Trump Lashes Out at Democratic Senator Who Exposed His Iran Plan
Early Monday morning, President Donald Trump lashed out against Democratic Senator Chris Coons for mentioning reports that the Trump administration is looking to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran eerily similar to the Obama-era agreement Trump discarded during his first term.
On Thursday, CNN, citing four sources familiar with the matter, reported that “the Trump administration has discussed possibly helping Iran access as much as $30 billion to build a civilian-energy-producing nuclear program, easing sanctions, and freeing up billions of dollars in restricted Iranian funds.” Trump at the time called such reports a “HOAX” propagated by a “SleazeBag” within the “Fake News Media.”
Coons cited the reports in a Sunday appearance on Fox News, telling host Shannon Bream, “I’ll just note that President Trump, by press accounts, is now moving towards negotiation and offering Iran a deal that looks somewhat similar to the Iran deal that was offered by Obama: tens of billions of dollars of incentives and reduced sanctions in exchange for abandoning their nuclear program.”
A piqued Trump took to Truth Social just before 3 a.m., posting, “Tell phony Democrat Senator Chris Coons that I am not offering Iran ANYTHING, unlike Obama, who paid them $Billions under the stupid road to a Nuclear Weapon JCPOA (which would now be expired!), nor am I even talking to them since we totally OBLITERATED their Nuclear Facilities.”
Trump set off the chain of events leading to his June 21 bombing of Iran by withdrawing from President Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018—a decision which prompted Iran to “accelerate its nuclear program,” per Axios, which in turn led Trump, upon resuming office, to consider a renewed deal that geopolitics expert Jeffrey Lewis called “a dollar-store” JCPOA. “He’s trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again,” Lewis said earlier this month.
This, of course, went up in smoke as the self-proclaimed dealmaker President Trump resorted to unlawful military action.