The day after President Donald Trump signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran, opening a 60-day window to negotiate a deal over the nation’s nuclear program, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff acquired on the cellphone to transient skeptical Republican leaders.
The phrases of the 14-point document have been imprecise and open to interpretation, sparking concern throughout Washington about what precisely the president had simply signed on to and what concessions had been made to Tehran.
Kushner and Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law and particular envoy, respectively, had spent months main backchannel talks on Iran, and now sought to reassure Republicans on the deserves of the settlement and the course of to come. According to a particular person acquainted with the name, as a signal of progress, Witkoff referenced a secret journey he and Kushner had simply taken to the secluded Oak Ridge nuclear lab, the place they met with technical consultants, lots of whom Witkoff stated have been on standby prepared to be part of the effort.
Witkoff additionally stated he anticipated negotiations on “the toughest issue” — Iran’s nuclear program — to start instantly, in accordance to a particular person acquainted with the name.
Three weeks later, not solely have technical talks solely barely begun, however the total settlement seems to be in tatters. There have been skirmishes since the signing of the MOU, however the latest flare-up poses the largest menace to the fragile settlement that Trump has now declared “over.”
After Iran fired on ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, the US retaliated with its personal strikes, to which Tehran vowed to reply. On Wednesday, the US launched another round of strikes, hours after Trump promised to accomplish that whereas denouncing Iran’s management.
“I’m not sure I want to make a deal with them,” Trump mused at a press convention at the NATO summit in Ankara, earlier than asserting that he doesn’t imagine battle with Iran will begin once more.
With the prospect of renewed preventing in the area, the hole between the administration’s acknowledged targets in Iran, together with the elimination of its enriched nuclear materials, and the chance they are often achieved — not to mention in 60 days — continues to widen.
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That’s all raised massive questions on how a lot was completed with the signing of the MOU; what precisely was agreed to; and whether or not Witkoff and Kushner, together with Vice President JD Vance, overstated the quantity of diplomatic progress they’d made amid escalating oil costs and rising stress to finish the battle.
“The MOU didn’t actually resolve anything,” stated Nate Swanson, a former profession State Department official who spent a decade as a senior adviser on Iran coverage to successive administrations and labored on the Iran negotiations in spring 2025. The settlement, he stated, was “almost entirely aspirational.”
Richard Nephew, who was director for Iran at the National Security Council from 2011 to 2013, stated he anticipated such flare-ups “both because (of) misinterpretations of the underlying deal, and because none of the core issues have been resolved.”
“You could even argue the MOU made things worse,” Nephew added, notably on the Strait of Hormuz. Although the administration has confused that Iran can’t have management of the essential waterway, the MOU itself doesn’t lay out a clear course of for how to obtain that.
“There still seems to be this persistent focus on this big Phase 2 deal, where the reality of the situation is they really just need to codify and clarify the strait before moving on to other things. They have not done that,” Swanson advised NCS. “I don’t know whose fault that is, if that’s Vance, Witkoff, Kushner, Trump, I don’t know, but it’s a clear mistake somewhere in the chain of command.”
Nephew stated he “squarely put” blame for the imprecise MOU “on the inexperience of the US negotiating team.”
Throughout their Iran discussions, Kushner and Witkoff have saved their circle tight, relying closely on political appointees and advisers, reflecting a longstanding mistrust inside the Trump administration of profession civil servants.
Multiple former US officers acquainted with the effort inform NCS that lots of the profession authorities workers with the experience wanted to negotiate a complicated settlement with Iran, together with consultants on nuclear points, have been consulted solely intermittently in the months main up to the signing of the MOU and never meaningfully integrated into the early decision-making course of or broader diplomatic effort led by Kushner and Witkoff. Many profession officers have additionally been pushed out of the authorities.
Compared to the years of inter-agency work that went into the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal that was reached a decade in the past, the course of beneath Kushner and Witkoff has appeared dramatically totally different, described by some sources as extra advert hoc.
Under Obama, consultants throughout the authorities performed central roles in shaping and testing technical elements of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which took years to negotiate. That course of was tightly coordinated by the National Security Counsel at the White House. But Trump final 12 months stripped down his NSC and sidelined national security experts forward of his determination to begin the battle in February.
The White House acknowledges its totally different strategy in contrast with earlier nuclear negotiations however defended the determination as vital to restrict leaks and hold delicate diplomatic discussions tightly held.
“People who complain to NCS about feeling left out clearly cannot be trusted with sensitive information and are not included in national security conversations,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly advised NCS in a assertion earlier in the week.
Kelly additionally pushed again on the notion that Kushner and Witkoff haven’t engaged technical consultants throughout the authorities.
“There have been vast consultations across the interagency, as well as with the IAEA, over the course of these negotiations,” Kelly stated, referencing the UN’s nuclear watchdog company. “Now, experts from the National Security Council, State Department, Treasury Department, War Department, Energy Department, and more make up our technical team that are negotiating a final deal.”
Nestled into the mountains of east Tennessee, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory is dwelling to a few of the world’s foremost nuclear weapons consultants, lots of whom have been shocked on June 4 when components of the sprawling 35,000-acre campus have been locked down and surrounded by safety personnel, native police and what appeared to some like armed Secret Service brokers, in accordance to a particular person acquainted with the go to.
After months of main talks on Iran, Witkoff and Kushner have been closing in on a deal to permit for negotiations on its nuclear program, and have been prepared to meet with technical consultants who would probably serve a key function in the subsequent part of nuclear talks, in accordance to a US official — in the event that they ever acquired that far.
During their journey, Kushner and Witkoff met inside a SCIF in the categorized a part of the major constructing. Discussions targeted on how to cope with the nuclear enriched materials from Iran, how gasoline centrifuges work, monitoring and verification, and potential down-blending of nuclear materials, a number of sources stated. Technical consultants at the lab have been advised “to be on call, ready to travel to go to the negotiations if and when called upon,” in accordance to the supply acquainted with the go to, who added that it was the first time consultants at the lab had acquired these directions.
Before the most up-to-date strikes, sources advised NCS, that the diplomatic operation had developed in latest weeks, with higher outreach to subject-matter consultants throughout the authorities.
Work has additionally begun on one in every of the most technically difficult items of any attainable deal: bringing nuclear materials from Iran again to the US. According to two sources with direct information of the difficulty, preparations are underway for the risk that Iranian nuclear materials will likely be introduced to the US for processing and down-blending at two potential websites, the Y-12 National Security Complex close to Oak Ridge, and one other facility at the Savannah River Site in Georgia.
For any of that to really occur, the US will want to interact in a prolonged technical negotiation with an Iranian crew that has a long time of expertise.
“They basically have had the same team roughly since 2013,” stated Swanson, who was a profession diplomat for almost 20 years. He famous that Iranian international minister Abbas Araghchi has led these talks for virtually the total time.
“They just have this unique advantage and knowledge of how this has worked in the past,” Swanson stated.
Nephew echoed this and instructed that it could lead on to Kushner and Witkoff’s crew being outmaneuvered by Iran.
“The Iranians will bring a 20-odd-person delegation, and they’ll have people there who literally know the stuff backwards, and that’s how you get hornswoggled,” he stated.
Questions about Witkoff’s health for the job of Trump’s prime envoy hint again to the earliest days of the effort, when Witkoff was first handed duty for the Iran negotiations and started assembling a crew to pursue them.
Before the Trump administration even took workplace in January 2025, Witkoff, a longtime good friend of Trump and fellow New York actual property developer, turned Trump’s de facto point man on a few of the most pressing international coverage challenges dealing with the incoming administration, together with Gaza and the battle in Ukraine.
Yet for somebody who’s by no means labored in authorities, Witkoff’s expansive portfolio raised questions in Washington and overseas over whether or not he’s actually outfitted to function at such a excessive degree on the world stage.
In describing Witkoff’s early working fashion when he first started engaged on the Iran difficulty in 2025, one supply with direct information stated Witkoff appeared engaged however solely sporadically, and with out a coordinated course of round him.
The supply described Witkoff in the early phases of his involvement as good however intermittent, juggling a number of crises, and infrequently approaching Iran by a actual property or monetary body. Witkoff tended to take a look at Iran’s nuclear program as a dangerous funding, the supply stated, and instructed the answer may contain creating incentives to successfully purchase out Iran in order that it might exit that program.
“The problem with that argument, though, is that this isn’t just a financial calculation for the Iranians; it’s a national security investment,” the supply added.
While Witkoff requested “the right questions” and appeared to learn supplies, the bigger difficulty, the supply stated, was inconsistency and lack of sustained observe by.
“Sometimes when you get in briefings with him, it was just kind of all over the place,” the supply stated. “He was always short for time, be quick and out and you’re like, ‘Well, we didn’t really even talk about anything.’” The supply stated Witkoff was “most responsive on Signal,” the encrypted messaging app, than he was in briefings due to his time constraints.
Despite the stalled motion on the negotiations the administration has stated it cares about most — the denuclearization of Iran — the White House continues to present confidence in Witkoff and Kushner.
“How many deals have those criticizing Special Envoy Witkoff and Mr. Kushner closed? How many times have they even been in the room for such negotiations?” Kelly, the White House spokesperson, stated in a assertion to NCS. “In addition to the above, both have extremely successful careers in business making deals. Mr. Kushner has also worked on USMCA, the GCC dispute, criminal justice reform, Operation Warp Speed, and bringing the World Cup and Olympics to the United States. None of their critics have accomplished anything close.”
NCS’s Davis Winkie contributed to this report.
Davis Winkie’s work at NCS is supported by a partnership between Outrider Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners (JFP). NCS retains full editorial management of the reporting.