President Trump announced Tuesday he is pulling the United States out of the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal, brokered by his predecessor, President Obama. That same day, Trump’s new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew to North Korea to finalize plans for President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to hold a landmark face-to-face meeting. For more on President Trump, the Iran nuclear deal and efforts to avoid nuclear proliferation and nuclear war, we speak with Media Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink, author of “Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” She has also participated in the peace delegation to North Korea, Women Cross DMZ.
TRANSCRIPT:
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Medea, I wanted to ask you — you were very involved in the peace movement against the Iraq War. I’m wondering what your sense is of what needs to be done now to prevent a further deterioration of relationships between the United States and Iran, and what you think the peace movement should do, especially in light of the fact that some polls show as much as 63 percent of the American people believe the pact with Iran should be maintained.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, that’s right. And we have to mobilize that public opinion, Juan. We’ve put out a letter to the people of Iran, an apology from the American people. We’d like hundreds of thousands of people to sign that. It’s up on the CodePink.org website. We’re reaching out to Iranians as people-to-people ties. We’re also reaching out to our colleagues in Europe to see how we can strengthen their efforts and actually impose sanctions on the United States.
We have to push our Congress to be speaking out against what Trump has done, and change the Congress come November. We have to tell the Iranians and the world community that Trump is hopefully not long to be in the White House, and that we want to get someone in there and people in Congress who will represent the American people, who, as you say, overwhelmingly are in…