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Senator Lieberman Advises Against Any Business With Iran(Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: of one point seven And that's the Bloomberg Business flash
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  Speaker 1: you're listening to. Taking staff with Kathleen Hayes and Pim
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  Speaker 1: Box on Bloomberg Radio. The Central banks of India and
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  Speaker 1: Iran they have reached an agreement to use European banks
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  Speaker 1: in order the process pending oil payments to Tehran, unlocking
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  Speaker 1: about six and a half billion dollars installed funds. Our
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  Speaker 1: next guest has a thing or two about Iran. His
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  Speaker 1: name is Senator Joseph Lieberman. Senator Lieberman is a former
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  Speaker 1: U S Senator from Connecticut. He was also the Democratic
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  Speaker 1: Party nominee for Vice President in the two thousand election.
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  Speaker 1: He also served as chair of the Senate Homeland Security
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  Speaker 1: Committee from two thousand and seven until twenty thirteen. And
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  Speaker 1: he is the chairman of United Against Nuclear Iran. And
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  Speaker 1: he joins us now. Senator Lieberman, thank you very much
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  Speaker 1: for being with us. Glad to be with you, Pim,
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  Speaker 1: thank you. Tell US about United Against Nuclear Iran. What
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  Speaker 1: is this organization? Right? United Against Nuclear Iran is not
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  Speaker 1: the new organization. It was formed seven or eight years
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  Speaker 1: ago by an impressive group of diplomats including the late
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  Speaker 1: Richard Holbrook, Investador Holbrook, Dennis Ross, Jim Wolsey was director
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  Speaker 1: of the CIA under President Clinton, and Mark Wallace, who
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  Speaker 1: was in the U n A delegation under President Bush.
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  Speaker 1: And at that point, the purpose and still is was
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  Speaker 1: to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. And now
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  Speaker 1: we're focused post around nuclear agreement on really sank to
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  Speaker 1: the business community. That agreement doesn't mean that it's it's
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  Speaker 1: risk less to start doing business with Iran or it's
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  Speaker 1: open season to do business with Iran. It's loaded with risk,
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  Speaker 1: first because there are still sanctions against Irun for terrorism,
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  Speaker 1: for violation of human rights where it's Islamic guard cores,
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  Speaker 1: and the the second is there's reputational risk. This is
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  Speaker 1: still the largest state sponsor, a most significant state sponsor
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  Speaker 1: of terrorism now expanding throughout the region, and a tremendous
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  Speaker 1: suppressor of women's rights, gay rights, political freedom, journalist freedom, etcetera.
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  Speaker 1: So we're basically focused on businesses in America. And throughout
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  Speaker 1: the world and saying, uh, don't do business with Iran yet,
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  Speaker 1: it's too early and it's too risky for you and
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  Speaker 1: your stockholders. Having said that, the Senator, I'm wondering if
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  Speaker 1: you could just offer a little detail about why is
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  Speaker 1: it that you're targeting companies And don't you believe that
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  Speaker 1: the companies themselves have the wherewithal to do the research
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  Speaker 1: necessary for whether they want to do business with Iran. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's a great question. So uh in some cases maybe not. Um. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: you know, there's been a general reaction in some places.
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  Speaker 1: Uh there on nuclear agreement has been signed. Its open season.
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  Speaker 1: Time to go rushing back into Iran to do business.
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  Speaker 1: But the the Iran Nuclear Agreement, if I can put
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  Speaker 1: it this way, it was transactional. It was limited to
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  Speaker 1: the nuclear weapons program. It was not transformational about Iran.
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  Speaker 1: Ramant Iran remains terrorist state, remains from a terrible suppressor
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  Speaker 1: of human rights, and remains of a verbal open declared
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  Speaker 1: enemy of the United States of America. Also, those sanctions
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  Speaker 1: are on and uh, if you do business with an organism,
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  Speaker 1: a company in Iran, you may well be doing business
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  Speaker 1: with the I r g C. The The Star a
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  Speaker 1: military group that has great economic power, and if you are,
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  Speaker 1: you're subject to sanctions, to losing access to the US
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  Speaker 1: banking system, and we're just asking businesses to ask themselves
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  Speaker 1: whether it's worth it. Frankly, we're also saying to them
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  Speaker 1: that there are people out here like us who are
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  Speaker 1: still who still feel Iran is of the number one
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  Speaker 1: threat to not only American security, but but regional and
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  Speaker 1: world security. And if you're going to do business with them,
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  Speaker 1: you're going to be supporting this extremist regime. UH, and
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  Speaker 1: that's ultimately going to create a backlash perhaps among our
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  Speaker 1: company's customers. UM, So you're trying to make a political
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  Speaker 1: point or you're trying to make a business point what
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  Speaker 1: we're doing both. I mean, we're saying, on the on
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  Speaker 1: the continuing existence of the sanctions, that you better look
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  Speaker 1: twice at the law before you think that it's it's
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  Speaker 1: without risk of legal consequence or without risk of compromising
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  Speaker 1: your access to the American banking system and markets for
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  Speaker 1: you to do business and uh Iran, we're also saying
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  Speaker 1: there's reputational risk that ultimately Iran has given no indication
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  Speaker 1: of moderating its behavior since Iran nuclear agreement and effect.
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  Speaker 1: Just last weekend, again the Supreme Leader I have told
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  Speaker 1: a common I declared that the United States is the
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  Speaker 1: number one enemy of Iran and a kind of irreconcilable
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  Speaker 1: UH enemies. So I guess what I'm trying to understand,
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  Speaker 1: center is why do they need Why do US companies
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  Speaker 1: need an organization like United Against Nuclear Iran to tell
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  Speaker 1: them exactly what you just said. I mean, I would
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  Speaker 1: assume that they would need the headlines and they would
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  Speaker 1: do their own due diligence. Well maybe not. Maybe they
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  Speaker 1: think they can get away with it, but I'll tell you,
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  Speaker 1: or are not run to follow the other sanctions, I'll
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  Speaker 1: say you something. What we're trying to do is to
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  Speaker 1: shine a light, and frankly, we're also saying implicitly, if
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  Speaker 1: not explicitly, to companies if you're We do this with
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  Speaker 1: letters to the companies, with appearances at UH different business
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  Speaker 1: meetings that are dealing with bringing people to Iran to
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  Speaker 1: do business, where we were represented by the former Italian
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  Speaker 1: foreign minister Julio Tears at a meeting in Zurich just
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  Speaker 1: this past week of the European Iran Form and part
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  Speaker 1: of it is just to say that the lights are
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  Speaker 1: still on Iran, and if you do business there, the
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  Speaker 1: lights maybe on you. That'll be bad for your reputation,
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  Speaker 1: and at some point may actually close economic consequences for
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  Speaker 1: you from your consumers who would not customers who would
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  Speaker 1: not want to feel that they were buying from a
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  Speaker 1: company that was economically supporting a terrorist anti America and regime.
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  Speaker 1: Just looking at the list of signatories to your letter,
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  Speaker 1: destriving these possibilities just because how come there are no
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  Speaker 1: business executives, Well, it's a good question. Maybe the next
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  Speaker 1: ste are we will, I mean, since it's founding and
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  Speaker 1: you could hear this from the names I mentioned, Holbrook, Wolsey, Ross, Wallace, etcetera.
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  Speaker 1: And these were former, uh, public servants, former diplomats, etcetera.
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  Speaker 1: People really familiar with the state of negotiations with Iran
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  Speaker 1: and with the with the sanctions law, and and UH
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  Speaker 1: we've had some business people expressed support for what we're doing,
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  Speaker 1: and I hope we have more. I mean, we we
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  Speaker 1: haven't hesitated to go really directly to some great companies
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  Speaker 1: like ge or Siemens, Fiat Christs or Bombadeer Maraths are
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  Speaker 1: companies that have indicated that they may be thinking about
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  Speaker 1: doing business with Iran, and honestly, we want them to
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  Speaker 1: know the risks. Uh. This is a still a country
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  Speaker 1: that has declared under the Patriot Act to be a
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  Speaker 1: a money laundering operation and subject to legal penalties for
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  Speaker 1: for doing business with it. Let's talk about some other names.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to give you two and a half a
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  Speaker 1: minute or so to comment on each. Donald Trump, Oh,
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, big surprise of the year. I didn't see
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  Speaker 1: it coming obviously in a primary though, though it's only
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  Speaker 1: a minority of voters. Of what primaries are both parties,
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  Speaker 1: probably about ten overall of the voters in the in
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  Speaker 1: the country. Um, they're saying something which is there the
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  Speaker 1: voters are by supporting Trump, They're they're furious at the
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  Speaker 1: status quo and they want something different. And I guess
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  Speaker 1: i'd say, uh, none of us should underestimate him because
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  Speaker 1: he's come a lot further than any of us study
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  Speaker 1: ever would Hillary Clinton, she's very experienced and or for
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  Speaker 1: a long time. Uh, and Uh, I guess you'd have
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  Speaker 1: to say she's the favorite going into the fall election.
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  Speaker 1: But if if there was a supporting word, I'm not
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  Speaker 1: supporting either. I've been involved in another organization called No Labels,
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  Speaker 1: which is in China, believe or not. Idealistically, so I
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  Speaker 1: would say naively trying to create incentives for bipartisan cooperation
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  Speaker 1: in Washington. So I'm gonna wait a while, probably through
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  Speaker 1: the national conventions. I mean, the big challenge to Hillary
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  Speaker 1: Clinton is that that she has exactly the experience, the
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  Speaker 1: qualiser to be president, which is to say, she may
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  Speaker 1: be seen as an insider in a year when the
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  Speaker 1: public clearly wants change, and Trump is certainly, among other things,
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  Speaker 1: an outsider. So thank you very much. As Senator Joe Lieberman,
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  Speaker 1: he is the chairman of United Against Nuclear Iran, the
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  Speaker 1: former senator from Connecticut. You're listening to taking Stock on
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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio.