Secretary of State John Kerry should be forced to resign his post after he "thanked" Iran for their diplomacy after its Revolutionary Guard detained 10 U.S. sailors and humiliated the nation's military in the eyes of the world, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Thursday.
"The president should ask for his resignation, because a man who doesn't check his facts like that shouldn't be secretary of state," Giuliani told
Fox News' "Fox and Friends" program. "If he worked for me, as an assistant U.S. attorney, he'd have another job the next day.
On Wednesday, Kerry thanked Iran for freeing the sailors, one woman and nine men, who the Revolutionary Guard had captured on Tuesday,
reports Mediaite, saying that he wanted to "express my gratitude to Iranian authorities for their cooperation in swiftly resolving this matter" and praising the action as "a testament to the critical role diplomacy plays in keeping our country safe, secure, and strong."
Kerry also praised the sailors' captors for treating them well for the 16 hours they had detained, in another statement that angered Giuliani.
"How could that be possible, the Iranian behavior was terrific, when they had them with their hands above their heads?" asked the former mayor, in reference to a video in which the sailors are under armed guard and on their knees, and another showing that the female sailor was made to wear a headscarf.
In yet another video, one of the sailors was recorded saying that they went into Iran's international waters but apologized for the mistake and saying Iran's behavior was "fantastic" while they were there and thanking the captors "for your hospitality."
"Of course he was coerced," Giuliani said. "I feel for the man. And, look I'm not in his position. You're not in his position. You don't know what you would do. He got his men out alive, thank God. There's nothing wrong with him."
But there is "something really wrong" with Iran, Kerry, and the Obama administration, said the ex-mayor.
"This is the ultimate in the kind of humiliation we have to suffer because we have a president who can't lead," he said. "We have a president who can't stand up for this country. What he should have said was, 'it's an outrage that these people are humiliated. And we are going to consider it a breach of the agreement we reached with you and you're not getting your money. You're not getting your hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. And now stuff that up your you know what.'"
Further, said Giuliani, when Kerry made his statement, he congratulated "a country that has killed thousands and thousands of Americans. Remember, on the hands of the ayatollah are the blood of thousands and thousands of Americans."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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