Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s jobs may be at stake if they continue to oppose President Donald Trump’s Iran deal, a senior White House official warned.
The threat emerged in a report published Sunday by the right-leaning Israeli daily Israel Hayom, which detailed a bitter internal White House battle over the emerging memorandum of understanding with Tehran.
“The debate has been settled. Those who oppose it may pay a personal price,” a senior US official told the outlet.
According to the report, Vice President JD Vance, envoy Steve Witkoff, and Trump envoy Jared Kushner have driven the push for a deal, arguing the Iranian regime is unlikely to collapse soon and that Gulf states — particularly Qatar — have pressed hard for an agreement.
Rubio and Hegseth argued the opposite: that Iran is buckling under economic pressure and Washington should tighten the screws, not ease them. The two men had been the public faces of that harder line — touting “Project Freedom,” a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force, only for Trump to shelve it hours after they publicly praised it.
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