Mike Pompeo blasted an emerging U.S.-Iran deal on Saturday night, accusing the White House of reviving an old playbook that would enrich Tehran and put American allies at risk. Hours later, Donald Trump said the final details of an impending agreement with Iran would be announced shortly.
Pompeo, who served as secretary of state in Trump’s first administration, wrote on X that the deal being floated with Iran seemed straight out of the Wendy Sherman-Robert Malley-Ben Rhodes playbook. He said it would pay the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to build a weapons of mass destruction program and terrorize the world, and added that it was not remotely America First.
“Overdue. Let’s go,” Pompeo wrote in one post, before laying out what he said the United States should do instead. He called for opening the Strait of Hormuz, denying Iran access to money and taking out enough Iranian capability so it could not threaten allies in the region.
The sharp public warning landed just as Trump tried to project momentum on the talks. In a Truth Social post, he said final aspects and details of the deal were being discussed and would be announced shortly. He also said an agreement had been largely negotiated subject to finalization between the United States, Iran and various other countries, and added that the Strait of Hormuz would be opened.
The clash exposed a familiar split inside the Republican orbit over how hard Washington should push Tehran and how much room to give negotiators. White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung fired back at Pompeo, telling him to shut his stupid mouth and leave the real work to the professionals. Cheung said Pompeo was not read into anything that was happening.
Ted Cruz, the Texas senator, also criticized the emerging deal on X, saying he was deeply concerned about what he was hearing about an Iran deal being pushed by some voices in the administration. His comments added to a growing chorus of Republican skepticism around any agreement that could loosen pressure on Iran before the details are public.
Pompeo’s attack carried added weight because he was speaking from inside the same political world that produced the current president’s Iran strategy. Trump has been moving toward what he described as a largely negotiated agreement, while Pompeo argued that any bargain of this kind would hand leverage to Iran and undermine U.S. power in the region. The next test is whether the administration will disclose terms that can hold together under the kind of scrutiny now coming from its own side.
