Trump: ‘We look like we’re beggars’ in Iran nuclear talks
GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump says the Obama administration is making the U.S. “look like we’re beggars,” as they pursue a long-term deal on Iran’s nuclear program.
“We look like we’re beggars. We look like we’re sitting there begging,” Trump told John Catsimatidis on Sunday during “The Cats Roundtable” on New York’s AM 970.
“The Persians … are very good negotiators. The people representing Iran are master negotiators. They’re dealing with fools. They’re dealing with fools,” he said, adding that Obama is “not a negotiator.”
{mosads}Trump said the U.S. and other Western powers “have the cards right now — soon we won’t have the cards — but we have the cards right now, and we should put sanctions much stronger, much harder.”
“Bring them to the table on our terms because they are really making a deal that is a deal that should not be made,” he added.
Speaking to reporters in Vienna on Saturday, Secretary of State John Kerry said both sides still have “very tough issues” to deal with before striking a deal.
Trump likened the talks, which negotiators hope to wrap up before a self-imposed June 30 deadline, to the prisoner swap the administration made with the Taliban for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
The controversial exchange saw Bergdahl, who went missing from his base in 2009 while serving in Afghanistan, freed for five Taliban commandos who were being held at the detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Bergdahl was charged with desertion earlier this year and could face life in prison if convicted.
“We get Sgt. Bergdahl, the traitor, and they get five leaders that they’ve wanted for years, and they’re out now on battlefield trying to kill everybody, including us,” according to Trump.
The government of Qatar earlier this month announced it would temporarily extend the travel ban for the five Taliban leaders involved in the trade.
“It’s a very sad time for the country as far as I’m concerned,” he said.
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