U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) took to social media Saturday morning to lay blame squarely at President Donald Trump’s feet after Iran’s military command announced it was again shutting the Strait of Hormuz — a critical global energy corridor — citing ongoing Israeli strikes in Lebanon that Murphy says the president had agreed to stop but never actually secured a commitment to do so. The post landed at 11:08 a.m. and cut to the core of what Murphy has argued for months: that the Trump administration is conducting foreign policy defined by incompetence, deception, and broken promises.
Murphy’s post on Saturday, June 20, came directly in response to a breaking news alert that read: “BREAKING: Iran’s joint military command says that the Strait of Hormuz is closed again and cites Israeli attacks in Lebanon.” His response was blunt and unsparing.
“The continuing price of Trump’s incompetence,” Murphy wrote. “Trump signed a ‘deal’ that was contingent on Israel ending its disastrous war in Lebanon and apparently he didn’t check that with Israel.”
The Deal and What It Required
The post was a direct reference to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, a 14-point agreement signed on Wednesday, June 18, by President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to end the nearly four-month military conflict between the two nations. The White House formally transmitted the text of the MOU to Congress on Thursday, June 18. The deal’s first and most foundational clause called for “the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” and explicitly addressed Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The agreement further required, under Point 5, that Iran make arrangements for the safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, with maritime traffic expected to be fully restored within 30 days. The United States, in turn, committed under Point 4 to begin lifting its naval blockade immediately upon signing, with full removal within 30 days. Sixty days of formal negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program and other issues were contingent on the Lebanon fighting ceasing — a condition that began unraveling almost immediately.
Ceasefire in Name Only
A U.S. official had confirmed a Lebanon ceasefire took effect at 4 p.m. local time on Friday, June 19, with both Israeli and Hezbollah sources acknowledging the agreement to Reuters. But within hours, the truce was in tatters. Lebanese Civil Defence reported that 20 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Saturday alone, hours after the ceasefire was said to be in force. Lebanon’s state news agency reported Israeli warplanes and drones striking locations across southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley — both Hezbollah strongholds — through the night.
An Israeli military official confirmed that Hezbollah fired more than 50 projectiles at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon overnight, and that Israel responded with strikes on what it described as Hezbollah targets. Israel’s Channel 12 reported that the prime minister and defense minister had instructed the military to hold fire, but that Israeli forces would not withdraw from areas they had already captured. Israel, which was not a party to the U.S.-Iran negotiations, has stated publicly it does not consider itself bound by the deal.
Iran’s Response: Strait Closes Again
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared the Strait of Hormuz shut on Saturday, warning ships not to approach the waterway and citing Israeli “crimes” in Lebanon and what it called a U.S. violation of its commitments under the MOU. Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, accused the United States on the social platform X of failing to implement the deal’s first clause — the ceasefire on all fronts. He said that as long as the agreement remained only on paper, Middle East energy flows would remain halted.
U.S. Central Command pushed back, stating that 55 merchant ships had transited the Strait on Saturday, carrying large amounts of cargo and more than 17 million barrels of oil, and that U.S. forces would ensure free passage continued. Vice President JD Vance, in an interview with Fox News, said he was confident the ceasefire agreed to in Washington’s 14-point deal would hold and that he had seen no evidence the strait was closed. “My understanding, talking to Jared and Steve this morning, is things are going well,” Vance said, referring to Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who had been in Switzerland handling technical elements of the negotiation.
Murphy’s Long Record of Opposition
Saturday’s post was not an isolated comment but the latest in a months-long campaign by Murphy to document what he characterizes as the president’s catastrophic mismanagement of the war. Murphy had been one of the conflict’s most persistent critics since U.S. forces first struck Iran in early March 2026, and his criticisms have grown sharper with each failed ceasefire attempt, each contradicted claim, and each new development on the ground.
In an April 1 statement, Murphy reacted to a primetime White House address on the Iran conflict with a withering assessment: “That speech was grounded in a reality that only exists in Donald Trump’s mind. We are losing this war. We cannot destroy all their missiles or drones, nor their nuclear program. Iran projects more power in the region than they did before the war, especially if they now permanently control the Strait of Hormuz.”
By April 22, Murphy took to the floor of the U.S. Senate in support of a War Powers Resolution to force an end to the conflict, delivering a detailed chronology of what he called the administration’s cascading failures. “We essentially have a talkshow host and a couple of real estate developers who are in charge of our war strategy,” Murphy said. “The president and his negotiators arguing in public with each other. The president literally deciding by the hour whether his son-in-law is in charge of the negotiations or whether the vice president is in charge of the negotiations. The president lying consistently about the nature of the negotiations, saying things that have been agreed to that clearly have not been agreed to, helping the Iranians blockade the Strait. We’ve never seen a foreign conflict mismanaged in public like this before.”
“Essentially Surrender” — Murphy on the MOU Itself
Even before the ceasefire began to collapse, Murphy had characterized the Islamabad MOU in stark terms. “Now, I will support that surrender, because this crowd of incompetent national security leaders is making the situation worse every day,” Murphy told NOTUS, making clear he viewed backing the deal as the lesser of evils rather than an endorsement of the president’s handling of the conflict.
Murphy also pushed back sharply on claims the Trump administration made about the deal’s nuclear provisions. In an X post days before Saturday, he wrote: “This is not part of the agreement. He is making this up. Iran agrees to give up NOTHING on their nuclear program in this deal.” It was consistent with Murphy’s broader argument that the president had been misleading the public about what had and had not been agreed to throughout the months of negotiations.
Calls for Republican Action
Throughout the conflict, Murphy has directed pointed appeals not only at the administration but at his Republican colleagues, urging them to break with the president and join Democrats in ending what he called an illegal war launched without congressional authorization. “I understand many of my Republican colleagues want to support their president, but we are becoming a laughingstock in the world,” Murphy said during his April Senate floor speech. “It is time for my Republican colleagues to join us in one of these resolutions, because it is so clear that if this war continues, even for another day, the reputational cost to the United States is potentially unrecoverable.”
On May 19, Murphy spoke alongside Senate Democratic colleagues as they advanced a War Powers Resolution to end the Iran War, and in early June he questioned Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a Foreign Relations Committee hearing, demanding clarity on how the administration planned to reopen the Strait and bring down prices for American families.
Talks Continue as Fighting Does the Same
Despite the immediate turbulence, the diplomatic process moved forward Saturday. A high-level Iranian delegation departed for Switzerland, led by chief negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and including Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi along with senior security, central bank, and oil officials. Vance indicated he would follow in the coming days to lead the American side of what the MOU describes as a 60-day window to finalize a comprehensive deal covering nuclear weapons, sanctions relief, frozen assets, and the permanent administration of the Strait of Hormuz.
But as diplomats prepared to meet in Switzerland, the situation on the ground remained exactly what Murphy’s Saturday post described — the continuing price, in his words, of a president who signed a deal before ensuring all its parties were actually on board. Lebanon’s health ministry has reported more than 4,000 people killed in Israeli strikes since March, and the question of who controls the terms of any ceasefire there — and who actually agreed to them — remains, as of Saturday, unanswered.