Washington Split Over Iran Deal as Critics Attack Terms and Process

While leaders around the world rushed to welcome the overnight agreement between Washington and Tehran, the mood inside the U.S. capital was far more combative. Lawmakers from both parties criticized the emerging deal, with Republicans warning that Iran may be reading it in a dangerous way and Democrats saying the terms amount to a humiliating surrender. Some of the toughest Republican hawks, however, stayed silent for now.

Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally and one of the most pro-Israel voices in the party, said on X that he was concerned Iran appears to interpret the deal differently than the U.S. negotiating team. He stressed that Vice President J.D. Vance, not President Trump, was the architect of the agreement, and said any nuclear accord with Iran should go to Congress for review and a vote. Senator James Lankford told NBC that Congress should approve any possible end-of-war agreement and that a congressionally approved deal would be more enduring.

Former Vice President Mike Pence sharpened the criticism, saying, “Better no deal than a bad deal.” Senator John Cornyn wrote on X that “not a single cent” should be released to what he called a murderous regime while it continues building missiles, supporting terror proxies, and refusing to compensate victims of Iranian terrorism. Conservative commentator Mark Levin also attacked the logic of the agreement, asking how any deal could work over time after 47 years of experience with Iran and its theocratic ideology.

On the Democratic side, Senator Chris Murphy called the deal a “surrender to Iran” and said the terms were “Iran’s terms,” while still backing an end to the fighting because each extra day of war weakens the United States. Senator Chris Coons said Trump’s announcement was a step toward ending a reckless war he started, but argued the president has delivered only a small part of what he promised and left major questions unresolved. Former President Barack Obama, who signed the original 2015 nuclear deal, said he doubted any new agreement would be very different from the original pact, which he said worked for a long time until the U.S. withdrew. He added that people sometimes need to relearn that bombs are not the solution to foreign policy problems. Senator Ruben Gallego summed up Democratic mockery on X by calling it “Trump’s Temu version of the 2015 nuclear deal.”