President Trump’s long-awaited peace deal with Iran has been slammed by some of his most loyal supporters.
Trump, 80, used his visit to France to announce he had signed the memorandum of understanding with Iran on Wednesday.
“It’s signed, yeah,” the president told reporters outside the Palace of Versailles. “I signed it in Versailles. I just signed it.”
The 14-point agreement commits to a $300 billion fund for the “reconstruction and economic development” of Iran, although it states that the U.S. is not required to make a financial contribution.
It also gives a “maximum” 60-day deadline for the U.S and Iran to commit to negotiating a final deal; however, the timeline can be extended with mutual consent. The timeline for the U.S to terminate all economic sanctions against Iran is also unclear.
While Iran agrees not to produce or purchase a nuclear weapon, it will retain its existing stock of enriched uranium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons, with the MOU saying the method to manage the material “will be mutually agreed upon” in the future.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Trump said he was open to allowing Iran to maintain its stockpile of ballistic missiles, and claimed it was “unfair” for Iran to not be able to have the weapons if their neighbors do.
Details of the deal have not impressed close Trump allies who supported him at the beginning of the war.
A report in The Wall Street Journal cites two close allies who had already previously flagged concern over how the deal had been rolled out; retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, a Fox News contributor, and Marc Thiessen, a onetime chief speechwriter for former President George W. Bush.
On Wednesday the criticism continued. Fox News contributor Leslie Marshall said there was “bipartisan support” against Trump’s deal.
Speaking on Special Report with Bret Baier, Marshall said, “This is a great deal for Iran. Iran comes back richer… They get money,. $300 billion… You have sanctions lifted, you have assets that are going to be unfrozen. What do we get? What do we get, Bret?”
She continued, “We get a strait, that was opened before, reopened… And, by the way, they can temporarily have nukes, and the president today said it’s OK for them to have missiles. This is why you have bipartisan support against this.“
Listing former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, and former Rep. Trey Gowdy, Marshall said, “It’s a bad deal when people like them and I are agreeing on this.”
The blame internally has been swift. NewsNation White House correspondent Kellie Meyer said some GOP members were claiming Trump’s second-in-charge was being set up as the fall guy if the deal goes sour.
“Congressional Republicans are already placing the blame on Vice President JD Vance for a ‘terrible’ deal with Iran,” she wrote on X. She wrote that one Republican told her, “Conservatives on the Hill are stunned that Vance would erase all of Trump’s military victories in such a terrible deal. Trump effectively won the war and at the 11th hour Vance is negotiating his way to a loss.”
Diehard Trump loyalist Laura Loomer claimed on X, “There’s many ways Iran can harm America without a nuclear weapon,” before insulting the president’s pick for Homeland Security secretary, Markwayne Mullin.
“Only a matter of time before we are attacked again,” she wrote. “It seems inevitable… It’s going to get so bad.”
Another Trump supporter, broadcaster Mark Levin, posted his lengthy, angry take on the MOU on X, calling out the $300 billion fund to rehabilitate Iran.
“We are told it will not involve any of our tax money,” he said, referencing a claim Vance made this week. “That’s a shiny object. Who would have dreamt that after we went to war with this regime because it was within days of having a nuclear weapon, that we would have any role in helping coordinate or raise one dime for this regime.”
“Honestly, this is too absurd to comprehend,” Levin wrote. “Regardless of how this slush fund is collected or distributed, here we are committing to helping reconstruct the terror regime we presumably just destroyed.”
Conservative broadcaster Erick Erickson called the deal “an American surrender.”
He also referenced the clumsy release of the deal, which has been teased all week, before being signed by Trump in France on Wednesday, ahead of the expected signing by Vance on Friday in Geneva.
“How bad is it?,” Erickson said of the deal. “After days of saying the leaks were not the deal, it turns out all the leaks were the deal.”
The broadcaster, with over 250,000 followers on X, said he undertook an event with conservative radio listeners in Tulsa on Wednesday, noting, “They all voted for Trump. They are unhappy with this surrender.”
Erickson also joined the MAGA mouthpieces blaming Vance for the deal, after Trump signed it on Wednesday.
Vance has been positioned as the public face of the deal with Iran, with even Fox News asking Trump if his vice president was being set up if it fell apart.
“Is there some element to this where you send the vice president if it works out, great, you look like a genius for sending him. And if it doesn’t work out, it’s the vice president’s fault?” Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked Trump on Wednesday.
“I like that idea, sure,” Trump responded with a straight face as some in the room could be heard laughing.
“This way, if it works out, I’m going to take the credit. If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD,” Trump said.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
