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Touting a wholly different sort of climate change, former Secretary of State John Kerry instructed an audience “Don’t laugh” as he served up words of praise to President-elect Donald Trump.

Kerry may have stepped down from the Biden-Harris administration earlier in the year after serving as the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, but the career politician had yet to relent in efforts at influence on the world stage. Having faced allegations of meddling in foreign affairs contrary to Trump’s first term, Kerry came out this week in favor of the GOP leader’s negotiating tactics.

“He makes unpredictability a virtue, and it actually can be helpful,” said the former secretary while giving a talk at Harvard University’s Kennedy School Institute of Politics. “Don’t laugh.”

“It could be helpful in a negotiation for them to worry about you and not know where you’re coming from,” asserted Kerry who told the audience, “When you’re just starting out and you’re trying to find your ground and you don’t know exactly where you’re going to be able to go, it’s not a bad thing for them to worry about you a little bit and what you might do. You can’t play that all the way through a negotiation, but it’s a good place to begin.”

Moderated by IOP Director Setti Warren, who’d previously served as deputy state director when Kerry was at the State Department, the wide-ranging conversation specifically addressed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal.

“I believe there are some opportunities available to President-elect Trump to be able to open up some really important negotiations. And I hope he will do that. I hope he will,” said Kerry.

Notably, during his first administration, Trump had called out the former secretary of state amid reports that there had been secret collusion with Iran to keep the nuclear deal alive.

“The United States does not need John Kerry’s possibly illegal Shadow Diplomacy on the very badly negotiated Iran Deal. He was the one that created this MESS in the first place!” the then-president had posted to social media before going on to state, “John Kerry can’t get over the fact that he had his chance and blew it! Stay away from negotiations John, you are hurting your country!”

While Trump had managed a feat unlike any other modern president, having no new wars started during his tenure, and had brokered the Abraham Accords in an effort toward stabilized relations in the Middle East, his successors had overseen turmoil throughout the region as Iran had closed to within weeks of having a nuclear weapon.

Still, Kerry maintained, “Trump pulling out of the Iran nuclear agreement, in my opinion, was one of the worst, most reckless, dangerous decisions of consequence in foreign policy,” while he also spoke to hope about how the president-elect would handle working with Chinese President Xi Jinping compared to President Joe Biden.

“I think President Trump will want to try to prove that he’s a better negotiator. So more power to him. I hope he does,” said the former secretary as many were left surprised.

Kevin Haggerty
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