Senate Republicans Blast Iran Deal Terms as Trump Backs Off Imminent Agreement Claim

President Donald Trump stepped back Saturday from his morning’s confident prediction that a peace deal with Iran had been “largely negotiated,” posting “Time is on our side” to Truth Social and telling NBC News he would not “rush into” an agreement — even as four of the Senate’s most senior national security Republicans publicly warned that the deal’s emerging terms would squander the military gains of the 66-day U.S. campaign against Iran.

A senior Trump administration official confirmed to CNN on Saturday afternoon that the deal would not be signed on Sunday and could take “several days,” a notable retreat from the optimistic signals that had come from the White House earlier in the day. In earlier Saturday morning coverage of Trump’s announcement, Trump had said a framework was close and the Strait of Hormuz would reopen as part of the arrangement.

The dual message — cautious optimism on the administration side, visible alarm among Senate hawks — marked the sharpest Republican split yet over an Iran diplomacy that Trump has said he wants to conclude quickly.

What the Senate’s Defense Chiefs Are Saying

Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, issued the sharpest warning. The proposed framework, as Wicker understood it, would declare a 60-day ceasefire and open a period of negotiations rather than resolving the core disputes immediately. That structure, he argued, was fatally flawed.

“The rumored 60-day ceasefire — with the belief that Iran will ever engage in good faith — would be a disaster,” Wicker said. He added that if the deal proceeded as described, the gains of Operation Epic Fury — the 66-day U.S. and Israeli air campaign against Iran that formally concluded in early May — would “be for naught.” Wicker chairs the committee that oversees the Department of Defense, giving his objections a weight beyond the usual floor protest.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of Trump’s most consistent congressional allies and a years-long advocate for military pressure on Tehran, did not soften his language either. Graham warned that a premature agreement could “fundamentally shift the balance of power in the Middle East in Iran’s favor.” For Graham, who had supported the administration’s decision to launch military operations against Iran in late February, the concern was not with the goal of a deal but with the specific terms on the table.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was “deeply concerned about what we are hearing about an Iran ‘deal.’” Cruz set out his specific conditions: “If the proposal allows Iran to continue to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon and effectively retain control over the Strait of Hormuz, then that outcome would be a disastrous mistake.”

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, amplified Graham’s statement on social media — a gesture that Republican observers typically read as substantive alignment rather than courtesy. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina also registered his reservations publicly.

The criticism on Saturday was the crystallization of pressure that had been building since early May. Before the weekend, 52 senators and 177 House members had sent a letter to Trump urging him to reject any agreement that allowed Iran to continue uranium enrichment. That letter had drawn relatively little attention when it was sent; by Saturday afternoon it had become part of the backdrop against which administration officials were reading the congressional temperature.

What Is Actually Being Proposed

The memorandum of understanding under discussion is a 14-point document being drafted principally by Steve Witkoff, a Trump-aligned special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the former senior White House advisor who has played a behind-the-scenes role in the Iran talks. The framework is designed as a first step — not a final settlement.

Under the proposed structure, Iran and the United States would declare an end to the war and enter a 30-day period during which Iran would begin gradually opening the Strait of Hormuz, restoring commercial shipping to pre-war levels. Some Iranian assets frozen in foreign banks would be released at the same time. A 30-to-60-day window would follow in which both sides would negotiate the harder questions: the disposition of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile, the terms for permanent sanctions relief, and a long-term nuclear framework.

The uranium question is the central unresolved issue. Iran currently holds approximately 440.9 kilograms — roughly 972 pounds — of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, one technical step removed from weapons-grade levels of 90 percent. American negotiators have sought a moratorium on all uranium enrichment lasting at least 12 years, with a provision that would extend the moratorium if Iran were found to have violated it. What happens to the existing stockpile has been among the most sensitive questions in the negotiations. The United States has floated a transfer to a third country, with Russia having offered to take the material. Iran has resisted any such arrangement.

On the Strait of Hormuz itself, the two governments have offered starkly different descriptions of who would be in charge if the memorandum were signed. Trump said publicly that the blockade would “remain in full force and effect until an agreement is reached, certified, and signed,” and that the Strait would reopen under the memorandum’s terms. Iran’s state-affiliated Fars news agency said Saturday that the Strait would remain under Iranian management — language it described as the American announcement being “incomplete and inconsistent with reality.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who made a key statement on progress during his diplomatic visit to New Delhi for the Quad Foreign Ministers meeting, said on Saturday that while there may be “good news” around an agreement, it would not be “final news.” He added that “significant progress” had been made but “we still have some work to do.” His framing was notably more cautious than Trump’s morning statement.

Iran’s Internal Constraints

The stumbling blocks are not only on the American side. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Saturday that no decision on a peace agreement would be made without the approval of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei — a statement that underscored the layered decision-making structure in Tehran, where the presidency has limited authority over foreign policy compared with the Supreme Leader and the Supreme National Security Council.

Separately, officials told The Times of Israel that Khamenei had issued a specific directive: the near-weapons-grade uranium stockpile should not be sent abroad. If that directive accurately reflects the Supreme Leader’s position, it would directly conflict with one of the core American demands, since the removal of Iran’s enriched material from Iranian territory has been described as a condition of significant sanctions relief.

The gap between the American demand for material removal and Khamenei’s reported position on keeping the uranium inside Iran is precisely the kind of disagreement that the proposed 30-to-60-day negotiation window would be asked to resolve. It is also the gap that Senate critics have in mind when they warn that a 60-day ceasefire with no commitment on the nuclear file would give Iran time to consolidate a position while the military pressure of the U.S. blockade potentially fades.

What Comes Next

The timetable has slipped noticeably from what Trump said earlier in the week. As recently as Friday, he suggested the deal was close to formal announcement. By Saturday afternoon, the White House was speaking in terms of days, and the administration’s most hawkish Senate allies were speaking in terms of catastrophe if the deal moved forward on its current reported terms.

Whether the congressional criticism translates into a practical veto of the deal remains to be seen. The executive branch controls foreign policy and Trump is not legally required to submit a ceasefire memorandum to the Senate for ratification. But any sanctions relief included in an eventual agreement would in many cases require statutory changes that only Congress can enact — and doing that with the Senate Armed Services chairman, the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, and several other senior Republicans publicly opposed would be a significant legislative challenge.

The fundamental question — whether Iran, after an 84-day war that destroyed significant portions of its military and energy infrastructure, is prepared to make durable concessions on its nuclear program — remained unanswered as of Saturday night. What had become clearer was that even if Trump and Iran’s negotiators reached a framework agreement in the coming days, the fight to ratify and implement it in Washington would be formidable.