Sen. Rick Scott said Monday he is glad President Donald Trump is showing caution with Iran while pulling back on a planned airstrike last week, but he hopes Iran doesn't "take prudence for being weak" as sanctions are working and he supports the idea of Trump negotiating with Iranian leaders without preconditions.
"Look what he did with North Korea," the Florida Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "You can't have Iran having a nuclear weapon when they chant 'death to America.' They say they want to obliterate Israel."
Sanctions already in place have ruined most of Iran's economy, said Scott, and he hopes that means it will spend less time helping Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro remain in power.
He added that he hopes Iran does "the right thing" and comes to the negotiating table with Trump.
"If you're a leader who cares about his people, his economy, it is good to be tied to having a relationship with America and Europe," he said. "You would think he would come about. So far, he hasn't."
Meanwhile, it behooves the United States to be engaged and make sure Iran does not have resources to support terrorist groups, and to get out of the "horrible" Iran nuclear agreement.
"Think about what the treaty did," said Scott. "We gave Iran a lot of money, billions of dollars. We said you can continue to enrich uranium. It didn't prevent them from long term nuclear weapons."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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