Joe Biden blurts out Iran nuclear deal ‘dead’ — but he can’t ‘announce’ it

WASHINGTON — President Biden let slip to a group of protesters that the Iran nuclear deal “is dead” before adding, “but we are not going to announce it — long story,” a video that surfaced Tuesday reveals.

Biden made the off-the-cuff remark Nov. 4 to Iranian American protesters who trailed him to an event in California.

“President Biden, could you please announce that JCPOA is dead? Can you just announce that?” a woman asks, using the formal acronym for the 2015 agreement that softened US policy toward Iran in exchange for promises that Tehran wouldn’t seek a nuclear bomb.

“No,” Biden replied.

“No? Why not?” the woman pressed the president.

“No. A lot of reasons. It is dead, but we are not going to announce it — long story. We’re going to make sure —,” Biden began — possibly referring to the looming midterm elections — before being cut off by his questioner.

https://twitter.com/DamonMaghsoudi/status/1605084721016209411?s=20&t=yds1Jt-veyBLl9MPNmVafw

“We just don’t want any deals with the mullahs. No deals. They don’t represent us. They are not our government,” the woman said.

The commander-in-chief replied, as he backed away, “They’ll have a nuclear weapon they’ll represent.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment or dispute the authenticity of the video, which was posted by Damon Maghsoudi, whose unverified Twitter profile says he’s a Google software engineer living in Southern California.

But State Department spokesman Ned Price effectively confirmed Biden’s sentiment Tuesday, while pinning the blame on Iran for the failure of talks in Vienna that began last year to discuss renewing the deal.

“The Iranians killed the opportunity for a swift return to mutual compliance with the JCPOA,” Price told reporters. 

“They killed that opportunity for a swift return to compliance most recently in September when again we were on the precipice, we thought, of a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA.”

Price added that the nuclear talks were no longer “on the agenda” of the US government.

“It hasn’t been on the agenda for some time,” Price said. “Of course, there have been instances where we thought we were on the precipice of a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA only to find the Iranians turning their backs on a deal that was on the table … the Iranians have not and may not ever be in a position to move forward with a swift return to compliance.”

It’s unclear why it took nearly two months for Biden’s remark to surface. But it’s a common feature of the Biden era for the president’s precise utterances to elude the public record due to poor press logistics and less-intense interest in presidential quips than under his predecessor, Donald Trump.