Trump says he'll meet with Iranian leaders 'whenever they want'


During a joint press conference at the White House with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Monday, President Trump announced he would "certainly meet with Iran if they wanted to meet."
Trump said he believes Iran "will probably end up wanting to meet. I'm ready to meet whenever they want to. No preconditions. They want to meet, I'll meet, whenever they want." He defended offering to meet with Iran, saying that "speaking to other people, especially when you're talking about potentials of war and death and famine and lots of other things — you meet. There's nothing wrong with meeting."
Earlier this month, Trump responded to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's statement that the U.S. "must understand that war with Iran is the mother of all wars," tweeting that if Rouhani threatens the U.S. again, "YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE."
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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