Former U.S. President Donald Trump at a press conference on Thursday claimed that had he won re-election in 2020, he would have made a new deal with Iran to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons.
“I would have had a deal done within one week after the election with Iran,” Trump said. “Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon. It’s very simple. We would have gotten along with Iran. I was looking forward to it.”
“I was fine with Iran,” Trump added. “You know, we hit them a couple of times pretty hard, but we would have been fine with Iran.”
Trump touted his Israel-related accomplishments after he was asked a question about U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris agreeing to meet with a protest group that wants an arms embargo placed on the Jewish state and repeated a line he has frequently used that Jewish-Americans considering voting for Harris should “have their head examined.”
“I gave them Golan Heights, I gave them the capital of Israel, Jerusalem, I even built the embassy. I gave them no Iran deal,” Trump said, referring to his 2018 withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iran nuclear deal signed in 2015. “The problem is they didn’t do anything with it. Iran was broke.”
It was not clear from his remarks whether he was referring to Israel, the Biden-Harris administration or Jewish-Americans.
Harris’s national security advisor, Phil Gordon, wrote on social media on Thursday that Harris opposes an arms embargo on Israel.
