ASPEN, Colo. — Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday opposed any nuclear deal with Iran, arguing at the Aspen Security Forum that the U.S. should continue pressure on Iran’s economy and “see what happens.”

Meanwhile, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper speaking alongside Rice on a panel, suggested that the U.S. had potentially overestimated its capabilities in the war, agreeing that continued economic pressure and a renewed blockade would be the best strategies going forward.

The two, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, also offered strong criticisms of U.S. allies for not joining with and at times attempting to obstruct the U.S. campaign against Iran.

“I would not buy a nuclear agreement [with Iran] under any circumstances. I’d let them sit there and stew in their lousy economy, where most of their A-level nuclear scientists have been killed, where I believe there are deep splits in the Iranian government … and let’s just see what happens,” Rice said. “I wouldn’t give them a penny back, and let’s just see what happens to that economy over time.”

Rice said that she believes the U.S. did do significant damage to Iran’s nuclear program and that she’s “quite confident” that the country is not in a position to produce a nuclear weapon in the near future.

Mark Esper, who served during President Donald Trump’s first term, said that the U.S. war on Iran was a “a good thing to do to show the seriousness of of how we felt about this and our willingness to commit force to do that” but added, “we can discuss whether our reach exceeded our grasp, and some of the language used about unconditional surrender, et cetera, pushed them into a corner”

He said that a success in the war would require a return to the status quo in the Strait of Hormuz and a deal on Iran’s nuclear program superior to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Esper argued that there would be no way to bring such a result solely through airstrikes, and that the primary path forward should be renewed economic pressure on Iran, including a renewed blockade targeting Iran’s ports and land and air routes. He said the U.S. should continue to respond to Iranian attacks with strikes on its missile and drone capabilities.

Esper said that strategy will take time, patience, discipline and the support of allies and come at the cost of higher gas prices. He said the end goal should not be to collapse the Iranian regime but to bring Iran back to the negotiating table.

“That approach, barring — I’m open to any better one — gives you the highest return with the lowest risk to where we don’t want to go,” Esper said.

Former Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, who also spoke on the panel, emphasized that economic pressure is a useful tool, which can be effective but takes time, will and coordination, without which there are ways to evade sanctions.

“I’m hopeful that with all this pressure, that something rational can come of this, because we’re not in a good place right now, obviously,” Pritzker said.

Rice and Esper both expressed frustration with U.S. allies’ refusal to cooperate with the U.S. operations and, particularly, European allies’ decisions to block the U.S. from using their bases in their countries in the course of those operations — a move Esper called “really stupid.”

Rice said it was “really not a very smart thing” for allies to dismiss the conflict as not “our war.”

She said would have “preferred” if the U.S. had worked more closely with its allies before the operation, but acknowledged that actually getting them onboard would have been questionable, pointing to her own experience trying to bring allies onboard with the Iraq invasion during the Bush administration.

Sometimes, she said, “the United States has to do something really hard, like really deal with a bad guy who’s been a bad guy for a long time,” she said, emphasizing that the sophistication and range of Iran’s missile program was increasing and it was preparing to make a major agreement with Russia on missiles. “When the time comes, if it’s your ally and your friend, even if you’re not going to join, you don’t try to harm the effort,” she said.

“When I hear, ‘Well, it wasn’t imminent,’ I think, ‘Do you really want to wait until it’s imminent, or do you want to try to degrade it earlier?’” she continued.

Both Esper and Rice warned that, through their actions around the Iran war and comments denigrating the U.S.’ reliability as an ally, or declaring that they will handle their own defense without American assistance, allies are only playing into the hands of those who want to see those alliances collapse.

“You may speak into existence exactly what you need to avoid, because there are some people inside the American political system, on both sides of the aisle, who would be perfectly happy to withdraw from the world, and you don’t want to help empower those people,” Rice warned.

Jewish Republican donors and activists are voicing their strong disappointment with President Donald Trump’s newly announced memorandum of understanding with Iran, which has been met with criticism from GOP lawmakers as well as influential hawkish conservatives.

Trump has fiercely defended the deal to end the war with Iran, the text of which was released Wednesday, claiming it is superior to the nuclear agreement with Tehran that was reached by former President Barack Obama in 2015.

But in interviews with Jewish Insider on Thursday, several Jewish conservatives who supported the war expressed misgivings about the deal that reopens the Strait of Hormuz, saying that it had granted too many concessions to a weakened Iran — including waiving sanctions on oil exports — while neglecting to broach the regime’s funding of terror proxies and its ballistic missile arsenal.

They also raised concerns that the memorandum of understanding with Tehran had not been favorable to Israel, a U.S. partner in the war, pointing to a term of the preliminary agreement that calls for a permanent end to military operations in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Hezbollah, a key Iranian ally.

And they expressed serious doubts over Iran’s willingness to finalize a nuclear agreement during the 60-day negotiating period, fearing it could be indefinitely extended by “mutual consent,” per the terms of the MOU.

Their reactions highlight a rare point of tension between Trump and pro-Israel Republicans, who have long applauded his commitment to upholding a close alliance with the Jewish state, even amid rising hostility to Israel from the populist far right opposed to foreign wars.

Vice President JD Vance, who had initially been skeptical of the war, delivered a scathing public rebuke of Israeli officials who had criticized the agreement, saying on Thursday that Trump is “the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time” and warning Israeli detractors against “attacking the only powerful ally” they have “anywhere left in the entire world.”

But Eric Levine, a top GOP fundraiser who is on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said that the war “achieved none of its stated aims,” including Trump’s pledge to liberate Iranians from a theocratic regime and nuclear disarmament. “We ran 26 miles, and then chose to stop at the last 385 yards,” he told JI. “I don’t understand why.”

“The most disturbing thing about the deal is that we have conceded to the Iranians up front that they can leave Lebanon alone,” Levine added, saying the deal effectively constrained Israel’s right to defend itself.

Levine predicted a future scenario in which Hezbollah would be “lobbing missiles into Israel” before the upcoming elections in Israel and the United States, prompting a disastrous chain reaction that could lead to the collapse of the deal and result in widespread GOP losses in November.

“Call me disappointed that we’re going down this road,” he sighed.

The RJC, for its part, was more positive about the deal, saying on Thursday that it had confidence in Trump’s decision, even as it was “deeply skeptical that the Islamic Republic has a genuine interest in peace or will abandon its Islamist, hegemonic malign ambitions in the region.”

The group said it was reassured that Trump had threatened to strike Iran again if it reneged on the agreement. “We take the president at his word and trust him to finish the job in the best interests of the United States and our allies in the region,” the RJC wrote in a lengthy statement.

Other Jewish leaders, however, have not been as charitable in assessing Trump’s motivations. One prominent Jewish Republican donor criticized the deal, speculating it had only come as a response to Trump’s fears about GOP losses in the midterms, as the war and rising gas prices have emerged as potent sources of Democratic attacks.

Gabriel Groisman, a Republican donor in Florida, said the terms of the deal were “certainly worrisome,” noting that “there is still no agreement on the major issues” such as “uranium enrichment, Iran’s ballistic missile program and its funding of terrorist proxies,” even as “sanctions relief appears poised to take effect immediately.”

“This MOU is not the end of the war and it unfortunately will not bring lasting peace,” he told JI. “Instead,” he added, “it appears to signal a significant realignment of American policy in the region, which raises serious concerns for many Americans, for U.S. allies and of course for American Jews, who have a special interest in the safety and security of the world’s only Jewish state.”

Joshua Katzen, the publisher of the Jewish News Syndicate and an RJC board member, echoed that sentiment, saying that he was “disappointed to see” Trump “apparently throwing away the leverage he has painstakingly accumulated and trading it for promises that are likely to be broken.”

“The worst aspect is that by relieving sanctions and allowing Iran to sell oil before they have performed more than letting a few ships through Hormuz,” he added, “Trump had given them the funds to rebuild and reconstitute the threat that he just spent billions of dollars to degrade.”

Katzen expressed hope that Trump was “playing four-dimensional chess here, as he often has in the past, but right now, I’m not so sure his horizon is larger than temporarily reducing oil prices while giving Iran the funds and time to renew their existential threat.”

While many Jewish Republicans acknowledged that Trump had been a strong friend to Israel and praised his initial decision to attack Iran, they were otherwise largely baffled about his decision to end the war, even as some attempted to put a positive spin on the move.

“I’m on a bunch of various threads and the majority are not happy, to say the least,” Alan Sager, a Jewish Republican donor and activist based in Texas, told JI. “I’m a wait-and-see guy.”

Still, he added that he was confused with Trump’s decision and doubted the Iranians would operate in good faith — particularly with regard to nuclear talks that have long proven to be unfruitful. “I don’t know what Trump is thinking,” he told JI. “I don’t trust the Iranians as far as I can throw them.”

Brad Kastan, a GOP donor in Ohio, said he was “taken aback like everybody else” when he learned about the deal, while acknowledging there was “no doubt” Trump ceded valuable leverage in readily agreeing to a range of key concessions. 

“But as in most things in life, things are never as good as you hoped or as bad as you feared,” he told JI, speculating that perhaps Trump agreed to an end to the war in order to “buy more time” for the United States and Israel to replenish their eroding munitions reserves. “Why would you let them off the mat unless you needed to?” 

“For every disappointment, I can’t help but think of all the good that happened. There are a lot of people rushing to jump to conclusions” while ignoring “the bigger picture,” Kastan said. “To conclude we are not better off today than we were a year ago is objectively false,” he argued, claiming “Iran is back on its heels.”

Marc Zell, an Israeli-American lawyer and chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel, said in a social media post on Friday that he did not “like the content of the MOU or the tone of certain statements from the” White House “defending it, but that’s politics in an election year.”  

“The bottom line is the relationship between Israel and the U.S. is strong and inviolable,” Zell wrote.

One top Jewish Republican bundler said he was also more sanguine about Trump’s deal. “He took a huge risk for Israel, and people need to see what happens and calm down,” the bundler told JI, referring to the start of the war in February. “No president has done more than him or would do more.”

But Joel Geiderman, an RJC board member in Los Angeles, argued that “Israel’s last reliable ally seems to have abandoned her,” telling JI that he was “very disappointed” with the recently approved agreement.

Another top GOP donor, who also spoke with JI on condition of anonymity to address a sensitive subject in the wake of the deal, suggested that he was looking at the agreement through a realist’s lens.

In initially launching the war, Trump had “greatly underestimated Iran’s capabilities and willingness to stick with it,” and “put himself in a box where he had to make a deal,” the donor explained. “Every time he announced we had won the war, they’d shoot another ballistic missile.”

“Do I like this deal? Hell no. Nobody thinks he made a great deal. But there’s a difference between making a great deal and making the only deal you can make,” he told JI. “Knowing Donald Trump, he was going to make a deal.”

As Vice President JD Vance takes on the role of chief defender of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding and forthcoming talks, he has begun to sound a lot like someone whom the Trump administration has lately spent a lot of time attacking: former President Barack Obama.

Vance and President Donald Trump have both, in recent days, made clear that they view the MOU — which is set to deliver sanctions relief to Iran as nuclear negotiations get underway — as fundamentally different from, and better than, the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear deal signed by Obama. But as the White House faces criticism from hawkish members of the Republican Party, the language Vance is using to defend the burgeoning deal closely resembles the arguments made by Obama 11 years ago.

“If you think this is a bad deal, what is your alternative?” Vance said in an interview this week with New York Times columnist Ross Douthat. 

Flashback to a 2015 press conference at the White House soon after the JCPOA was announced. 

“I’m hearing a lot of talking points being repeated about ‘this is a bad deal,’” Obama said. “What I haven’t heard is, what is your preferred alternative?”

Both Vance in 2026 and Obama in 2015 argued that the deals negotiated by their respective administrations were better than using military force — or in the case of the Trump deal, continuing to use military force — and that they would lead to a safer world.

“We could drop more bombs. We could destroy more of their country. We could kill the current iteration of their leadership. We know where all of them are. All of those things could happen,” Vance said. “But does that make the American people safer or more prosperous? The president of the United States and I think: No.”

Obama frequently argued similarly.

“If the alternative is that we should bring Iran to heel through military force, then those critics should say so,” he said at the 2015 press conference. “We’ve got a historic chance to pursue a safer and more secure world, an opportunity that may not come again in our lifetimes.”

“None of them have presented to me, or the American people, a better alternative.” -Obama, 2015
“It’s not just whether this is good or bad, it’s what is the alternative.” -Vance, 2026

As Vice President JD Vance takes on the role of chief defender of the U.S.-Iran MOU and the… pic.twitter.com/TB5bvxINM5

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) June 18, 2026

There are substantive differences between the agreements notched by the Obama and Trump administrations, though both share the core assertion that they will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. 

“The Obama-Iran deal allowed them to generate a stockpile of enriched uranium,” Vance claimed, although the JCPOA required Iran to limit the level to which it enriched uranium, cut its stockpile by 98% and ship the rest of its enriched uranium out of the country.  “Our deal ensures that stockpile is destroyed and eliminated, so that’s a very, very big difference, a very important difference for the American people,” Vance said this week. (The text of the 14-point MOU says only that the uranium will be discussed during the forthcoming negotiations.)

But both Vance and Obama, in their roles as salesmen of their administrations’ respective deals, argued that critics simply misunderstand the agreements.

“I just don’t think that people who are criticizing this, one, they’re not actually dealing with the reality of what’s in it, and No. 2, they don’t have an alternative,” Vance said in a podcast interview with Megyn Kelly this week. 

Obama told NPR’s Steve Inskeep in 2015 that critics of his deal get the facts wrong.

“I’ve listened to the critics, some of them who announced their opposition before they had even read the bill, or read the agreement. And that is that they will put forward arguments that after a few minutes can be shown as illogical or based on the wrong facts,” said Obama.

Vance challenged critics to come up with a better alternative beyond more fighting. 

“What is it that they wanted us to do besides put 300,000 ground troops in Iranian soil, which we were never going to do?” he said to Kelly. “If your alternative is just to drop bombs without any clear goal or any clear American interest implicated, then you’re not making wise decisions on behalf of the American people.”

Former Secretary of State John Kerry argued something similar before Congress in 2015.

“So what’s your plan?” he asked. “Totally go to war?”

Vice President JD Vance on Thursday issued a scathing public rebuke of Israeli officials who have criticized President Donald Trump for approving the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran, cautioning Israeli skeptics of the deal against “attacking the only powerful ally” it has left and urging them to “wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in.”

Vance made the comments as part of his final answer at a White House press briefing regarding the MOU, directing his ire at members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet who have criticized the deal or the president himself. The vice president said he was angered by the harsh commentary, which he credited Netanyahu for not participating in.

“What I will say, and it does bother me, is that you have seen people within Bibi’s Cabinet who have come out and attacked the deal, and in some ways very personally attacked the president of the United States, and I guess my message to them would be twofold,” Vance said. “Number one, Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time and he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower. If I was in the Cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.”

“The second message I would give to some of those Cabinet members — Bibi, to his credit, has not gone down this path,” Vance continued. “But to some of these Cabinet members in Israel who are attacking the president of the United States, the other thing that I would say is that over the last three months, two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars,” he added. 

Vance then said, “The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump, and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in.”

The vice president pushed back on comparisons between the MOU and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that the Obama administration signed in 2015, arguing that the Arab world’s reaction to this current effort has been far more positive than its response to former President Barack Obama’s Iran deal. 

“There are going to be any number of opinions about the negotiations, about where it’s ultimately going to go, but I tend to think that you should trust the people who know the Iranians the best and who have the most to lose,” Vance said. “What are the Gulf Arab states saying about this deal? What are they saying about this deal compared to the JCPOA in 2015? This is the Obama nuclear deal. Well, back then they hated that deal. They felt like it empowered the Iranians to be bad actors across the region, and of course that’s exactly what happened.”

“What are they saying about the president’s peace deal? They’re saying this is an amazingly transformative thing for the region, because either way we and the broader region win,” he continued. “Iran is weakened, their nuclear program destroyed, their economy in desperate straits, and if they change their behavior, big things are going to happen for Iran and for the world.”

Vance doubled down when asked about Trump’s comments on Wednesday that the U.S. would not forbid Iran from possessing ballistic missiles and downplaying the threat of the regime continuing to have those weapons — despite it being a key goal of the negotiations.

“All the president said yesterday is that of course, countries don’t give up the right of self-defense. Israel doesn’t give up the right of self-defense if Hezbollah fires rockets or drones at Israel,” Vance said. 

“The Iranians don’t give up the right of self-defense in their country,” he added. “But we do expect that as part of the final deal, they are not going to be able to build the kind of missiles that can broadly threaten the entire world, and that’s what the president of the United States said yesterday. It’s very simple. You can’t tell a country whether Israel, Iran, they are not allowed to have any self-defense.”

Vance criticized U.S. sanctions against Iran, arguing that the effort to isolate Iran economically has been “fundamentally ineffective” despite it being a core part of Trump’s longstanding maximum-pressure campaign. The vice president said that the sanctions had forced Iran to “move the Iranian financial system to the shadow-banking system” where it was no longer subject to those penalties. 

“We didn’t see that as a major concession to the Iranians, frankly,” Vance told reporters, adding that Iran “didn’t see that as a concession to them, because what prevented them from selling oil was not the sanctions.”

He argued that the lifting of sanctions would allow the U.S. to have greater oversight of Iran’s financial activities while defending the Trump administration’s decision to allow Iran to immediately resume selling oil.

“The number one thing is that we actually see where the money moves now because of what we’ve done with the financial sanctions. We actually know where the money is going to move,” he explained. “So we have great confidence that we’re going to be able to see if they try to fund terrorist organizations.”

Still, he reiterated his claim that the MOU does not involve millions in payouts to Iran despite the agreement text stating that the U.S. “undertakes to develop a definitive, mutually agreed reconstruction and economic development plan for the Islamic Republic of Iran valued at a minimum of $300 billion (USD).”

“The United States isn’t giving up a cent of money to Iran, and even the economic benefits, the sanctions relief and so forth that comes along with this bargain, only happens if the Iranians perform,” Vance said. “We have them in an economic chokehold right now that we’re not going to release until they fundamentally change their behavior.”

“I’ve seen skeptics of the deal. People say the Iranians will never change their behavior. Well, maybe that’s true, and if so, they don’t get any of the benefits of the bargain. But isn’t it worth trying?” he continued. “Isn’t it worth seeing whether this incredibly weakened position that the president of the United States has put the Iranians under, whether that motivates them to change their behavior, not just vis-à-vis the West but vis-à-vis the Middle East.”

The vice president also expressed confidence that the Trump administration would be able to lift the sanctions without congressional approval, though he said that White House Legislative Affairs Director James Braid planned “to brief Congress very soon” on the broader terms of the deal.

“There are certain things that require congressional approval. There are certain things that don’t require congressional approval,” he said. “We feel quite confident that we can temporarily lift those sanctions without going to Congress and seeking their approval on that.”

Republican senators said on Tuesday that they’re skeptical that Iran will hold to any commitments it has made or may make in negotiations with the U.S., and urged the administration to release the terms of the memorandum of understanding announced on Sunday.

The administration has not yet communicated any specific plans to brief Congress on the deal.

“Rather than an end to the activities in Iran, I think it’s more of an intermission,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told reporters. “We still haven’t seen what the documents look like, and regardless of what they look like, I don’t think you can trust the Iranian regime.”

Cornyn added, “I need to see the writing — I need to see the print. But I don’t believe that the regime will abide by it.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) emphasized that the U.S. has been in similar positions with Iran before, and that they have not resulted in a viable long-term agreement. He told Jewish Insider that he thinks it’s “generous to call it a deal, it sounds like it’s a deal in progress … and if we’re making progress, that’s good.”

But he said that it’s hard for him to assess an agreement “that we only get described in broad strokes.”

He said he would also be uncomfortable with any arrangement that provided Iran with a financial windfall. Multiple outlets reported Tuesday afternoon that the MOU includes financial incentives for Iran, including lifting various sanctions.

“I’m worried only because at least some of our decisions seem to be affected by the short-term economic impact [of the war], and that’s not a good decision,” Tillis said. “Talking about some of the money that Iran’s going to start receiving. … If all of the sudden we’re pulling back some of the things that were in place even before the operation, I’ve got a real concern because they’re a totalitarian regime.”

He told JI that the U.S.’s current posture and negotiations with Iran make it appear that “we’re willing to accept a totalitarian regime, and so the question is, how does this agreement match up against the original objectives of this initiative” as laid out by the administration at the beginning of the war.

Tillis added that Trump should explain to the country the national security interests and necessities of the U.S. operations against Iran, and that some short-term economic harm might be a consequence of that.

“That should be the case to the American people, and then you stay strong, versus have a sub-optimal or bad deal that actually enriches the very people that you were focused on trying to take out,” Tillis said. “Now that we’re here, you can’t all of a sudden say that because people are really frustrated with gas prices, that the nuclear threat in Iran is a manageable risk, because that is 180 degrees away from the predicate for going in there to begin with.”

Tillis said that the final deal should be made public, or at least shown to members in a classified setting — though he said he was skeptical there was much substance in the page-and-a-half document described by Vice President JD Vance, given its length.

He also reiterated comments from Monday that any final agreement should be subject to ratification by Congress, as the only way to ensure that such a deal would last. 

“Trump could have a real foreign policy legacy but he’s been poorly influenced because he’s just so insecure. I’ve never seen anything like it. His conviction is his own popularity, his own attention, his own credit. It hurts my heart a little,” another Republican senator told JI. “I just was hoping that the second term he wouldn’t do what he’s done, and that is to make it all about himself like his first term.”

“I don’t know what’s in [the MOU],” the senator added. “Don’t trust any senator who says they know what’s in the deal. They don’t know. I mean, none of us know, not really.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told JI the agreement “looks to me like it’s a deal to make a deal.”

“The only facts I know today are that the blockades on both sides have been lifted. We’re supposed to negotiate more over [60] days,” Kennedy continued. “The Iranian government Iran lies like fish swim. I have no idea, and neither does anyone else, whether they will make concessions. The other thing I know is that Iran is immeasurably weaker today than it was a year ago.”

He added that he does not expect that the “religious zealots” in Iran have “had an epiphany” and will give up their nuclear program.

Kennedy said he’s “sure” the text of the deal will be released this week. In the interim, “If you don’t know [what’s in it], you should shut up, and none of us … know what’s in it. I think we ought to wait and see what’s in it first,” Kennedy continued.

Asked about reports that Iran would be receiving up-front sanctions relief as part of the MOU, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said, “I’d be surprised, I haven’t seen that. I think we’re all in the position we’d like to see the MOU. Unless there’s something in there that they’ve already changed their ways, I don’t know how you’d be entitled to sanctions relief.”

“I think we’d all like to see it,” Scott reiterated, when asked whether he was concerned the administration hasn’t released the text yet. “Then we’d be able to answer questions on specifics.”

Though some Senate Republicans are eager to see the agreement, there do not yet appear to be any specific plans to brief them on it. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told JI on Tuesday that he was not yet aware of any plans for the administration to brief Congress on the contents of the MOU between the U.S. and Iran, as lawmakers continue to call for transparency on the agreement.

“Not that I’m aware of yet. [I’m] going to find that out,” Thune told JI, when asked whether the administration had notified him of plans to brief lawmakers.

On the other hand, Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE), said, “The administration probably has a reason for doing what they’re doing. I don’t know what it is, have not been briefed. We’ll all find out on Friday, and then I expect a briefing after that.”

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) likewise said his understanding is that the text of the agreement will be released after the formal signing ceremony on Friday.

Democrats have also been critical of the administration for failing to release the text of the MOU, and described it as a bad deal — though many say they support an end to the conflict anyway.

 “He has not released text, but we know one thing about this president: if he had a great deal, he’d be jumping up and down, and doing a press event with the text. The fact that he announced the deal, got on a plane, left the country, and is now letting JD Vance explain it tells you everything you need to know,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told JI.

He said he doesn’t expect the administration to come to “consult, brief or include us” in any capacity, including under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act.

“They should have come to us, consulted us, briefed us and explained to the American people what their objectives were at the outset, but I don’t expect their conduct to be any different at the conclusion, if there is one. This is such an internally flawed arrangement that it seems to be inevitable that it will fall apart in a matter of weeks,” Coons continued.

“Trump must hold a classified meeting on his so-called ‘understanding’ with Iran. He must brief all of Congress,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said. “He must inform the American people and make the ‘understanding’ public. … Americans need to know how and when this war will truly end.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said that if the deal touches on Iran’s nuclear program, the administration legally has to submit the agreement to Congress, but if the current deal does not include specific commitments on the nuclear program, it may not need to be submitted.

“We’ll know on Friday, and at that point, when it’s all out on the table, I probably have more to say,” Kaine said, declining to comment on potential concessions in the deal until it has been publicized.

Some Republican senators said that the administration does not need to submit the recently signed 60-day memorandum of understanding with Iran to Congress for review and a potential vote under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, potentially sidestepping the first major opportunity for Congress to weigh in on the agreement.

Under INARA, the administration is required to promptly submit any deal with Iran relating to its nuclear program to Congress for review, with an opportunity for Congress to vote to reject the deal. But the administration may attempt to avoid that step, at least until a broader agreement is reached during the 60-day negotiating period — if one comes about.

A source familiar with the situation said Republican leadership is in discussions with the administration about what is included in the MOU — senior Republicans have said publicly they have not yet been informed — but they are collectively moving toward a view that the MOU is an agreement for further negotiations, not a deal on Iran’s nuclear program in itself, thereby sidestepping INARA for the time being.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some senators offered a similar view on Monday evening.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said that he’s “not aware of any precedent” for Congress to vote on an MOU.

“This is like a template for further negotiations,” Hawley said. “I don’t even know constitutionally if we have a role on that.”

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) said that he does not believe that a congressional vote on the MOU is necessary. He also went further, emphasizing that even under INARA, there is no requirement for Congress to vote on any Iran agreement.

“People may have different points of view of whether or not we should or we shouldn’t, but there’s certainly nothing required,” Schmitt said. 

Pressed on why lawmakers wouldn’t want an opportunity to vote on the deal, Schmitt responded, “on whether or not a president can cease conflict in that way?”

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” he continued. “I’m just stating the law. … I will say that I do think that there are certain people in this building that want to undermine this, there’s no doubt about that. … You have the camp that wants us to lose, and then you have a camp that wants a forever war. President Trump’s not in either one of those camps.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said that “if there’s a final” deal with Iran, he believes Congress should have the opportunity to review and vote on it, but that he does not believe that such a vote is necessary for the current MOU.

“When there’s a final agreement — if there’s a final agreement — just like the JCPOA Congress should be able to weigh in,” Kennedy said.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who said he was involved in crafting INARA during the Obama administration, said that whether the MOU needs to be submitted is a question of what it includes.

“If the details are opening the ports, opening the straits and ceasefire, but let’s talk about the nuclear program — I don’t know that that would have to be submitted,” Kaine said. “If the details that we hear Friday include some nuclear elements, and maybe we’ll talk about some other ones down the road — well then it might have to come to us. You just have to see whether the deal that is announced Friday includes an agreement on any of the elements of [their nuclear program].”

He emphasized, however, that meeting the 60-vote threshold in the Senate to pass a joint resolution of disapproval under INARA to block a deal would be difficult given current political dynamics around the war.

Others, however, are more eager for congressional scrutiny and even Senate ratification of the deal as a treaty.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said that he hopes the U.S. doesn’t “make the mistake Obama made [with the original nuclear deal]. We had an agreement that never really got ratified by Congress, didn’t have a lot of visibility, and I think that’s a mistake.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) emphasized that any lasting agreement would need to be submitted to Congress.

“If it’s going to be long lasting, you’ve got to pass law, and that was what President Obama figured out: he could make an executive agreement, but the next president just turns it off,” Lankford said. “The president has the power to be able to negotiate foreign policy. He is the person who speaks for the country on foreign policy issues, but lasting agreements that last beyond that president have to be put in statute.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) also said that if the deal is strong, it should be submitted to Congress for ratification as a treaty. “The JCPOA was torn apart, taken apart, because it could not meet that standard,” Rounds said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), asked if the Senate should vote on the MOU or only the subsequent negotiated agreement said, “It’s the law. Any nuclear deal with Iran has to be voted on. There is no way that we will not review a deal.”

Top Trump administration officials shared new details on Monday about the memorandum of understanding reached by the U.S. and Iran over the weekend, arguing that the new agreement is substantially better than the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and could pave the way for a new relationship between Washington and Tehran.

During an interview with CNBC, Vice President JD Vance said he expects the Strait of Hormuz to be opened immediately “in a toll-free way for the long term.” Vance indicated that he has observed more traffic flow in the strait following the announcement of the deal, but that the way in which the strait fully opens will be determined in technical negotiations. 

“What this agreement does is say to the Iranians that ‘You don’t have access to the money to rebuild that nuclear program, but if you’re willing to give up that program long-term, if you’re willing to accept the inspections and verification regime that’s necessary to give us the confidence you’re never going to have a nuclear weapon, then we want you to be a prosperous country, and we will re-invite you into the community of nations,’” Vance said.

Vance said that Iran has agreed to never develop or procure a nuclear weapon and that the U.S. will ensure its stockpile of enriched material is destroyed, adding that technical talks will determine if U.S. ground troops will observe or play an active role in destroying it. He also argued that the latest MOU differs from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed under former President Barack Obama in 2015.

The vice president has stated that Iran’s nuclear program and capacity to enrich uranium have both been devastated by the U.S. and Israeli military campaign. 

“We have comprehensively destroyed their nuclear program, and this agreement is about ensuring that they don’t rebuild it,” Vance said. “The JCPOA was mainly about bribing them to stop the construction or to cease a nuclear program that was already in progress. It’s a very different background, a very different sort of leverage, and I think really a different outcome for the American people.”

Vance also dismissed reports that Iran would receive billions of dollars without the funding being conditioned on the completion of certain steps, a clarification he made during an interview with CBS. 

“When people say that billions of dollars of assets will be released, that’s not true,” Vance said. “What is true is that [there will be] a much better and much more prosperous future if they [Iran] meet the obligations they make in this agreement … that’s one of the things we’re going to work out in the technical talks that will follow the official signing on Friday.”

Vance stressed that the Iranians would attain frozen or other monetary assets only upon meeting verifiable benchmarks. He confirmed that Iran could receive $300 billion in reconstruction funding, as well as $24 billion in frozen assets, but emphasized that the funding would be conditioned on Tehran meeting its obligations.

“It’s set up in such a way where we’re going to have to attach their commitments to deliverables that then are met with economic benefits for the Iranian people,” Vance said on CNN. “On the other hand, if they [Iran] try to rebuild it [their nuclear program] they’re never going to get the financial resources that they would need to rebuild.” 

The vice president said that the U.S. has not expended “a single dollar of sanctions relief or unfrozen assets,” stating that reports otherwise are likely from hardliners “within the Iranian system…in an effort to sell it to certain domestic populations.” 

However, Vance said the U.S. is “open to a lot of things that are on the table.”

“That $24 billion just doesn’t appear anywhere in any of the texts that we’ve talked about with the Iranians,” Vance said. “What we have said is that we’re willing to talk about unfreezing assets, but a much, much bigger deal is un-sanctioning their economy, so long as they make the long-term commitments on the nuclear program.”

When asked whether the agreement would require Iran to halt support for U.S.-designated terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, Vance indicated that it would, although the specific wording in the agreement appeared to be vague.

“What paragraph one of the agreement says is effectively that Iran commits itself, just as the United States commits itself, to regional peace and stability and part of that is that the Iranians have to stop funding violent terrorist organizations,” Vance said. “They know that we don’t want them to fund terrorist organizations..and be a source of instability in the region.”

The vice president touted the “level of direct connection” established through the latest negotiations, noting that “the people at the highest levels of the United States government are talking to the people at the highest levels of the Iranian government.”

“This is a very interesting thing about these negotiations, is you see people, both the hardliners, but also the more political people, saying, ‘Our relationship with the United States over the past 47 years has been a mistake. Let’s turn over a new leaf,’” he added.

A senior administration official told reporters on Monday that an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon would not be part of the deal, despite Iranian officials’ insistence that it would be included.

The senior administration official confirmed that nuclear discussions would likely occur first and said the agreement “contemplates” the reduction of U.S. military forces in the region “upon the agreement of a final deal.” However, the official noted that Iran will need to “make some concessions and give up some of their activities and some of their nuclear program.”

A senior U.S. official called out “hardliners on both sides,” saying that they are rooting against “compromise” and “making a lot of noise.”

“There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” the official said. “I think that in any field that I’ve been involved in, I would say nobody roots for the referee. There’s not really a constituency for compromise. So what you’re seeing now is that the hardliners on both sides…we have certain people in the American system who say there’s no deal you could ever do with Iran ever, are obviously making a lot of noise.”

While the full details of the MOU have yet to be released, President Donald Trump indicated on Monday that he expects the document to be made public “sometime after Friday.” 

“I want it to be released because it is a really powerful document,” Trump told reporters during a bilateral meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the G7 summit in France. “It is not like the Obama documents.”

However, Trump warned that should the deal fall apart, tensions between the U.S. and Iran could return to “where we started.”

“We have done a great job and hopefully it is going to be a good relationship, and we are going to get along,” Trump said. “If we don’t, we go back to where we started, but I don’t think that is necessary.”

As details begin to emerge about the Trump administration’s agreement with Iran to end the war and lift the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, some mainstream Jewish organizations are treating the deal as a preliminary step — focusing on the 60-day negotiating period ahead, while others are expressing skepticism about the contours of the agreement.

AIPAC, in a statement that came late Monday afternoon after many other organizations had already spoken out, framed the current MOU as a preliminary step, focusing more on the upcoming negotiations, while emphasizing the need for more details about how the current deal affects Israel.

“The announced MOU kicks off a new 60-day window for talks. We look forward to learning the full details of the framework for these negotiations, including whether the deal preserves the sovereign right of our democratic ally Israel to respond to the security threats it confronts,” AIPAC said in a statement.

The group also emphasized that “Congress will play a critical role in working with the administration throughout these negotiations and in reviewing the ultimate agreement.” 

It said any deal should require the removal of all enriched uranium from Iran, the dismantling of its enrichment capacity and should address Iran’s missile and drone programs and end its support for terrorist proxies.

The American Jewish Committee also did not take a definitive position on the current agreement, saying on X that the organization “await[s] developments about the reported 60-day ceasefire agreement” but emphasized the need to continue to focus on Iran’s long-running threats.

The AJC said that any ultimate deal with Iran at the conclusion of the upcoming 60-day negotiating period should ensure Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon, rebuild its ballistic missile program, continue to support terror proxies, threaten U.S. allies and partners or hold the Strait of Hormuz hostage.

“AJC also strongly supports the legitimate aspirations of the Iranian people for greater freedom, opportunity and dignity, and hopes that those aspirations are eventually realized,” the statement continued. “As the contours of this and future agreements become more clear, we will continue to engage with our partners in the U.S., the Middle East, and around the world to make this vision a reality.”

Other groups offered a more directly negative reaction to the emerging details of the MOU.

The Zionist Organization of America, which has been strongly supportive of Trump administration policies and President Donald Trump himself, praised the president for carrying out military operations against Iran but said that “the pending deal with Iran is concerning.”

“The deal appears to be an ‘agreement to negotiate’ — which enables the Iranian regime to obtain massive oil revenue and time to build up its military and terror arsenals, while leaving the genocidal Iranian regime and its nuclear and missile stockpiles in place, and positioning the Iranian regime to continue and strengthen its 47-year war to destroy the U.S., Israel, and the West,” ZOA National President Mort Klein said. “[T]he little that we know is deeply problematic.”

Klein said it “makes no sense” for the U.S. to let up on its blockade of Iran unless Iran fully gives up its nuclear program and missile stockpile. He also expressed concerns that the deal will allow Hezbollah to regroup and rearm, and that Trump demanded that Israel stand down against Hezbollah.

“Pressuring Israel to not respond to threats of annihilation and attacks on her people is not, as the president called it, a ‘Great Deal [that] will bring Peace and Security to the whole Region,’” Klein said.

“Disturbingly, the interim Iran deal does not appear to be even close to the U.S.-Israel war goals of eliminating the existential dangers of Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missiles, ending the Iranian regime’s support for its terror proxies, and helping the Iranian people overturn the brutal, genocidal Iranian regime,” he continued.

Democratic groups are also skeptical.

Democratic Majority for Israel CEO Brian Romick criticized the administration’s “incoherent and erratic strategy” and said that “there are concerning details about what is and isn’t in this deal.” Romick called on the administration to lean on “experienced negotiators and technical experts” in the next phases of talks, “rather than relying on friends, family, and donors.”

He said that any deal must permanently end Iran’s nuclear program, constrain its ballistic missiles, address Iran’s support for terrorism and ensure that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran’s terrorist proxies do not receive additional support as a result of sanctions relief or the unfreezing of assets, and that it must be thoroughly vetted by Congress.

“Despite this tentative deal, the reality is Israel still faces constant threats from Iranian-backed terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. President Trump must not limit or interfere with our ally’s ability to defend itself from very real threats along its border,” Romick continued.

The Jewish Democratic Council of America’s CEO Halie Soifer took an even more strident tone.

“Donald Trump’s deal with Iran isn’t a deal at all. At best, it’s a statement of intention — a ‘concept of a plan’ — lacking details. At worst, it’s an admission of defeat by the United States,” Soifer said, describing it as a weaker deal than the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

She argued that the “reckless war” gave Iran a “chokehold” on the U.S. and global economy that it will continue to exercise in the future, gave Iran a stronger hand in nuclear negotiations, solidified the current regime, harmed the Iranian people and gained the U.S. nothing.

“Today, Iran is unquestionably further from regime change — and this Iranian regime is stronger — than before the war,” Soifer said. “Trump repeatedly berated the Obama administration for offering sanctions relief and unfreezing Iranian assets as part of the JCPOA. The amount of financial benefit Iran received from the JCPOA will be dwarfed by the amount of money going to Iran following Trump’s defeat.”

Soifer also criticized Trump for sidelining and ignoring Israel throughout the talks.

J Street has thus far been an outlier in expressing support for the deal.

The group’s president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, said J Street “welcomes” the announcement, while also criticizing the war effort as a whole.

“The lesson is the same one many experts and former security officials have warned about for years: There is no sustainable military solution to the challenge posed by Iran’s nuclear diplomacy,” Ben-Ami said. “Durable constraints on Iran’s nuclear activities can only be achieved through pragmatic and sustained diplomacy.”

Ben-Ami argued that the deal would be largely similar to the JCPOA, adding, “We urge lawmakers to support this agreement to end the fighting and push to ensure future diplomatic efforts address the security threats presented by Iran.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition has not issued a full statement of its own on the deal, but has indicated support thus far, sharing on its X account two Truth Social posts from Trump about the Strait of Hormuz being reopened and the lifting of the U.S. blockade. RJC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Donald Trump signaled on Wednesday that he may not agree to a deal to end the war with Iran if Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other countries in the region do not join the Abraham Accords, arguing that the Gulf nations “owe that to us.”

The president made the comments while taking questions from reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, where he was asked if he would accept a peace agreement with Iran that did not address uranium enrichment. Trump responded that he would agree to a deal that allows for continued negotiations on some issues, though he repeatedly said he would not allow for “a crummy agreement.” 

He expressed hesitation about moving forward with any peace deal with Iran that did not include commitments from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and others to normalize relations with Israel. 

“I would like to have the countries we were talking about — Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and the others — we’d like to have them immediately join, and [White House Special Envoy] Steve Witkoff is working on that with Jared [Kushner] and some others, but I would like to have them join the Abraham Accords,” Trump said. “It would be historic if they do it. I think they owe that to us, to be honest, because that really would be a tremendous sign. I think those countries owe it to us.”

Addressing Witkoff, the president said, “I’m not sure we should make the deal if they don’t sign, if you want to know the truth. If they don’t sign to join the Abraham Accords, I don’t know.”

When pressed if that meant he viewed an Iran deal as contingent on those countries joining the Abraham Accords, Trump responded: “I don’t know. I don’t want to say that. I’m not going to give you what’s contingent, what’s not. I can say that we can make a good deal right now, but maybe not a great deal, and if it’s not a great deal, we’re not making it.”

“We can make a great deal with this guy right here,” he continued, pointing to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “But that’s a lot nastier, probably wouldn’t go as quickly … but it would be foolproof.”

Addressing reports from Iranian state media that Oman may assist Iran in overseeing the Strait of Hormuz once the war is over, Trump later said, “Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up.”

Hawkish Senate Republicans expressed outrage on Saturday over the reported terms of a U.S. ceasefire deal with Iran, calling the agreement a defeat for the U.S. filled with major concessions to the Iranian regime.

“I am deeply concerned about what we are hearing about an Iran ‘deal,’ being pushed by some voices in the administration,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said on Saturday.

Cruz said that Trump’s decision to strike Iran was correct and “the most consequential decision of his second term, but said that ending the war on the reported terms would be a failure.

“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,” Cruz continued.

He said that he is “pray[ing] the early reports are wrong” but said the fact that former Biden administration Iran envoy Rob Malley praised the reports is “not encouraging.”

“President Trump believes in peace through strength, and his strong leadership has already made America much safer,” Cruz said. “He should continue to hold the line, defend America & enforce the red lines he has repeatedly drawn.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that ending the war along the proposed terms would be conceding that there is no military solution to defeating Iran. 

“If a deal is struck to end the Iranian conflict because it is believed that the Strait of Hormuz cannot be protected from Iranian terrorism and Iran still possesses the capability to destroy major Gulf oil infrastructure, then Iran will be perceived as being a dominate force requiring a diplomatic solution,” Graham said.

He said that such an outcome would shift the balance of power in the region and “be a nightmare for Israel.”

“Also, it makes one wonder why the war started to begin with if these perceptions are accurate. I personally am a skeptic of the idea that Iran cannot be denied the ability to terrorize the Strait and the region cannot protect itself against Iranian military capability,” Graham continued. “It is important we get this right.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, shared Graham’s post.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, had urged Trump on Friday to ignore advisors urging an agreement with Iran, and encouraged the administration to return to war so as not to leave behind a legacy of weakness.

“The rumored 60-day ceasefire — with the belief that Iran will ever engage in good faith — would be a disaster,” Wicker said Saturday. “Everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught!”

Meanwhile, other congressional Republicans are expressing support for the administration’s approach.

“President Trump is the ONLY one who could have gotten Iran — the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism — to the negotiating table,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said. “We are greatly encouraged to learn a PEACE DEAL in Iran is underway — and look forward to learning more about the specifics. Under President Trump’s leadership, our nation is stronger, more respected on the global stage, and safer than ever before.”

Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) said he’d spoken to the White House about the proposed deal and expressed support for it.

“President Trump will land this deal and end the conflict on his terms,” Fine said. “The Mullahs will never have a nuclear weapon.”

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also lambasted the reported deal’s terms, calling it “straight out of the Wendy Sherman-Robert Malley-Ben Rhodes playbook: Pay the IRGC to build a WMD program and terrorize the world,” referring to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal struck by the Obama administration. He also called for a return to war.

Pompeo’s post faced furious backlash from White House Communications Director Steven Cheung, Trump advisor Alex Brusewitz and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL).