On Monday, during his White House meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump announced that there will be a high-level meeting between the United States and Iran on Saturday. It’s unclear as to whether the president himself will be in the meeting or whether Iran has agreed to attend.

President Donald Trump on Monday said the U.S. will engage “directly” with Iran in a high-level meeting set to occur this coming Saturday.

“We have a very big meeting on Saturday, and we’re dealing with them directly,” Trump told reporters from the Oval Office while sitting next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The announced meeting is the first known time the U.S. will directly engage with Iran since the previous Trump administration, when it withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018.

This presumes, of course, that Iran decides to attend.

The United States hasn’t engaged directly with Iran since President Trump pulled us out of the aforementioned “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” in 2018, more commonly known as the “Iran nuclear deal.” The withdrawal – which Joe Biden didn’t reverse and, in all candor, he probably wasn’t aware of – made sense when you consider that not only was it a bad deal for the United States, but it’s a near-certainty that Iran never intended to honor their part of the bargain.

“I think if the talks aren’t successful with Iran… Iran is going to be in great danger,” Trump said Monday.

Ay, there’s the rub.