On Friday's episode of HBO's “Real Time,” host Bill Maher said the Obama administration's attempt to reintegrate Iran into the international community “only failed because Trump rescinded it, and we never really tried to do that.” He also said “Iran is for” Vice President Kamala Harris, a 2024 Democratic presidential candidate.
H.R. McMaster, former national security adviser to President Trump, said the Obama-Biden-Harris “policies were ineffective, particularly when it came to supporting Iran, the Middle East and Israel. When they returned to power, I think they resurrected the same failed policies of the Obama administration, which were to try to return Iran to the international order in the hope that Iran would moderate.”
Maher interjected, arguing that “it failed because Trump subverted it, and we never actually tried it.”
Maher added, “America has four enemies in the world: China, Russia, North Korea and Iran…. You can't fight everyone at once. If you were to find two countries that we could welcome into the international community, it would probably be Russia and Iran, because I don't think their people want the situation the way it is. China? It's too much of a surveillance state and dictatorship. North Korea is just a bunch of brainwashed people. It's not going to happen.”
Maher then moved to argue in favor of the Iran nuclear deal, which McMaster opposed. In their exchange on the Iran nuclear deal, McMaster said, and Maher acknowledged, that the money Iran received from sanctions relief under the deal was used to fund the IRGC.
Later in the program, Maher said, “Russia is interfering with our election again. It doesn't seem that long ago. 2016, I'd never heard of it before. Trump said, 'If you're listening,' and George Stephanopoulos asked, 'Are you comfortable with us taking that information to other countries?' Trump said, 'Yeah, I'd be comfortable looking at it.' We went from never hearing about it to hearing about it, and now we feel like the virus leaked out of a lab and came to us, not just because Russia is doing it, but because China is doing it, and Iran is doing it too.”
He laughed and said, “The funny thing is, Iran is for Kamala, Russia is for [Trump]… So maybe they just cancel each other out.”
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