President Trump’s former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo criticized the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that Trump and Vice President JD Vance signed with Iran last week.
Pompeo wrote: “The license for the Iranian regime to sell oil doesn’t seem to fit with POTUS’s promise that the proceeds of any relief will go to the USA via agriculture purchases. Allowing money from China (which will be the primary crude purchaser) to go straight to designated terrorists the IRGC (which controls vast swaths of Iranian oil industry) would increase the risk that Iran will rebuild its military capabilities, fund terrorism and cement its hegemony of Hormuz.”
Pompeo added, “We must not allow our very real gains to be reversed by rehabilitating this irredeemable regime.”
[NOTE: In an article published this week, the Council on Foreign Relations reports that “the U.S. government considers Iran to be the foremost state sponsor of terrorism, spending more than one billion dollars on terrorist financing annually. There are between 140,000 and 185,000 IRGC-Quds Force partner forces across Afghanistan, Gaza, Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen.” Pompeo, who advocated for U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) with Iran, was the target of an alleged plot by Iran to assassinate him and other officials in 2022.]
Pompeo isn’t the only Republican balking at the agreement. MAGA-aligned U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said: “History teaches that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is not a good idea. I think the president is receiving some very poor advice on this deal.”
When a reporter brought up Cruz voicing his concerns about the MOU, Trump said, “Well, I think anybody that’s been critical of it has to be educated, even if they’re friends of mine.”
Q: What will you say to allies of yours like Ted Cruz who have been critical of the Iran deal?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 23, 2026
TRUMP: I think anybody who has been critical of it has to be educated pic.twitter.com/OHv4peM6L5
Donald Trump, Jr. had a different response to Cruz, writing: “The only problem with this quote is that @tedcruz is lying thru his teeth about the deal. We’re not giving them a cent and he knows that. Using fake news about the peace deal to undermine @realDonaldTrump is the opposite of MAGA.”
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