President Donald Trump blasted past U.S. administrations’ handling of Iran during a Monday morning appearance on “FOX & Friends,” specifically targeting the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated under President Barack Obama.
In an interview with host Lawrence Jones regarding recent Iranian actions in the Strait of Hormuz, Trump stated that the geopolitical issue should have been resolved decades ago.
“This should have been done 47 years ago. It shouldn’t have been allowed,” Trump said, adding that “Clinton and Bush let them go. Everybody let them go.”
Trump directed his sharpest criticism toward the Obama administration’s diplomatic strategy and the 2015 nuclear deal, from which the U.S. later withdrew during Trump’s presidency.
“Obama was the worst of all. Obama went to their side, you know, because he’s—well, let’s not say. Let’s leave that for another time. He was terrible,” Trump said. He referenced a $1.7 billion cash settlement paid to Iran in 2016 to resolve a decades-old military equipment dispute, stating, “He gave them $1.7 billion in green cash, in satchels, on an airplane, and brought it to Tehran… It took up an entire Boeing 757.”
Trump also criticized former President Joe Biden’s role as vice president during those negotiations, calling him “a stupid person” who “probably had nothing to say.”
Discussing his own administration’s policy, Trump defended his decision to exit the JCPOA, describing it as “one of the top five worst agreements” signed by the United States.
“I held them down. I stopped them. The JCPOA—I stopped it,” Trump said. “It basically gave them everything, and they built and built and built… and they were minutes away from a nuclear weapon.”
When asked by Jones about reports of renewed Iranian maneuvers in the Strait of Hormuz, Trump dismissed the effectiveness of Iran’s diplomatic tactics, describing their representatives as “professional negotiators” who frequently alter agreed-upon terms.
“Everything was agreed to yesterday, and then they leave the room and they call back and say, ‘We had to make a couple of changes,'” Trump said. “I said, ‘They’re going to make changes? We’re not going to make changes.'”
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