Discussion on Foreign Influence in Negotiations

But I definitely think you have seen this very discreet,

extremely well funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation

and try to derail the deal. And, you know, there was, again, there's this

Time article that came out yesterday. A friend sent it to me.

It's like worth reading because it lists a bunch of people who

have quite literally been paid by a former Trump campaign person who was himself

paid by certain elements within the Israeli government.

And those people are attacking me viciously for quite literally trying to

accomplish the negotiation objective that the president set for the country.

So what is their position? Are they attacking you? How?

Oh, it's social media posts. It's, you know, they're leaking to reporters.

They're attacking me obsessively saying

that we should not be negotiating with Iran.

We should just keep the military campaign going indefinitely.

And that is their explicit position.

And coming after me saying that, you

know, people have come after me and say that I'm influenced by Qatar,

that I'm influenced by foreign governments, that,

you know, I take my marching orders from Tucker Carlson.

And there's just so much bullshit out there when what I'm actually trying to do

is accomplish what the president of the United States told me to accomplish,

which is a settlement of this that accomplishes our objectives.

Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon. We have the free flow of oil and gas.

And like, I should be clear, you know, like, I don't actually mind.

I don't mind

that the, you know,

let's say certain elements of the

Israeli government want to criticize the or have disagreements about the deal.

I don't even mind an effort to try

to influence, you know, foreign governments try to influence the United States

all the time. You know, Israel does it, other countries do it.

It's just sort of the nature of the beast.

What bothers me is actually when Americans allow,

meaning American leadership allows that influence to affect their

judgment and to affect what they are advocating for. That's what really bothers me.

People are always going to try to influence the United States of America,

whether they're allies of ours or whether they're enemies of ours.

But again, when I

open up the pages of Time magazine and I see that there's

a literal foreign influence campaign being

funded to tank the very deal that I was pursuing, and oh, by the way,

many of the people who were receiving that money were actually attacking me

in completely dishonest ways.

You know, my response to that is, well, go to hell. I'm

going to do what I have to do for the American people. I represent Americans first.