Author Anand Giridharadas tore into President Donald Trump in a podcast discussion with The Daily Beast published Wednesday, condemning the president's genocidal threats to wipe out Iranian civilization.
Ultimately, Trump did not follow through on those threats and, with just hours to spare before his deadline, agreed to a "ceasefire" deal that essentially gives Iran everything they have been demanding — but even with that being the case, Trump's remarks weakened U.S. standing on a level not seen before in modern history, according to Giridharadas.
“No one in that part of the world will forget that for generations, it will always have been true that the leader of the United States said that,” said Giridharadas, who argued that threats to wipe out Iran are “possibly the worst thing any American leader has said in modern memory.”
Giridharadas continued: “The American policy, bipartisan policy, going back decades on Iran has been good people, good civilization — one of the great cultures of the world — hijacked by a bad regime. An unfortunate 50-year blip in a glorious millennia-old culture that has given the world beautiful music and art and food and much besides — language, poetry.”
Going forward, he said, it will be much harder for other countries to take the U.S. seriously as a force for moral good.
Trump's threats triggered a wave of horror around the world, and even led to far-right influencers like Tucker Carlson calling on the U.S. military to disobey Trump if they are issued unlawful orders — which is ironically the exact thing a handful of Democrats said in a video last year that infuriated the GOP and led to the administration seeking military punishment of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ).
