President Donald Trump’s tentative deal with Iran reportedly triggered a wave of bipartisan condemnation. Critics from both parties accused the president of granting sweeping concessions without securing meaningful commitments in return. The backlash overshadowed the first round of negotiations between American and Iranian officials in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Donald Trump faces backlash over Iran deal
The Swiss talks had barely begun when Donald Trump took to Truth Social to warn Iran to rein in Hezbollah, its Lebanese proxy group, or face military consequences more severe than those carried out the week before. Tehran’s negotiating team did not take it well. Iran’s state news agency IRNA confirmed that its delegation left the venue shortly after Trump’s post went live, pointing directly to his “threats and remarks” as the reason.
Back in Washington, the fallout over the Iran deal showed no sign of quieting. Susan Rice, who served as national security adviser under Barack Obama and as a senior White House official under Joe Biden, added to her earlier attacks on the deal. She called it “flimsy” and “egregious,” arguing that the U.S. had handed over far too many concessions before Iran gave anything meaningful in return. She had previously gone further, labelling the agreement a “jaw-dropping, horrific surrender.”
Republican senator John Cornyn of Texas gave his own scepticism, sharing analysis on X (formerly Twitter) suggesting that U.S. economic pressure on adversarial regimes has largely run out of steam. “Iran’s ability to withstand sanctions so far exposes a hard fact for Washington: economic pressure has largely failed to cow rogue regimes, as they game out more ways to sidestep U.S. restrictions.”
Another one came from Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, who flatly refused to give Trump any credit for progress. “That’s like literally an arsonist starting a fire and getting credit for running out of the burning building,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press. “We have surrendered our power. We have capitulated to the enemy. And they now are mocking us.”
The breadth of the opposition reflects consistent unease over the Iran deal.
