The official details of the Iran peace deal haven't even been released yet, and somehow that hasn't stopped the horde of left-wing pundits from acting like they've read the fine print and concluded that the deal is a disaster. All they've got are a handful of leaked, disputed details, and that's apparently been enough for the Democrat Party's favorite talking heads to declare the whole thing a disaster.
On Tuesday night's episode of The Five, Jessica Tarlov decided she was going to be the one to expose the deal for the giveaway she assumed it was. She leaned on an Axios report claiming that CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had doubts about what the administration could actually extract from Iran. "The Axios report last night was meaningful, where they said that CIA Director Ratcliffe, Rubio, and Hegseth, based on American intelligence, were doubting the kind of results that they thought we could get out of this deal," Tarlov said.
JD Vance wasn't having it, and watching him dismantle her premise in real time was a thing of beauty. "Yeah, so just let me address a couple things, because I think you're making the same mistake, unfortunately, that a lot of the Iranian propagandists make when they talk about this," Vance said. "They talk about the benefits to the Iranians without any of the things the Iranians would have to give up and have to change in order to get those benefits."
Then he got specific because Tarlov had apparently floated the idea that the administration was just handing the $300 billion fund to Tehran, Obama-style. Vance shut that down immediately. Not a single cent of American money, under any circumstance, goes to Iran. He explained that the deal actually allows countries like the United Arab Emirates to invest in Iranian power plants, but only after Iran has done everything required of it. "So we're fundamentally saying if the Iranians transform how they interact with the world, we will transform how the world economy interacts with Iran," Vance said. No transformation, no benefits. It's not complicated, but somehow it was entirely lost on Tarlov.
Vance didn't stop there. He reminded everyone watching what's already been accomplished, regardless of whether Iran ever holds up its end of anything. "Their nuclear program is still destroyed, their military is still destroyed, their missile program and industrial base is still destroyed," Vance said. "We fundamentally have transformed the Middle East. Whether they comply or not, this is just icing on the cake."
Tarlov tried to pivot to a new angle, bringing up reports that Qatar had been quietly paying off Iran. Vance had already seen it. "I've seen the report, by the way, and we have a great relationship with the Qataris," he said, completely unbothered. Tarlov then reluctantly conceded that no money had actually changed hands and that Iran hadn't received a dollar “from any Gulf partners,” but still tried to get something to land by adding that criticism of the deal was bipartisan.
Related: JD Vance Just Gave Jessica Tarlov a Patriotism Lesson She Won’t Forget
Here's the part where Vance landed the knockout blow without even raising his voice. "Well, I think, look, some of the criticism comes from the fact that if Donald Trump were elected the supreme leader of Iran, the Democrats would still say that the United States had lost this," he said.
And let’s be honest, that is the whole game, isn't it? From the moment this conflict began, Democrats have been lobbing every criticism under the sun at it, regardless of whether it matched reality. They called it an endless war and claimed the United States was losing, just hoping something would land.
It was satisfying enough watching Vance walk Tarlov through what the deal actually says, line by line, fact by fact. But the real reward came when Tarlov, who went on The Five Tuesday, insisting she had the receipts, quietly let her own argument collapse under the weight of Vance’s facts. In the end, we know one thing: the Democrats didn’t need leaked documents to know they hate this deal. They decided that the moment Trump's name got attached to it.
Editor's Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
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