Iran’s president says Tehran wants a deal with U.S. before midterm elections

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday suggested his government was willing to make a deal with the U.S. to end the war before Americans head to the polls this November.

“We don’t want it to get to the midterm elections,” Pezeshkian said Thursday in a brief meeting with NBC News and other news organizations on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

“We wish Americans to return to the MOU before the midterms,” Pezeshkian added, referring to a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran that laid out plans for a temporary ceasefire. The agreement, signed in June, eventually collapsed.

In response to NBC News’ request for comment, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said: “The Iranian regime has murdered thousands of its own people, killed Americans overseas, executed acts of terrorism in the Strait of Hormuz, and launched indiscriminate attacks against its neighbors in the region.”

“The President is courageously ensuring that such an evil country never possesses a nuclear weapon, which will make the entire world safer and more stable,” Kelly added.

Pezeshkian’s comments came two days after President Donald Trump said in a speech to world leaders at the U.N. that he believed the Iranian regime would not make a deal to settle the conflict until after the fall elections.

“I believe we’ll make a deal right after the election because it doesn’t make sense for them not to,” Trump said. “They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election.”

Polls show Democrats with an advantage heading into the November contests. The latest NBC News Decision Desk Poll found 31% of respondents approved of Trump’s handling of the Iran war, while another 69% disapproved.

Trump on Tuesday also defended the conflict and said he was considering whether to “annihilate” the country or make a deal.

Trump has repeatedly said that the goal of attacking Iran was to prevent the development of a nuclear weapon. Soon after the war started, Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway through which some 20% of the world’s oil flowed before the conflict, sending shock waves through the world economy.

In an exchange with news organizations, Pezeshkian said he has met with the Islamic Republic’s new leader twice — including a month ago, for seven hours.

Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei assumed the role in early March after his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in an Israeli attack that also killed family members and other senior leaders.

Pezeshkian said he did not see “any issues with his health or physical appearance” in their meetings, adding that they sat on the floor on traditional pillows. Mojtaba Khamenei was severely injured in the strike that killed his father, three people with knowledge of the matter told NBC News in July, with burns to his face and body and wounds that have required several operations to one of his legs.

Iran’s president briefly addressed other pressing issues affecting the relationship between Tehran and Washington. He said his government was “open” to inspections of its nuclear facilities, which the regime has long maintained is for civilian purposes, and he insisted the regime was not seeking to assassinate the American president.

“This has not been the position of the Iranian government that we seek to assassinate President Trump or his family members,” Pezeshkian said.

The Justice Department last November charged an Iranian man in an alleged murder-for-hire effort to kill Trump when he was the Republican presidential candidate in 2024.

Two others were charged for allegedly planning to kill an Iranian American journalist and activist who has criticized the Iranian government over its treatment of women.

U.S. authorities said the plot was part of Iran’s efforts to avenge the death of a top Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in Baghdad in a U.S. drone strike Trump ordered during his first term in the White House.

Pezeshkian has previously denied an Iranian plot to kill Trump, telling NBC News’ Lester Holt in Tehran last year that the regime would “never” do so.