President Donald Trump’s denunciation of the Iran nuclear pact last week laid out a “marker” for U.S. allies and Iran to fix the "weak" deal, national security adviser H.R. McMaster said Sunday.
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” McMaster said Trump has “made it clear that he will not permit this deal to provide cover for what we know is a horrible regime to develop a nuclear weapon.”
"What the president has done is, he has set out a marker, a marker to Iran, our allies and our partners that we have to fix fundamental flaws in this deal," McMaster said.
"It is a weak deal that is being weakly monitored.”
Trump on Friday accused Iran of violating the Obama-era deal but told Congress to toughen the law governing U.S. participation.
McMaster also argued that other nations that signed the deal agree with Trump about the changes and that Iran will need to renegotiate.
“One of the real problems with this deal is we can't really say with confidence that they [Iranian officials] are complying,” he said. “And we know from their behavior, probably in the region and their behavior within the agreement where they have walked up to the line, they have crossed the line several times in terms of the restrictions.”
“This is not a trustworthy regime so much more comprehensive monitoring is in order,” he declared.
McMaster added, however, Trump isn’t ready to walk away from the deal, and is waiting to see if there is real change or the ability of Congress to address the issues.
"The president is not walking away from the deal yet,” he said.
McMaster also dismissed any danger in Trump’s tweets belittling North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un as “little Rocket Man.”
“The real danger is in terms of communicating with Kim Jong Un is that - if he doesn’t understand how serious we are about his behavior and the behavior of the regime,” he said.
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