When Vice President JD Vance finished his explanation of the Iran nuclear framework on Fox News’ “The Five” Tuesday, June 16, 2026, it was co-host Jesse Watters who stepped in to frame the deal in the starkest political terms: as the deliberate and total inversion of what he called Barack Obama’s “disastrous” Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Watters argued that the Trump administration has not just negotiated a better deal than its predecessor — it has fundamentally and physically dismantled the Iranian threat in ways no agreement on paper ever could.
The Opposite of Obama
Watters opened his assessment with a direct structural comparison. “From what I understand, the deal — it’s the exact opposite of the Iran deal,” he said, referring to the 2015 JCPOA negotiated under the Obama administration. “Where proxies and missiles are covered. Because if they fund the proxies, then they don’t get the economic benefits.”
The Obama-era JCPOA, which Trump withdrew from during his first term, was widely criticized by Republican lawmakers and national security hawks for failing to address Iran’s ballistic missile program or its funding of regional proxy forces, including Hezbollah and Hamas. From the launch of military operations earlier this year, the Trump administration’s stated objectives had explicitly included obliterating Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and production capability, annihilating its navy, severing its support for terrorist proxies, and ensuring Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon. Watters argued Tuesday that those objectives have now been accomplished.
A Military Ledger, Not Just a Diplomatic One
The core of Watters’ argument was not legal or diplomatic — it was physical. He contended that whatever the text of the memorandum of understanding ultimately says, Iran’s capacity for aggression has already been gutted by U.S. military action. “The missiles are covered because 85% of them have been destroyed,” he said. “90% of the industrial base has been destroyed. So they’ve been disarmed. They can’t rearm because they can’t manufacture more weapons.”
According to the White House, Operation Midnight Hammer obliterated Iran’s nuclear facilities and significantly set back Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, with the administration noting Iran subsequently attempted to rebuild its program at a separate location before the current diplomatic process took hold.
Watters went further, arguing that Iran’s ability to project power beyond its own borders has effectively been severed. “They can’t really project power outside of their borders because they have no air force and no navy,” he said. “They don’t pose an imminent threat to the United States and they have no air defense. We have full air superiority.”
“The Only People That Can Get It Is Us”
On the nuclear question specifically, Watters drew what he said was the most critical distinction between the Trump framework and the Obama deal — one that goes beyond what any treaty language could enforce. Under the JCPOA, Iran retained its enrichment infrastructure and the ability to accumulate centrifuges and stockpile uranium, with enrichment capped at 3.67%. Critics argued from the outset that those provisions created a supervised pathway, rather than a permanent barrier, to a nuclear weapon.
Watters argued the situation today is categorically different. “They cannot build a nuclear weapon,” he said. “They can’t enrich at all and they can’t stockpile because they can’t access the uranium. The dust is so deep down there, the only people that can get it is us.”
He described the state of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure as irreparably broken regardless of diplomatic outcomes. “All the centrifuges are shattered, the nuclear scientists are dead,” Watters said. “If we do nothing, it’s already accomplished the president’s main objective — which is prevent them from ever getting a nuclear weapon.”
The United States struck Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, with U.S. officials reporting that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction, and that Natanz was destroyed while Fordow and Isfahan suffered major damage.
A Deal With Teeth — And a Backup Plan
Where the Obama deal offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for temporary enrichment limits with no military consequence for cheating, Watters argued the Trump framework carries an entirely different enforcement mechanism. “If they screw around and make mischief, we can reinstitute the blockade and hit them again,” he said.
The agreement is designed around a 60-day ceasefire extension, during which the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened and nuclear talks would be held — but the framework makes clear that failure to comply could reset the conditions that led to military strikes in the first place.
Watters also pointed to the economic effects already rippling through global markets as evidence that the strategy is working. “You’ve seen oil go to the 70s,” he said. “Gas prices are a couple of cents away from the $3 range. Stock market at all-time high and inflation should taper off as the strait opens throughout the summer.”
“Everything He Laid Out Has Been Achieved”
Watters closed his argument with a sweeping summary of what he sees as the scorecard for the Trump administration’s Iran policy from the moment the bombing began. “Everything he laid out, the day after the bombing started, has been achieved,” he said. “This does what the Obama deal doesn’t do.”
The contrast with Obama’s JCPOA, in Watters’ telling, is not merely political — it is physical and permanent. The Obama deal left Iran’s centrifuges spinning; the Trump approach, in his view, left them shattered. The Obama deal relied on international monitors to verify compliance at facilities that still existed; the Trump approach, as Watters framed it, removed the facilities entirely.
The White House has consistently described the mission’s core objectives as being achieved from early in the campaign: obliterating Iran’s missiles and production capability, annihilating its navy, severing support for terrorist proxies, and ensuring Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon — goals that Vice President Vance described as the president’s “primary objective” from the outset.
Co-host Jessica Tarlov, who sparred with both Vance and Watters throughout the hour over what she said were bipartisan concerns about the deal’s terms — including its handling of ballistic missiles and the regime change question — conceded the nuclear destruction argument was structurally different from what existed in 2015, even as she pressed Vance on the specifics of the 60-day compliance window and the money tied to Gulf nation investment funds.
For Watters, however, the bottom line was already written. The Obama deal, he said, was a road that could lead to a nuclear Iran. The Trump approach, in his assessment, already took the road itself off the map.