Today's news August 3, 2016: Iran, France, and more Trump

A day without Trump...hasn't happened this year.

Fortunately, there is one news piece not about Trump:

Wall Street Journal:

U.S. Sent Cash to Iran as Americans Were Freed

The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward. 

Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said. 

The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The settlement, which resolved claims before an international tribunal in The Hague, also coincided with the formal implementation that same weekend of the landmark nuclear agreement reached between Tehran, the U.S. and other global powers the summer before. 

“With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” President Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17—without disclosing the $400 million cash payment.

 This would all go under the category of "simple misunderstanding", except:

Senior U.S. officials denied any link between the payment and the prisoner exchange. They say the way the various strands came together simultaneously was coincidental, not the result of any quid pro quo. 

“As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim…were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of The Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years.” 

But U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible. 

Ding ding ding! We have a winner! Johnny, tell our Iranian friends what they have won? "For taking four hostages, you get...FOUR HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS!"

Admittedly, it isn't that cut and dry. With two negotiations going on at the same time, this payment is insignificant to us. But to them, it is affirmation of their policy of holding Americans hostage. Consider:

Since the cash shipment, the intelligence arm of the Revolutionary Guard has arrested two more Iranian-Americans. Tehran has also detained dual-nationals from France, Canada and the U.K. in recent months.

Of course, we have since learned that the Iranian nuclear deal was kind of a joke too. In the end, we paid for what exactly?

• Iran's signature on a deal that hands the Middle East to them and the Russians
• Minor delays in Iran's nuclear program, without stopping it
• We got four hostages
• Iran picked up two more hostages
• Iran gets $1.7 billion, with an initial payment of $400 million

I hope those four hostages are happy. I don't think we can afford to save any more at this price.

Back to our regular Trump programming...

CNN:

More than a few things Donald Trump has totally changed his mind about

Really? This is your top news story, CNN? Even then, you still manage to miss the mark when the bullseye is the size of the Grand Canyon.

Consider Trump's view of the NFL then:

I don't know what it is, but I'm getting totally bored watching NFL football. Too many penalties and far too soft! T.V. off and back to work

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2014

As usual, Hillary & the Dems are trying to rig the debates so 2 are up against major NFL games. Same as last time w/ Bernie. Unacceptable!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2016

The only connection here is "NFL". The entertainment value of the NFL and debate scheduling have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

I would also give Trump a pass on his evolving view of Mitt Romney. I think a lot of Republicans learned how lame Romney was in 2012. Trump even gave the perfect epithet to Romney's political career: "Mitt Romney had his chance to beat a failed president but he choked like a dog."

But the rest of the story was on-target, even if it doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know about Trump's ADD.

Bloomberg:

Hollande Says Trump Excesses in U.S. Elections Make Him Sick 

French President Francois Hollande expressed extreme revulsion at Donald Trump’s “excesses” in the U.S. presidential campaign and warned against the authoritarian tone adopted by the Republican nominee and billionaire reality-television celebrity. 

“In the U.S., one of the world’s great democracies, maybe the greatest democracy, where democracy was born, before the French one, we see some excesses that are sickening,” Hollande said in Paris during the annual meeting with the presidential press. 

Particularly, Hollande added, when Trump “speaks ill of a soldier, of the memory of a soldier,” an allusion to his feud with the parents of Capt. Humayun Khan, a Muslim-American soldier killed in Iraq in 2004. 

Hollande and Trump have already swapped barbs, most recently when the real-estate mogul said in the aftermath of a string of terror attacks on France that he would not visit the country because “France is no longer France.” Hollande responded his country would stay true to its values. 

In his comments to French journalists, Hollande this time did not hold back his disdain and dismay at the prospect of a Trump White House: “If the American people choose Trump it will have consequences worldwide because the U.S. is a global economy,” he told a hotel conference room of 66 reporters over drinks.

Idle threat much?

Seriously, I wouldn't worry too much about what Hollande says:

Washington Post:

Nearly 90 percent of the French now disapprove of their president

French President François Hollande was never expected to become the most popular head of state in the nation's recent history. But the extent to which his countrymen dislike him has surprised even his political opponents. 

Nearly 90 percent of the French disapprove of their president, a poll has revealed. Only 12 percent of those surveyed by polling institute TNS Sofres said they thought Hollande was doing a good job. It is the worst score of any French president since such surveys were first conducted more than three decades ago.

Even Trump can't match Hollande's disapproval. Maybe Hollande should try sucking up to Trump instead? Or at this point, sucking up to anybody? The last French leader who was this unpopular was Louis XVI.