Obama: US may be ‘worse off’ than before Iran war started

Administration Obama: US may be ‘worse off’ than before Iran war started Comments: by Sarah Davis - 06/19/26 12:21 PM ET Comments: Link copied by Sarah Davis - 06/19/26 12:21 PM ET Comments: Link copied

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Former President Obama issued sharp criticism of the Trump administration for its handling of the Iran war, citing the human and financial tolls in an interview that aired Friday morning.

“We’ve now fought a war, spent billions and billions of dollars, put an enormous strain on our military, a lot of people have died and it feels like we are back where we were before we started the war, except maybe a little worse off,” Obama said on “Today.”

Obama sat down with NBC News’s Craig Melvin ahead of the opening of his presidential library in Chicago. The center opened to the public Friday, following a star-studded ceremony Thursday.

The museum includes an exhibit on the Iran nuclear agreement brokered during Obama’s time in office, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Obama criticized President Trump’s decision to pull out of this agreement during his first term in 2018.

“I am very happy to see a ceasefire, and I am hopeful that it holds,” Obama said. “But in terms of what was the original rationale for this war, which was there was a deal in place in which Iran agreed not to develop nuclear weapons. This administration, or a prior administration, pulled out of it, which caused then Iran to develop more nuclear capacity.”

Trump signed a memorandum of understanding with Tehran on Wednesday, which sets the stage for more technical talks between the two sides to bring this conflict to a close and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil trading channel.

Some GOP lawmakers have questioned the effectiveness of this agreement, particularly provisions related to a $300 billion reconstruction fund and relieving sanctions on Iran. But most Republican lawmakers are not interested in a repeat of the Obama-era deal.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) told NewsNation on Thursday that she does not “want to see JCPOA 2.0.”

Trump said in a Thursday interview with Axios that the 14-point framework agreement achieved his stated goal of an “unconditional surrender” from Iran, despite the sanctions relief and reconstruction fund.

“We didn’t meet out of desperation, Iran did,” he wrote in a Friday morning Truth Social post. “They are FINISHED! We’ll play out the 60 days. They get no money, not ten cents!”

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