called the iran nuclear deal the stupidest deal of all time, so it should be no surprise that the president today is refusing to certify the deal. our policy is based on a clear eyed assessment of the iranian dictatorship, its sponsor ship of terrorism and its continuing aggression in the middle east and all around the world. based on the factual record, i have put forward, i am announcing today that we cannot and will not make this certification. cnn s senior international correspondent frederick ply con live for us in take ran.
from a number of agreements made by not just the democratic administration before the trump administration but others earlier as well. and so that s so the kind of radical shift, the total reversal of policy, the walking away from an international accord really has a sweeping impact on our ability to negotiate on a lot of other crises around the world with both our allies as well as some of our adversaries, including russia and china. here is what the defense secretary mattis told reporters today. he says i give advice to the president. he was elected by the american people, and i stand by the iran strategy as it came out today. what s wrong with the president wanting a broader deal beyond curbing iran s nuclear production? i mean, isn t iran s involvement in terror, isn t that a legitimate concern? it is a legitimate concern, but the basic problem here is this is another issue where donald trump has an easy answer to this incredibly complex problem. how do you contain iran and h
at removing those subsidies. that s going to have an effect on millions of people, and many of those millions of people are trump supporters. and the question politically is will they blame him or will they blame barak obama. the question substantively is what s going to happen to coverage for those americans. well, he certainly will blame barak obama. and it s interesting because he has fooled his base into saying that it is fake news, that the exchanges obamacare is collapsing and into believing it. and then when they start losing health care he s going to say you re losing your health care because of obamacare, because of the former president. david, if congress doesn t act on this iran deal excuse me, jim, if congress doesn t act on this iran deal, democrats don t come to the table on health care, is it on trump or congress? is president trump attempting to skirt any of the blame of failure here? well, if you listen to the president s words today, he said if congress doesn t
ran on. and you look at his biggest promises, getting rid of obamacare, hasn t happened yet. his number one promise. build the wall, it haflkt happened. i think trump is thinking i ve got to do something. he s obsessed. without a doubt. was there anything that trump ever praised obama for? i can t remember. any program that he liked? no. no. especially the today with obamacare, iran. i ve got to do this because i want to because it is the former president and i m not getting anything done. and i can t get congress to do it, so i m going to do it myself. margaret, weigh in on this. is the base happy about this? well, i think there are really two different issues to look at and i think the president has signaled very clearly in terms of health care that he not only is willing to but wants to blow the whole thing up. i think on iran it s a little bit less clear, and some of his aides, maybe they re just fooling themselves, but continue to hold out hope that this at least f
street here. we spoke to both hard liners and moderates who are at odds with each other a lot of the time. and the moderatesment better relations with the united states. they thought the nuclear agreement could bring economic benefits. a lot of them said they were very disappointed in what they were hearing today. and many of the hard liners said, look, we told you will all along you can t frus the u.s. at the negotiating table. thank you so much. i want to bring in now david road, online news director at the new yorker and robin write who writes for the new yorker as well. thank you both for joining us. so robin, this is perplexing because our european partners, top officials in the trump administration say iran is complying. trump says they arement. he s the only one that s saying they are not. he says they re not living up to the spirit of the deal. the president tweeted this and this is just tonight. many people talking with much agreement on my iran speech today. participants