Ted Cruz is not a Republican given to hiding his true feelings. So, as the Texas Senator wandered the corridors of Congress on Wednesday, a reporter asked for his views on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that Donald Trump had just signed with Iran.
“Giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is not a good idea,” Cruz responded, with a pained expression clearly visible on his face.
“I think the President unfortunately is receiving bad advice on this deal,” he added, well aware that the ink on the 14-point agreement his party’s leader had signed in the gilded halls of Versailles was still barely dry.
For Cruz and many other Republicans who have repeatedly gone to the mat for Trump, through thick and thin, his Iran deal is something they can’t excuse – not now, and maybe not ever.
Many of Trump’s most vocal supporters were not enthused about the war in the first place, feeling bewildered by events that saw their President betraying his election campaign pledge to avoid distant conflicts that would put US military lives at risk.
When the war began, prominent Maga influencers like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens piled on, accusing Trump of contracting American foreign policy out to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But US Congress had little say in the matter. Trump entirely disregarded the terms of the War Powers Act, which should have required him to seek Congressional approval for the deployment of the largest US military force the Middle East has seen since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Now, however, lawmakers – including many close to Trump’s Maga base – could get their moment.
Congressional assent will be required for any final deal with Iran that arises from the 60 days of negotiations that are slated to start now that the MoU has been signed.
Promises the President has already made to terminate all sanctions on Iran in the event of a final, comprehensive agreement will also require Congressional approval, since Trump does not enjoy the sole authority to impose or to lift them.
Sen. Ted Cruz has been a vocal critic of the US doing a deal with the Iranian regime (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)Cruz is one of a number of influential lawmakers already drawing red lines.
On Wednesday, Cruz was fuming about terms in the preliminary agreement that only prevent Iran from charging per-vessel tolls for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz for the next 60 days, leave the door open to the Iranian regime imposing future levies.
“Setting up Iran to be in charge of the Strait of Hormuz in perpetuity and to charge tolls is not in America’s interest,” Cruz said, adding: “The Ayatollah should not reap a single penny from the free transit of the seas.”
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, said that “Ronald Reagan is rolling over in his grave” over Trump’s capitulation to the Iranian regime.
“Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future,” he warned.
Cassidy, who lost his reelection bid last month after Trump backed another candidate in the Republican primary, said that “Iran gets to build brand-new infrastructure under this deal,” referring to the proposed $300 billion reconstruction and development fund that Trump says the US and its regional allies will create once a final agreement is sealed.
Trump allies like Vice President JD Vance have been at pains to say that any money would not come from US taxpayers, but from other countries in the region.
But the idea that the US went to war to unseat an Iranian regime that it is now proposing to finance has enraged Maga-aligned Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham, a prominent foreign policy voice in Trump’s ear.
Donald Trump signs the deal with Iran at the Palace of Versailles (Photo: X account of France’s President Emmanuel Macron) / AFP via Getty Images)Graham has consistently compared Iran’s Islamic regime with the Nazis, and last month warned that “a deal that is perceived to allow Iran to survive and possess the ability to control the Strait will put Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Shia militias in Iraq on steroids”.
After initially describing the MoU as “awful”, Graham stepped back from the brink after a “very lengthy and productive conversation” with Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, instead declaring it “beneficial to the United States, in as much as the Strait of Hormuz will begin to open and the hostilities with Iran will stop”.
Vance thanked Graham, but the Vice President and his boss will be acutely aware of the strength of Republican and Maga fury.
Politician fury is one thing, but the reaction of his base is another thing entirely for the President. Trump will be watching very carefully the reaction of Maga, and will be out to convince them that his deal is good for American consumers. He already got a small bit of good news this week, with US petrol prices dropping to under $4 a gallon for the first time since mid-April.
However, Trump’s virulent base has a long memory and his damaging war with Iran could be the last straw for some.
The deal with Iran, and the negotiations that follow, is also only going to intensify the battering the President’s Republican colleagues will likely face on American doorsteps ahead of the crucial midterm elections in November.
Trump has done a deal with one enemy, but by doing so he may have drastically alienated allies he desperately needs later this year and beyond.
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