After Months of War, Trump Says Iran Has Right to Nuclear Program

President Trump said Wednesday that Iran could have its own nuclear program.

“It is a little hard that when you say that somebody wants it, other people have it, other adjoining states have it, and you’re not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and things like that. It’s always a little tough. You have to use a little common sense,” Trump said at the G7 summit in France, alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

It seems to be a sharp departure from Trump’s previous claims during the war. After months of insisting that the purpose of the war was to get rid of any nuclear capability, demanding “zero enrichment,” Trump is now saying that the country can use nuclear power for electricity.

One wonders what Republicans in Congress—let alone the international community—will think of Trump’s latest concession. If a final peace deal between Iran and the U.S. doesn’t have any restrictions on the country’s nuclear program, it will be effectively worse than the 2015 JCPOA agreement with Iran.

That agreement was drafted not only between the U.S. and Iran, but the other members of the U.N. Security Council, including China, Russia, the U.K., and the European Union. This deal was negotiated without Congress even being aware of the details. Iran will likely be receiving $300 billion in reconstruction funds, and now they might have a nuclear program too. What did the Trump administration accomplish?

President Trump has given up his efforts to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile stockpile, reneging on one of his central aims in “Operation Epic Fury.”

“We’ll be working on a parallel effort with the Gulf nations to address nonnuclear issues, such as [Iran’s] conventional ballistic missiles,” Trump said at the G7 summit on Wednesday. “I mean, they have to have some. Because other people have some. You gotta have some. Somebody said ‘You shouldn’t give them more … sir, you shouldn’t let them have any missile.’ … What am I gonna do? I’m gonna let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can’t have them?

“It doesn’t work that way,” Trump continued. “Missiles, they hurt a little location. But they don’t blow up the planet.”

“One of the goals of Epic Fury, you said going into it, was to destroy Iran’s ballistic missiles and its capabilities to build more,” a reporter asked Trump moments later. “Why is it acceptable to you now that they keep some of that capability?”

“What are they keeping? They have less than other nations now. We knocked out probably 84, 85 percent of their missiles. The rest of them are underground; they can’t even get ’em out,” Trump replied. “They’re gonna have a hard time rebuilding.”

Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran secures virtually nothing he sought at the beginning of this war. The Strait of Hormuz was already open, and Iran wasn’t anywhere close to obtaining a nuclear bomb. Now, even as the Strait of Hormuz is set to reopen, it appears that the president is back at square one—all while allowing Iran to retain their missile stock that he claimed to have destroyed.

Georgia Republicans have decided not to redistrict their state after all.

The decision came Wednesday after Governor Brian Kemp called the legislature into a special session to do so ahead of the 2028 election. But Peach State lawmakers flouted Kemp’s demands, arguing that the executive had not given them enough time to shift the state’s voting maps.

“When the House learned that it was placed on the call for a special session, we knew it was not the right path forward for our state at this time. We believe that it is important to do things the Georgia way—responsibly, transparently, and with ample opportunity for public input,” said House Speaker Jon Burns during a press conference at the state Capitol.

In a letter to Kemp, Georgia House Republicans wrote that they would entertain changes to the state’s voting maps “only when members of the General Assembly and citizens have been given ample opportunity to gather the facts, provide input, and engage in meaningful discussion.”

The discussion does not seem to be dead in the water. Instead, state lawmakers are expected to revisit redistricting further down the road, according to Republican state Senate President Pro Tempore Larry Walker III.

“Because any changes to our current congressional or legislative districts would not go into effect until 2028, we believe it is prudent to take the appropriate and necessary time to do this important duty the right way and not to rush through it,” said Walker.

Kemp pressed the issue in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision, which struck down Louisiana’s maps on the charge that they were racially gerrymandered.

The Georgia legislature’s conclusion is a rejection of a national GOP movement, spearheaded by Donald Trump, to redistrict their locales in an attempt to carve out as many Republican seats in the House of Representatives as possible.

Several red states have already caved to the White House’s demands: Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Tennessee redrew their maps in time to affect the results of the 2026 midterm elections.

Yet not everyone has uniformly complied. Republican lawmakers in South Carolina and Indiana balked at the prospect, earning the president’s ire in the process.

The Trump administration’s peace deal following the war in Iran will require America to loom large over the Middle Eastern country for many years to come.

The president admitted during a press conference at the G7 summit in France Wednesday that there is nothing enforceable in the drafted agreement, but rather that the constant threat of bombs should be enough to keep Iran committed to its terms.

“There’s nothing enforceable in the deal itself, is that correct?” asked a reporter.

“Doesn’t have to be,” Trump said wearily. “I let them know. I said, ‘Look, if you don’t adhere to the agreement—I don’t want to do that—but we’re going to bomb the hell out of you.’”

“And I don’t think that they’re going to veer from the agreement. What else am I going to do? I’m not going to say, ‘I’m going to take you to court,’” he mused. “‘Let me take you to court, let me sue you.’ No, we’re going to bomb the hell out of them if they violate the agreement.”

The text of the arrangement has not yet been made public, though both the White House and Tehran reportedly signed the deal on Sunday. U.S. officials read the American draft of the agreement to reporters after Trump’s press conference, but did not release the document. Iran has not released a draft.

The latest draft reportedly proposes the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz under Iran’s direction, a commitment from the U.S. not to interfere in Iranian affairs, and a reiteration of Iran’s commitment not to produce nuclear weapons, echoing language included in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

One component of the plan has become the subject of much debate: a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran, which was originally understood to be provided at cost to U.S. taxpayers. Top Trump officials have wavered on the specs of the fund—first claiming that Iran would receive no money, then practically confirming the fund, then backtracking again to claim that the aid package would be bankrolled by Iran’s regional neighbors and managed by the U.S.

The murky arrangement does not seem to include details on whether Iran will stop enriching its uranium—a highly anticipated component and one of the White House’s most pressing demands. Failing to obtain commitments regarding Iran’s nuclear program would make the deal far weaker than the Obama administration’s JCPOA.

Hold up—did the United States actually sign a peace deal with Iran?

New reporting from Axios Wednesday cast doubt on whether U.S. and Iranian leaders have actually signed Donald Trump’s deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

A senior administration official told reporters that the deal was signed electronically on Saturday by Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Mohammad Bagher, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament. However, a diplomatic source from one of the countries who helped mediate talks told Axios that signing had never taken place.

A second source familiar with the negotiations claimed the electronic signing had taken place. It wasn’t entirely clear, though, why a second signing was necessary.

The diplomatic source’s claim directly contradicts the U.S. administration’s characterization of a done deal, and comes amid widespread confusion about what the memorandum of understanding actually says.

The Trump administration has refused to release the final MOU until a formal signing ceremony takes place. The supposedly secondary signing was originally scheduled for Friday, but now the United States and Iran are discussing the possibility of moving that ceremony up.

On Monday, Trump said that the deal with Iran was “already signed and the strait is already partially opened,” but speaking at the G7 Summit on Wednesday, he claimed the deal would be signed “shortly, tomorrow, maybe the next day.”

“We’re going to most likely sign a deal,” Trump said, but seemed less than sure.

Trump’s peace deal with Iran is increasingly reminiscent of one of his fictional trade deals, built on big loose agreements and threats that backfire on Americans. It’s gotten so bad that U.S. negotiators have even begun making efforts to downplay the actual text of the deal, claiming it was political performance more than staunch commitments.

It’s not clear whether or not the deal is signed, but that could potentially explain all the secrecy and mixed messaging.