Cory Mills Asks Witness Point Blank If Iranian Oil Exportation Increased During The Biden Admin

Forbes Breaking News

At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) spoke about sanctions towards Iran.

Transcript

00:00My colleague left with his JCPOA binders. That would have been very helpful. We've got a small

00:05chair in the back that's a little bit wobbly and that's about the only thing you could have put

00:09under it to actually stabilize it since it did nothing to stabilize her on. Ms. Stroll, you

00:14really loved the quick fire, rapid fire stuff when it came to the Biden administration. I kind of

00:18want to follow suit here, if you will, and I want to make this quick. Did oil exportation increase

00:24under the Biden administration? Sanctions enforcement is an area that could have been

00:29improved. Did it increase under the Biden administration? Chinese purchases of discounted Iranian oil

00:36increased under the previous administration. Did Biden delist the Houthi rebels? Yes. Did that

00:41disrupt 12% of global trade through the Red Sea? The delisting itself was not the cause of the

00:46disruption of the global trade. Did the increase in actual attacks as a result of delisting the

00:49Houthis increase the amount of disruption of global trade through the Red Sea, resulting in 12% of

00:55global trade being disrupted? Iranian provision of support to the Houthis is part of the reason the

01:00unfreezing of assets and the increase of oil trade give more money to Iran to be able to fund

01:05proxy militias. I can't speak to the exact fungibility of the fire. I actually thought that was your job.

01:10Did the currency of the Iran, the real, go up in value versus the dollar during the time the Biden

01:16administration was in place? My colleague would be better positioned on that. I'll allow you to answer.

01:21Yes. Yes, it did. Because under max pressure, it's at about a million rial to the dollar,

01:27something they haven't seen in a long time. So I noticed that you had a lot of really quick

01:31rapid fire things in the previous administration, but not a whole lot when it came to the increase

01:35in maximum pressure that's actually resulted in the Iranian regime reducing the amount of attacks

01:41they have right now. Wasn't it the Biden administration who actually requested the IDF in

01:46Israel to launch themselves into a ceasefire for negotiations? I can't speak to the specifics

01:52of that. Well, the answer is yes. And had they done that, we wouldn't have eliminated Hassan

01:58Nasrallah of Hezbollah. We would not have eliminated Senwar. We would not have eliminated many of the

02:03actual terrorist organization leads that has basically been put in place and enforced to grow

02:09stronger as a result of the weakness that the administration had shown. Look what we have today.

02:13We talk all the time about how Russia is, we're so weak on Russia, but was it not the Trump

02:19administration actually removed us from the failed INF treaty? Something that no other administration was

02:23willing to do before? Was it not the JCPOA that both General Secretary Ban Ki-moon and Gutierrez

02:30said had been violated when Iran was still shipping mid-range ballistic missiles to the Houthis when

02:36they were launching against Saudi Aramco? This is preposterous to even assume that the Biden

02:43administration had done anything to prevent the enrichment of nuclear or that the JCPOA or

02:48Jake Sullivan or any of the others had done anything that would have weakened the regime.

02:53And I want to be very clear. There is a difference, and I think it's important to always point out the

02:58differentiation in this. There is a difference in the regime and the Iranian people. The Iranian

03:03people want a free Iran. I can tell you that those who are bravely protesting in the streets,

03:09those who are continuing to try and risk their lives every single day, like Masa Amini did, to say enough is

03:15enough, shouldn't be lumped in. So when our colleagues very recklessly just says Iran, I think that that's a

03:24very big big misnomenclature, and I want to correct that for the record. I want to go into sanction enforcement.

03:30Do you feel, Ms. Youngman, that sanctions were enforced under the Biden administration?

03:38Not until late 2024.

03:40And do you feel that Iran is at a stronger or weaker position right now than they were previously?

03:47As a result of the sanctions that have been rolled out over the last few months, and at the end of 2024,

03:52they are weaker, but not as weak as they could have been if sanctions were fully enforced under the

03:57Biden administration. Completely agreed. And what I noticed from Iran is that not only are they

04:02concerned about this administration more so than the last, they've actually moved and relocated their

04:07service to air missiles around Qom, around the Tans, around Esfahan, because they know that unlike the

04:13Obama-Biden drawn red line, that this administration has actually proven to take real enforcement.

04:20Do you think, Mr. Norman, that if we actually, not actually hurting or impacting or having a lot of

04:25collateral damage as you would if you hit cities like Tehran or others, but when after the nuclear

04:29facilities, that would send a direct message to the regime that we will not continue to play weak with

04:35them? It certainly would send a powerful message to the regime that we would take, that we would

04:42not play weak with them, sir. And I think that that's really what this administration has proven,

04:46both in the first administration and now, is that we're not going to continue to play weak

04:51with our adversaries. The China-Russia-Iran-North Korea geopolitical alignment has grown stronger

04:56on the previous regime, and it's President Trump and this administration who continue to try and

05:00make the necessary steps to enforce sanctions, to guarantee that we relist the Houthis, to stop the

05:05sea of navigation from being disrupted, and to actually, for once and for all, actually see that

05:11the Iranian people have support from the United States to overthrow a regime that's been

05:15detainership, tyrannical, and continue to do this, but only build and build themselves under the Biden

05:20administration. With that, I will now recognize, if it pops up here, and I'm not sure that they're

05:27updating it. There we go. We will recognize the gentle lady from Pennsylvania, Ms. Dean.

05:44There we go. I'm going to slide down one.

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