The day after President Donald Trump signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran, opening a 60-day window to barter a deal over the nation’s nuclear program, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff received on the cellphone to temporary skeptical Republican leaders.
The phrases of the 14-point document have been obscure 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 method to come back. According to an individual aware of the decision, as an indication 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, a lot of whom Witkoff mentioned have been on standby prepared to hitch the hassle.
Witkoff additionally mentioned he anticipated negotiations on “the toughest issue” — Iran’s nuclear program — to start instantly, in accordance with an individual aware of the decision.
Three weeks later, not solely have technical talks solely barely begun, however your entire settlement seems to be in tatters. There have been skirmishes for the reason that signing of the MOU, however the latest flare-up poses the most important risk to the delicate settlement that Trump has now declared “over.”
After Iran fired on ships within 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 take action whereas denouncing Iran’s management.
“I’m not sure I want to make a deal with them,” Trump mused at a press convention on 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 within the area, the hole between the administration’s acknowledged objectives in Iran, together with the removing 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 large questions on how a lot was achieved 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 strain to finish the battle.
“The MOU didn’t actually resolve anything,” mentioned 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 mentioned, was “almost entirely aspirational.”
Richard Nephew, who was director for Iran on the National Security Council from 2011 to 2013, mentioned 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 careworn that Iran can’t have management of the crucial waterway, the MOU itself doesn’t lay out a transparent course of for how you can 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 instructed 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 mentioned he “squarely put” blame for the obscure MOU “on the inexperience of the US negotiating team.”
Throughout their Iran discussions, Kushner and Witkoff have stored 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 aware of the hassle inform NCS that lots of the profession authorities staff with the experience wanted to barter a posh settlement with Iran, together with consultants on nuclear points, have been consulted solely intermittently within the months main as much as 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 federal government.
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 method beneath Kushner and Witkoff has appeared dramatically completely different, described by some sources as extra advert hoc.
Under Obama, consultants throughout the federal government performed central roles in shaping and testing technical features of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which took years to barter. That course of was tightly coordinated by the National Security Counsel on the White House. But Trump final 12 months stripped down his NSC and sidelined national security experts forward of his resolution to start out the battle in February.
The White House acknowledges its completely different method in contrast with earlier nuclear negotiations however defended the choice as essential 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 instructed NCS in an announcement earlier within the week.
Kelly additionally pushed again on the notion that Kushner and Witkoff haven’t engaged technical consultants throughout the federal government.
“There have been vast consultations across the interagency, as well as with the IAEA, over the course of these negotiations,” Kelly mentioned, 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 residence to among the world’s foremost nuclear weapons consultants, a lot of whom have been shocked on June 4 when elements of the sprawling 35,000-acre campus have been locked down and surrounded by safety personnel, native police and what regarded to some like armed Secret Service brokers, in accordance with an individual aware of 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 satisfy with technical consultants who would doubtless serve a key function within the subsequent part of nuclear talks, in accordance with a US official — in the event that they ever received that far.
During their journey, Kushner and Witkoff met inside a SCIF within the labeled a part of the principle constructing. Discussions targeted on how you can 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 mentioned. Technical consultants on the lab have been instructed “to be on call, ready to travel to go to the negotiations if and when called upon,” in accordance with the supply aware of the go to, who added that it was the primary time consultants on the lab had acquired these directions.
Before the newest strikes, sources instructed NCS, that the diplomatic operation had advanced in current weeks, with higher outreach to subject-matter consultants throughout the federal government.
Work has additionally begun on one of the technically sophisticated items of any attainable deal: bringing nuclear materials from Iran again to the US. According to 2 sources with direct information of the difficulty, preparations are underway for the likelihood that Iranian nuclear materials might be dropped at 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 on the Savannah River Site in Georgia.
For any of that to truly occur, the US might want to have interaction in a prolonged technical negotiation with an Iranian crew that has many years of expertise.
“They basically have had the same team roughly since 2013,” mentioned Swanson, who was a profession diplomat for practically 20 years. He famous that Iranian international minister Abbas Araghchi has led these talks for nearly your entire time.
“They just have this unique advantage and knowledge of how this has worked in the past,” Swanson mentioned.
Nephew echoed this and prompt that it might result in 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 mentioned.
Questions about Witkoff’s health for the job of Trump’s high envoy hint again to the earliest days of the hassle, when Witkoff was first handed duty for the Iran negotiations and commenced 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, grew to become Trump’s de facto point man on among the most pressing international coverage challenges going through 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 really outfitted to function at such a excessive stage on the world stage.
In describing Witkoff’s early working model when he first started engaged on the Iran concern in 2025, one supply with direct information mentioned Witkoff appeared engaged however solely sporadically, and with out a coordinated course of round him.
The supply described Witkoff within the early levels of his involvement as good however intermittent, juggling a number of crises, and infrequently approaching Iran by means of an actual property or monetary body. Witkoff tended to take a look at Iran’s nuclear program as a foul funding, the supply mentioned, and prompt the answer might contain creating incentives to successfully purchase out Iran in order that it could 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 concern, the supply mentioned, was inconsistency and lack of sustained comply with by means of.
“Sometimes when you get in briefings with him, it was just kind of all over the place,” the supply mentioned. “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 mentioned 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 mentioned it cares about most — the denuclearization of Iran — the White House continues to point out 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, mentioned in an announcement 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.
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