Many Iranians are worried as the United States assembles its greatest military firepower in decades in the Middle East and the next round of talks in Geneva get closer. There is a belief that the talks on Thursday may give their country’s theocracy its last chance to strike a deal with President Donald Trump. There is also a feeling of hopelessness in a country battered by decades of sanctions, heightened by Trump’s 2018 decision to withdraw from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. Iranians also last month suffered through the bloodiest crackdown on dissent in the country’s modern history, with security forces killing thousands of people and detaining tens of thousands more.

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FILE - Christopher Yeaw, center, arrives to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing on his nomination to be an assistant Secretary of State, Nov. 19, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday is likely to be a test run of the message that Republicans will give to voters in November’s elections for control of the House and Senate. Polls show that much of America distrusts how Trump has managed the government in his first year back in office. Though Trump is expected to focus on domestic issues, his intensifying threats that he may launch military strikes on Iran over its nuclear program are casting a shadow over the address. Democrats’ reactions in the chamber could also shape the night.