Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has refused to back down from
his comments over the weekend that the nuclear deal with Iran will march the Israelis "to the door of the oven," and tells
Newsmax TV that Israel is "only the warm-up act."
"This is not just about Israel, this is about us," Huckabee told "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth on Monday.
"It's the opening act, but the headliner is America," Huckabee said. "Iran has never, ever hidden that their ultimate agenda is death to America. Why we sat down at the table with these guys, why we ever negotiated with terrorists makes no sense to me."
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America got nothing out of the deal reached by the White House earlier this month, Huckabee said, including the release of the four Americans currently being held in Iran.
"John Kerry admitted that they talked about it – he said they did, anyway – every time they met and they never got any of that?" Huckabee said. The releases should have been a precondition before the United States even agreed to negotiate, he added.
Iran gave up nothing, Huckabee said. "They won."
The United States, on the other hand, "acted like people driving in a brand new Lexus to the car lot and trading it in even for a 15-year-old Yugo," Huckabee said. "No wonder the Iranians are dancing in the streets, and we're over here scratching our heads saying, what did we just do?"
The Senate is still considering the deal, with Republicans aligned against it. Many Democrats also oppose the deal, with many still on the fence.
Huckabee was critical of the Republican Senate, saying it has not behaved responsibly on the Iran deal nor on the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal.
"Why did Republicans push to give Obama more power at a time when they should have been pulling back on his executive overreach?" he asked. "We didn’t' send Republicans to the Senate majority so they would help Obama have more power. We sent them there to check him on issues like the overreach on illegal immigration and the overreach on Obamacare."