Former US President Donald Trump appeared on Ben Shapiro's podcast on the Daily Wire today (Tuesday), during which he discussed the situation in the Middle East.
The two also discussed Shapiro's introduction of Trump to the family of Idan Alexander, an American citizen held hostage in Gaza during a commemoration of the first anniversary of the October 7 massacre yesterday.
"From a religious standpoint, it was so beautiful," Trump said of the ceremony at the grave of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Brooklyn yesterday. "I got to meet the family, and they were great. The young brother is very close to his brother, who's hopefully somewhere right now."
"They really don't know [if he is alive]," Trump said. "It must be almost harder when they don't know, they're not sure whether or not he's alive or not alive. They think he is. But, you know, being alive over there is rough stuff. Before it was rough, but now it's probably even rougher."
"Whatever I can do, and you know this, whatever I can do, I'll do for them. Let's see what happens. Maybe I'll be able to help them. Hopefully, it's resolved long before that. But I can see the family is just going through hell. It is very, very sad to see," Trump said.
Shapiro then asked Trump about his foreign policy.
"I did the Abraham Accords, which should have been filled in" with more Arab and Muslim countries making peace with Israel, Trump said. "I would have had every one of the slots filled in. Biden got none. We had the four countries - four very good ones and four tough ones. The rest was just a fill-in job. We would have had total peace."
He continued, "Iran was broke. We had no terrorism, we had no attacks, we had no Hamas problems, no Hezbollah problems. We had nothing, because Iran didn't have the money to give to them because I put sanctions on [Iran] and I dealt directly."
Trump said that he told the Chinese government that it could buy oil from Iran if it wishes to, but "if you do that, you're not doing any business with the US."
"Iran was ready to make a deal" by the end of his term, Trump said. "Biden should have made a deal. Iran was in a position [of weakness]. Instead, he gave them billions and billions of dollars. He took off the sanctions that I had. He took off everything, China started buying more oil than they ever bought before, and today Iran has $300 billion."
He further criticized President Biden for paying Iran $6 billion as part of a prisoner swap deal. "The man is a fool. He's a stupid fool."
Trump said that there is one thing he cares about above all else. "One very simple thing. I don't want them to have a nuclear weapon. Everything else, I want them to have a great life, I want them to be rich, I just didn't want them to have a nuclear weapon. I would have been able to do that very easily."
Trump further claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have launched a war against neighboring Ukraine if he had still been president, and that "the reason he wouldn't have attacked was because of me."