President Trump’s former Secretary of State and CIA director Mike Pompeo responded to reports this weekend that the U.S. and Iran are getting closer to a peace deal by publishing a sharp rebuke of the purported deal terms on social media.
Pompeo wrote: “The deal being floated with Iran seems straight out of the Wendy Sherman-Robert Malley-Ben Rhodes playbook: Pay the IRGC to build a WMD program and terrorize the world. Not remotely America First. It’s straightforward: Open the damned strait. Deny Iran access to money. Take out enough Iranian capability so it cannot threaten our allies in the region. Overdue. Let’s go.”
[NOTE: Wendy Sherman served as Deputy Secretary of State during the Biden and Obama administrations; Robert Malley was the lead negotiator on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action; and Ben Rhodes served as Deputy National Security Advisor during the Obama administration.]
The deal being floated with Iran seems straight out of the Wendy Sherman-Robert Malley-Ben Rhodes playbook: Pay the IRGC to build a WMD program and terrorize the world.
Not remotely America First. It’s straightforward: Open the damned strait. Deny Iran access to money. Take out…
— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) May 23, 2026
Trump’s White House director of communications Steven Cheung replied to Pompeo with his signature directness and profanity: “Mike Pompeo has no idea what the [expletive] he’s talking about. He should shut his stupid mouth and leave the real work to the professionals. He’s not read into anything that’s happening, so how would he know.”
Journalist and former Weekly Standard editor Stephen Hayes responded by highlighting the difference in the backgrounds of Cheung and Pompeo: “Yeah, take it from a 1980s-born political hatchetman and ex-UFC comms director, Mike Pompeo (top of his class at West Point, Harvard Law grad, House Intel, ex-CIA director, ex-SecState) is clueless about Iran.”
Rob Malley also replied to Pompeo: “Not quite the path Wendy, Ben or I would have taken. But if this deal brings an end to an unlawful, unjustifiable war, to the senseless loss of life and destruction, and to the cascading global economic fallout, I am quite sure we’d willingly accept it over the alternative.”
Not quite the path Wendy, Ben or I would have taken. But if this deal brings an end to an unlawful, unjustifiable war, to the senseless loss of life and destruction, and to the cascading global economic fallout, I am quite sure we’d willingly accept it over the alternative.… https://t.co/4IuGpYBANH
— Robert Malley (@Rob_Malley) May 23, 2026
[NOTE: Malley was appointed special envoy to Iran in 2021 by Joe Biden, after the Iran nuclear deal he helped negotiate was scuttled by President Trump during his first term. In 2023 he had his security clearance suspended amid an FBI investigation into his handling of classified documents.]