Ben Shapiro: “We'll wait to see the MOU. I will say that the early returns do not look wildly promising at this point.”
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From the June 16, 2026, edition of The Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show
BEN SHAPIRO (HOST): If this report is correct, the United States gave the go-ahead while this embargo was happening. It approved a financial and maritime arrangement between Qatar and Iran, under which billions of dollars were paid to Tehran in exchange for free passage for Qatari tankers and ships through the Strait Of Hormuz.
So in other words, if this report is correct, the United States gave the go-ahead while this embargo was happening to allow Qatar to bribe Iran to take its ships out. What great allies the Qataris are. According to Israel Hayom, this was a deliberate and conscious course of action by the US administration, which allowed its navy to turn a blind eye to the arrangement in complete contradiction to its declared policy. The move is intended to ease the crisis in global energy markets and curb rising oil prices. The secret US approval, which the sources said was granted about a month ago, dovetailed with Qatar's interest in opening a direct channel of communication with Tehran. Again, Qatar has been the go-between along with Pakistan. So you have an Iranian cutout and you have a Chinese cutout in Pakistan negotiating this deal. While the UAE and Saudi were being hit by missiles and UAV attacks, Qatar assisted Iran financially and remained completely protected.
Now a senior official briefing the assembled media. According to Adam Kredo of the Free Beacon, this is almost certainly the VP, who is calling himself senior official for purposes of media coverage, said, quote, we are prepared to release frozen funds, and we are prepared to release sanctions. And we'll do some small gestures of that in the beginning if they make some small gestures to us that show they're willing to meet their commitments as well. So, these will be kind of small antis to kind of see the cards, but that'll be based on performance, and we're going to get together this week and talk about that. OK.
So just to go back to the five standards of a good deal versus a bad deal. A bad deal would look like continued nuclear development. A bad deal would look like continued ballistic missile development. A bad deal would look like funding of terrorism abroad continuing. A bad deal would look like continued Iranian control over the strait and tolling of the strait. And a bad deal will look like more funding going into Iran. So we'll wait to see the MOU. I will say that the early returns do not look wildly promising at this point.
Now the administration, in an attempt to say that this is not like Barack Obama's JCPOA, because, of course, the president hates Barack Obama's JCPOA. That is the dumb Iran deal that Obama signed. The administration says this is way better than the JCPOA. The vice president, JD Vance, says it's not at all like the JCPOA because the Gulf states like this deal. I'd love to hear that from the Gulf states when they are not under the direct missile fire of the Iranians as the United States prepares to pull out.