While constant opposition from the Democratic Party is nothing new, the Trump administration is growing impatient with those GOP lawmakers who remain ambivalent about the emerging deal to end the military operation in Iran.
Vice President J.D. Vance has been an effective communicator of the White House’s position, including during a recent interview when the topic of those Republican holdouts came up.
Here’s what The Hill reported:
“To be clear, I don’t think congressional approval was required. I firmly believe that the president— this was never a full-scale war in the conventional or legal sense of it. We definitely made sure that we dotted our I’s and crossed our T’s here. So I wanted to defend the administration on that point,” Vance said during an appearance on SiriusXM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show.”
ADVERTISEMENT“But it is kind of ironic that they’re really, really worried about stopping this thing, while they were completely gung-ho about starting this thing,” he added of hawkish members of his own party.
Kelly noted that right-wing media personalities and the Israeli ambassador to the United States have shared discontent with the deal, while others have raised concerns about the possibility of Iran gaining access to a $300 billion private fund for reconstruction.
“I just don’t think the people criticizing this are actually dealing with the reality of what’s in it. And number two, they don’t have an alternative,” Vance told Kelly.
Here are some highlights from his recent media blitz:
🚨 JUST IN: JD Vance OBLITERATES Jessica Tarlov claiming President Trump is giving stuff away to Iran
"Jessica, you're making the SAME MISTAKE, unfortunately, that a lot of the Iranian propagandists make."
"They talk about the benefits to the Iranians without ANY of the things… pic.twitter.com/jsLbpYvHuA
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 16, 2026
Vance on the Iran deal: “I think what the president wants to do is turn over a leaf of 47 years of a failed relationship between the United Stated and Iran, but that requires the Iranians to actually honor their end of the bargain.” pic.twitter.com/inWSUsOEGL
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) June 15, 2026
‘They want this to go on until EVERY BOMB has been dropped or until EVERY IRANIAN IS DEAD’ — Vance addresses critics of Iran deal
‘If you look at what they're proposing, they're proposing an endless conflict’
‘That is not what the President of the United States wants’ pic.twitter.com/t3HvKpJcqB
— RT (@RT_com) June 16, 2026
Fox News also covered the GOP infighting:
Sen. Thom Tillis says the agreement is “doomed to fail” because of the lack of congressional oversight. He also criticized some remarks by Pete Hegseth. “Now we are talking about a posture where we may accept the nuclear material remaining in Iran? How does that make sense at all?”
“If you want a deal to last,” said Sen. James Lankford, “it can’t be an executive agreement.”
ADVERTISEMENTSen. Lindsey Graham, a presidential pal, said the memorandum being described by Iran “sounds awful.”
Speaking of uranium, the longtime hawk said: “If they can enrich it anywhere at all, then it’s the same as JCPOA,” the 2015 Obama agreement that Trump canceled. Graham told Politico he is “skeptical that Iran will ever go there.”
And conservative activist Erick Erickson, who has a popular radio show, says flatly: “Trump has surrendered to Iran.”
Here’s more from Vance’s discussion with Kelly:
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