US lawmakers are deeply divided over a potential agreement to end the Iran war, with Republicans largely supporting the publicly reported framework of a deal being negotiated by President Donald Trump, while Democrats dismiss it as achieving little.
Democratic Criticism
Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described the reported outlines of a deal as little more than 'the pre-war status quo' with Iran. 'I think this was a blunder,' Van Hollen told Fox News Sunday. 'When you're digging a hole, you should stop digging, and that sounds like maybe what we're doing finally.'
Senator Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, accused Trump of being 'played as a fool' in the negotiations. 'He's got us in a situation that's worse than it was before, a more extreme regime,' Booker said on 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 Support
Representative Mike Lawler, a New York Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, praised Trump's approach. '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,' Lawler said on CBS' Face the Nation.
Republican Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee expressed confidence that any deal would include 'strict' terms to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. 'I think they'll be very enforceable,' Hagerty told Sunday Briefing on Fox News. '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 Skepticism
However, not all Republicans are fully on board. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who often criticizes Trump, suggested on CNN's State of the Union that the reported details represent a shift in the administration's stance. 'We were told about 11 weeks ago, by US Defense Secretary 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. 'Now we're talking about a posture where we may accept the nuclear material remaining in Iran. How does that make sense at all?'
In full: Iran-US war latest: Trump says he will 'not be rushed' into peace deal as he warns Tehran over nuclear weapons.
