The Trump administration is aggressively pursuing the full dismantling of Iran's nuclear program,

starting the first direct talks with the regime since 2018, with one sit down already on the books and another on the docket.

In this episode, we talk with an expert on the goals of the negotiations and why President Trump believes this is the right time to force Iran's hand on a deal.

I'm Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley, with Georgia Howe.

It's Saturday, April 19th, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

Joining us to discuss the closely watched Iran talks as Eli Kohanam, Independent Women's Forum's Senior Fellow and Former Deputy Invoy to Combat Anti-Semitism under President Trump.

Ellie, thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me, John.

So let's talk about this first direct contact we've had with the Trump administration and Iran.

They had their first preliminary negotiation on Saturday.

What do we know about that meeting?

Well, the meeting was a bit of a historic first because it's the first direct talks between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran in many, many years.

And what we do know from the reporting that has come out is, first of all, both sides have said

it was a positive meeting. They both used very positive language to describe what took place.

And there was some reporting indicating that Steve Whitkoff, the United States Special Envoy, and the Iranian

foreign minister had a handshake together at the end. But interestingly, Axios is reporting that,

in fact, there was a 45-minute face-to-face conversation that took place. So that's an interesting

development. Certainly face-to-face

in a complex negotiation like this is better. I think it helps to make sure that there is less

room to cause confusion and also to drag out negotiations, which is what the Iranians are famous for

doing. And I believe it's one of the reasons that President Trump

has been pushing very hard for direct negotiations. So that's some of the takeaways. We also know

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