JD Vance stood in Switzerland last week and announced that Iran had agreed to allow IAEA nuclear inspectors back into the country, calling it “probably what we’re most excited about as Americans” and “a major milestone.” Abby Phillip had a clip of Barack Obama saying the same thing in 2015, and on Monday’s CNN NewsNight she played both, one after the other, and then asked the question out loud.
“Tonight, the White House is touting a, quote, big deal in its talks with Iran, but the breakthrough is something that was in Barack Obama’s nuclear deal that President Trump tore up,” Phillip told her audience before rolling the tape.
Vance went first.
“This is probably what we’re most excited about as Americans. The Iranians have agreed to invite IAEA inspectors back into their country. That is a major milestone for the American people and the first step in permanently denuclearizing or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran.”
Then Obama, from 2015.
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“For decades, inspectors will have access to Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain, from the uranium mines and mills where they get raw materials to the centrifuge production facilities where they make machines to enrich it. And under the terms of the deal, inspectors will have the permanent ability to inspect any suspicious sites in Iran.”
Phillip also focused on the inspector issue. She noted that IAEA inspectors had been operating inside Iran until last summer, when Operation Midnight Hammer began and Iran cut off access to its nuclear sites following the US strikes. The inspectors Vance is now presenting as a major achievement were already there before the war. “So, why is this some kind of breakthrough that JD Vance is touting?” she asked.
She then turned to the sanctions question. Trump had lifted sanctions on Iranian oil sales for 60 days and was allowing Iranian oil imports into the United States for the first time in decades. That stood in contrast to the State Department’s position just last month, when it announced new sanctions on Iran’s oil trade with China and argued that Iranian oil revenues were “the primary revenue stream for Iranians to fund terrorism and regional destabilization.”
🚨 CNN just dropped the side-by-side that’s breaking the internet:
JD Vance (today) vs. Barack Obama (2015) on Iran allowing nuclear inspectors.
Chyron says it all:
“TRUMP SAYS IRAN TO ALLOW NUKE INSPECTORS, WHICH WAS IN OBAMA DEAL” Trump tore up the JCPOA in 2018 calling it the… pic.twitter.com/FyyUuTAEqD— Masu Zafi 🔥🔥 (@masuzafi) June 23, 2026
Critics outside CNN have raised similar concerns.
University of Chicago political science professor Robert Pape told CBC News that if Trump truly believed the JCPOA was a roadmap to an Iranian nuclear weapon, then the current MOU “is a super highway.” The JCPOA was an 18-page finalized agreement with enforcement provisions negotiated between Iran and seven nations.
Featured image via X screengrab
