JD Vance Takes Victory Lap on Iran Deal—But There’s One Big Problem

Vice President JD Vance announced Monday that International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors would be allowed back into Iran in a “major milestone and a first step in permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran.” There’s just one problem.

Speaking at a brief press conference about the “great progress” made in negotiations in Switzerland over the weekend, Vance offered few details about the plan for inspections of nuclear sites.

The vice president did not offer specifics on what kind of access IAEA inspectors would be granted, or how frequently their inspections would take place. He simply said that IAEA inspectors could visit Iran “this week, maybe as soon as today.” Iran has yet to confirm, according to Axios.

The 14-point memorandum of understanding doesn’t add much clarity: The agreement asserts that Iran can not produce or acquire a nuclear weapon, and that Iran will commit to “down-blending” its enriched nuclear material under the supervision of IAEA inspectors.

Vance’s supposedly major milestone is already something the U.S. had already won—then lost under Trump.

The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action included the “most comprehensive and intrusive IAEA weapons inspection system ever negotiated,” according to the Center for International Policy. Trump withdrew the United States from the deal in 2018, allowing Iran to resume its enrichment program. In January 2020, Iran announced it would no longer place limits on uranium enrichment after the assassination of Qasem Soleimani at Trump’s direction.

Following the U.S. and Israel’s military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025, the Iranian parliament passed a law suspending its cooperation with the IAEA altogether. In September, Iran agreed to allow the agency’s inspectors back into the country. Inspectors had previously visited Iran as recently as December 2025, but received limited access to the country’s nuclear sites.

It’s not even clear that Vance’s announcement was the product of the weekend’s negotiations.

Last week, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly told U.S. lawmakers that in agreeing to the MOU, Tehran had drafted a letter inviting IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi to bring inspectors into the country.

Multiple images mocking President Trump and his Cabinet have been projected onto walls and sidewalks in Washington, D.C., as the nation’s capital continues to reject the leadership on Pennsylvania Avenue ahead of the president’s Independence Day celebrations.

One projection near the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool depicts Senator Mitch McConnell as a turtle and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as a crocodile crawling around in a swamp. Another shows White House adviser Stephen Miller as a bat hanging from the ceiling of the Lincoln Memorial. There’s Senator Ted Cruz depicted as a sex worker wearing “Trump” underwear, Vice President JD Vance as some kind of worm, and old footage of Trump and sex predator Jeffrey Epstein together at an event.

At the Kennedy Center, a two-minute video was projected showing a mugshot of Epstein with the words “No one bends the knee like the GOP,” followed by images of Trump administration officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and former Attorney General Pam Bondi labeled “guardians of pedophiles.” Another Kennedy Center projection showed the letters “Donald” being rearranged into the word “pedo.”

The guerilla art collective VJayBombs, who posted footage of the projections to its Instagram page, is said to be behind the display. The group gained attention earlier this year during Trump’s State of the Union address, when it projected a looped video satirizing the speech onto the Los Angeles Downtown Medical Center.

This isn’t the first time this term that D.C. has seen anti-Trump political art in its public spaces. The anonymous group Secret Handshake placed at least four statues around the city depicting Trump and Epstein together, and someone tried to cut “8647” into the grass on the National Mall last week.

President Donald Trump furiously accused The New York Times of supposedly “treasonous” reporting about his disastrous peace deal with Iran.

In a series of posts on Truth Social Sunday, Trump ranted about the Times after it published an analysis of the president’s war in Iran: “What Changed After Almost 4 Months of War? Analysts Say Not Much.” The article highlighted that Trump’s deal failed to achieve any of his war’s objectives: eliminating Iran’s nuclear program, destroying its ballistic missile stockpile, annihilating Iran’s navy and security infrastructure, and installing a new regime.

The president disagreed.

“Their Military is DONE, their Navy is GONE, their Air Force is GONE, their Launching Pads, Missiles, Drones and Manufacturing of same, is almost GONE, their top two sets of Leaders are GONE, their Inflation is at 250%, their Economy is BROKEN, their Soldiers aren’t being paid, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN, THE OIL IS GUSHING, and the U.S. Stock Market and Jobs are at record HIGHS,” Trump wrote. “That’s what’s CHANGED, you corrupt and unethical cowards, and MORE!!!”

In reality, Iran shuttered trade through Strait of Hormuz yet again over the weekend, citing Israel’s ceasefire violations in Lebanon.

But Trump didn’t care about any of that. Instead, he shared a post by Senator Lindsey Graham, who echoed the president’s claim that the reporting had revealed the outlet’s “bias.”

“The way the Corrupt and Failing New York Times is covering stories on a very battered and beat up Iran, through FAKE & MADE UP ‘FACTS’ is, in my opinion, ‘TREASONOUS,’” Trump wrote in yet another post.

“I will be adding all of their false and ridiculous reporting to my multi Billion Dollar lawsuit against them. They are Criminals!”

In October, Trump refiled an abridged version of his dismissed $15 billion defamation suit against the Times, alleging that reporters at the paper had sought to undermine his reputation as an entrepreneur and reality television star.

What began as a restoration project for the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has resulted in multiple arrests.

At least five people have been arrested for allegedly vandalizing the pool as of Saturday night, a Trump administration official told CBS News. Five citations were also issued, bringing the grand total of post-renovation citations issued at the site to 14.

In a post on Truth Social the same day, President Donald Trump said that the monument would likely have to be drained another time in order to address the damage, which he said included the use of a “knife or blade” to put a “250 foot long gash into the beautiful facade.” He also claimed that individuals that participated in the destruction poured “corrosive and destructive chemicals” into the pool. He said that all those caught participating deserved “years in jail.”

“Work will begin immediately on fixing the seriously vandalized Reflecting Pool,” Trump wrote in a separate post on Sunday. “I just inspected it, and could only say to myself, and those gathered around me, WOW, who would do such a thing? SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE! We will fix it?”

The White House has so far spent nearly $15 million to rid the Reflecting Pool of algae ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary, but the multimillion-dollar project appears to be another dud. Within days of refilling the pool earlier this month, the algae was back.

The Department of the Interior blamed the algae’s resurgence, in part, on residual algae that had accumulated in the pool’s pipes, which were apparently neglected during the cleaning process. CNN also found abnormally high phosphate levels in the pool after sampling its water. An algae researcher at the Smithsonian described the chemical imbalance as a “field day” for algal growth.

Park workers have tried to address the endemic issue with a smattering of different solutions. On Tuesday, park workers in hi-vis vests were spotted dumping gallons of hydrogen peroxide into the Reflecting Pool. A close-up of their equipment revealed that they were using a 12 percent concentrate, a level that can cause problems if inhaled and burns if the chemical touches the skin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Hydrogen peroxide is generally considered less environmentally destructive as its compounds readily break down in water, but the high concentration could nonetheless pose a risk to some of the pool’s frequent visitors, such as ducks or other birds. One dead baby duck was caught floating in the pool over the weekend, though the cause of death was unclear.

The Trump administration is refusing to declare in writing that the president’s $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is actually dead.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered that “Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, Jr., and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent FILE a declaration under the penalty of perjury that they will not take any action to create or operate the Anti-Weaponization Fund, and that the Anti-Weaponization Fund will not proceed in any manner, or under any name,” issuing a preliminary injunction and giving the government a deadline of June 19.

The deadline arrived on Friday, and the Department of Justice responded by refusing to file such a declaration due to “serious separation of powers concerns.” The DOJ claimed that Blanche’s congressional testimony earlier this month that the fund is “not going forward, period” is enough, along with similar statements from other administration officials.

This raises questions as to whether the Trump administration is sneakily trying to keep the fund alive in some form. After Blanche’s congressional testimony, Trump was asked if he was ending his slush fund plans. “No, a court ruled against it,” Trump said, going on to argue that “these are people that have been decimated” and “they should be reimbursed for a crooked government.”

Last week, The Atlantic reported that White House officials were still telling President Trump’s allies that they would get some form of payment, even with Blanche’s public statements disavowing the fund.

Department of Justice lawyers also refused to declare the fund dead in writing to another federal judge, Richard Leon, more than a week ago. At the time, anonymous sources told The Atlantic that work was continuing on the fund inside the Trump administration in secret. With that in mind, Friday’s court filing from White House officials makes it seem like they are trying to skirt the law and create the slush fund anyway.