITKOFF: I think the president gave us direction before we went over there. There were red lines. We have to have the material back. If they say it’s all about their civil program, yet they’ve been enriching well beyond the number you need for civil nuclear, it’s up to 60% – probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material – and that is dangerous. So we can’t have that. This is something they have to stick with until they prove to us they can behave. LARA TRUMP: We have red lines from the U.S. – how about Iran? STEVE WITKOFF: He asked me that this morning. I don’t want to say he’s frustrated. He understands he has plenty of alternatives, but he’s curious as to why – I don’t want to use the word capitulated – but why they haven’t capitulated. [Laughter] Why, under this pressure, with the amount of naval power over there, they haven’t come to us and said, We profess we don’t want a weapon, so here is what we are prepared to do. Yet it’s hard to get them there.

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