Iranians are laughing "at how stupid we are," GOP frontrunner Donald Trump said Thursday, complaining that the deal that was reached between the Middle Eastern country and the United States-led alliance of countries is "one of the worst-negotiated transactions I've ever seen in my life."
"It's the most one-sided, lopsided disgraces," Trump told CNN "New Day" host Chris Cuomo, one day after he, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and other
conservative leaders held a rally in Washington against the deal.
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"The people that were negotiating the deal with other countries, they are going to benefit," said Trump. "You look at what they are doing, they are over in Iran right now splitting up all the money and taking a lot of the money that we're giving."
Further, he complained that the "clock won't start ticking for a long time" when it comes to allowing 24-day notice period before inspections, and that the deal allows for self-inspections, with anyone trusting Iran to do that being "not such a smart person."
Trump also railed about four prisoners that are being held in Iran who were not released before the deal was approved.
"You must know they are and were trying hard to get the hostages back," Cuomo told him.
"I don't believe they were trying very hard," Trump retorted. "When they asked [John] Kerry about the hostages, he said we didn't want to discuss the hostages because we didn't want to complicate the negotiation. How ridiculous is that?"
He told Cuomo he would "initially, absolutely" have left the bargaining table over the hostage situation.
"When you didn't get the hostages back, that set a bad table," said Trump. "You call the deal like setting a table and that set the table incorrectly. The right message would have said, you don't want them, nobody cares about them over in Iran. Over here it sends a great signal in we get our hostages back."
But Kerry "didn't even want to talk about the hostages," said Trump, prompting an argument from Cuomo.
"I think it's a little different than that," he told Trump. "I think that it was a topic of conversation. They didn't want to balance the entire deal on the hostages."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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