The following is the transcript of the interview with Mike Waltz, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on June 21, 2026.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re joined now by UN Ambassador Mike Waltz, who joins us from New York. Good morning, and happy Father’s Day.
UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS MICHAEL WALTZ: Hey, good morning. Thank you, and happy Father’s Day to all the great fathers out there. Strong men make strong families. Thanks
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, Ambassador, the war is unpopular, as you just heard, but how it ends matters as you know. CBS’s Olivia Gazis is reporting that senior members of Trump’s national security team, including Secretary Rubio, remain doubtful Iran will comply with this deal’s terms. The CIA director presented Trump with intelligence indicating inconsistencies with Iran’s commitments. So, if even the president’s own team doubts this is a win. How do you sell this to the public?
AMB. WALTZ: Well, Margaret, I’ll go back to other polling that shows that the American people absolutely agree with President Trump that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. Of course, we all want lower gas prices, they are lower, below $4 and falling with more work to do. They’re cheaper than under the Biden administration. We’ll remember just a few months ago when analysts were saying oil would be upwards of $150 to $200 dollars a barrel. And it is not- it’s now under $80. Of course, everyone wants cheaper energy, but what President Trump is doing is striking that balance with also ensuring that a genocidal regime that none of us trust can never have a nuclear weapon, and that process is underway right now as we speak.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the American people also don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we see that in our polling, but they’re unconvinced that this interim agreement achieves that. But, to the point you were just making about the regime, the Vice President is sitting right now behind closed doors, face to face with Speaker Ghalibaf. This is a man who oversaw the missile program in Iran when he was a commander in the IRGC Air Force. He has bragged, there are recordings of him doing so, about his own role in cracking down on protesters, describing how proud he was about having personally beaten them with wooden sticks. So, we went from President Trump telling protesters that help is on the way to now sitting across negotiating with one of the men who beat them. Aren’t we offering the regime a lifeline?
AMB. WALTZ: Well, number one, this is a step forward that no other administration has ever been able to do, and that’s have direct talks. None of these senior members of this genocidal regime are good guys by any means, they certainly wouldn’t pass an FBI background check. No one expects that. But, at the end of the day, the administration, our administration, is taking a pragmatic approach. This is who the regime has put forward to deal with, and they remain, and we remain focused on the goal of no nuclear weapons period. And what we’ve seen in the past is policy drift in terms of what our aims are. The President is laser focused, the American people, and not just the American people, the entire world, with UN Security Council resolution, after UN Security Council resolution for decades saying Iran can’t have a nuke, and we need to give this process a chance. We need to give peace a chance, and as the Vice President has said, perhaps we can finally turn the page to a new Middle East. Like President Trump did with the Abraham Accords his first term–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.
AMB. WALTZ: –let’s give this a chance his second term. But, Margaret, I want to be very clear, as Secretary Rubio said, we know the type of people that we’re dealing with. We have condemned them for killing 40 to 50 thousand of their own citizens in just a weekend.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.
AMB. WALTZ: They hold Americans hostage. They’ve never returned the remains of Bob Levinson, a former contractor from 20 years ago. We know who–
MARGARET BRENNAN: We have six Americans hostage right now.
(CROSSTALK)
AMB. WALTZ: –the difference with- but the difference with the Obama administration is going to be all about verification. No trust, and all verify whatever they put down on paper.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.
AMB. WALTZ: And we know- and the other piece, too, is it’s backed by credible military force that the previous administrations took off the table, removed their leverage. We are going in with a devastated Iranian economy, a devastated Iranian military, and perhaps with some carrots–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well–
AMB. WALTZ: –that will be verified and pay for perf- performance that we’ll see a better deal this time.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I know the families of hostages appreciate you mentioning them. Many were disappointed that their families were not included in any kind of goodwill gesture. There are six Americans being held, but back to the deal, the Vice President indicated some of the–
AMB. WALTZ: –Margaret, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, that’s a very important point. And I want those families to know their loved ones are not forgotten, and this president’s record in getting Americans home is unparalleled from any president in modern American history. So, I just want them to hear that loud and clear. This president has his eye on the ball.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well–
AMB. WALTZ: Sometimes these talks handle- are handled out of the public eye.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator Tom Cotton said this will allow Iran to sell its oil based on pre-war production levels. It will get between $150 and $200 million every single day, up to $6 billion per month. What do you think these guys are going to spend that money on?
AMB. WALTZ: Well, first, it’s that money is not going into some kind of slush fund.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s oil revenue.
AMB. WALTZ: It is going to places that we can still- we can still monitor. If it’s not going to the places that were agreed upon, we can absolutely turn it back off. The President can put the blockade back in. He just said this morning, if Iran doesn’t get Hezbollah under control to stop attacking Israel, that will be a violation, and he will go back to, again, the key point here is we have that military option, and all options on the table. Biden, Obama, none of the predecessors have that in a very credible way like President Trump does.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But the President himself says he wants to avert economic disaster, and that we’re weeks away from a fuel shortage, so he seems to be saying that he wouldn’t necessarily want to return to conflict if that’s the cost of it. So, the credible use of force seems in question.
(CROSSTALK)
AMB. WALTZ: But no, but there’s some nuance there, Margaret, that in the United States we are producing more than we ever have. Venezuela is now producing. Countries like Guyana in South America have whole new finds that we’re now helping. So, we’re actually getting more oil and gas on the market, but some of our allies absolutely have been affected, particularly in Asia, and the president has that in mind as he’s negotiating. But he also has seen in the UN, for example, the entire world condemning this regime, a UN record 143 countries for its illegal mining of the straits–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.
AMB. WALTZ: –and for its attempt to hold the world economy hostage. So they’re diplomatically isolated, they’re economically devastated, they’re militarily–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well–
AMB. WALTZ: –devastated, and despite what you read in the headlines, or some prognosticating, we are going into these negotiations from a position of strength.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the Vice President described rapprochement this morning, and he indicated that some of the details of what was agreed to are not written down. He referred to a gentleman’s agreement. That phrase was also briefed to reporters by an administration official. And here is what the president said.
(BEGIN VT)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: If they don’t honor the agreement, or some things aren’t even mentioned in the agreement, it’s a memorandum of understanding, but we have an understanding of certain things without writing it.
(END VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Are there classified annexes or portions of this that have not been made public, and will they be shared with Congress?
AMB. WALTZ: Margaret, not, not to my knowledge. And I’ll just go back to your point on–
MARGARET BRENNAN: What’s the Gentleman’s Agreement?
AMB. WALTZ: –what’s on paper, and what’s being discussed. This is- this is an ongoing negotiation that we’ve never before had directly with the Iranians. And I’ll just say this from a lot of, from a lot of the doubts that you played in your opening, this is the same team that got all of the hostages out of the tunnels of Gaza, that nobody said could be done. They got a cease fire in place, not perfect, that no one could- said could be done, that took care of the Maduro regime, he’s in jail right down the street here in New York with- with no casualties, and Venezuela now on a better track. So, I wouldn’t doubt this president or this team, and there’s going to be some bumps in the road for sure. No administration has been able to get this far from a position of strength–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.
AMB. WALTZ: –and so you know I have full confidence that we’ll get to a deal, and as the Vice President said, perhaps, perhaps give this a chance, and we can have a transformed Middle East. No one would have thought, even a year ago, that you’d have Israel and the UAE working together militarily to defend each other as a result of the next evolution of the Abraham Accords–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, they were kind of forced to. But also–
AMB. WALTZ: –we’re in day one of the technical talks, and- and Margaret, by the way, there are- there are technical experts from the Department of Energy that are sitting down right now to get to the bottom of the down blending, the moving of the uranium, the highly enriched uranium, and how that will technically be done. So we have to give that process a chance as well.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, that’s good to hear that the US has its own nuclear experts on site. The White House hadn’t said that. Is there anything else you can tell us? Who’s going to keep talking for 60 days?
(CROSSTALK)
AMB. WALTZ: Well, again, these are- these are our Department of Energy experts, our PhDs in physics, a lot smarter than- that I am, that are getting into those nitty gritty details, and- but the big picture is the president’s focus on Iran not having a nuclear program, and right now it’s destroyed, and if they- and we’re going to keep it destroyed–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well–
AMB. WALTZ: –and have it permanently destroyed, as opposed to the past, where it was ongoing, and we were basically bribing them to not continue.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well–
AMB. WALTZ: It’s a totally different negotiation dynamic.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, that stockpile was shipped to Russia and the JCPOA. There were limits. We want to see what limits these US negotiators are actually able to secure, and we’ll watch that diplomacy. Thank you very much, Ambassador Waltz.
