President Trump and his vice-president pushed back against critics of the agreement to extend the ceasefire with Iran. Some Republican lawmakers have found the agreement wanting.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
And the relationship between the U.S. and Israel, traditionally one of its closest allies, has been showing some strain, especially over the last week before the U.S. and Iran signed that memorandum of understanding. NPR senior contributor Ron Elving joins us. Ron, thanks very much for being with us.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: President Trump used some – what I’ll call – choice words in an interview this week, talking about Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to launch strikes on Beirut right before the MOU was agreed to – words we cannot play on the air. Let’s just say that he questioned the Israeli prime minister’s judgment. Then Vice President JD Vance was asked during an interview with The New York Times whether he thought Israel has incentives for the agreement not to go through, and this is what the vice president posed to Israeli critics.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JD VANCE: What is your exact proposal? And, you know, you’re a country of 9 million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.
SIMON: Why this kind of rhetoric?
ELVING: There’s so much at stake here, Scott. There’s the fragile ceasefire that may or may not be holding for the moment, as we just heard from Jane Arraf. Then there’s the fate of the MOU between the U.S. and Iran. There’s at least a short-term chance for peace in the region, and then there’s the future of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel that’s been so important to both for almost 80 years. So two months ago, the current war began with coordinated attacks by the U.S. and Israel on Iran and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. Now the Trump administration wants to dial back, make a deal, or at least start to make one, so the world oil market can recover and stop endangering the U.S. economy and the world economy. But Israel still sees itself fighting a threat at its doorstep from Hezbollah.
SIMON: When the agreement to extend the ceasefire and open the Strait of Hormuz was announced, President Trump hailed it as a success. But it is being questioned by many critics at home, most notably some members of his own party. What can you tell us?
ELVING: Conservative hard-line Republicans are saying it – this deal seems – if it is a deal – seems to squander the military successes of the past two months in exchange for little or nothing, beyond a return to where things stood in February when ships were flowing through the Strait of Hormuz. As for nuclear weapons, Iran is apparently only required to say they won’t develop them, ever, and to have more negotiations on the subject. And in exchange, the U.S. has offered to lift sanctions on Iran and make available some of Iran’s financial assets that have been frozen and even set up a fund to rebuild what Iran lost in the recent fighting.
So some of these Republicans who object have been doubters for a while. Others, say, might have been political – let’s say – rivals to the president at one time. Others had political scores to settle with Trump. But then you have such loyalists as Roger Wicker, Mississippi chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. These people seem genuinely surprised and distressed at this turn of events. Wicker, for one, says that Israel will use every penny that they get from this new arrangement to further their ultimate goals, which are death to America, death to Israel. And yet Trump has lumped all these Republican critics together and dismissed them as, quote, “fools.”
SIMON: The negotiations, the announcement of the agreement all occurred while the president was in France for the G7. And because the president has so much global responsibility, is under unrelenting pressure at all times, a lot of his observers noted he looked and sounded tired.
ELVING: The Wednesday news conference was especially striking. Trump was rambling, often off topic, lacking his usual bravado. But it was hard not to notice the contrast with French President Emmanuel Macron, who is, after all, 32 years younger and hosted the summit with grace and assurance. There was a little spat over a picture to be taken with the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. Trump said she’d begged him to take a picture with her. She took strong exception to that. Now the Italian foreign minister has canceled a trip to the U.S. And then, Scott, at the end of the conference, when the G7 leaders posed for their usual class picture after the meeting, Trump stood as a caucus of one while the others conferred and engaged with each other.
SIMON: NPR’s Ron Elving. Thanks so much.
ELVING: Thank you, Scott.
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