President Donald Trump’s description of an Iran deal as “largely negotiated” triggered a wave of sharp public criticism from some of his party’s most hawkish voices over the weekend, exposing a rift between the president’s push for a negotiated end to the three-month war and Republicans who want a more decisive military outcome.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, took to the social media platform X on Saturday to declare the emerging terms a “disastrous mistake” if they allow Tehran to keep its nuclear ambitions. “If the result of all that is to be an Iranian regime — still run by Islamists who chant ‘death to America’ — now receiving billions of dollars, being able to enrich uranium & develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, then that outcome would be a disastrous mistake,” he wrote.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a frequent Trump ally, panned any deal that would leave Iran the dominant regional power and retain the ability to destroy oil infrastructure throughout the Persian Gulf. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was equally blunt, calling a proposed 60-day ceasefire “a disaster” and warning that “everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught.”
Trump dismissed the critics in a social media post of his own, saying the deal was not “even fully negotiated yet” and telling followers to “not listen to the losers, who are critical about something they know nothing about.” He insisted the plan was “THE EXACT OPPOSITE” of the 2015 nuclear agreement reached under President Barack Obama, from which he withdrew during his first term. “Both sides must take their time and get it right,” he said, adding that a U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports would remain “in full force and effect until an agreement is reached, certified, and signed.”
Under the proposal, as described by regional officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, the war would end and Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, with details and timelines to be worked out during a later 60-day window. The strait, through which roughly 20% of global energy supplies transit, has been closed by Iran since the conflict began, jolting world markets and driving up gasoline prices.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking from India on Sunday, pushed back forcefully against the suggestion that Trump would sign any deal that strengthened Iran. “His commitment to that principle that they’ll never have a nuclear weapon shouldn’t be questioned by anybody,” Rubio told reporters. “And the idea that somehow this president, given everything he’s already proven he’s willing to do, is going to somehow agree to a deal that ultimately winds up putting Iran in a stronger position when it comes to nuclear ambitions is absurd. That’s just not going to happen.”
The secretary’s defense did little to quiet critics on the right. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, one of Trump’s first-term Cabinet members, asserted on X that the emerging deal seemed to him to be the same as the Obama-era accord from which Trump withdrew. “Not remotely America First,” Pompeo said, prompting a profanity-laced rejoinder from White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who has become a persistent Trump critic, wrote that if news reports were accurate, “the ayatollahs will have won a significant victory.”
The war, which began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Feb. 28, has cost U.S. taxpayers at least $29 billion and killed 13 American service members, according to polls that show the conflict remains deeply unpopular with the public. While Trump has vowed to make only good deals, the Republican revolt underscores the political risks of an exit strategy that hawks see as handing Tehran a win.
Some conservatives did rally to the president’s side. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., often a thorn in Trump’s side, defended the diplomatic approach: “War virtually always ends with negotiations. Critics of President Trump’s peace negotiations should give President Trump the space to find an American First solution.” Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who lost his primary last week to a Trump-backed challenger, offered a darker assessment of the deal’s opponents. “If Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz are crashing out last night,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “I’d say it’s probably a pretty good deal.”