Iran reacts to Trump’s 2026 State of the Union, accusing him of “big lies” on nuclear program and protests

Iran’s reaction to President Trump’s 2026 State of the Union was straightforward. The Iranian Foreign Ministry accused Mr. Trump of repeating “big lies” about the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program and the death toll from its crackdown to end anti-government protests in January.

As the two countries prepare for another round of negotiations over Iran’s contested uranium enrichment program — with the threat of U.S. military action looming over the talks — Iranian officials dismissed Mr. Trump’s claims that they are working to develop a nuclear weapon, accusing him of trying to “repeat a lie often enough until it becomes the truth.”

What did Trump say about Iran in his State of the Union?

During his address on Tuesday night, Mr. Trump repeated his claim that the U.S. “obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program” with strikes in June — a claim the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, has recently cast doubt on.

“They were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program, and in particular nuclear weapons, yet they continue,” Mr. Trump said, adding: “They’re starting it all over. We wiped it out and they want to start it all over again and are at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions.”

The president repeated his vow that he would never allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon.

Satellite images from late January have shown roofs built over two of Iran’s nuclear facilities that were damaged by the U.S. strikes last summer, in Natanz and Isfahan, potentially indicating efforts by Iran to salvage any remaining materials, but the nature of any new work at those sites has not been confirmed.

The president also repeated his assertion that Iranian security forces killed 32,000 people with their crackdown to quash recent protests against the regime. That is a far higher death toll than has previously been reported, and magnitudes greater than officials in Tehran have admitted to publicly.

Iran’s reaction to Mr. Trump’s State of the Union claims

“Professional liars are masters at creating the illusion of truth,” a spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement shared Wednesday on social media.

“‘Repeat a lie often enough until it becomes the truth,’ a propaganda maxim coined by Nazi Joseph Goebbels, is now being systematically employed by the US administration and its war profiteers,” the statement said, accusing Mr. Trump and his allies in the Israeli government of propagating “big lies” about Iran’s nuclear program, as well as its ballistic missiles and the number of people killed during the January protests.

With the next round of talks on the nuclear program due to get underway, and Mr. Trump’s threat to strike Iran if no deal is reached still looming, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, told lawmakers on Wednesday that while the country remained “ready for dignified diplomacy,” it was also “ready for a defense that will make the aggressor regret their actions.”

“If you decide to repeat past experiences through deception, lies, flawed analysis, and false information, and launch an attack in the midst of negotiations, you will undoubtedly taste the strong punch of the Iranian people and the country’s defensive forces,” Ghalibaf said.

What are the chances of a U.S.-Iran nuclear deal to avert war?

“We have a historic opportunity to strike an unprecedented agreement that addresses mutual concerns and achieves mutual interests,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a social media post just hours before Mr. Trump delivered his speech, adding that a deal was “within reach, but only if diplomacy is given priority.”

While Mr. Trump claimed in his remarks that Iran had never ruled out building a nuclear weapon, Araghchi actually vowed not long before the U.S. leader spoke that Iran would “under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon.”

Araghchi insisted, however, on the country’s right to “harness dividends of peaceful nuclear technology” — hinting at a potential major sticking point in the negotiations with the U.S.

He did not reiterate the demand in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, but Mr. Trump has previously suggested that any new nuclear deal with Iran might need to include a full abandonment of all domestic enrichment, and that is something Tehran, as Araghchi alluded to in his remarks, has never accepted.

Araghchi said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that he couldn’t predict whether President Trump intends to strike Iran, “but one fact is that if they want to find a resolution for Iran’s peaceful nuclear program, the only way is diplomacy.”

“I believe that still there is a good chance to have a diplomatic solution, which is based on a win-win game, and solution is at our reach,” Araghchi told Brennan.

But he added that “enrichment is our right.”

“We are a member of NPT [nuclear non-proliferation treaty] and we have every right to enjoy a peaceful nuclear energy, including enrichment. How we use this? This right is something you know related to us, only the enrichment is a sensitive part of our negotiation. The American team know about, they know our position, we know their position, and we have already exchanged our concerns, and I think a solution is achievable, but I’m not going to negotiate through media.”

“We are trying to make it something which consists of elements which can accommodate both sides’ concerns and interests, and we are working on those elements,” Araghchi said of the nuclear talks set to resume Thursday in Geneva, adding that he believed “we can work on those elements and prepare a good text and come to a fast deal.”

But Araghchi also reiterated the warnings from his country that if Mr. Trump does order new strikes on Iran, U.S. bases in the region would be targeted in any retaliation.

“If the U.S. attacks us, then we have every right to defend ourselves. If the U.S. attacks us that’s an act of aggression. What we do in response is the act of self-defense. So, and it is justifiable and legitimate. So, our missiles cannot hit the American soil, so obviously we have to do something else — we have to hit, you know, the Americans base in the region.”

To Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the Chatham House think tank in London, the two sides still appear to be too far apart. She told CBS News on Wednesday that, in her view, a military clash is inevitable, and soon.

“I think it’s imminent, I mean it’s a matter of days. War looks inevitable to me because President Trump has been not just assembling a huge arsenal to strike Iran, but also because President Trump has been clearly signaling that he is seeking the submission of the Islamic Republic to terms and conditions that currently the leaders in Iran don’t appear willing to make.”

“The main thing that Iran can give is a commitment to not enrich uranium above a certain grade inside Iran for a number of years,” said Vakil. “It’s worthwhile mentioning that Iran is already not enriching uranium and hasn’t been since the June war last summer when the United States pummeled Iran’s nuclear facilities and buried its enrichment program. So that is already de facto happening, and Iran can give that concession to President Trump.”

“But what Iran simultaneously seeks is an affirmation of its nuclear rights as a signatory of the non-proliferation treaty,” Vakil said. “Iran doesn’t want to be singled out. Iran wants to be treated like all the other signatories. And so what it is looking for is an ability to enrich uranium at very low levels for medical purposes. And that would be how they compromise on this principle.”

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