Senate Republican: Iranian leaders ‘part of a colony of reptiles’ that also includes China, Russia, North Korea

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) on Wednesday accused Iran’s leaders of being “part of a colony of reptiles,” grouping them with other U.S. adversaries.

Kennedy was responding to Fox News’s Will Cain on his eponymous show when asked about President Trump attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.

Trump was part of a meeting with Iranian officials on the sidelines of the international body on Tuesday. The next day, he rolled out the red carpet for Chinese President Xi Jinping at Joint Base Andrews.

“I think that the people running Iran are reptiles,” Kennedy replied. “And they’re part of a colony of reptiles: China, North Korea, Russia and, as I said, Iran. The chief reptile, the quarterback, is President Xi in China. You can’t trust any of them.”

Kennedy said that in many ways, Iran, China, North Korea and Russia “are the same.”

“It’s like the same hooker in different dresses,” the Louisiana Republican continued. “They all lie like timeshare salesmen. You can’t trust them. I wouldn’t turn my back on any of them, even if I thought and knew they were two days dead.”

Kennedy defended the Trump administration’s military operation against Iran, reiterating the president’s frequent remark that the U.S. has “degraded Iran substantially” and that the country has “accomplished all of our goals.”

“They’re angry because President Trump has ripped Iran a new ashtray,” he said.

The senator insisted that China could open the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial passageway for roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil that Iran effectively shut off at the start of the conflict. Kennedy said the strait was the only problem remaining.

“And at some point, the president’s going to have to decide whether having achieved all of our objectives –– it’s time to come home and let China and Russia and North Korea and Europe and all the other countries that refuse to help take a crack at it because they’re going to pay the price of a closed strait even more than America,” he added.

Trump met with the Iranian delegation for three hours, with his son-in-law Jared Kushner in attendance. The president had earlier delivered a speech to the U.N. about his options in bringing the Iran war to a close: to seek a new deal on Iran’s nuclear program or allow the country to face “annihilation.”

On Wednesday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the General Assembly that his country will not surrender or give up its nuclear program. He said Trump and others “who seek to bully us” must understand that Iran seeks a path toward peace “without accepting the language of force.”

“We will never bow our head or bend at the knee,” Pezeshkian said.

Xi’s visit to the U.S. marks the first official state visit from a Chinese leader in more than a decade as tensions between China and the U.S. remain high. He and Trump will hold a series of high-stakes meetings on Thursday before a state dinner at the White House. The two leaders are expected to talk about trade, artificial intelligence and the U.S. shipping weapons to Taiwan.

Both leaders agreed to ease tensions in their trade war last October, but neither made progress at their May summit in Beijing.

China hawks from both parties have expressed objections to Trump’s no-expense-spared treatment for Xi.

“Had the White House asked me for advice, I would have suggested the president not invite Xi Jinping to Washington for such a lavish welcome here in the United States, based on all of the troubling issues we have with President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on the Senate floor Tuesday evening.