As the bombing of Iran resumes, transmitted below is a transcript of Donald Trump's latest, post-MOU diplomatic initiative.
NOTE: I often wonder why the United States needs 18 hugely expensive and massively staffed "intelligence" agencies when all of the country's most important decisions are made at the unconstrained whim of a single individual of no intelligence whatsoever.
'Scum', 'sick' and 'over': Trump's comments on Iran in full
![Donald Trump at the Nato summit]()
Image
source, Getty Images
Trump's comments on the US-Iran ceasefire began at around 09:15 BST, when a reporter at the Nato summit in Ankara asked "Is the ceasefire over? Is the ceasefire done? Is the MoU dead?" (the memorandum of understanding, which led to the ceasefire, was agreed last month).
Trump replied: "It's a very interesting question. To me, I think it's over.
"I don't want to deal with them anymore, they're scum. You know what scum is? They're scum. They're sick people. They're led by sick people. And they're vicious, violent people.
"And if they had a nuclear weapon, they'd use it. As far as I'm concerned it's over.
"I'll speak to our negotiators, they want to negotiate, they're good people. Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, but they have to come back to me. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them. They're liars.
"We make a deal. If I make a deal with him [pointing at Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte], we have a deal. He goes out, he talks. We [US and Iran] make a deal, everyone's agreed, no nuclear weapon.
"We make a deal. They [Iran] go outside, talk to the press, they say 'we never even talked about it'. There's something wrong with them. They're cuckoo. As far as I'm concerned, it's over."
Trump is then asked if talks will resume.
"I don't care, they can talk. But I think they're wasting their time. They're a bunch of lying guys."
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