Pete Hegseth Insists Trump Iran Deal Is Totally Different From Obama’s

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth crumbled when he tried to explain the difference between Donald Trump’s new deal with Iran and Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. 

Spoiler alert: There is none. 

Speaking on CBS News’s Face the Nation Sunday, Hegseth struggled to justify what the U.S. had actually won after months and months of mass destruction and global economic turmoil.

“The document says Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, won’t seek one, won’t buy one, won’t have one,” Hegseth explained. 

“JCPOA said that too,” host Margaret Brennan pointed out.

Pretty much verbatim, actually. The preface of Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal states: “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.” 

Hegseth scrambled to defend the new deal. 

“But they didn’t have the threat of military force the way that we do that Iran respects in a very—in a way that their regime is more devastated, more devastating, excuse me, more devastated than it’s ever been in its 47 years, and that’s why they’re at the table,” he ranted incoherently. 

“The huge difference is, we did this from a position of strength. President Trump led with military might,” Hegseth added. “That military might will stay as long as necessary.”

But let’s assess that military might, shall we? It will take at least three years and an estimated  $24 billion for the United States to replace the munitions it expended during Trump’s military campaign against Iran. A recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated a multiyear “window of vulnerability” for the United States in potential future conflicts. Hegseth denied that there were any shortages in the U.S. weapons stockpile. 

More to the point, the U.S. has demonstrated our unique powerlessness in the face of a regime that has been reminded it can control the Strait of Hormuz. 

And as for Iran’s regime, it’s far from being “devastated.” Not only was there no regime change, but the regime has arguably gotten even more extreme—and Trump is still ready to hand it billions of dollars.

It’s increasingly apparent that Trump pulled out of the JCPOA only to drag the United States into an expensive war that no one voted for and then walk away with an identical deal. The major difference this time? One $300 billion check for Tehran to rebuild everything Trump destroyed.

Vice President JD Vance all but confirmed a detail being floated as part of the tentative U.S.-Iran peace deal: Iranian access to $300 billion in reconstruction funds.

Vance was asked by CBS’s Ed O’Keefe Monday morning about whether the rumored detail was true, and he said that it could be possible if Iran adheres to the agreement.

“That’s the sort of thing they could have access to, funded by the Gulf coast coalition, so long as they honor their end of the obligation,” Vance said. He noted that Iranian officials and media would be emphasizing the benefits they receive from the deal as opposed to what they concede.

Vance’s admission contradicts what he said on Friday, when he claimed in an X post that Iran would not be “receiving any cash, and no funds are being released simply for signing a deal or attending a meeting.” In addition to the U.S. and its allies paying $300 billion in reconstruction funds, Iran reports that the U.S. has agreed to release $25 billion in frozen Iranian assets.

Conservatives, including Trump and Vance, have long criticized the Obama administration’s 2015 nuclear deal, which involved the U.S. lifting sanctions and sending Iran $1.7 billion to settle decades-old failed contracts between the two countries.

That deal was also succeeding, with international observers stating that Iran was adhering to all its nuclear terms. It was Trump who decided to break it in his first term and then start a war with Iran in his second. Now, he’s only pushing a deal because his efforts are failing spectacularly, costing money, innocent lives, and American credibility.

President Donald Trump’s giant birthday party at the White House appears to have grounded flights at a local airport in Washington, D.C.

All flights at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport were “paused” Sunday evening due to the president’s birthday celebration, according to Clara-Sophia Daly, an immigration reporter for Mission Local in San Francisco.

“The air traffic controllers were not warned, nor were the airport staff or travelers,” Daly wrote on X Sunday night, after her own flight was severely delayed. The pilot said the delay was “one of the most frustrating things I’ve experienced in 20 years of aviation,” according to Daly.

“The pilot says the reason given for the shutdown is that there is going to be some kind of military jet air show above the White House,” she wrote in another post.

In the skies above Trump’s UFC fight, the U.S. military mounted an extravagant air show for the president, including a formation of the Navy’s Blue Angels and Air Force Thunderbirds, as well as an appearance from a B1-B Lancer, a heavy long-range bomber.

Aaron Parnas had a different theory, however. MeidasTouch previously reported that a commercial airline pilot filed aviation safety reports after being exposed to the powerful lighting used during the construction of the UFC octagon on the White House grounds upon their descent into DCA.

“This confirms my reporting with @MeidasTouch—pilots were being blinded by the UFC octagon, and now, based on this tweet, all flights have been paused because of it,” Parnas wrote on X in response to Daly’s thread.

These reports raise serious concerns about the coordination between the White House and aviation authorities, and underscored just how little Trump cares about the American people as he threw himself a $60 million party at the taxpayer’s expense.

Donald Trump has again upended efforts to renew a critical surveillance statute just as lawmakers had begun to reopen stalled talks.

The president declared on Truth Social Monday that any work to renew FISA Section 702, a statute that allows federal agencies such as the NSA and the CIA to surveil foreigners on U.S. soil without warrants, must be passed alongside his voter ID bill, the SAVE America Act.

That legislative measure sparked nationwide controversy earlier this year, particularly over a detail in the bill that would have made it more difficult for married women to vote. The backlash on Capitol Hill was grave, so much so that it gummed up efforts to fund Homeland Security for several months. Republicans eventually had to bail on the package to end the congressional gridlock.

The SAVE America Act suggests numerous amendments to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, including line items that would abolish mail-in voting, require voters to bring proof of citizenship and proof of residency to register to vote, require voter ID, and mandate voter roll purges every 30 days—an enormous bureaucratic task that would place undue burdens on local election officials. The measure would also add a federal law to prevent men from competing in women’s sports, and a ban on “transgender mutilation surgery.”

Last week, Democrats logjammed conservative efforts to renew the FISA section in direct protest against the president’s temporary pick to run national intelligence, real estate developer Bill Pulte, who they argued had run afoul of the law by accepting the position. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence explicitly, legally requires its chiefs to have national security experience.

As a result, the spy bill expired on Friday, and Republicans were able to convince Trump to withdraw Pulte and nominate a new—if equally unqualified—candidate for the job. That man was Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who would also come to Washington with zero national security experience.

Yet as he gears up for his initial committee hearing Wednesday, Democrats have signaled that they might actually be willing to work with Clayton. Senate Intelligence Ranking Member Mark Warner—a Democratic lawmaker from Virginia—told CBS News on Sunday that he’s interested in confirming Clayton as quickly as possible to advance talks to renew the FISA section.

Israel is refusing to remove its IDF troops from Lebanon, even after the U.S. and Iran announced a memorandum of understanding that hinges on the withdrawal. The move could once again jeopardize any chance of a peace deal, as one of Iran’s primary demands is the end of Israel’s bombardment and occupation of Lebanon.

“Israel is not subordinate to the United States, and we are an independent and sovereign state,” said Israel’s right-wing National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has called for the flattening of Beirut and the kidnapping of Lebanese women and children. “We must not withdraw from any territory that our fighters have occupied and cleared of terrorist infrastructure,” he added. Defense Minister Israel Katz also declared that the Israel Defense Forces would remain in Lebanon “indefinitely.”

“The area will be cleared of local residents and all terrorist infrastructure, above and below ground—including the houses in the contact villages that served as terrorist outposts—will be destroyed,” he said.

These statements make President Trump’s Sunday announcement of a deal ending the war all the more tenuous, as a final deal isn’t scheduled to be signed until Friday. Trump already rebuked Israel on Sunday for bombing Beirut “on a special day when we are so close to a Peace Deal with Iran.”

Nearly 3,800 people have been killed in Lebanon since March 2, with nearly 12,000 injured and over a million displaced.