Donald Trump just did what he promised American voters he would do.
The establishment media machine is furious about it.
And the names leading the charge against Trump will stun you.
The Deal Itself
Trump signed a 14-point memorandum of understanding with Iran at the Palace of Versailles in France, capping months of conflict that had cost American consumers and taxpayers an estimated $132 billion and sent oil prices through the roof. The MOU reopens the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, establishes a 60-day negotiating window for nuclear talks, and includes Iran’s renewed pledge not to pursue nuclear weapons.
Vice President JD Vance, who had been skeptical of the military campaign from the beginning, signed the document digitally before the formal ceremony. Vance told reporters the deal was already producing results, noting that Iran had not fired at ships in the Strait of Hormuz for the second night in a row. “So far they are honoring their end of the commitment,” Vance said.
Vance stressed that the “main thing” is ending Tehran’s nuclear weapons program and removing enriched uranium from Iran, saying the deal will lead “to the destruction of that stockpile of enriched material.”
That is a real, concrete outcome. Sixty days to get the nuclear question resolved. Ships moving through the strait again. American families paying less at the pump. That is what keeping faith with the voters who sent Trump to Washington looks like.
Murdoch’s Media Empire Breaks With Trump
Rupert Murdoch-controlled outlets, including Fox News, the *Wall Street Journal*, and the *New York Post*, broke with President Donald Trump over his Iran deal, in a rare instance of sustained criticism from influential conservative media.
The *Wall Street Journal* editorial board ran a piece titled “Trump Stages an Iran Retreat.” The *New York Post* published an editorial that glumly concluded the MOU “seems to leave things right back where they were before the bombs started dropping.” A follow-up piece from the *Post* was even sharper.
What makes this rich is the backstory. According to a Bloomberg report citing people familiar with private discussions, those privately pressing Trump to strike Iran included media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who communicated with Trump several times as he urged the president to take on Tehran. Murdoch helped push the war. Now Murdoch’s papers are unhappy with how the war ended. You can draw your own conclusions about what that tells you.
According to Bloomberg’s sources, Vice President JD Vance was among the more cautious voices before the conflict began, and separately questioned how “any” war with Iran would work. Vance’s instincts, it turns out, were sound. The interventionist crowd got their war. Now they don’t like the peace.
Levin and Shapiro: The Pattern Worth Noting
Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro are two of the loudest voices against the deal right now. A few facts are worth placing side by side.
Both men were vocally Never-Trump during the 2016 Republican primary. During the 2016 election, Ben Shapiro had been vocally Never Trump, professing on his podcast that he had voted for neither Trump nor Hillary Clinton. Both eventually came around after Trump secured the nomination and won the presidency. Their support for Trump has never been unconditional.
Both men were also enthusiastic cheerleaders when the Iran war began. Ben Shapiro praised Trump as “the most courageous commander in chief,” and Mark Levin gushed over the “humane” war. Now that Trump is ending it, both men are in open opposition.
Levin wrote on X: “From day one, I have underscored that no deal will be honored by the Iranian regime,” adding, “Why would we agree to immediately drop the most important leverage we have over the regime in advance of it complying with MOU requirements?”
Ben Shapiro called the deal a “disaster” during an interview with Fox News.
And Shapiro, on June 16, expressed his own skepticism, saying “We’ll wait to see the MOU,” and adding “I will say that the early returns do not look wildly promising at this point.”
These are men who have been consistent and vocal advocates for military confrontation with Iran throughout their careers. That is a documented fact. The question worth asking is whether their objections to this deal are rooted in a principled reading of the terms or in a deeper ideological commitment to a harder line with Iran that predates the MOU entirely. The record is there for readers to examine.
The Fox News Pile-On
Host Trey Gowdy criticized the deal for potentially leaving Iran “a richer country” even though “they lost the war,” suggesting that financial provisions and sanctions relief could benefit Tehran despite the U.S. campaign to weaken it.
Retired four-star general and Fox News contributor Jack Keane told Sean Hannity that while the U.S. was “clearly…taking a diplomatic path now,” he saw no indication “that the behavior of this regime is going to change.” Keane also raised sharp questions about a proposed reconstruction framework for Iran, arguing any such funding would ultimately strengthen Iran’s current leadership.
These are serious concerns and they deserve a serious answer. But notice what never gets said in these segments: the same arguments, almost word for word, were used to justify the Iraq War. Regime behavior. Untrustworthy adversaries. No guarantee of compliance. The neoconservative foreign policy establishment has been running this play for twenty-five years, and the result has been Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan. Thousands of American lives. Trillions of dollars. No victories worth the name.
Trump ran against all of that. Twice. Voters sent him back to Washington with a mandate to do something different. Ending the cycle of endless conflict is not a retreat. It is exactly what he promised.
Trump Saw It Coming
Trump pushed back on the critics himself. He told reporters: “I know that no matter what, if I would go, by the way, if I’d go another three or four weeks, those same people that are critical would say he went ‘too long, he should have done,’ you know.”
He is right. The people now calling the deal a surrender were calling for more strikes just weeks ago. There is no outcome Trump could have reached that would have satisfied the interventionist wing of conservative media, because what they actually want is not a better deal. What they want is regime change in Tehran. That is not what MAGA voters asked for. That is not what America First foreign policy looks like.
Trump quipped at the G7 summit: “If it works out, I’m going to take the credit. If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD.” A joke, obviously. But Vance has been the steady hand throughout this process, the voice inside the administration urging caution before the shooting started and now leading the next phase of nuclear negotiations.
What the Critics Won’t Acknowledge
The war has, according to some estimates, cost U.S. taxpayers approximately $113 billion, while others suggest the price is much higher due to the impact on Americans who paid more for fuel and groceries, estimated to cost American families an extra $750. That is real money coming out of real people’s pockets. Working families. Retirees on fixed incomes. Small business owners who watched their fuel and shipping costs explode.
And the Strait of Hormuz is already reopening. At least 10 commercial vessels were transiting the Strait of Hormuz in the hours after President Trump and his Iranian counterpart signed the agreement. That is not nothing. That is oil moving again. That is prices coming down. That is the American economy breathing again.
But the *Wall Street Journal* editorial board ran a piece titled “Trump Explains Why He Cut a Deal With Iran” that described Trump’s remarks as “a startling admission of U.S. weakness against Iran’s oil weapon.” The same paper whose owner was reportedly on the phone with Trump urging him into this conflict in the first place is now grading the exit strategy. The audacity is something.
The 60-day window for nuclear negotiations is real. The commitment to remove Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is real. The deal is not perfect. No deal ever is. But the people demanding perfection are the same people who gave America the Iraq War and called it a success for years while it fell apart.
Trump chose diplomacy over the neocon playbook. The establishment is furious. And that is probably the clearest sign yet that he made the right call.
Sources: Newsweek; Bloomberg (March 21, 2026); NBC News; Fox News Digital; Fox News Live Updates; CNBC; CBS News; ABC News; The Hill; Mediaite; IBTimes UK; The Daily Beast; Media Matters; SGT Report; The Federalist (August 13, 2018)