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At the U.N., Trump Asks Whether to Make a Deal With Iran "or Do I Annihilate the Islamic Republic and Do It Quickly" and Says Tehran Is "Waiting to See How I Do in the Midterm" — Hours Later Witkoff and Kushner Sit Down With Iran's Foreign Minister for Three Hours, and Tim Kaine Asks "Who Talks Like That?"

President Trump used his September 22, 2026 address to the 81st U.N. General Assembly to defend the nearly seven-month war with Iran and to frame its end as a choice he alone would make: a deal that would let Iran "rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before," or to "annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly" and "drive them into hell with no chance of survival." He accused Tehran of stalling on a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz until after the November midterms, predicted an agreement "right after the election," and insisted the election "doesn't even enter my mind." The same speech called Cuba a failed state, announced that U.S. documents would refer to AI as "superintelligence," and vowed to "encourage it, not rein it in." Within hours, Trump told reporters that U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had held "a very good meeting" lasting about three hours with an Iranian delegation led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on the sidelines of the General Assembly, with another meeting expected soon. Witkoff called the mediated talks "promising" and "constructive." Iranian state media said Tehran used the meeting to lay out its conditions for reopening the strait: lifting the U.S. naval blockade, releasing frozen Iranian assets and ending the war on all "resistance fronts." Democrats had earlier called for Trump's removal after his April threat that "a whole civilization will die tonight." Sen. Tim Kaine, lead sponsor of the Senate's Iran war powers resolutions, answered the U.N. speech by asking "who talks like that?" The speech came as a CNN/SSRS poll found 71% of voters disapproving of Trump's handling of foreign affairs.

“This is untrue. I offered them NOTHING! Axios' story, like most others, is a HOAX, used only for purposes of satisfying their Trump Derangement Syndrome. They should withdraw this fake story, IMMEDIATELY! [Trump, responding to an Axios report that he had offered Iran sanctions relief and the release of frozen funds in exchange for nuclear concessions.]”

A UN Fact-Finding Mission Says There Are "Reasonable Grounds" to Believe the United States Committed War Crimes in Iran — Including the Strike on a Girls' Elementary School in Minab That Killed About 120 Children — Six Months After Trump Said "That Was Done by Iran" and the Pentagon's Own Investigation Stayed Secret

On September 17, 2026, the independent international fact-finding mission on Iran, commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council, reported that it had found "reasonable grounds" to believe the United States committed war crimes in two strikes during the opening of the February 2026 war — a pair of attacks the mission says killed at least 178 civilians. The central finding concerns the February 28 strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in the southern city of Minab, where Iranian officials say about 120 schoolchildren, most of them girls between 7 and 12, were among roughly 168 to 175 people killed. The mission concluded the strike was an indiscriminate attack causing loss of civilian life, amounting to a war crime under international law. The same report accuses Iran's government of crimes against humanity in its crackdown on anti-government protesters. The finding lands on a question US officials have refused to answer for six months. On March 7, aboard Air Force One, President Trump blamed Iran for the school bombing without evidence — "No, in my opinion, based on what I've seen, that was done by Iran" — while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, standing nearby, declined to echo him, saying only "We're certainly investigating." Open-source analysts identified a US Tomahawk cruise missile in footage of the strike; the US is the only combatant in the war that fields Tomahawks. A preliminary US assessment reportedly found the United States "likely" responsible but not deliberately targeting the school. Congress has pressed for the Pentagon's findings all year without success. In March, Tim Kaine led more than 40 senators demanding a "swift investigation"; in July, Kirsten Gillibrand led 24 colleagues demanding the Department release the investigation it reportedly completed in April. As of the report's publication, the White House, State Department and Pentagon had not responded to requests for comment, and the Pentagon investigation remains unreleased. Stances below are relative to the finding of US responsibility and the demand for public accountability: "support" marks officials pressing for the investigation and its release, "oppose" marks officials attributing the strike elsewhere or resisting the accounting.