Republican senators are being kept in the dark about the exact terms of Donald Trump’s deal with Iran—and they’re not happy. The Trump administration has yet to release the text of the memorandum of understanding officials signed with Iran, leaving senior GOP members frustrated at everything they don’t know, Politico reported Monday. Senator Lindsey Graham, a defense and Iran hawk, voiced concern about discrepancies between different parties’ descriptions of the deal. “The MOU being described by us sounds really very good; the MOU being described by Iran sounds awful,” he told Politico. The South Carolina Republican fretted that the deal would resemble former President Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which defense hawks despised.“If they can enrich [uranium] anywhere at all, then it’s the same as JCPOA. If they can’t enrich, then that makes it a good deal,” he continued, and added in a separate conversation that he was “skeptical that Iran will ever go there.” It seems that the similarities between Trump’s deal and the JCPOA are already coming into sharp relief: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth crumbled on live television when trying to explain the difference. Some Republican senators are wary of the deal, believing they will have to review and vote on it. “If you want a deal to last, it can’t be an executive agreement,” said Oklahoma Senator James Lankford. “We’ve got to have a vote of Congress to be able to solidify [it] long term.”But others suspect that, like the JCPOA, the deal will be a political agreement. “They’ll try to write it around the treaty requirements, so I don’t expect we’ll vote on it,” said Texas Senator John Cornyn.GOP lawmakers aren’t the only ones wary of Trump’s deal with Iran: Even his own Cabinet members seem to hate it. Trump has claimed he will release the text of the deal on Friday, after the formal signing ceremony.
