Rep. Riley Moore praised President Donald Trump on Monday as the White House pressed ahead with changes to a proposed memorandum of understanding with Iran that would extend the ceasefire and keep talks moving. Moore said the unfinished arrangement could become one of the defining peace deals of Trump’s presidency.
Moore made his comments during an appearance with Fox Business host Cheryl Casone, arguing that Trump had gotten the United States and Iran to a point no one had reached in the last 47 years. He said the deal would amount to an Iranian commitment not to acquire a nuclear weapon, nuclear material or the ability to assemble one in the future, and added that the agreement would be remembered in the history books as one of the president’s great peace deals.
His remarks came as Trump said Monday morning that Iran “really wants to make a deal,” while also telling Democrats and what he called unpatriotic Republicans to “just sit back and relax” because it would all work out in the end. The president said Monday that he wanted changes to the proposed memorandum, underscoring that the talks were still active even as the administration described progress.
The push for a ceasefire deal lands after a volatile weekend in which the United States and Iran continued to trade strikes. That fighting sits uneasily beside the optimistic language coming from Trump and Moore, who both described momentum toward an agreement while the shooting had not yet stopped.
Moore tied the proposal to a step-by-step process, saying the first phase would open the straits and remove the naval blockade if the straits were open. He said a second phase would involve removing “nuclear dust” before dollars could start to flow, with Trump keeping a hand on the dial to turn that flow up or down depending on how much of it had been cleared away. He called it “another master stroke by the president.”
The broader backdrop is the nuclear deal Trump abandoned in his first term after Iran agreed under former President Barack Obama to refrain from pursuing nuclear weapons for a limited period. This time, the administration is trying to pair a ceasefire extension with a new understanding that could shape the next round of talks, but the open question remains the same one that mattered on Monday: what exact changes Trump wants before the memorandum is finished, and when the revised deal will be ready.
