Pressed by journalist Margaret Brennan on the merits of the 2015 Iran deal, former Secretary of State John Kerry blamed the national media for not focusing on President Trump’s false statements about the deal.
“I remember talking to you at the time. Money is fungible,” Brennan said. “Why, though, did you think it was a risk worth taking if you knew the possibility of what would happen with that money?”
“First of all, Margaret, you are an expert in this,” Kerry responded. “You were there. You know the president’s tweet is a lie. The president tweeted this morning because I am coming on the show, and he knew you would ask the question. Or would push you to ask the question. You and the media, I think, need to call a lie a lie.”
The United States’s relations with Iran have been front of mind for political pundits and lawmakers in recent weeks following Trump’s decision to kill top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Iran has vowed to avenge Soleimani’s death and last week launched a series of missile attacks on a pair of U.S.-Iraqi airbases.
“The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration,” Trump said in a news conference the next day. Republicans on Capitol Hill have repeated a similar line of talking points to attack Obama.
Little is known about Iran’s military spending, making it virtually impossible to know if U.S. dollars paid for the missiles used in last week’s strike on American bases in the region. Trump has referred to former President Barack Obama’s overall policy toward curbing Iranian aggression as “a disaster” and claimed the missiles used by Iran were “paid for” by his predecessor.
“John Kerry got caught essentially admitting that funds given ridiculously to Iran were used to fund attacks on the USA,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “Only a complete fool would have given that 150 Billion Dollars Plus to Iran.”
John Kerry got caught essentially admitting that funds given ridiculously to Iran were used to fund attacks on the USA. Only a complete fool would have given that 150 Billion Dollars Plus to Iran. They then went on a Middle East Rampage! @foxandfriends @PeteHegseth
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2020
Kerry said Trump has no idea what he is talking about.
“Clearly, money from the budget of Iran is going to go to the IRGC. It always has. That is no surprise,” Kerry said. “The truth is and President Trump — well, he probably doesn’t know this, his own defense intelligence agency, in 2017, testified to the Congress that very, very little money actually went to the IRGC at all.”
The president appears to have been referring to Obama’s 2015 claim about Iran having “$150 billion parked outside the country.” However, experts have said the quantity of the assets the deal made available to Iran was actually much lower, with some ballparking it around $50 billion to $60 billion.
Additionally, Obama sent $1.7 billion in cash to Iran to pay for a decades-old arbitration claim between the two nations. Iran agreed to release four American prisoners in exchange for the payment delivered on Jan. 17, 2016.
