Obama Blasts ‘Bully’ Trump Amid Furor Over Vile Slur

Barack Obama has taken a swipe at Donald Trump’s emerging agreement with Iran, suggesting the president is trying to bully his way back to a deal that may end up looking remarkably similar to the one Trump spent years attacking.

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In an interview with ABC News, the former president said it was “doubtful” that any agreement negotiated by Trump would prove to be “significantly different” or a “significant improvement” on the 2015 nuclear accord brokered by his own administration.

“You’d think we would’ve learned that lesson by now, but it seems like every so often we have to learn that lesson again.”

The criticism comes as Trump claimed a new U.S.-Iran agreement is effectively complete and will be formally signed in Switzerland on Friday following months of conflict in the region.

The president made this announcement on Sunday, hours before his UFC birthday bash at the White House, which has sparked a backlash after a fighter with a history of racist slurs used his victory speech to make a vile slur at former First Lady Michelle Obama.

“And lastly, Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?” said heavyweight fighter Josh Hokit, who Trump praised in a Monday morning Truth Social post alongside other winning fighters.

The Obamas have yet to respond to the slur, which is not the first time they have come under fire by Trump or his allies.

But in his interview with ABC News, which took place before the fight, Barack Obama argued that his original agreement with Iran had succeeded in curbing their nuclear program until Trump withdrew the United States from it during his first term.

The full text of a deal Trump claims to have made has not yet been released, and the details on the future of Iran’s nuclear program have not been settled. Those issues will be negotiated over the 60 days following the two sides’ scheduled signing of the agreement on Friday.

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However, administration officials say the proposed framework would eventually require Iran to eliminate its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and submit to international verification measures before receiving sanctions relief.

Those provisions have prompted inevitable comparisons with Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

Under that deal, Iran agreed to strict limits on uranium enrichment, deep reductions in its nuclear stockpile and an extensive inspection regime in exchange for sanctions relief.

The Obama administration argued the agreement pushed Iran further from obtaining a nuclear weapon, but Trump famously withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, calling it one of the worst agreements ever negotiated and reimposing sweeping sanctions on Tehran.

Since then, Republicans have frequently attacked the Obama-era accord as too lenient and accused it of providing Iran with economic benefits without permanently ending its nuclear ambitions.

Now, with Trump preparing to sign a new agreement of his own, Obama suggested the president may have come full circle.

“It is doubtful that any agreement that arises is going to be significantly different or a significant improvement from the deal that we had in the first place and had worked for, for a long stretch of time before we, the United States, pulled out of it,” Obama said in the ABC interview.

Trump, however, said in France on Monday that his Memorandum of Understanding with Iran was “a very powerful document” whereas the Obama deal was “a horrible deal for the United States.”