Trump: $400 million shipped to Iran a ransom

Donald Trump blasted the Obama administration on the reports that it sent $400 million to Iran, framing the payment as ransom to free Americans detained by the country.

“I got up this morning, i picked up the papers, and I saw $400 million being shipped in cash … overnight to Iran. We have a president who is, frankly, incompetent,” Trump told the crowd at his Wednesday rally in Daytona Beach, Fla.

{mosads}”It looks like we paid $400 million for the hostages, such an unbelievably bad precedent by Obama. Two more have been kidnapped since then, when is it going to end? What we are doing is insane.”

The payments were disclosed in a new report from The Wall Street Journal that noted that America sent the money around the same time that Iran released four American hostages.

The State Department downplayed concerns about the payments, noting that the money was part of an already announced settlement with Iran. But Republicans have seized on the timing to accuse the administration of paying a ransom to free the hostages. 

Trump went on to suggest that America was “humiliated” in January when Iran detained a group of American sailors who strayed into Iranian waters. Iran freed them a day later, but not before releasing video of their capture. Trump specifically linked the release of those sailors to the payment.

“The only reason we got them back was because we hadn’t paid the money yet,” Trump said. 

“Or else they’d have to wait until I became president. And then they would have come back fast.”