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President Donald Trump has a lot of work to do to sell his nascent agreement with Iran to Republicans in Congress.
The GOP’s position on Iran has long disfavored dealmaking, with most Republican lawmakers railing against then-President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear pact with Tehran. Many of those same Republicans withheld judgment on Monday on the memorandum that Trump signed on Sunday, given the lack of available information about it.
Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said he’s “withholding comment” about the agreement, and several other Republicans said it was too early to take a firm position. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., declined comment, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the administration’s description of it sounds like a “good deal, if the Iranians will agree to it.”
“It’s too early to say. I’m just waiting for some more details to come out, but I think the president is trying hard to do a good deal, so I just have to wait and see,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., told Semafor.
The opaque nature of the agreement is “unusual,” she added, “but [Trump] says the details will come out in five days. Would it be preferable to have the details now? Probably. But he’s the holder of the information.”
That hesitance in the Republican Party coexists with palpable relief that there’s a ceasefire agreement in the Middle East after months of strikes on Iran. As soon as the war started, Republicans signaled they wanted it to be as short as possible, given the economic fallout that was bound to come from spiking gas prices.
Republican angst only increased after the conflict hit the formal 60-day mark in Congress; four GOP senators voted to advance a resolution reining in Trump’s war powers, and another such measure passed the House with bipartisan support. Now Republicans who may have to eventually vote on any nuclear deal with Iran are eager to hear more about what Trump agreed to — even Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he was awaiting more briefings.
“I better not say anything until I read it, and that’s not going to be until Friday,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the party’s most senior senator. “It would be nice if we got briefed on it.”
Know More
The Trump administration is touting the Iran-US agreement, which was signed electronically by Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Senior US officials said Monday that it would result in the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the end of the US blockade, and a 60-day window to negotiate on Iran’s nuclear capability.
But beyond that summary, specifics are elusive. In the same conversation with reporters, one US official suggested to reporters that there would be a “significant increase” in traffic in the strait in two weeks, while another official suggested the strait could reopen on Friday — when the US and Iran are scheduled to participate in a formal signing ceremony.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, told Semafor she wants any deal to block Iran’s nuclear program, open the strait without tolls being charged on shipments, and end Iran’s funding of terrorist groups.
“I do think the president wants to find a way to peace. Whether this actually delivers that or not, yet to be seen. But I’m glad that he’s staying on course,” Ernst said. “Let’s find a way to wrap this up. But I don’t want to end up in the same situation with the [2015 Obama agreement]. I don’t want to end up there again.”
Some finer points of the deal are also unclear. The US is denying reports from Iranian state media indicating that the country would get billions of dollars in frozen assets unlocked in exchange for signing the agreement.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said he “can’t imagine how I would support giving them $300 billion.”
Instead, officials have said the agreement ties things like the release of frozen funds, sanctions relief, and a multibillion-dollar fund for rebuilding Iran to the “performance” of its government.
“I think what you’ll see is that we are prepared to release frozen funds, and we are prepared to release sanctions,” the second US official told reporters. “And we’ll do some small gestures of that in the beginning, if they make some small gestures to us to show that they’re willing to meet their commitments as well.”
The text of the signed memorandum of understanding has not been made public. One of the US officials said that the administration plans to release it, although a timeline on that is unclear too, with Trump suggesting it would be after Friday’s signing.
Many Trump allies are openly frustrated by what they have heard about the deal. It doesn’t, for example, immediately resolve Trump’s core goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Instead, it simply sets the stage for what US officials have called further “technical” talks on the topic.
A White House official said in a statement to Semafor that the administration “will continue our long history of extraordinary levels of transparency with the Hill, as we maintained throughout the course of this conflict.”
Some war-weary Republicans were eager to endorse the agreement — if the fine print matches the administration’s summary. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the “peace process is a good one,” while Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said it was “great” that the administration secured a ceasefire and a reopening of the strait.
“My biggest concern is the other people: These guys are religious fanatics. They are not logical. We have to trust but verify,” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Semafor. “What the president has outlined, to me, sounds really good.”
Room for Disagreement
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who has supported Trump’s war with Iran, said he needs to see the text of the agreement. But he needed no further details to denounce Trump’s public criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“In the strongest terms, I disagree with the public criticism of Netanyahu in the middle of all that,” he told Semafor.
Burgess and Shelby’s View
It’s hard to imagine mass Republican defections from Trump if Congress has to vote on a nuclear deal, which would likely be unavoidable should the 60-day window result in a durable agreement.
That doesn’t mean the vote would be easy: Obama and his Hill allies labored for months to keep Capitol Hill – including Democrats – from blocking his 2015 agreement.
Trump has spent some political capital recently by making life harder for Senate Republicans in particular. He’ll have to keep some in reserve for a future Iran vote.
Notable
- A more comprehensive outline of the unclear details of the deal, courtesy of The New York Times.