Sparks flew Tuesday as a senior Biden administration official clashed with a reporter over it allowing billions in unfrozen Iranian assets to return to the terror-funding nation.<\/p>\n
The heated debate came during the State Department press briefing when agency spokesman Matthew Miller staunchly defended the decision to release the money back to the Iranian regime in the form of waivers, which the administration says can only be used for \u2018humanitarian needs like food and medicine.\u2019<\/p>\n
The reporter noted that the money going to Iran for humanitarian reasons would free up billions the regime already had that it could put toward hostile activity across the Middle East, something Miller admitted had not changed for years.<\/p>\n
\u2018I don\u2019t accept that argument. What we believe is the Iranian regime is going to spend the same amount of money on destabilizing activities because it always has,\u2019 Miller pushed back.<\/p>\n
\u2018We will take actions to hold them accountable for those destabilizing activities, as we have from the beginning of this administration. What we have seen is that when these waivers have been issued, that money has been used for the benefit of the Iranian people, period,\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n
The reporter attempted to make the point again, that with the additional funding even if just for humanitarian purposes, Iran would be able to use money elsewhere as it desired.<\/p>\n
Both then accused the other of making assumptions about Iran\u2019s spending intentions and began talking over each other.<\/p>\n
\u2018No, no. Let me finish. You are making the assumption when you say that the Iranian government is choosing the benefit of its people over funding terrorism and funding other destabilization. That\u2019s not what we\u2019ve seen,\u2019 Miller said.<\/p>\n
\u2018You\u2019re making that assumption \u2014,\u2019 the reporter jumped in.<\/p>\n
\u2018No, no, I\u2019m not. I\u2019ve seen them as a first priority fund destabilizing activities. We think increasing the amount of money that flows for the benefit of the Iranian people is something that\u2019s worthwhile,\u2019 Miller responded.<\/p>\n
The reporter accused Miller of \u2018twisting\u2019 what he was saying, and stated that he wasn\u2019t claiming that none of the unfrozen money would be used on food and medicine, to which Miller repeated that those were the only things the money could be spent on.<\/p>\n
\u2018Yeah, but that means that they have X amount of dollars more in their own treasury that they can spend on destabilizing activities,\u2019 the reporter hit back.<\/p>\n
\u2018Only if you assume they were going to fund food and medicine and other activities. And I\u2019m saying that\u2019s not a necessarily correct assumption,\u2019 Miller responded.<\/p>\n
The two continued to go back and forth before Miller said he felt they were \u2018arguing in circles.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I don\u2019t understand your argument that you can be so sure that none of this money is going to increase the amount of cash that Iran spends to destabilize the region,\u2019 the reporter said, but Miller continued to repeat his point that Iran was already prioritizing spending on destabilizing activities over feeding its people.<\/p>\n
The reporter appeared to eventually give up, saying, \u2018All right. I just don\u2019t understand how you can\u2019t see the problem with this.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018And I don\u2019t understand how you can\u2019t \u2014 We don\u2019t understand each other, I think,\u2019 Miller responded, laughing.<\/p>\n\n
Sparks flew Tuesday as a senior Biden administration official clashed with a reporter over it allowing billions in unfrozen Iranian assets to return to the terror-funding nation. The heated debate came during the State Department press briefing when agency spokesman Matthew Miller staunchly defended the decision to release the money back to the Iranian regime <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11644,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}