is doing nothing that i m aware of to head that off. and so you have a contrast between the real world where problems are getting worse. the world is getting more dangerous, and then this sort of foosball game in washington where the ball is knocked back and forth every day, and the contrast should concern people. again, can they deal with the real world problems while the president is going back and forth in his, quote, unconventional way? i m not so sure. still ahead on morning joe, republican senator susan collins joins the conversation. plus israel s ambassador to the united states, ron dermer reacts to president trump decertifying the nuclear deal. did the half measure go far enough for israel s leaders? you re watching morning joe. he ll be right back. magic.is pretty amazing. it can transform a frog into a prince.
what s happening in iran. and the possible unraveling of that deal, and again, sort of the president of the united states putting diplomats and associate or thes in this dead zone that has to have an impact on our talks with north korea. joe, i m so struck between the difference between the trump world where you announce this seeming get tough policy on iran that s got all kinds of problems. you basically kick at the congress, but it causes problems for our allies. we helped negotiate the deal. that s in this sort of headline of the day trump world. in the real world, right now, two iranian-backed groups in iraq are threatening the kurds who have been america s most faithful allies in this terrible mess in the middle east. the u.s. effectively right now
le hezbollah or syria? we ve had clear red lines that the prime minister articulated many years. israel is not going to allow syria a permanent iranian bases to be established in syria to act against israel. or to transfer strategic weapons against hezbollah. this is all a piece of the iran deal. the problem in syria is iran. hezbollah is a proxy of iran. it s controlled by iran. so everything has to do with iran in the region, and i think one thing that has been lost in the discussions over the last few days is the united states basically a few years ago when it signed the deal, and even in the interim agreements beforehand, had essentially abandoned a policy of preventing iran from developing nuclear
they can be solved through congressional legislation, and they can be solved through follow on agreements. but president trump did the most important thing. this was the most important sentence of his speech. he said if it s not fixed, i will terminate america s involvement in the deal. and that was the most important statement that the president made. he does not need congress to end america s involvement in this deal. what he needs congress is to fix the deal and we hope they will do that. ambassador ron dermer, thank you for being on the show this morning. coming up, senator bob corker is heading for the door, but susan collins is staying put. we ll ask the maine republican why she decided to remain in the senate and what she hopes to accomplish with president trump as a partner. we ll be right back.
hope it leads to a change in policy. i want to push back a little bit. it s not clear what the president did will help. he could do all this pushing back against iran by staying in the agreement, and if he wants, he could gradually talk to the europeans, the russians and the chinese in the agreement for a followon agreement. getting out of it now will not help us deal with the iranian nuclear threat you re concerned about. listen, richard, i had a conversation with one of the ambassadors of the p5+1 about two months ago. he said what you re saying now. he doesn t have to walk away from the agreement. we re willing to work with the president on the ballistic missile problem and the sunset clause when all the restrictions on iran s nuclear program that are removed. we re willing to work on fixing that. i said that s great. the only reason why you re having this conversation is that the president, president trump said he s prepared to walk away from the deal. president trump on friday