President Donald Trump directly blamed Iran for the attacks on a pair of Japanese-owned oil tankers, while insisting his administration is being "very tough" with Iran compared to former President Barack Obama, who made a deal that was "an outrage."
"You saw the boat," Trump told Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "One [of the] mines didn't explode, and it has Iran written all over it. They successfully took the mine off the boat, and that was exposed. They didn't want the evidence left behind ... It was them that did it."
Trump added that when he came into office, Iran was an "absolute terror" and "all over the place."
"They were in Yemen, Syria," said Trump. "We had 14 different sites of conflict. They were in charge of every single place and they really are. They are a nation of terror, and they've changed a lot since I've been president, I can tell you. They were unstoppable and now they are in deep, deep trouble."
Trump said the Iran nuclear deal, which he pulled away from, was an "outrage" that would have allowed Iran to make nuclear weapons in five or six years.
"They understand they will not have nuclear weapons," said Trump. "We have enough problems with nuclear weapons...one of the great difficulties of the world. Not going to happen with them. We are being very tough. We are being very tough on sanctions."
But when Obama signed the Iran agreement and returned billions of dollars in cash, Iranians were saying "'death to America,'" said Trump. "They were having a good time at his expense...they haven't screamed death to America lately. We don't take it lightly."
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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