Trump: Iran, ‘scared’ and with defenses ‘pretty much gone,’ will make nuclear deal with US
‘Everyone thinks Israel, with our help or our approval, will go in and bomb the hell out of ’em. I would prefer that not happen,’ US president tells Fox News
US President Donald Trump, in an interview aired Monday, predicted that the United States would make a deal with Iran to prevent the Islamic Republic from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“I think we’re gonna make a deal in Iran,” he told Fox News. “I think they’re scared. I think Iran would love to make a deal and I would love to make a deal with them without bombing them.”
“Everyone thinks Israel, with our help or our approval, will go in and bomb the hell out of ’em. I would prefer that not happen,” he told the cable network.
In the interview — which also made headlines for Trump’s comments about potentially expelling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip — the US president repeated almost verbatim comments he made on Friday, when he additionally asserted that Israel would not bomb Iran if a deal with the US were reached.
“I’d much rather see a deal with Iran where we can do a deal, supervise, check it, inspect it, and then blow it up, or just make sure there’s no more nuclear,” Trump said on Monday.
“I think that Iran is very frightened, to be honest with you, because their defense is pretty much gone,” he explained. “They’ve had some very bad moments. The whole thing with the pagers was a disaster for them.”
Trump called Israel’s covert operation to blow up thousands of Hezbollah pagers “a horrible thing,” but allowed that it “knocked out a lot of [the Hezbollah] leadership.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a golden pager as a gift to Trump during their meeting at the White House last week, a reference to the clandestine operation that dealt a severe blow to the Hezbollah terror group, a major part of Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance.
On September 17, 2024, thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah in Lebanon suddenly exploded, killing dozens of operatives and maiming thousands, marking the beginning of Israel’s escalation against the terror group after almost a year of persistent Hezbollah rocket fire.
About a month later, on October 26, Israel carried out several waves of airstrikes over the course of several hours in various areas of Iran, targeting the Islamic Republic’s drone and ballistic missile programs, as well as air defense batteries, in retaliation for an Iranian missile attack on Israel a month earlier.
The Israeli strikes reportedly left Iran’s air defenses crippled, leading some to expect — or advocate — an attack on the country’s nuclear sites.
Iran, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, insists its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes. However, the UN nuclear watchdog has said that Iran is currently enriching uranium to levels that have no civilian use, and the country has obstructed international inspectors seeking to visit its facilities.
In addition, The New York Times reported earlier this month that American intelligence indicates a covert team of Iranian scientists was exploring ways to quickly develop a nuclear weapon if the country’s leadership decided to pursue one.
Trump defends pulling out of Obama-era nuclear deal
In the Fox News interview, Trump defended his decision in 2018 — during his first term in office — to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear accord with Iran signed under his predecessor Barack Obama, which placed limits on the Islamic Republic’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for sanctions relief by Western countries.
“That was the dumbest deal, by the way,” Trump said. “It was a short-term deal. You can’t make a deal with just a few years on it. That deal would be expired by now. Think of it. And they would have a legal right to have a nuclear weapon.”
The JCPOA, which was adopted in 2015 and went into effect in January 2016, included specific timeframes for its obligations, with the longest-term commitments expiring after 15 years.
Upon the expiration of the last of those obligations in 2031, Iran would not be obligated under the accord specifically to refrain from developing nuclear weapons. However, the country is also a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which prohibits it from doing so.
“You cannot allow Iran — or just about anybody else by the way, but especially Iran — ’cause they are very militant. I mean they’re very, very militant. You can’t allow them to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump repeated in the interview.
“But there’s two ways of stopping them: With bombs or with a written piece of paper. And I’d much rather do a deal.”
Earlier this month, Trump restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, originally implemented in his first term after he pulled out of the earlier deal, which includes efforts to drive the Islamic Republic’s oil exports down to zero.
