New York Post - USA (2020-12-03)

New York Post, Thursday, December 3, 2020

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President-elect Joe Biden

says he plans to re-enter the

Iran nuclear deal on the

condition that Tehran

agrees to “strict compli-

ance” measures.

Asked in an interview by

New York Times columnist

Thomas Friedman if he still

stood by a September op-ed

he authored in which he ar-

gued in favor of rejoining the

Obama-era accord “as a start-

ing point for follow-on nego-

tiations,” Biden said he did.

“It’s going to be hard, but

yeah,” he replied.

At the time, Biden said

that “if Iran returns to strict

compliance with the nu-

clear deal, the United States

would rejoin the agreement

as a starting point for fol-

low-on negotiations” under

his presidency.

Emily Jacobs

Joe’s Iran plan

By LiA EustAchEwich

All four members of “The

Squad” fired back at former

President Barack Obama for

trashing the “defund the po-

lice” movement when he

dismissed it as a “snappy

slogan” that was a mistake.

Reps. Ilhan Omar

(D-Minn.), Ra-

shida Tlaib

(D-Mich.), Alex-

andria Ocasio-

Cortez (D-NY)

and Ayanna

Pressley

(D-Mass.) lashed

out Wednesday

on Twitter

against Obama —

with Tlaib even

suggesting the 44th presi-

dent was a hypocrite.

“Rosa Parks was vilified &

attacked for her civil disobe-

dience,” Tlaib wrote. “She

was targeted. It’s hard see-

ing the same people who

uplift her courage, attack the

movement for Black lives

that want us to prioritize

health, funding of schools &

ending poverty, rather than

racist police systems.”

Obama’s critique of the

“defund the police” move-

ment came during an inter-

view on Snapchat’s political

show “Good Luck America.”

Asked whether he had

any advice for new-age ac-

tivists who believe in the

movement, Obama said, “I

guess you can use a snappy

slogan like defund the po-

lice, but, you know, you lost

a big audience the minute

you say it, which makes it a

lot less likely that you’re ac-

tually going to get

the changes you

want done.”

The four pro-

gressive Demo-

crats took issue

with that.

“We lose people

in the hands of po-

lice. It’s not a slo-

gan but a policy de-

mand,” Omar said.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted,

“The thing that critics of ac-

tivists don’t get is that they

tried playing the ‘polite lan-

guage’ policy game and all

it did was make them easier

to ignore. It wasn’t until

they made folks uncomfort-

able that there was traction

to do ANYTHING even if it

wasn’t their full demands.”

Pressley said, “The mur-

ders of generations of un-

armed black folks by police

have been horrific. Lives

are at stake daily so I’m out

of patience with critiques of

the language of activists.”

Bam gets

slammed

by Squad

Defund-police flap

By AAron FEis

Former President Bill Clinton did

visit deep-pocketed perv Jeffrey Ep-

stein’s infamous “Pedophile Island” —

despite his camp’s insistence to the

contrary, a onetime top adviser says in a

blistering new tell-all.

Clinton made the trip in January

2003, one of dozens of times he flew

aboard Epstein’s private jet, dubbed the

“Lolita Express,” former close aide

Doug Band claimed in a wide-ranging

interview with Vanity Fair.

Band — who rose from Bubba’s body

man during his second term in office to

the most trusted adviser of Clinton’s

postpresidential life — told the mag

that he tried for years to keep Epstein at

a distance but that the ex-prez just

couldn’t stay away.

Though Band says he was ignorant at

the time of Epstein’s sex crimes, he

knew the financier was bad news ever

since Clinton’s 2002 philanthropic trip

aboard Epstein’s jet to Africa.

Photos of that trip were unearthed

earlier this year, including a shot of

Clinton getting a neck massage from

Chauntae Davies, who later accused

Epstein of rape. Clinton has not been

accused of any sexual misconduct re-

garding Epstein’s victims.

Band said that he encouraged Clinton

to sever ties with Epstein after the Af-

rica trip but that in early 2003, the

former president visited Epstein’s pri-

vate Caribbean retreat, Little St. James

— also known as “Pedophile Island.”

In an unusual move given their close

working relationship at the time, Band

said he declined to join Clinton on the

trip.

The Clinton camp insisted to Vanity

Fair that the former president had

never set foot on the island and pro-

vided “detailed travelogue entries of

the period in question that did not con-

tain a visit,” the mag said.

Epstein — who hanged himself in his

Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 while

awaiting trial — donated $25,000 to the

Clinton Foundation philanthropic

group in 2006.

Band said the Clinton family also

maintained close ties to Ghislaine Max-

well — who is now awaiting her own

trial on charges she groomed underage

girls whom she and Epstein allegedly

would go on to abuse.

Maxwell has pleaded not guilty.

Chelsea Clinton, the former presi-

dent’s only child, maintained a friend-

ship with Maxwell — inviting her to

her 2010 wedding — long after Ep-

stein’s misdeeds were public knowl-

edge, in what Band characterized as a

grab at high-society life style.

“Ghislaine had access to yachts and

nice homes,” Band told Vanity Fair.

“Chelsea needed that.”

A spokesperson for the Clinton fam-

ily told the magazine that the two were

connected only through a mutual

friendship with Gateway founder Ted

Waitt.

In October 2011, as his own relation-

ship with Clinton was rapidly disinte-

ISle Be

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