Did Iran Outplay Trump? | Bakari Sellers On CNN

[00:00:00]Welcome back. As President Trump engaged in this negotiation with Iran, the question has always, Tim, been hanging over his head, whether or not he needs the deal more than the Iranians do. And let me play what he said today about that. Listen.

[00:00:18]This is President Trump talking about the ships needing to go through the Strait of Hormuz.

[00:00:23]>> [snorts] >> But what this says is it allows the ships to go.

[00:00:32]If we If we keep bombing, those ships won't be going and you're talking about 500, 600, 700 million dollars a day.

[00:00:40]It's a lot of money. A lot of money.

[00:00:43]That's why the world is okay. It's liquid. It's fine. Also, we run out of reserves in about 4 weeks. You know, there are reserves all over the world and we would really run out and there'll be a time when you wouldn't be able to get it and you want to see bedlam?

[00:00:58]>> So, if he's saying that today, do you really think the Iranians weren't aware that that was the pressure that he knew was there and that he needed this deal really badly in order to prevent that from happening?

[00:01:11]>> Well, Abby, I look at this in in sort of two parts and I don't think it's lost on anyone that, yes, the president recognized that he needed to come to some end to this war, whether or not you want to call it for political purposes of midterms or what I truly believe is that the president is not a big fan of war. He ran on no unending long-term wars. He's negotiated peace deals in other places around the country and around the world, excuse me. And so, I do think that the president really did legitimately want to end this war. I think the other side of that though is that the world needed this deal because the world benefits when Iran does not have a nuclear weapon. And the 14 points that we see in that in the MOU is that that's the result is that Iran Iran does not have a nuclear weapon and they no longer pose that threat to the world. And so, I don't think that just Donald Trump needed this deal. I think that the the world needed this deal and and certainly the United States needed the deal the deal and hopefully our economy starts to improve and the deal works itself out. I think that's where that's where we find ourselves.

[00:02:08]>> a funny article last week that there was a volunteer firefighter that they just arrested and the reason they arrested him was because he was going out and he was setting the fires. And then he was joining the fire department to travel around and put them right? So I mean that's what this that's what that reminds me of. that's what that look we all will admit that Iran does not deserve or need a nuclear weapon.

[00:02:32]>> agreed but >> But what I don't agree on is the fact that Donald Trump went into a war that many people told him was ill-advised.

[00:02:39]Donald Trump went into a war that cost American lives and whether or not you're with the economist or whether or not you're Steven or whether or not you're Bakari Sellers you can always say that the people who hurt the most when they came out of this were the American public and we did not meet our objectives. Period. I mean if if if we want to talk about that that is what it is.

[00:02:56]>> did we we did we did we did we did >> We are achieving the objective of de-nuclearization. And and we'll know by the way I want to come out on the show with you a year from now we'll see where we're >> Right. So because you have who do you do you have faith do you have faith in the in the regime or Trump?

[00:03:11]>> There's no way he's going to get out of it.

[00:03:12]>> that it's foolish to have a belief in either.

[00:03:15]>> You know because [laughter] you I mean I want to ask you one thing is totally committed to >> You said if I was was Bakari and and we know I'm far not handsome enough to be you Bakari but actually that's a fact. I'm willing to concede that but here's the thing you you keep talking about the faith in Trump versus the regime and when the Obama administration negotiated the JCPOA who did they put their trust in then?

[00:03:36]>> Oh actually the world joined them. So you had a lot of you had a lot of you actually had an agreement you had >> We applaud this deal.

[00:03:46]>> was an inspection regime there were verification points there were concrete benchmarks. One one just one last thing before we go. I won't play it, but the Trump uh joked today that if this didn't go well, he would blame J.D. Vance for negotiating it. Uh J.D. Vance wants to be president and has been, unfortunately for him, the face of this agreement all week.

[00:04:12]What's that going to do to his ambitions?

[00:04:15]>> Well, I think he's really busy with the book tour right now and arguing with [laughter] the ladies on The View. So, I don't know if he's balancing it as much as he needs to, but looks good for Marco Rubio, I think.

[00:04:24]>> But look, I mean both everybody is The two The two The two front runners to succeed Trump right now are Marco Rubio and and uh J.D. And they're kind of and Trump sort of has He's sort of It's almost like Game of Thrones. He's playing them off each other. But But he was joking. I just >> Don't worry. He's just joking about that. Don't worry.

[00:04:42]>> He's a troublemaker.

[00:04:42]>> No, he really likes J.D. Thank you very much for being here. We will be right back.