President Trump calls Obama a ‘stupid son of a b—h’ over Iran crisis
TheGrio...
Donald Trump claimed Iranians “laughed at Obama” as he defended his memorandum of understanding in a long and winding effort to end the U.S. war in Iran.
President Donald Trump continued his ongoing insults of Barack Obama while in France for the G7 Summit, calling America’s first Black president a “stupid son of a b—h” while criticizing Obama’s Iran deal as the mercurial president struggles to end the U.S. war in the Middle East that is costing Americans as much as $2 billion a day.
During a bilateral press conference with the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Trump told reporters his yet-to-be-released memorandum of understanding to end the war in Iran is “not final” and threatened to resume bombing Iran if they do not agree to his terms.
“If I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs on their head,” said the 80-year-old U.S. president.
Trump added, “Nobody could have made this deal,” before calling out President Obama, whose Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action has been hailed by foreign policy and national security experts as a strong and effective tool to prevent Iran’s military nuclear production.
Referring to a $1.7 billion cash transfer to Iran during the Obama administration, Trump said, “They tried to bribe their way out of it. And you know what the Iranians did? They laughed at Obama, and they said, ‘He’s a stupid son of a b—h.’”
The cash transfer was not a bribe, as Trump suggested, but rather the U.S. returning Iran’s own cash as part of Obama’s 2015 agreement. Due to strict international sanctions on Iran that, at the time, barred the country from accessing the standard global banking system, the Obama Treasury Department delivered the funds through foreign cash via plane.
Since Trump first launched strikes in Iran in February, he has repeatedly referenced Obama’s deal, blaming the 44th president for Iran’s nuclear threat. However, critics of Trump’s foreign policy in the region have noted that Trump’s decision to terminate the Obama deal in 2018 is to blame for nuclear concerns in Iran.
“President Obama was able to work with allies to put together one of the most comprehensive agreements to address the concerns and the needs [in Iran]….they were making some gains,” said Victor LaGroon, a U.S. Army veteran who worked as an intelligence analyst and a former Biden administration official. He told theGrio, “They worked with Iran to come up with several key components, which, by the way, Donald Trump got rid of, and now is seeking to rebuild the same thing.”
While Trump’s MOU with Iran has not been officially released, administration officials previewed components of the reported agreement, which seeks to help the U.S. and Iran reach a final deal to end the months-long conflict that has driven up global gas prices and U.S. inflation. According to Fox News, provisions include ending the U.S. blockade on Iran’s exports and a plan worth at least $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of Iran. An agreement on Iran’s nuclear production, Trump’s proclaimed reason for the war, is not a part of the MOU.
Despite Trump’s constant jabs at Obama and his nuclear deal, Obama and Trump’s 2024 presidential opponent, Kamala Harris, both argued that any Trump deal with Iran would look no different than Obama’s.
Harris, who argued the U.S. would not be at war in Iran if she were president, recently said, “Whatever is being negotiated, this president is going to declare victory, and we’ll end up where we were after the JCPOA and call that a victory.”
President Obama, who is unveiling his new Obama Center in Chicago at a star-studded ceremony on Thursday, recently told “Good Morning America” that he is “doubtful” Trump’s deal will look any different.
Obama defended his deal as working “for a long stretch of time before we, the United States, pulled out of it.”
“I’m hopeful that bombing stops, and ordinary people are no longer suffering as a consequence of the war,” he said.
Obama continued, “Then, in retrospect, it’s a reminder that on a lot of difficult foreign policy problems, the notion that we can just bully our way or bomb our way to solutions may sometimes seem appealing, but the fact of the matter is, is that it requires taking the time to explore diplomacy and exhaust the possibilities of coming up with deals that don’t solve 100% of the problem, but solve 80, 90% of the problem, all avoiding the necessity of going to war.”
The 44th President of the United States added, “You’d think we would have learned that lesson by now, but it seems like every so often we have to relearn that lesson again.”