President Donald Trump let loose on Democratic Sen. Chris Coons in an angry early morning rant Monday on his Truth Social platform after Coons suggested over the weekend that the president is considering a nuclear deal with Iran similar to the one the Obama administration had brokered.
Recent news reports indicate the Trump administration is deciding on a $30 billion deal with Tehran that would allow for the development of civilian nuclear facilities, according to reporting from The Hill.
“I’ll just note that President Trump by press accounts is now moving toward negotiation and offering Iran a deal that looks somewhat similar to the Iran deal that was offered by Obama: tens of billions of dollars of incentives and reduced sanctions in exchange for abandoning their nuclear program,” Coons said in an interview on Fox News Sunday.
Trump lashed out, denying there’s any deal in the works.
“Tell phony Democrat Senator Chris Coons that I am not offering Iran ANYTHING, unlike Obama, who paid them $Billions under the stupid ‘road to a Nuclear Weapon JCPOA (which would now be expired!).'”
Trump rejected the idea that he had any communication with the authoritarian regime, revealing that he’s not “even talking to them since we totally OBLITERATED their Nuclear Facilities.”
Coons later fired back on social media with a clip of his Fox interview on X, “Apparently, President Trump really doesn’t like this clip about how his desired Iran nuclear deal is a reheated version of the same deal he pulled us out of.
The president tried to debunk the reporting in a post Friday, “Who in the Fake News Media is the SleazeBag saying that ‘President Trump wants to give Iran $30 Billion to build non-military Nuclear facilities.’ Never heard of this ridiculous idea,” he wrote on Truth Social.
The Obama administration, along with the European Union and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, signed a treaty with Iran in 2015 called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, before Trump’s first term in office. The agreement ended some sanctions against Tehran in exchange for its dismantling of critical infrastructure, allowing international monitoring of its nuclear sites, restrictions on enrichment capabilities and an end to new research.
Trump trashed the deal in 2018, saying at the time it “was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.”
Trump has tried to broker a new deal with Iran’s authoritarian regime since returning to office, but talks stalled in early June as Israel raised the alarm that Tehran was within days of having a nuclear weapon. (U.S. intelligence agencies dispute Israel’s contention.)
Then, despite Trump’s warnings, Israel launched an unprecedented attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, air defense systems, and military leaders, killing its top generals and nuclear scientists, and destroying a large swath of military infrastructure, but not its nuclear capabilities.
In a surprise move and after several days of threats, Trump ordered the U.S. military to bomb three nuclear sites in Iran just over a week ago.
That didn’t stop the military conflict between Israel and Tehran, but several days later, Trump helped bring an end to the fighting through a fragile ceasefire.
Coons also called on the Trump administration to give Congress a “full intelligence picture” of the impact of the U.S. bombings in Iran. It’s still unclear what the exact damage was to Tehran’s nuclear program.
