CNN’s Scott Jennings Warns Trump That an Iran Deal Is Worth ‘Nothing’ Without Major Safeguards

CNN’s Scott Jennings warned on Thursday that a deal between President Donald Trump and Iran would be “worth nothing” without major safeguards in place.

Trump canceled a planned third day of strikes against Iran on Thursday after two days of bombing against the country in retaliation for the downing of an Apache helicopter by an Iranian drone. He later told reporters that “We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran,” though an Iranian spokesperson disputed the president’s claim, saying that no such agreement exists. Some were skeptical of the president’s claim that a deal was incoming, considering the 38 times the president has claimed that the two sides were close to reaching a deal.

Jennings discussed this skepticism on Thursday’s edition of NewsNight, after host Abby Phillip asked if he would be satisfied with only “a concept of a plan” for Iran’s uranium possession.

“I mean, the truth is, I don’t know, because there’s so much going on behind the scenes here that is opaque to everybody sitting out here, it’s hard for me to be definitive in a debating posture,” said Jennings.

He continued:

I’ve been very optimistic, as Bakari [Sellers] pointed out, because they’ve been optimistic. They’ve been optimistic for, you know, a number of weeks. Today’s announcement seemed a little different to me. It felt like a little more immediate than the previous, you know, pronouncements that something might be on the brink. But again, I don’t know if that’s true or not. This can only end, in my opinion, with him telling the American people definitively, “I went in to stop them from ever being able to get a nuclear weapon. And that’s how it ends.” That’s the only way it can end.

But I also think that we have to internalize that even if they do sign a piece of paper, you know, what’s a piece of paper with an Iranian signature worth? Nothing. I mean, so I think an agreement with them is useless absent this: constant monitoring, being subdued militarily, being subdued economically, and being under constant surveillance from the partners in the region.

Watch above via CNN.

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