Donald Trump is facing massive fallout for the tentative deal he reached with Iran to end the war he started, which has exposed fault lines among even some of his most vocal MAGA backers.
The details of the memorandum of understanding with Iran, which the president signed in Versailles, France, on Wednesday before heading back to the U.S., are a far cry from his demand just months ago for “unconditional surrender.”
Instead, they lay out a series of stark concessions to Iran.
Some have called the temporary agreement to talk about a permanent deal the best possible outcome for the president, who has struggled to set clear objectives since he launched the war at the end of February.
But some of Trump’s biggest MAGA allies and conservatives have shredded it as a monumental foreign policy blunder.
The deal lays out a plan to lift all sanctions on Iran, unfreeze billions in assets, and provide $300 billion for reconstruction, all while letting Iran keep ballistic missiles.
While Iran has agreed to never have a nuclear weapon, the enforcement mechanisms remain to be worked out in 60 more days of negotiations.
“History teaches that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is a bad idea,” GOP Sen. Ted Cruz told the conservative Daily Wire.
In another quote posted on X from the interview, Cruz said, “Nearly one thousand Americans have been murdered by the Ayatollah and the mullahs... It is not remotely in America’s interest for us to pay to rebuild that capacity that we just took out.”
But Trump’s eldest son was quick to fire back at Cruz and accused him of undermining the president and MAGA.
“The only problem with this quote is that @tedcruz is lying thru his teeth about the deal. We’re not giving them a cent and he knows that,“ he wrote on X. ”Using fake news about the peace deal to undermine @realDonaldTrump is the opposite of MAGA."
While the deal does not include the U.S. directly handing over cash, it does provide massive sanctions relief and the release of assets. Iran would also be able to export oil.
The Obama Iran nuclear deal, which Trump has raged against for more than a decade, also unfroze Iranian assets and settled a long-running arms purchase dispute.
Since Trump launched the war, Iran has also been proven to have immense leverage when it comes to activity in the Strait of Hormuz, which was open for shipping before Trump launched his strikes.
Podcaster Ben Shapiro, who is deeply tied to but not always full-blown MAGA, also slammed the president’s memo of understanding as a “disaster” that did not achieve any of the administration’s goals.
However, after the deal’s details were revealed and Trump signed it, many MAGA influencers furiously promoted it and heaped praise on the president.
They argued he could now come back to the U.S. and focus on domestic issues despite the agreement essentially laying out 60 more days of negotiations with Iran and the president threatening to go back to bombing if Iran does not comply.
Trump also appeared to freak out as he jumped into the fray to sell his deal amid escalating backlash over his war and its outcome.
The president posted an all-caps message on Truth Social on Thursday in which he declared, “OIL IS FLOWING, IRAN CAN NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON.”
But Trump indicated at his Wednesday press conference that if the deal went south, he was open to throwing Vice President JD Vance under the bus.
Republican critics of the deal quickly appeared to follow the president’s lead, already casting blame on Vance as the negotiator of the agreement.
