On Wednesday, appearing on Fox News with Dana Perino, former Secretary of State John Kerry refused to deny that he undermined President Trump when Kerry met with Iranian leaders. When Perino bluntly challenged Kerry by asking whether Kerry had advised the Iranians to wait out President Trump until a Democratic president could be elected who would be more palatable to the Iranians, Kerry tried to deflect by claiming that President Trump had not yet pulled out of the Iran deal when Kerry spoke to the Iranians. Kerry ignored the fact that Trump had given every sign he was going to pull out of the Iran deal.
Perino began, “Let me have you respond to this: There are people in the intelligence community who say that you’ve been telling the Iranians to wait out president trump and the administration and to wait until there’s a Democratic president in 2021. Is that accurate?”
Kerry stated loftily, “I think everybody in the world is sitting around talking about waiting out President Trump. I mean, you’ve got our allies, remarkably, the people we’ve worked with the closest through the years are sitting there saying, ‘What’s next?’”
Perino persisted, “So are the Europeans trying to wait out President Trump to keep the Iran deal in place?
Kerry answered by ripping Trump for his posture toward trade, NATO, and most especially, Kerry’s beloved United Nations: “I don’t know — it’s not Iran deal-specific; it’s with respect to trade; it’s with respect to NATO; (chuckling) with respect to most of the relationships; the U.N., U.N. support; the kinds of things that really make a difference overall to our position in the world.”
Perino commented, “The Trump administration would be frustrated to learn that a former Secretary of State, a former official with the Obama administration (is) advising the Iranians or the Europeans on this, even if it’s contrary to their position.”
Kerry then climbed atop his perennial soapbox:
Let me be crystal clear: When I met with the Iranians, the policy of the United States was still to be in the Iran deal because the president had not decided and not pulled out. Secondly, every former secretary of state continues to meet with foreign leaders, goes to security conferences, goes around the world. We all do that, and we have conversations with people about the state of affairs in the world in order to understand them. We don’t negotiate. We are not involved in interfering with policy, but we certainly have reasonable discussions about nuclear weapons, the world, China, different policies.
As Allahpundit at HotAir points out, Kerry has tried to undermine Trump before:
He’s been accused of this before, with a different set of diplomats — the Palestinians. During the conversation, according to the report, Kerry asked [Hussein] Agha to convey a message to [Mahmoud] Abbas and ask him to “hold on and be strong.” Tell him, he told Agha, “that he should stay strong in his spirit and play for time, that he will not break and will not yield to President Trump’s demands.” According to Kerry, Trump will not remain in office for a long time. It was reported that within a year there was a good chance that Trump would not be in the White House … He asked Abbas, through Agha, not to attack the U.S. or the Trump administration, but to concentrate on personal attacks on Trump himself, whom Kerry says is solely and directly responsible for the situation.