Republicans have a long list of questions about the Iran deal, and they are so far noncommittal about whether it’s even something they can support.
That’s not stopping many of them from defending President Donald Trump, though, as Democrats claim the agreement is no better than the one he threw away in 2017, when he succeeded Barack Obama as president.
Trump has left congressional Republicans in a strange position since brokering an agreement that, if it holds, would wind down the three-month war with Iran. Not even Senate leadership has been briefed on the contents of the deal, and they may not get an advance look before the memorandum of understanding’s expected signing in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday.
For many Republicans, that means sidestepping a position on the document altogether. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that his office has requested a copy of the memo, as well as a briefing, but without success so far.
“There’s nothing really at this point to react to,” Thune said.
Yet Republicans are still feeling the pressure to defend Trump as Democrats criticize the war as a costly way to revive an Obama-style nuclear deal — or, worse yet, claim that Trump is capitulating to Iran.
“President Trump is never, ever going to do what you just suggested,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY) told a reporter who asked whether the deal was a “surrender” on Iranian sanctions.
“He’s not going to accept a deal that doesn’t eliminate nuclear weapons, that isn’t enforceable, isn’t verifiable, and doesn’t take Iran completely out of what they’ve been doing to try to undermine and attack us for the last 47 years,” he said.
Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), a member of the Senate intelligence committee, told reporters that he “can’t even imagine” Trump agreeing to nuclear restrictions similar to the ones Obama brokered with Iranian leaders in 2015.
Those guardrails, which limited Iran’s nuclear enrichment for a decade or so, were widely panned by Republicans as giving Tehran a path to a bomb. Now, Trump is attempting to negotiate something more permanent and is painfully aware that the terms will be compared to the ones his predecessor struck.
“That was a road to a nuclear weapon,” Trump said of Obama’s deal at the G7 conference on Tuesday. “Mine is a wall against a nuclear weapon.”
Compounding the situation is the fact that Iranian media have been sharing details that the Trump administration says are intentionally misrepresenting the memorandum. Defense hawks have been set on edge over reports that Iran would get $12 billion up front, raising memories of the “pallet of cash” the Obama administration sent Tehran.
Republicans are also keen to know what sort of concessions Trump secured on uranium enrichment, and whether Iran will be subject to more rigorous inspections than the ones Obama secured.
“I just want to see the specifics,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), the No. 4 Republican in the Senate. “And we’ll see then what my reaction is.”
Democrats, for their part, have accused the Trump administration of pursuing a “failed war” with Iran, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) demanding a “Gang of Eight” briefing Tuesday to discuss the memo.
“We’re in the middle of a war; no one quite understands what Trump is up to,” Schumer said in a floor speech. “And now, he’s keeping everyone in the dark.”
The information vacuum has left Republicans publicly grappling with how far to defend the White House — and given Democrats an opportunity to cement a narrative that works in their favor.
The memorandum is not the final step to a peace deal. Rather, it would give negotiators 60 days to hammer out the technical details. Its contents will nonetheless offer a first glimpse of whether the terms are favorable to the United States, and the administration’s reluctance to share that information has fanned speculation that it falls short.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the loudest skeptics of a deal with Iran, told reporters that he’s supportive of the deal described by the White House, but not the one suggested by Iran.
“Time will tell,” Graham said.
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Regardless, Republicans expect that the Senate will get a chance to review the document and hold a vote on it, as they did in 2015. For now, they are billing that vote as a chance to ensure any agreement with Iran is durable.
“If you want a deal to last, it can’t be an executive agreement,” Lankford said. “So, if it’s a good deal, we want to be able to resolve it. We’ve got to have a vote in Congress to be able to solidify it long-term.”