Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American scholar and former political prisoner of the Iranian regime, pushed back on claims that Tehran is not desperate for a deal, after Chris Cuomo suggested the White House may be overstating how effective Operation Epic Fury has been so far.
Cuomo has framed the operation as a slow, grinding conflict, with both sides simply looking for an off-ramp as soon as possible.
Tajbakhsh rejected that view, arguing instead that the operation is “layered” and “sequential,” unfolding in deliberate phases with specific targets addressed one at a time. He said this structure allows for pauses to pressure Iran into meeting the administration’s non-negotiable demands, with strikes resuming if it refuses—an approach he described as a commonsense blend of military force and diplomacy.
Chris Cuomo tried to push a doom-and-gloom narrative about Operation Epic Fury onto former Iranian regime prisoner Kian Tajbakhsh — but he didn’t bite.
— Overton (@overton_news) March 31, 2026
“Well, I look at it slightly differently, Chris.”
Instead, Tajbakhsh spent two full minutes laying out why the Trump… pic.twitter.com/0pU6Li1hoJ
"Look, the narrative we're getting is these guys are desperate for a deal. They're coming to us. This guy's stepping up and saying the old guys are out. They're new guys in. We want to play nice with Trump. We fear you. You're so strong. You're so amazing," Cuomo said mockingly. "And you guys seem to be suggesting that's not happening."
"Well, I look at it slightly differently, Chris," Tajbakhsh replied. "Look, the issue of negotiations is sometimes misconstrued, I think, in a lot of our conversation, force, war, and diplomacy are two sides of one coin."
"War is an element of statecraft. At any point, Iran could take its so-called off-ramp and return to the talking points that the Trump administration put on the table in Muscat," he continued. "I think the demands are very clear. They've been very coherent. And they are currently non-negotiable. So I don't see a diplomatic resolution in the sense of coming to a compromise. I think at this point, the United States has so successfully degraded the military that I think that they're going to go for reaching their goals. And the goals are to defang and to neutralize the threat from Iran. So in terms of diplomacy, it seems that actually President Trump takes a kind of commonsensical and understandable approach."
"He undertakes strong military action, and then he gives it a pause. And he says: OK, are you ready to come to the table? And when he hears they're not, then he continues the military operation," Tajbakhsh added. "From all I know, the military operation is on track. I mean, I'm just referring to what the Pentagon is saying."
"You're seeing what the rest of us are," Cuomo chimed in.
"Well, yes," Tajbakhsh said. "But I mean, I also see that it is a layered and it is a sequential military operation. They have a number of targets. They have to go through them. And so it takes time."
This comes as Cuomo and other Democrats have blasted Operation Epic Fury in its entirety and called for a return to negotiations. They continue to frame U.S. talks with Iran as a sign of weakness, rather than the reality: Iranian desperation as its military buckles under sustained pressure from American and Israeli forces.
Editor's Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
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