Trump Open to Giving Coronavirus Aid to Iran, But Says if Biden is Elected, They’ll ‘Own America’

At Sunday’s Coronavirus Task Force press briefing, President Donald Trump said he would be open to providing monetary aid or medical supplies to Iran, but also warned that if former Vice President Joe Biden — the putative Democratic nominee — were elected in the fall, then Iran would “own America.”

The comments came in response to a question from a reporter about how Iran was battling the coronavirus pandemic, and whether Trump would consider supporting a proposal from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and other Democrats to send $5 billion in aid to Iran.

Iran, like China, has reported coronavirus numbers, both confirmed cases and deaths, that are far below those of other countries around the world, but the data from those two countries is assumed to be misleading or otherwise paint an incomplete picture of the impact of Covid-19 on their populations.

Trump noted that Iran had been “hit very hard” by the pandemic, even though “obviously” their numbers “weren’t correct numbers, that they reported.”

However, Trump continued, he “would be willing to do something, if they want it, if they ask for it…if they needed aid or ventilators, we have thousands of ventilators currently on hand, and ventilators under construction, that are under construction.”

“That’s a mosquito, I don’t like mosquitoes, I don’t like mosquitoes at all,” Trump interrupted his own chain of thought to comment on an apparent insect in the briefing room.

“Yeah, we would certainly be willing to help,” said Trump, resuming his remarks on Iran. “What they should do is be smart and make a deal.”

Trump then pivoted to attack former Secretary of State John Kerry, who had played an integral role in former President Barack Obama‘s administration helping negotiate the JCPOA Iran nuclear deal, and then Biden.

“John Kerry I guess doesn’t want them to make a deal,” said Trump. “They probably figure they can wait and maybe it will be Biden and they’ll own America…and they know with me, it doesn’t work that way, it doesn’t work that way. If Joe Biden got in, they would own America.”

“Between them, China, Japan, Mexico, Canada, they would own America,” he concluded. “You wouldn’t have a country left, if he got in.”

Watch the video above, via Fox News.

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