Donald Trump ended an agreement that President Obama and former Secretary of State John Kerry worked for months to negotiate which laid out terms for verification that Iran was working to denuclearize and allied countries widely agreed made the world safer from threats of nuclear war. He criticized that deal as foolish in its trust of leaders who have been hostile to the United States in the past and for conceding too much while allowing Iran to concede too little.
Now, he wants us to believe that some vague, one-page agreement drawn up in matter of minutes and signed by the leader of a country that has made similar unkept promises in the past makes the world safer because Trump is the greatest negotiator in the world.
Much of Trump’s criticism of the Iran deal, which he has since scrapped to the detriment of the U.S. standing in the world, was fabricated. His statements justifying the decision to pull out now seem rather poetic in their irony.
‘At the heart of the Iran deal was a giant fiction: that a murderous regime desired only a peaceful nuclear energy program.’
North Korea’s Kim Jong un, with whom Trump now says he has a “fantastic relationship,” enslaves his own people in labor camps and starves them. He ordered his own uncle and brother murdered to protect his position as leader of North Korea. He has used rape and forced abortions as means of control and torture. “Murderous regime” could not define any leader more aptly than the leadership in North Korea.
‘The fact is, this was a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made. It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will.’
Trump allowed for numerous concessions by the U.S. in order to get Kim Jong un to sign that piece of paper full of vague promises. He promised to end military exercises that the U.S. performs with South Korea to assert their presence and contain threats. He posed for smiling pictures with a dictator, giving him the legitimacy that he and his predecessors have craved. He conceded everything while gaining nothing.
Perhaps no one could have summed up the hypocrisy of Trump’s North Korea meeting than his own best friend and confidante, Sean Hannity.
Sean Hannity EVISCERATES Sean Hannity pic.twitter.com/EOxp0FSrAR
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) June 13, 2018
Others at Fox News were not as willing to heap praise on Trump for this farce of a deal. Shep Smith, who has been outspoken in calling out the hypocrisy of his network and the ignorance and incompetence of the president, did not hold back or toe the Fox News, state-run media, GOP party line.
Fox News’ Shepard Smith Pans Trump Summit: Kim ‘Got it All’ in Exchange ‘For Nothing’ https://t.co/fVsCgZoKzW pic.twitter.com/cLEfXNM2UR
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) June 13, 2018
Twitter was also not willing to praise Trump for his ignorance or blind and ridiculous trust that could easily increase the threat and make the world less safe. Read some of their comments below:
Featured image via Getty/The Asahi Shinbum
