In an interview with Fox News, President Trump vowed to not let Iran get ahold of nuclear weapons. He also spoke about his reluctance to go to war with the country. While speaking with Fox News host Steve Hilton, during an interview on Sunday, Trump said: “I will not let Iran have nuclear weapons.” Trump’s comments reassured the people that the administration has full intentions of suppressing Iran from getting their hands on nuclear armament. This comes during a time when the administration is facing threats from the regime to U.S. assets in the Middle East.
During the interview, Trump continued to oppose military intervention, which is something that separated him from the other candidates during the 2016 campaign. However, Trump did indicate that Iranian nuclear development would equal an urgent exception. “I don’t want to fight. But you do have situations like Iran, you can’t let them have nuclear weapons — you just can’t let that happen,” he said.
When Trump was speaking with Steve Hilton, he recalled how expensive it was to go to war and how badly he wanted to avoid doing so. “With all of everything that’s going on, and I’m not one that believes — you know, I’m not somebody that wants to go into war, because war hurts economies, war kills people most importantly — by far most importantly,” he said.
Even though it seems that Iran is continuing its retaliation over higher sanctions, which starter when Trump decided to pull out of Obama’s nuclear deal, Trump has encouraged the Iranians to come to the table. “I ended the Iran Nuclear Deal, and actually, I must tell you — I had no idea it was going to be as strong as it was. It totally — the country is devastated from the standpoint of the economy,” President Trump said while speaking to Hilton.
While President Trump has continuously stood by his decision to pull out of the nuclear deal, he has faced several Democratic critics. Several of the Democratic candidates running in the 2020 election have pledged to re-enter the Obama-era deal.
One of those candidates was Pete Buttigieg, who apparently threw some harsh criticism in Trump’s way on Thursday. Trump was put into the headlines after apparently making fun of Buttigieg’s name, pronouncing it as “boot edge edge.” Trump did the same thing while he was interviewing with Hilton, but he seemed to support the relationship that Buttigieg has with his husband. He also defended Buttigieg’s decision to run for president from a mayoral seat.
“You know, it’s sort of interesting because he’s running for the president of the United States as a mayor. But you could say that I ran for president of the United States, and I was never in politics before, right? But I had a good life, and I had a successful life,” said President Trump.
On the other hand, when it came to former Vice President Joe Biden, Trump wasn’t so diplomatic. Biden, whose administration was responsible for the nuclear deal, criticized Trump in 2018 for erasing “years” of progress with Iran. More than likely, Biden will make Iran an even bigger issue as the 2020 election gets closer.
Trump had his own arguments in regards to Biden’s approach to foreign countries. Biden received a whole bunch of criticism when he spoke about the “non-existent” threat that China posed to the United States. “He says China’s not a competitor of ours. China is a massive competitor of ours. They want to take over the world. OK? They have China 2020 — you know they have 2025,” said President Trump. Later, Trump explained that Biden saw China differently because of his family’s controversial relations with China’s government. “But with Biden, he says they’re not a competitor. Then they take a lot of money from China,” said Trump.
Biden has continuously spoken out against Trump’s approach to trade with China, which he has said would hurt the economy of the U.S. During his interview, Trump defended the tariffs, stating that “China’s totally getting killed.” Trump continued by saying: “I have tremendous poll numbers now. You see that. I mean my poll numbers are great because the economy is so good. And I actually do a lot about the economy. I don’t get credit for that, you know.”
