On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” former Obama administration National Security Advisor Susan Rice commented on President Donald Trump’s speech to the nation on Iran.
Trump tied the Obama administration to Iran’s hostilities noting they “substantially increased after the foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2013, and they were given $150 billion, not to mention $1.8 billion in cash.”
Rice said, “This is another series of despicable lies by President Trump. The fact that three-and-a-half years after taking office he remains —or three years after taking office, he remains obsessed with President Obama. It just shows President Trump’s extreme weakness and insecurity. The facts about the Iran nuclear deal are that it effectively halted and rolled back Iran’s nuclear program. In the years since the signing of the deal in 2015, up until President Trump’s unilateral withdraw abandoning our allies against the advice of his advisors, there were no proxy attacks by Iranian proxies on U.S. personnel in Iraq. There were no efforts by Iran to attack our drones in the Persian Gulf or attack shipping. The nuclear program was under control. There were strict inspections. Everybody, including the American intelligence community, validated that it was being upheld, and our forces and presence in the region was secure. President Trump decided recklessly to withdraw from the nuclear deal and impose so-called maximum pressure crippling sanctions. It was in the wake of that that we found ourselves in this cycle that has led to where we are today, a very dangerous moment.”
She continued, “The $150 billion as you pointed out was Iranian money that was unfrozen as a result of the nuclear deal, and they have been complying with the nuclear deal. That’s not America giving Iran $150 billion, quite the contrary. And Iran has had these sophisticated missiles. They’ve been developing their capacity for many, many years to say that that money funded the attack on our personnel and on our base is just the most disgraceful kind of lie, of the sort that President Trump tells every day.”
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