Tricksy Trump

Just hours after President Trump finished calling Iran a “murderous regime” in his Sept. 19 speech at the United Nations, the administration asked French President Emmanuel Macron for a favor. Would Macron inquire whether Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was interested in speaking directly with Trump?

[...]

Iran’s response, later that afternoon, was an unequivocal no. The Iranians, the French reported, “don’t believe you’re serious” and thought it was some kind of trick, a senior administration official said.

In his own U.N. speech the next day, Rouhani denounced the “ignorant” rhetoric of “rogue newcomers to the world of politics,” although he did not mention Trump by name.

  WaPo

Didn't have to, did he?

"Rogue."

Trump already had broached the general idea of using France as a go-between during a bilateral meeting with the French president the night before his U.N. speech, the senior administration official said. “You guys have good relations” with Iran, Trump told Macron, according to the official. “Could you use your relations” to ask if Tehran is willing, should “the Americans want to talk?” the official said Trump asked.

[...]

Asked why Trump wanted to meet with Rouhani, the official said it was “in order to say, ‘Here’s all the mean stuff you do in the world, and we want you to stop. . . . If not, you should know we’re working on a strategy to get you to confront all of this.’ ”

And why wouldn't he want to meet with Trump?

The primary message, the official said, was that “the golden Obama-era window of rapprochement is over.”

Rouhani took the wind out of those sails.

Word of the proposed Trump-Rouhani meeting first circulated Sunday, when Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi told reporters in Tehran that “indeed, a request was made by the American side, but it was not accepted by President Rouhani.”

[...]

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, queried by NBC News on Sunday about Qassemi’s statement, emailed that it was “false,” the network reported.

Of course.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.