U.S. lawmakers appeared on Sunday morning talk shows with sharp divisions over a potential deal to end the Iran war, as Republicans largely supported the publicly reported contours of an agreement negotiated by President Donald Trump and Democrats dismissed it as accomplishing little.
Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described the reported outlines of the deal as “the pre-war status quo” with Iran. “I think this was a blunder,” he stated on Fox News Sunday. “When you’re digging a hole, you should stop digging, and that sounds like maybe what we’re doing finally.”
Representative Mike Lawler, a New York Republican serving on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, praised Trump’s approach to Iran talks. “I think on the whole what the administration has been able to do for the first time in 47 years is force the remnants of this regime into a negotiation, a real negotiation,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Senator Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, accused Trump of being “played as a fool” during negotiations. “He’s got us in a situation that’s worse than it was before, a more extreme regime,” Booker told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “(The) Strait of Hormuz now is a leveraging point for them. This weak nation has put America in a stalemate.”
Republican Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee emphasized any deal would include “strict” terms to ensure Iran has no path to nuclear weapons. “I think they’ll be very enforceable,” he stated on Fox News’ “Sunday Briefing.” “And remember … President Trump has used military force to basically annihilate the economic, technological, and military capacity of the Iranian regime. They’re in a fundamentally different place.”
Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina criticized the reported details as a shift in the administration’s stance. “We were told about 11 weeks ago, by (U.S. Defense Secretary Pete) Hegseth and the Department of Defense, that they had obliterated Iran’s defenses and it was just a matter of time before we had the nuclear material,” Tillis said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Now we’re talking about a posture where we may accept the nuclear material remaining in Iran. How does that make sense at all?”
