House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wasted no time Wednesday morning responding to the overnight breakdown of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement, firing off a pointed post on X that framed the latest military escalation as proof positive that President Donald Trump’s Iran policy has been a failure from the start.
“The so-called ceasefire in the Middle East has collapsed. Again. Donald Trump’s reckless war of choice in Iran has been a disaster,” Jeffries wrote at 7:45 AM ET on July 8, 2026 — just hours after the most intense exchange of U.S. and Iranian strikes since a memorandum of understanding was signed between the two countries in June.
The Ceasefire That Wasn’t
The collapse came after a chaotic Tuesday night and Wednesday morning that saw Donald Trump announce massive and ongoing military operations targeting Iran for what the administration described as violations of the June 17 ceasefire framework. U.S. Central Command confirmed it launched strikes in response to attacks on three tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, with Iranian state media reporting eight members of its military were killed in strikes on Bandar Abbas and Bushehr in southern Iran. Iran responded Wednesday by targeting U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait.
Speaking at the NATO summit in Turkey on Wednesday, Trump made clear where he stood. “I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them any more, they’re scum… they’re led by sick people and they’re vicious, violent people,” Trump told reporters. “We make a deal… They go outside, talk to the press, they say ‘we never even talked about it.’ There’s something wrong with them. They’re cuckoo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”
The June Deal and Its 14 Points
The agreement that now appears to be unraveling — known as a memorandum of understanding — was signed on June 17 and included 14 points, among them a 60-day ceasefire period during which negotiations would continue, safe passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, and the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil sales. Both sides had agreed to an “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts,” and Iran committed to using its “best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels.” Peace talks had continued after the signing but were paused for funeral ceremonies for the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran. Iran’s parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf accused the U.S. of breaching the MoU, saying, “The era of bullying and extortion is over. It leads nowhere. We don’t fold.”
Jeffries’s Opposition: A Pattern Since February
Wednesday’s post was the latest in a sustained campaign by Jeffries against what he has consistently called Trump’s “war of choice.” When Trump announced the start of massive military operations against Iran in late February, Jeffries immediately challenged the administration’s legal authority, arguing that the Constitution gives Congress alone the power to declare war and that “the Trump administration must seek authorization for the preemptive use of military force.” He argued at the time that the president’s decision to “abandon diplomacy and launch a massive military attack has left American troops vulnerable to Iran’s retaliatory actions.”
Just days after the initial strikes, Jeffries appeared on CNN and said the U.S. was “seeing the beginning of an all-out war in the Middle East,” questioning the entire strategic rationale behind the campaign. “I don’t even understand the justification for what is taking place,” he said.
“Operation Epic Failure”
In a statement released in late June, Jeffries escalated his rhetoric further, declaring that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had “plunged America into Operation Epic Failure with no objective, strategy or support.” He cited costs of billions in taxpayer dollars, the deaths of 13 U.S. servicemembers, regional instability, and rising costs of living at home as evidence of the war’s toll. The statement came in response to a Trump administration request for more than $70 billion in additional taxpayer funding for the conflict. “The Trump administration cannot be trusted with another dime connected to the war,” Jeffries said.
Calling Out the Ceasefire Rhetoric Before It Collapsed
Even before the latest breakdown, Jeffries had been skeptical of the peace process. Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in mid-June, Jeffries questioned whether any deal would actually materialize, pointing out that Trump had claimed a deal was imminent “38 or 39 different times during the course of this war” without one ever being reached. “Donald Trump then enters us into this reckless and costly war of choice, and the question that the American people are understandably asking is how has this in any way made things better?” Jeffries said at the time. “Gas prices are through the roof, Iran is stronger now — not weaker — and the American people are less safe.”
Jeffries also repeatedly traced the conflict back to Trump’s decision to abandon the 2015 Iran nuclear deal brokered under President Barack Obama. “Donald Trump recklessly ripped that agreement up and took us to war,” Jeffries said, calling the conflict “a war of choice.”
Calling on Republicans to “Stop the Madness”
In April, as tensions escalated sharply, Jeffries went further, calling on Republican members of Congress to “stop the madness” and warning that Trump risked plunging the country into World War III. “Congress must immediately end this reckless war of choice in Iran before Donald Trump plunges us into World War III,” Jeffries wrote on X. “It’s time for every single Republican to put patriotic duty over party and stop the madness.”
Trump at NATO: No Desire to Negotiate
Back at the NATO summit Wednesday, Trump showed little appetite for resuming diplomacy. When asked about further negotiations, his response was blunt: “I don’t care. Frankly, I don’t want to waste my time with them. Now, I’ll let our wonderful negotiators keep talking if they want, but I don’t see it.” He referenced special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner as negotiators who could continue talks “if they want” but framed it as a low priority. Despite the hardline language, Trump told reporters he did not think the Iran war would restart in full, saying “anything that happens will be over quickly.” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte backed the U.S. position at the summit, describing American strikes as “absolutely necessary” and saying Iran was “basically violating the ceasefire.”
Iran Fires Back
Iranian officials were swift in their response to Trump’s comments. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi answered Trump’s “scum” remarks directly on X, writing: “We do not answer vulgarity with vulgarity, but with action: fearlessly and with great valour.” A senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader warned that any new U.S. strikes would be met with “an immediate response,” while Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Trump’s posture was “not a sign of strength, but rather an admission of the failure of a policy built on brute force, sanctions, and threats.” Oil prices rose following Trump’s public comments, though they remained below the peaks seen during the full closure of the Strait of Hormuz earlier in the conflict.
Where Things Stand
With Trump declaring the deal “over,” Iran launching retaliatory strikes on U.S. bases in the region, and peace talks on indefinite pause amid funeral ceremonies in Iran and Iraq for Khamenei — whose final burial rites are set for Mashhad on Thursday — the path back to a negotiated ceasefire remains deeply uncertain. For Jeffries, the overnight collapse was not a surprise. It was, as his Wednesday morning post made clear, simply the latest chapter in what he has argued from the very beginning is a war that should never have been fought.