Iran's top brass have been secretly poring over Donald Trump's decades-old memoir The Art of the Deal and quietly enlisting a team of psychologists to predict the President's every move at the nuclear negotiating table.
The reason for Iran's unusual research project stems from Trump's wildly unpredictable approach to dealmaking, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Talks in Switzerland collapsed over the weekend after the President threatened the negotiators unless Iran stopped funding its allied Lebanese proxy Hezbollah, writing on Truth Social he would 'hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!'
The President's 1987 bestseller lays out the strategy he used as a New York property mogul: hit your opponent with outrageous, erratic demands to rattle them into folding.
Now Tehran's negotiators are mining those same pages in order to use the same tactics against Trump as the US and Iran prepare to sign a nuclear deal.
Regime officials also met with psychologists to help them map the inner workings of Trump's mind, according to Iranian mediators.
Iranian officials have reportedly leaned on the specialists to game out how the President might react in public to each proposal Tehran floats, treating his next social media outburst as something to be forecast like the weather.
'Trump is applying the lessons of "The Art of the Deal," making extreme threats to test the other side’s resolve,' Iranian expert Mohamed Amersi told the WSJ. 'But the Iranians…are well aware of his tactics. It won’t change the dynamics.'
Regime officials also met with psychologists to help them map the inner workings of Trump's mind
A fireball and smoke erupt from a building following an Israeli strike in Tyre, southern Lebanon, on May 28
Vice President JD Vance was confronted by Iranian officials in Switzerland over Trump's threats
The President's 1987 bestseller lays out the strategy he used as a New York property mogul
A senior Iranian official told Drop Site News that the delegation had added two psychologists to the negotiating team 'so that we can shape messages intended for President Trump from the perspective of managing what we regard as psychopathic behavior pattern.'
After Trump leveled his threats at the Iranian negotiators, the regime's top representative, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, confronted Vice President JD Vance.
The Iranian official says he told Vance that Trump's threats violated the memorandum of understanding the two sides had signed just a week earlier, before the face-to-face talks abruptly broke off.
'I told Vance, "Today your president has issued threats. Understand that we never negotiate under threats or pressure,"' Ghalibaf told Iranian state television.
'The American side sought another meeting through the mediators, but we refused.'
Vance reportedly responded to the Iranian outrage in the room by telling the negotiators that Trump meant the US would respond with strikes only if Tehran violated the deal, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The peace deal, signed last week, committed Iran to using its 'best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days.'
Ending Tehran's stranglehold on the waterway, which disrupted global oil and gas supplies and drove up fuel and food prices, had been a key US demand in negotiations.
Iranian officials have reportedly leaned on the specialists to game out how the President might react in public to each proposal Tehran floats, treating his next social media outburst as something to be forecast like the weather
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is a roughly 18-mile-wide chokepoint between Yemen and the Horn of Africa that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. It is the gateway through which nearly all cargo and energy shipments traveling between Europe and Asia must pass
The agreement also said Iran will work with Oman to 'define the future administration and maritime services' of the strait, though there is significant uncertainty as to what will happen after the 60 days is up.

By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2026-06-24 17:40:49 | Updated at 2026-06-24 18:26:44
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