Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the Trump administration “fully unhinged” and tore apart its approach to nuclear negotiations with Iran, just hours after Vice President JD Vance returned home from Islamabad without a deal after more than 21 hours of talks with Iranian officials.
According to The Hill, Clinton called into MS NOW’s Morning Joe and said Trump needed to be held accountable for his words, not just his actions. She pointed to a string of Truth Social posts over the past week, including a threat that a “whole civilization will die” in Iran if Tehran did not meet his demands, attacks on Pope Leo XIV, and a since-deleted AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ.
She then went after the negotiations directly. “You don’t just show up in Geneva or Islamabad, talk for a bunch of hours, and go away,” she said. She questioned whether the administration was either willing or able to do the hard work of diplomacy, adding: “They send the same three people around the world. Two of them, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, they’re supposed to solve Ukraine, Iran, Gaza. It’s a joke.”
The Islamabad talks ended without a deal and here is what happened
The talks in Pakistan were the highest-level direct meeting between the US and Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Vance led the American side, facing off against Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf. The two sides spent over 21 hours in discussions but could not reach a deal, with the main sticking point being Iran’s nuclear program.
The US demanded that all enriched nuclear material be removed from Iran and that a system be put in place to verify Iran is not building nuclear weapons. Iran refused to go that far. Analysts say the collapse of those talks has now made a painful economic stretch almost unavoidable.
After the talks fell apart, Trump announced a naval blockade of Iranian ports, effective April 13. US Central Command said the blockade would cover all vessels entering or leaving Iranian ports in the Gulf and Gulf of Oman, but would not stop ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz on their way to non-Iranian destinations. Iran called the move “piracy” and put its armed forces on “maximum combat alert.”
Iran’s foreign minister said his country had engaged in good faith but that when the two sides were getting close to an understanding, they ran into what he described as “maximalism and shifting goalposts” from the American side. The stakes are extremely high. Around 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas normally passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
Since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28, Iran has been blocking or controlling traffic through the strait, sending global oil prices sharply higher, reports Reuters. On Monday, Brent crude was nearing $100 a barrel. The International Energy Agency has already cut its forecasts for global oil supply and demand growth, saying both are now expected to fall from 2025 levels as the conflict weighs on the world economy.
Clinton also warned that US allies are watching all of this closely and drawing their own conclusions. She said close partners have already started thinking about building up their own defenses because they feel they can no longer fully count on the United States under this administration. The broader economic picture is also under pressure, and a recent GDP report revealed a number the White House has been reluctant to talk about.
Despite the breakdown, the door to more talks has not fully closed. According to Reuters, a source involved in the negotiations said both countries could return to Islamabad as early as the end of this week, with Friday through Sunday being kept open for a possible next round. Vance himself left open the possibility of a deal, saying the US had put forward its “final and best offer” and that it was now up to Iran to respond.
Published: Apr 14, 2026 12:15 pm