Sen. Chris Coons Wednesday said President Donald Trump, with his all-caps tweet threat to Iran over the weekend, seems to be following the same "playbook" he used with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and such tactics are causing the United States to lose international credibility.
"This seems to be the same play book the president followed over several months with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, where he threatened and threatened and threatened some sort of aggressive all-out nuclear war on Twitter and was increasingly abusive of Kim Jong Un," the Delaware Democrat told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." He did a 180 degree turn and did a handshake photo op in Singapore."
Coons said that when he sees the president tweeting threats, such as the one he made to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, he shakes his head.
"I'm concerned," he said. "I frankly think we're losing credibility internationally. The more times, the more ways that our president conducts something like diplomacy on Twitter in a way that seems unrelated to the actual reality on the ground, I think it undermines our credibility. His statement at the rally in Kansas City that Iran is now a totally different country is just obviously untrue."
Trump on Tuesday, during his speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Kansas City, said he's ready to make a "real deal" with Iran.
"Iran is not the same country anymore," Trump said. "That I can say. And we'll see what happens. But we're ready to make a real deal, not the deal that was done by the previous administration, which was a disaster."
"My concern is he'll do the same, that he has now very briefly tweeted one all-caps threat at President [Hassan] Rouhani of the Iranian Islamic Republic, [he] will declare himself capable of concocting some better deal," Coons said in response. "The Iran nuclear agreement which took years to put together and relied upon our European allies and China and Russia isn't something you can replace with a few tweets and a photo op."
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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