Senate

Graham calls for congressional review of any Iran deal

Comments:

by Sophie Brams - 04/08/26 8:59 AM ET

Comments:

Link copied

by Sophie Brams - 04/08/26 8:59 AM ET

Comments:

Link copied

NOW PLAYING

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) expressed cautious optimism late Tuesday about the two-week ceasefire reached by the U.S. and Iran, saying the peace deal must be brought before Congress for a vote.

Graham reiterated in a post on social platform X that he preferred diplomacy with Iran and thanked negotiators for their efforts, but said he was still wary about what is “fact vs. fiction or misrepresentation” in the agreement.

“That’s why a congressional review process like the one the Senate followed to test the Obama Iranian deal is a sound way forward,” the senator wrote. “Fair and challenging questions with a full opportunity to explain, and a healthy dose of sunlight is generally the right formula to understand any matter.”

The comments mark somewhat of a shift for the South Carolina Republican, a strong supporter of military intervention against Tehran, who previously asserted that Trump did not need Congress’s permission to launch the initial strikes in late February.

“I think the War Powers Act is unconstitutional,” he told NBC’s Kristin Welker in a March 1 interview on “Meet the Press,” echoing a stance he has repeated in recent years.

The U.S. and Iran agreed to a temporary ceasefire on Tuesday evening, just hours before President Trump’s self-imposed deadline for Tehran to make a deal or face punishing strikes on civilian infrastructure, including bridges and power plants.

As part of the truce, the U.S. would suspend its bombing campaign for two weeks in exchange for Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime chokepoint in the Gulf that has been effectively closed to shipping traffic for five weeks.

“Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated,” Trump wrote Tuesday in a Truth Social post.

Graham, in a separate X post, advocated for Congress to undertake a similar review process to that used for the Iran nuclear deal in former President Obama’s administration in 2015.

“I want to reaffirm that from my point of view, every ounce of the approximately 900 lbs. of highly enriched uranium has to be controlled by the U.S. and removed from Iran to prevent them in the future from having a dirty bomb or returning to the enrichment business — the Libyan model, for lack of a better phrase,” he wrote.

Trump said on Wednesday morning that Iran would not enrich uranium per the agreement, and that the U.S. will work with the country to “dig up and remove” buried B-2 bombers.

“Nothing has been touched from the date of the attack,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “We are, and will be, talking Tariff and Sanctions relief with Iran. Many of the 15 points have already been been agreed to.”

U.S. officials have long insisted that Iran cannot be allowed to enrich uranium or possess a nuclear weapon, a condition the Iranian regime has historically been unwilling to accept.

Neither Iran nor Pakistan, which helped mediate the ceasefire between the two countries, mentioned the chemical, a key ingredient for nuclear power, in their statements about the deal.

Add as preferred source on Google