WASHINGTON — The terms of a deal to end President Trump’s war with Iran remained a secret on Monday as both sides claimed victory and the months-long conflict reached a nebulous end.

The memorandum of understanding, providing a rough framework to conclude the war, was signed digitally Sunday, with a ceremony scheduled to take place on Friday in Switzerland, U.S. officials said.

Trump hailed the document as a breakthrough after months of negotiations. Yet its broad contours remained unclear more than a day after the deal was announced, as each side offered conflicting public messaging about what had been agreed.

Iran said it would continue regulating traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic paradigm shift from the prewar status quo that was denied by the White House. The two sides expressed disagreement over whether the status of Iran’s ballistic missile program would be addressed in future negotiations, or whether Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon was a part of the deal.

And Trump administration officials rejected Iranian claims that the United States would provide immediate sanctions relief as misleading “spin.”

Hours later, another U.S. official suggested that Iran, in fact, might receive some relief at the front end.

“We are prepared to release frozen funds, and we are prepared to release sanctions,” a senior U.S. official told reporters on a call. “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.

“We’ll know over the next two to three weeks whether those understandings will turn into actual agreement,” the official added.

Trump started the war in February citing Iran’s nuclear program, which had expanded after he withdrew from a prior nuclear agreement negotiated by President Obama. That deal capped more than two years of intensive diplomacy but ultimately failed under the weight of political criticism from Republicans — led by Trump — over its inclusion of sanctions relief for Tehran.

Trump administration officials said the new agreement would include a commitment from Iran not to develop or purchase nuclear weapons — a vow the Islamic Republic has repeatedly made through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Obama-era deal and a religious edict from the late supreme leader. Yet the enforcement mechanisms for policing Iran’s nuclear work were left to negotiate another day.

Iran could get sanctions relief

In an interview with CBS News, Vice President JD Vance acknowledged that Iran could get significant sanctions relief — and up to $300 billion in reconstruction funds — if they abide by U.S. terms, such as the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important commercial waterways.

“Our expectation is that the strait is going to be opened in a toll-free way for the long term, and that’s the sort of thing that we’re going to figure out in these technical negotiations,” Vance said.

In a separate interview, he described the president’s policy as “extending an open hand” to Tehran.

“The hard-liners of the Iranian system will overemphasize the benefits that Iran gets,” he added, “while underemphasizing all the things that they have to concede, and all the things that they have to provide, in order to get these benefits.”

Uncertainty across the region

The news of peace came with a sense of bewilderment and uncertainty in a region that suffered collateral damage through months of war.

Sunni Arab states that once hoped Iran would emerge weakened from the war issued tepid support for an agreement that could ultimately leave the fate of their oil exports at the whims of an emboldened adversary. And Israeli leaders, across the political aisle, expressed deep concerns over the deal in private, warning they would not be bound by an agreement to which they were not a party.

Israel’s decisions moving forward — particularly in Lebanon— may ultimately decide whether the agreement survives over the next 60 days, when Washington and Tehran plan on ironing out its more technical details.

Hours after word of the signing came out, a stream of cars crowded the highway leading to southern Lebanon, full of displaced families desperate to check on homes and villages they hadn’t seen for more than 100 days.

They did so in defiance of Lebanese officials, who called on people to remain where they were until an official end to war in Lebanon — a secondary front in the larger U.S.-Israel war on Iran that has nevertheless seen staggering levels of destruction.

In the more than three months since the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah attacked Israel, nearly 3,800 people have been killed, and almost a quarter of the country’s 6 million people are displaced. Israeli troops occupy more than 10% of Lebanese territory, leaving a trail of destruction that has seen swaths of the country’s south all but razed.

‘Everything is gone’

None of that discouraged Hassan Shareef from leaving where he was staying in Beirut at 7 a.m. to head to Nabatieh, one of south Lebanon’s largest cities and a frequent target of Israeli strikes in recent weeks, to check on his tailoring business.

“I wasn’t afraid. I had to come. But what I saw would make you cry,” he said. “Everything is gone. My house, I can’t live in it. And the business is destroyed.”

Aqeel Khalaf, an herbalist, hit the road in the early morning with his brother, son and daughter-in-law. They reached Nabatieh in two hours.

Yet it was less of a homecoming than Khalaf hoped: Israeli troops were still stationed near his village, a few miles down the road from where he stood in Nabatieh’s central market. Their house was tantalizingly close, but for the moment it might as well have been on the moon.

“It’s hard for me, but the Lebanese army told us we can’t go yet. We have no choice,” Khalaf said. “Maybe in 24 hours, when things crystallize with the deal.”

He could at least check on his shop here in the central market, though he already knew there would be damage: The family regularly checked satellite images of the area and saw the building was hit about a week ago.

Standing before it, Khalaf saw how the wall of the adjacent building had toppled onto the ground floor, flooding the shop with rubble and coating everything with a film of fine gray dust. A nearby blast had collapsed the roof.

“Nabatieh was hit very hard this time,” he said. Still, he could salvage something, he said, pointing to his son as he fished out boxes of herbal treatments from under the rubble.

Two ceasefires in the last two months, forged during U.S.-led talks between the Lebanese and Israeli governments but without Hezbollah’s or Iran’s involvement, were broken as soon as they were announced. A previous ceasefire from November 2024 saw Hezbollah stop all attacks while Israel continued military operations in south Lebanon.

This iteration of the truce appeared to have more success: On Monday, Hezbollah launched no missiles but announced an attack on an Israeli force to stop its advance; and the Israeli military mostly stayed its fire as well, barring a number of shelling incidents and a drone strike on a car in the village of Kfar Tebnit that injured a journalist and killed one person, according to Lebanese media.

Obstacles to a durable peace

Lebanese army units, meanwhile, deployed in parts of the south, barring motorists from reaching areas near Israeli troops. Lebanon’s army remained on the sidelines during the war, but 30 soldiers, including a general, having been killed in Israeli attacks since March 2. Hezbollah attacks killed at least 30 Israeli soldiers and one civilian contractor.

Obstacles to a more durable peace remain. Israeli officials insist on freedom of action against Hezbollah, and they will create a so-called security zone in Lebanon indefinitely so to protect Israel’s northern border. For its part, Hezbollah says it will respond to any attack and will continue fighting until Israel withdraws.

Though the truce appeared to be holding for now, Khalaf, who had raced to reopen his Nabatieh shop after the 2024 ceasefire, was waiting this time. For now, he would take what stock he could and open a shop in Sidon or Beirut.

“We have to work and feed our families. But the damage is too much this time. I’ll come back when things are better,” he said. “And my home too. When I get to see it, even if it’s a mound of rubble, I’ll pitch a tent on it and rebuild.”

Wilner reported from Washington and Bulos from Nabatieh.

Former Secretary of State and failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Monday night trashed former president Joe Biden for his decision to run for reelection in 2024.

“He made a terrible mistake,” Clinton said in an interview with David Remnick of 92NY. “He made a terrible mistake for himself, his legacy and for the country.”

It furthers the Democrats’ narrative shift over Biden’s health and his decision to seek a second term after former First Lady Jill Biden last month revealed she worried her husband was having a stroke on stage during his June 2024 debate with President Donald Trump.

Clinton is now bashing her one-time ally by claiming he went back on his word and insisting that former Vice President Kamala Harris would have had a chance to win if she was the candidate from the get-go.

“He had said that he would not run again, and you know, counterfactual narratives are always a bit tricky, but I believe that if he had kept to that plan and said in say, the late summer of ’23, that he wasn’t going to run, that he was going to pass the torch to the next generation we would’ve had a real contest,” Clinton said in her sit-down in Manhattan this week.

Biden exited the presidential race in late July 2024, a few weeks after a disastrous debate display led to left-wing commentators calling for him to step down. The Democratic Party then installed then-VP Harris as its presidential nominee without a primary vote.

“Very sadly, I believe that whoever emerged from the contest, whether it was the vice president or a governor or a senator or anybody else, would have beaten Donald Trump,” Clinton retroactively speculated.

“So I think it was a terrible miscalculation on the part of President Biden, but once he didn’t move and did not admit that he had said he was going to step aside and decided not to, and held on for as long as he did, we were in a terrible dilemma.”

DEMOCRAT WHO RAN AGAINST BIDEN SAYS PRESIDENT’S DECISION TO SEEK RE-ELECTION ‘SEALED’ WIN FOR TRUMP

Clinton never voiced any concerns about Biden’s reelection bid while it was ongoing.

In fact, on June 28, 2024, the day after Biden’s comatose debate performance, she maintained her support for him in a post on X.

FORMER OBAMA ADVISORS TELL ‘THE VIEW’ DEMS HURT PARTY BY TAKING TOO LONG TO ADMIT BIDEN COULDN’T WIN

“The choice in this election remains very simple,” she said at the time. “It’s a choice between someone who cares about you—your rights, your prospects, your future—versus someone who’s only in it for himself. I’ll be voting Biden.”

She spent all of 2024 propping Biden up before his abrupt decision to hand the reins over to Harris.

“We don’t have to wonder what this year’s presidential contenders would do in office,” she said in a post on June 19, 2024. “When it comes to immigration, President Biden keeps families together while strengthening our economy. Donald Trump ripped families apart. Vote accordingly.”

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In January of that year, she was actively encouraging people to support Biden in the name of democracy.

“After Iowa, we’re one step closer to knowing who the Republicans will nominate for president. But no matter who they choose, we’re in a fight for reproductive freedom and democracy that we can’t afford to lose. Join Team Biden-Harris today,” she said.

Fox News Digital did not hear back from a Biden spokesperson when reached for comment on Clinton’s recent remarks.

Today, we discuss political jockeying, litigation and Hail Mary passes.

There’s so much going on these days …

Indeed.

Between the war with Iran, the World Cup and President Trump slapping his filigreed (emphasis greed) name on everything in sight, I’ve completely lost track of the fight for control of Congress.

Well, now that the California gubernatorial primary is in the rear view, let’s catch up. The midterm election is not until November, of course. But a fierce political competition, aimed at skewing the result, has been underway since last summer.

It started in Texas, where Trump strong-armed Republican lawmakers into redrawing their congressional map in hopes of boosting the GOP’s chances of keeping control of the House. That led California voters to pass an eye-for-an-eye measure aimed at boosting Democratic prospects.

Other states joined the skirmishing, capped by Virginia, where voters in April approved new political lines aimed at netting Democrats as many as four additional seats.

For a short time, it looked as though Trump’s move had backfired and Democrats might actually come out ahead, at least on paper, by a seat or two.

And then?

And then the courts stepped in.

In a 4-3 decision in May, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down the state’s new congressional map, ruling that the Democratic-run legislature had violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional measure on the ballot.

But the more significant legal decision came a week prior, when the U.S. Supreme Court nullified a major part of the federal Voting Rights Act, freeing several Southern states to hastily redraw a number of congressional districts to Republicans’ advantage.

What’s the bottom line?

It looks as though the GOP has come out ahead, but not by more than a handful of seats, give or take. It’s important to note that all that cartographic competition offers no guarantee of success.

“Cartographic competition?”

Those gerrymandered maps were drawn for the express purpose of helping out one party or the other, but the partisan manipulation doesn’t make all those redrawn districts a lock come November.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs legislation calling for a special election to redraw the state’s congressional map

(Godofredo A. Vasquez / Associated Press)

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In California, for instance, the Central Valley seat held by Republican David Valadao — a perennial Democratic target — remains highly competitive. In Texas, GOP lawmakers redrew their map assuming the substantial Latino support that Trump enjoyed in 2024 would carry over to Republican candidates in this year’s midterm election. That seems increasingly less likely, given shifting Latino attitudes, which means at least two of those redrawn Texas seats are more competitive than Republicans would like.

Bottom line, where does that leave things in the fight for control of the House?

There are no certainties …

… Beyond death and taxes. Understood.

It still seems more likely than not that Democrats will win the House in November.

They just need to gain three seats. Going back more than half a century, the out party (which is to say the one not in the White House) has gained an average of more than two dozen House seats in the midterm election. So Democrats have that going for them.

President Trump kicked off a redistricting battle by strong-arming Texas into redrawing its congressional map.

(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)

Also, more significantly, Trump’s approval ratings — in a word — stink. There’s a very strong correlation between a president’s standing in polls and his party’s performance, given midterm elections are almost always a referendum on the party in the White House. Since disgruntled voters are more likely to turn out, that means the out party typically gains seats.

“It would be one thing if Republicans were trying to buck a historical trend and they were doing so strengthened by a popular Republican president,” said Jacob Rubashkin, an analyst with the authoritative nonpartisan political guide Inside Elections. “But that’s simply not the case. … [Trump] is less popular than any president heading into a midterm election in a very long time.”

What about control of the Senate?

Advantage Republicans.

How so?

Part of it is straight-up math. Democrats need to flip four seats. There are 35 Senate races being decided this fall, but only 10 or so are even remotely competitive. Nearly all are in states that Trump carried.

That said, things are looking up considerably for Democrats from where they were a few months ago.

Oh?

There’s much less correlation between presidential approval and the outcome of Senate races. Still, Trump is putting up some pretty strong headwinds that Republicans will have to overcome this fall, including in battleground states such as Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina. (His gaseous effusions — “I love the inflation,” “Affordability is a con job” — are not helpful, to put it mildly, when gasoline and hamburger are costing hard-pressed voters an arm and a leg, respectively.)

And Democrats have done about as well as they could have hoped in landing their preferred candidates in the Republican-leaning states of Alaska, Ohio and Iowa, making those contests far more competitive than they would have been.

What about Maine?

That started out as Democrats’ top target this election cycle. Five-term incumbent Susan Collins has the distinction of being the only Republican senator running in a state that Kamala Harris won. The race is still considered a toss-up.

But the nomination of Graham Platner, an oyster farmer and Marine Corps veteran with a history that is, um, problematic — a tattoo resembling a Nazi SS symbol he did or did not apprehend; extramarital sexting; coarse online commentary — could turn the race into more of a referendum on the Democrat than either Trump or Collins.

And Texas?

You mean the boneyard of Democratic dreams?

It’s been decades since the party won a statewide race in Texas, despite all manner of attempts. (The “dream team” of a white/Black/Latino slate; the streaking-comet candidacies of Beto O’Rourke and Wendy Davis, who both flamed out short of victory.)

Democrats are giddy again, this time over 37-year-old state Sen. James Talarico, who’s built a national following with his telegenic, Christian-infused progressive platform. More pertinent, he’s running against a singularly flawed Republican nominee, state Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, whose dubious resume is muddied with a felony indictment, impeachment by the GOP-run Texas House and allegations of repeated adultery.

Still, it’s Texas. Electing Talarico would be like connecting on one of those last-second, desperation, alley-oop passes in the end zone. Not impossible.

But don’t bet the ranch.