Fresh off a Republican debate heavily focused on national security concerns, Donald Trump on Wednesday slammed the Iran nuclear deal that allows Iran to take part in inspections of a suspected nuclear facility.
Trump said the U.S. is giving billions of dollars to Iran and allowing them to “self-inspect” their nuclear sites, going so far as to impersonate an Iranian official speaking to a U.S. official.
“Can you imagine, you call them: ‘We hear you’re making nukes.’ ‘OK, well let us check.’ They call, ‘No, we’re not making nukes there,’ ” Trump said before silently mouthing: “You dumb son of a bitch.”
At the time, Trump’s speech was being carried live by CNN and MSNBC.
And while Trump also contended that the U.S. will “give $150 billion to Iran,” the U.S. will not make any payments to Iran as part of the Iran nuclear deal. Instead, Iran, under the international agreement will be able to access billions of dollars of its own foreign assets that have been frozen by international sanctions.
Trump’s claim that Iran will “self-inspect” its nuclear sites is also misleading, though Iran is playing a significant role in inspections of its Parchin site, a military base suspected by the West of nuclear activity.
Iranian inspectors collected samples from the site themselves, but did so under the surveillance of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the agency responsible for nuclear inspections, which later tested the samples itself for traces of nuclear material.