Rubio fends off conservative critics of Iran deal as agreement appears imminent
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday defended the Trump administration’s push for a deal to end the war with Iran, even as it came under attack from Republican hawks urging the United States to restart hostilities against Tehran.
“There is no one who has been stronger on this issue than President Trump,” Rubio said, while noting he expects “some good news” in the coming hours regarding a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran closed in response to the U.S.-Israel war.
Rubio spoke at a news conference in India’s capital. When asked about criticisms from Republican senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo on social media, Rubio said the president’s commitment to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon “shouldn’t be questioned by anybody.”
“The idea that somehow this president … is going to somehow agree to a deal that ultimately winds up putting Iran in a stronger position when it comes to nuclear ambitions is absurd,” Rubio said.
The prospect of a deal, which Trump said Saturday was in the final stages of negotiations, has created a major rift among Trump’s supporters in a conflict that has already seen the MAGA movement splinter along fault lines of pro-Israel hawks and conservative doves.
Pompeo criticized the emerging deal as an agreement to “pay the IRGC to build a WMD program and terrorize the world,” a reference to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and weapons of mass destruction.
The criticism prompted an immediate retort from senior White House official Steven Cheung on X, who said Pompeo “should shut his stupid mouth and leave the real work to the professionals.”
Graham said on X that a deal could make Iran “more powerful over time,” and Cruz said he was “deeply concerned” that a deal to reopen the strait in exchange for economic sanctions relief would be a “disastrous mistake.”
To that, former Trump campaign adviser Alex Bruesewitz told Cruz in an X post to “stop trying to undermine the President and his administration.”
Trump’s initial decision to go to war in February deeply alienated some of his longtime anti-war supporters, including podcasters Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. Now his pivot to diplomacy is infuriating the pro-Israel, pro-war pillar of the MAGA movement. [Continue reading…]