MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Wednesday lambasted the Iran nuclear deal that the Obama administration struck with Tehran and five other world powers last summer.
Scarborough read an excerpt of a story from the New York Times about a speech given by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during which he discussed the nuclear accord to a crowd chanting "death to America."
"I'm so glad we gave them billions and billions of dollars and so glad we did that nuke deal with them, really," Scarborough said on his show Morning Joe. "I think we're in better shape now with Iran than we were because, you know, at least they're not burning the American flag while they're screaming death to America to the president's delight."
Columnist Mike Barnicle and co-host Mika Brzezinski attempted to defend the deal against Scarborough's charges. Scarborough responded that Iran has been "the epicenter of terrorism since 1979" and that the Islamic Republic's moderate leaders are not actually moderate.
The State Department and intelligence community both named Iran the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism earlier this year.
When Brzezinski asked Scarborough what he was proposing, he said the United States would have been better not taking part in the nuclear deal.
"I'm saying we shouldn't have given them $150 billion or however much we gave them," Scarborough argued. "Barack Obama was obsessed even before he got elected to strike a deal with the Iranians, and he never put any conditions on them. They ran over us, they get the best of us from the very beginning."
Barnicle asked Scarborough how much he would pay for Iran not to produce nuclear weapons for 25 years. Scarborough laughed in response.
"You trust the Iranians, whose president is is saying we're the enemy while his audience chants 'death to America?'" Scarborough asked. "You trust them?"
Scarborough also reminded Barnicle and Brzezinski of his position: "don't strike a deal from a position of weakness."
"This has been a bad deal from the start," Scarborough said. "Barack Obama was so desperate to have a deal that he basically threw all leverage out the window and we bent over backwards."