Obama Claims His Iran Deal Stopped a Bomb as He Mocks Hegseth in Ohio

Former President Barack Obama returned to Ohio on Saturday to campaign for Democrats Sherrod Brown and Amy Acton, and he used the stage in Cleveland to argue that his 2015 nuclear deal had kept Iran from a bomb without a shot being fired, according to Just The News.

“Iran didn’t have nuclear weapons because I had put a deal in place and I didn’t have to fire a missile to do it. I just had to engage in diplomacy,” Obama said at the rally, as reported by Just The News. He called the Iran war one of several “bad decisions” by President Trump and told the crowd that “everything is more expensive now,” blaming the administration’s actions for rising costs, the outlet reported.

OBAMA: Iran didn't have nuclear weapons because I had put a deal in place and I didn't have to fire a missile to do it. I just had to engage in diplomacy. pic.twitter.com/gpbVnmNIpi

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 24, 2026

The rally at Cleveland Public Auditorium was Obama’s first trip to the Buckeye State since 2018, according to the Washington Examiner. The Examiner described the stop as an effort to boost Democrats down the ballot in a battleground state. Brown is challenging Republican Sen. Jon Husted, according to C-SPAN, and Acton is the Democratic nominee for governor, Just The News reported.

Obama turns his fire on Hegseth

Obama also went after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth by name. “How much time do you think this Defense Secretary spends looking at himself in the mirror in the morning?” Obama asked, according to video of the remarks posted on X. In the same clip, he accused Hegseth of focusing on troops’ fitness while the Iran conflict continues.

Hegseth, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, has opposed Obama’s deal for more than a decade. The Independent reported that as early as 2014 he criticized the agreement on Fox News, and later called it a “horrific” deal that created “an inevitable path to nuclear weapons.”

What the deal actually said

Obama’s claim that diplomacy alone solved the problem leaves out how the agreement was built. In his own August 2015 speech defending the deal, archived on the Obama White House website, Obama said Iran would not enrich uranium with its more advanced centrifuges “for the next decade,” would not enrich at the underground Fordow site “for at least 15 years,” and would keep its enriched uranium stockpile down “for the next 15 years.”

Those were time limits, not permanent bans, by Obama’s own description. Hegseth argued for years that the deal put Iran on a path to nuclear weapons while funding the regime with billions of dollars, according to The Independent’s review of his past remarks. President Trump withdrew the United States from the deal during his first term, The Independent noted.

For Republicans, Obama’s appearance is a reminder of where the Iran debate started. The former president who negotiated a deal with expiration dates is now on the campaign trail attacking the administration dealing with what came after it.

Sources

• Just The News: Obama campaigns with Acton, Brown in Cleveland
• Washington Examiner: Obama holds Ohio rally
• Obama White House archive: Remarks on the Iran nuclear deal (Aug. 5, 2015)
• The Independent: Hegseth’s record on Iran
• C-SPAN on X: Brown on Husted
• Video on X: Obama on Hegseth

Reporting by Daily Beltway.