Days after Iran’s leadership projected a unified front, undermining the long-cited moderate-vs.-hardliner divide, President Donald Trump canceled planned talks with Tehran in Islamabad, Pakistan, citing “infighting and confusion” inside the regime.

Iranian-American experts argue that social media posts from Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian and other key officials reveal that the “good cop, bad cop” tactic that the regime exploited to deceive adversaries and secure generous concessions in nuclear negotiations has collapsed.

In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump announced he canceled the trip, citing “too much time wasted on traveling” and “too much work!”

“Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their ‘leadership,'” the president added, noting “nobody knows who is in charge, including them.”

EXILED PRINCE LOOKS TO LEAD IRANIAN PEOPLE IN ENDING ISLAMIC REPUBLIC: ‘OUR BERLIN WALL MOMENT’

“Also, we have all the cards, they have none!” Trump wrote. “If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!”

The implosion of the hardline-moderate dichotomy within the regime could have profound consequences for Trump’s approach to the atomic talks in Islamabad, experts said. Trump appeared to allude to a blurry divide between factions within Iran last week.

“Iran is having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is! They just don’t know! The infighting is between the ‘Hardliners,’ who have been losing BADLY on the battlefield, and the ‘Moderates,’ who are not very moderate at all (but gaining respect!), and it is CRAZY!” Trump wrote in an X post Thursday.

MORNING GLORY: PRESIDENT TRUMP LEADS THE WEST TO A BIG WIN AGAINST IRAN

Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei quickly fired back, claiming “due to the strange unity created among compatriots, a fracture has occurred in the enemy.”

“With practical gratitude for this blessing, cohesion has become even greater and more steel-like, and the enemies will become more wretched and diminished,” Khamenei wrote in a reply. “The enemy’s media operations, by targeting the minds and psyches of the people, intend to undermine national unity and security; may our negligence not allow this sinister intent to come to fruition.”

Mariam Memarsadeghi, a senior fellow at The Macdonald-Laurier Institute and founder and director of the Cyrus Forum for Iran’s Future, told Fox News Digital the Islamic Republic has, for decades, fooled Western policymakers by sending moderates to negotiations as a “window dressing for its terror and subjugation.”

KHAMENEI’S DEATH OPENS UNCERTAIN CHAPTER FOR IRAN’S ENTRENCHED THEOCRACY

The officials would then tell their counterparts that they are under pressure from hardliners, implying that the West must make concessions to strengthen them internally.

“Because of the war, the Trump administration is in a remarkably advantageous situation vis-à-vis the imperial terror state, one never before attempted, much less achieved,” Memarsadeghi said. “But every time Trump says regime change has already happened, he denies America the opportunity to finally, truly be rid of the world’s top sponsor of terror and the existential threat it poses not just to the people of Iran but to all the world.”

Navid Mohebbi, who worked as a Persian media analyst for the State Department’s Public Affairs Bureau, cautioned that while rivalries and factions do exist within the Islamic Republic, they are united on the regime’s core principles.

YALE HOSTS CONTROVERSIAL SPEAKER TRITA PARSI ACCUSED OF PROMOTING IRANIAN REGIME INTERESTS

“Their disagreements are primarily over tactics, not fundamental direction,” Mohebbi told Fox News Digital, stressing that real decision-making power in Iran has always rested with the supreme leader and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

“So-called moderates have never had the final say on key strategic issues and are often used to soften the regime’s image abroad,” he said. “From the perspective of the Iranian people, there has been little difference. Across administrations labeled ‘moderate’ or ‘hardline,’ the system has consistently relied on repression.”

Mohebbi cited the example of Iranian regime President Hassan Rouhani, who presented himself as a moderate, but whose security forces violently killed 1,500 protesters during the November 2019 uprising.

IRAN’S SUPREME LEADER SAYS NUCLEAR TALKS WITH TRUMP ADMIN WOULD NOT BE ‘WISE’

“The same pattern has continued under Masoud Pezeshkian in the January 2026 protest massacre, reinforcing the reality that these labels have not translated into meaningful change on the ground,” he said.

A regional official, however, insisted there are clashes between moderates and hardliners in Iran. The official told Fox News Digital that Pezeshkian is a moderate, but he “could not even make good on his campaign promise regarding internet freedom. To be honest, he’s not even been able to do s—.”

“The joint reaction by the heads of the three branches of power was in response to Trump’s reference to the issue of rift, and also to the fact that there are indeed hardliners and moderates,” the official added. “Look, whenever Iran wants to make concessions, they throw moderates under the bus so that the moderates make a deal, and then, the hardliners blame them for the same concessions all of them had agreed to make.”

Lawdan Bazargan, who was imprisoned by the Islamic Republic in the 1980s for her political dissident activities, told Fox News Digital that what officials are seeing now is not the disappearance of the divide, but the exposure of what that divide actually was.

“In reality, all of these figures — Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf [speaker of Iran’s parliament], Saeed Jalili [member of the Expediency Discernment Council], Pezeshkian, Ahmad Vahidi [head of the IRGC], Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei [head of Iran’s judiciary] — operate within the same ideological framework,” Bazargan said. “They are all committed to the preservation of the system, the projection of power in the region, and confrontation with what they define as ‘the forces of evil,’ namely the United States and Israel.”

The Road to the Roses is over, and now the spotlight shifts to Churchill Downs, where the 152nd Kentucky Derby is ready to take over Louisville in all its glorious chaos.

From the buzz of the post position draw to the first look at the morning-line odds, Derby week always feels like the sport cracking open a fresh bottle of adrenaline. This is where hype turns into hard numbers, and contenders start getting separated from pretenders.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON OUTKICK.COM

Every spring, the Derby delivers the kind of pageantry horse racing sells best: packed grandstands, wild hats, roaring crowds and a field of three-year-olds carrying huge expectations into the starting gate.

Strategy meets destiny today as the morning-line odds are set and starting gates are assigned. Grab a mint julep and settle in; the hunt for the 2026 Triple Crown has officially begun.

#Post Position, Horse (morning-line odds) 

LISTEN TO THE OUTKICK BETS PODCAST WITH GEOFF CLARK

_____________________________

Follow me on X @Geoffery-Clark, and check out my OutKick Bets Podcast for more betting content and random rants.

The 2026 Stagecoach Music Festival is taking place this weekend in Indio, Calif., bringing together country music’s biggest fans at what sure looks to my eyes like Coachella with a cowboy hat.

Oh, and also Post Malone is headlining. Nothing wrong with that, it just seems out of place.

Anyway, one of the most anticipated sets of the weekend belonged to Ella Langley.

The country songstress has become a massive star (and a certified OutKick fan-favorite), and so a lot of people were looking forward to her debut at the festival.

MORGAN WALLEN’S EXIT FROM ‘SNL’ TO ‘GOD’S COUNTRY’ FITS HIS ‘UNFILTERED’ COUNTRY STAR IMAGE: EXPERTS

That came late Friday afternoon, and Langley had a trick up her sleeve.

The prevailing thought was that she’d bring out a special guest, but that the guest would be country megastar Morgan Wallen, who would join her for her new tune “I Can’t Love You Anymore,” in which he is featured.

However, according to Rolling Stone, she threw the crowd a changeup by going into her song “You Look Like You Love Me,” which originally featured country singer Riley Green.

49ERS STAR GEORGE KITTLE DISHES ON TAYLOR SWIFT’S SURPRISE NASHVILLE PERFORMANCE

Not this time, though.

Instead, comedian and podcaster — complete with a cowboy hat — Theo Von came out onstage to join her.

It sure seemed to me like the crowd absolutely ate that up.

ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON’T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW!

Langley was a guest on Von’s podcast recently, and maybe that’s when they cooked this up.

Plus, this seems to be the move into the social media era. You do a set at a festival, you bring someone up on-stage with you, and the internet goes nuts over it.

We saw this from Sabrina Carpenter at the aforementioned Coachella, where she had Will Ferrell doing bits, Madonna singing with her and Susan Sarandon doing… whatever it was she did, I honestly can’t remember.

But that was a really cool moment, and I get the sense we can expect more of that from Langley in the years to come.