Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) defended the Trump administration’s diplomatic discussions with Iran on Sunday, but predicted that negotiations with the Islamic Republic will likely fail, and threatened that the U.S. will take over the Strait of Hormuz if no agreement is reached.

“Let’s try a diplomatic solution. I think it’s going to fail,” Graham said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday regarding a negotiated agreement with Tehran. 

He said that, following his lengthy meeting with Trump on Friday, he believes that, ”If this deal fails, President [Donald] Trump is going to take the Strait of Hormuz over by force. The United States will control the Strait of Hormuz” and charge fees for passage. President Donald Trump made similar comments on Saturday.

“If Iran continues to attack Israel and Lebanon, the new policy will be, we’ll hit Iran. So, to the Iranians, if you’re listening, when you use Hezbollah to attack Israel, I think the new policy will be, we will attack Iran,” Graham continued. The senator’s comments are at odds with recent remarks fromTrump and Vice President JD Vance  rebuking Israel for its strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon, responding to Hezbollah attacks on Israel.

Graham acknowledged the memorandum of understanding signed last week is “problematic” but said he’d rather “try diplomacy than take it off the table,” and downplayed the financial windfall that Iran will get from the deal in the form of the lifting of sanctions and unfreezing of sanctioned Iranian funds.

“The money Iran gets is not going to change the future of Iran,” Graham said. “It’s not enough to reconstruct the country.”

Graham and other Senate Republicans in 2023 criticized the Biden administration for releasing $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds as part of a hostage deal, a sum likely to be dwarfed by the amount Iran stands to gain from this deal.

Graham, who previously criticized the idea of a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran, now says he supports the prospect — as long as the funds come from Arab states, rather than from the United States. But he also raised doubts that such a fund would actually come to fruition.

Graham suggested that a fundamental change in Iran’s posture would be required to convince the Arab states to Invest in Iran: “It would mean that the Sunni Arabs believe that Iran has changed to the point they want to be a business partner. I pray that happens. I doubt if it will.”

The South Carolina senator also predicted Saudi Arabia will join the Abraham Accords before the end of the year, something that the Saudi government has publicly denied. 

Asked whether Israel would be ready to recognize a Palestinian state before the end of the year, which has been Saudi Arabia’s demand in exchange for normalization, Graham said, “Donald Trump is going to empower me and others to jumpstart an effort to get Saudi to join Israel. There will be accommodations made by Saudi and Israel.”

He said that there had been plans to announce a Saudi-Israeli normalization framework by the end of October 2023, which were upended by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

“I’m not asking you to do anything to jeopardize the future of Israel’s security, but I am asking you to be open to expanding the Abraham Accords and finding a solution to Palestinians that are good for Israel, and quite frankly, good for the world,” he continued, addressing the Israelis. “To Saudi Arabia, now is the time to open negotiations yet again.”

The South Carolina Republican said that Trump should allow Jay Clayton’s nomination to be director of national intelligence to proceed and unlock Democratic votes to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

He said that Trump blocked Clayton’s planned confirmation hearing last week because he was told, incorrectly, that Democrats did not plan to follow through on renewing FISA even if Clayton were confirmed.

Asked whether he has any concerns about acting DNI Bill Pulte, Graham responded, “I’m fine right now, but I won’t be fine much longer if we don’t get FISA up and running, and I think Clayton’s the perfect pick.”