Secretary of State Marco Rubio scrambled for a printer inside the Palace of Versailles after President Donald Trump went to the sign his Iran deal — without bringing a copy with him.
A new report sheds light on the chaotic behind-the-scenes details of how the historic agreement came together.
According to Agence France-Presse, Trump decided to sign at a candlelit dinner in Versailles "quite spontaneously" — the text hadn't even been printed, leaving Rubio to hunt down a printer somewhere inside the grand palace.
When Trump finally put pen to paper, he used a fat black marker, the crockery still on the table after a dinner of lobster and caviar.
The deal itself had been announced three days earlier — on Trump's 80th birthday, June 14 — while he was still in Washington, celebrating by watching MMA cage fights at the White House.
The signing venue had shifted multiple times. French President Emmanuel Macron had said the deal had already been signed "electronically."
It had then been expected that Vice President JD Vance would formalize it with top Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf in Switzerland. Trump then muddied the waters by saying it would be signed "tomorrow, maybe the next day" — before simply signing it himself at the Versailles dinner, reportedly impressed by the palace's "golden splendor."
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed his own copy in a parallel move, with Iranian news agencies showing him brandishing the document for the cameras.
The follow-on talks at the luxury Bürgenstock resort in Switzerland — a mountaintop complex where hotel guests had reportedly been quietly asked to leave — were postponed at the last minute, reportedly due to Israeli military action against Hezbollah in Lebanon late Thursday.
Journalists waiting on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base to fly to the meeting with Vice President JD Vance received a terse message: the vice president wasn't leaving that evening.
Iran said Friday there was now "no urgency," but that it was "planning to hold a meeting in the coming days."