JOHN BERMAN: You wrote, “The greatest superpower to ever exist, brought to its knees by a few minds, just a disaster for America.”.

Expand on that. Why?

NEWSNATION HOST BATYA UNGAR-SARGON: Thank you so much for having me, John. It’s always great to be with you. Look, it gives me obviously no pleasure to say this, but I think this deal is a total disaster!

I agree with a lot of the people you’ve been quoting at the top of the show and also last hour. Iran has come out of this stronger than it was before. It’s getting $300 billion in sanctions relief.

It also, in the MOU, it states that it commits not to charge tolls through the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days, John, meaning it has suddenly occurred to them that they can start doing that.

They realized that it didn’t matter that we had complete military superiority and total military victory over them. If they could plant a few mines in that strait, they could bring the greatest superpower to ever exist in human history to its knees.

And that is just such a disaster! I mean, what message do you think that signals to China right now? It’s really, really horrifying!

And I’m very surprised that this administration would go down this road.

JOHN BERMAN: So you woke up no doubt to see what the president wrote about some of his critics. I imagine you included.

He said you are “jealous bad people” and stupid. That’s what he says of his critiques this morning.

What would have happened imagine a world where a Democratic president? Signed this memorandum of understanding. What would the criticism have been?

NEWSNATION HOST BATYA UNGAR-SARGON: I mean, you know the answer to that, right? There’s no Republican who, if a Democrat had signed this exact document, they would blast them to kingdom come. We all know this.

The president himself would have done so.

And I think what was so distressing was, yesterday in his press conference, he repeatedly said things that were the exact opposite of the things that he had promised when we initially got involved here. Things like, for example, that Iran should be able to have ballistic missiles because everybody else has them.

Of course, Secretary of State Marco Rubio very persuasively argued that one of the most important goals here was to get rid of their ballistic capabilities because they were being used as a protective shield around their nuclear program.

I am a big fan of this president. I think he has done amazing, amazing things in the first year of his second term, which is why I’m so surprised by this.

JOHN BERMAN: Again, just to reiterate what you said, you are a Trump supporter by your own words there. You are a fan of this president. And again, you just mentioned what the president said about the missiles. I just want to play that for people so they know what you’re talking about.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, I’m saying that if other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some. A ballistic missile is not the same thing as what we’re talking about, what we talk nuclear. But if Saudi Arabia and Qatar and they all have some, I would say in relative proportion, I think it’s okay. That’s what I mean.

JOHN BERMAM: So he thinks it’s only fair, perhaps, that they have missiles. If that is, or missiles are left out of whatever agreement comes next, or if there isn’t any explicit language on missiles, how good of a deal would this be?

NEWSNATION HOST BATYA UNGAR-SARGON: Right, exactly. So when we first went into this, the president laid out three main goals.

He said he wanted to get rid of their Navy, he wanted get rid their ballistic capabilities, and he wanted their ability to achieve a nuclear weapon. I don’t see any of that in this MOU.

Of course, they promised not to pursue a nuclear weapons. Guess what? They promised that to President Obama as well, and then they lied and cheated, right?

Their word means nothing, which is the whole point of going after them in this military way.

Now, the one thing that I found the most distressing. Is that Vice President Vance has been the only member of the cabinet who’s out there defending this.

And he keeps implying that the people who have a problem with it are somehow war hawks who want an endless groundswell of ground troops on the ground in order to finish the deal.

I find that very insulting. I don’t want that. We had them on the ropes. They have never been as weak as they were last Friday, right before the president agreed to this exact deal.

And I just do not understand why we’re letting up the pressure in 60 days, when they have all their money back, they’re gonna be much stronger and much less likely to agree to anything that would make this not just better than the JCPOA, but just as good as the JCPOA.