ICYMI: UANI Chairman Senator Joe Lieberman After Oil Tanker Attack: “The Number One Threat to our Security is Iran”

To access this video online, please click here.

Please find a transcript of the interview below.

MARIA BARTIROMO: “I was talking to Senator Perdue earlier, and I asked him about whether or not this attack in Oman, is related to the recent attack on Saudi tankers, and he said, look more information is going to be released about that. It raised a red flag to me because it appears that maybe they are connected. What do you think?”

SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN: “Well I think they probably are. We don't know enough yet to say, but on the previous attack, our government, through National Security Advisor John Bolton, said publicly that we had concluded that Iran or Iran-sponsored agents had carried out those attacks, previously on the tanker. So you have to assume that they are the first suspect here and they’ve got reasons to do it. Because, the Islamic Republic of Iran, a government controlled by terrorists, for years has been moving aggressively throughout the Middle East, supporting terrorists and really controlling Syria, moving into Yemen, and the Trump administration to their credit turned it around. The President broke out of the Iran nuclear agreement, squeezing Iran with sanctions economically. They are on the defensive, so this is one of the ways they can fight back, and this is why we got to hang tough right now.”

BARTIROMO: “So what do you do in terms of hanging tough? I mean, right now we know that the U.S. navy is responding. They have gotten these distress calls. Does U.S. need to get involved any further? I mean, are we going to just keep seeing attacks on tankers?”

LIEBERMAN: “Well that’s the danger here and I think what we've got to do, and remember these attacks occurred while Prime Minister Abe of Japan was in Tehran trying to cool it down. And the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said to him yesterday basically, forget it we're not going to work with the United States. What do we have to do? I think the whole world has an interest in protecting those tankers, in the Gulf of Oman, Straits of Hormuz, one third of the oil in the world goes through there every day, every year. So we've got to up our security in the Gulf. We can't let Iran essentially try to hold us hostage. They are weak right now, and this is about one of the few things they can do, and we got to stand  tough against them.”

BARTIROMO: “And yet you just mentioned the Ayatollah. He says Tehran does not want an atomic bomb, but that America could not do anything to stop Iran if it did.”

LIEBERMAN: “Well that’s not true. The U.S. doesn't want Iran to have an atomic bomb either, but the agreement that was negotiated four, five years ago doesn't stop them from having a nuclear weapon. It just puts the brakes on for a limited number of years. That’s why the president was right to pull us out of that agreement. You know Iran can move this forward in a peaceful way and a better way for their own people, if they’ll come back to the negotiating table, with the United States. Hard to believe, but possible, and negotiate an agreement by which they give up their nuclear weapons, and stop supporting terrorists throughout the Middle East and the world.”

LIEBERMAN: “I want to come back to the lead story of the day. In my opinion, with all the challenges against the U.S., instability, Russia, China, et cetera, the number one threat to our security is Iran, because they are a terrorist state now. And President Trump has acted with real strength to get them on the defensive. Let's keep them there.”