Pence: Trump ‘will not negotiate’ with foes

GOP vice presidential contender Mike Pence says Donald Trump will not barter with America’s enemies should he become the next president.

“In a Trump-Pence administration, we will not negotiate with those who threaten our people,” he said during a campaign rally in Norfolk, Va., Thursday evening. “America needs to be strong for the world to be safe. Donald Trump will lead from strength on the world stage.”

{mosads}Pence also linked Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, to President Obama’s foreign policy struggles.

“We ought to look at what the judgment of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has wrought, particularly on the world stage. For all the world, it looks like the world is spinning apart.”

Pence added that Trump, unlike Clinton, would make a clean break from the Obama years should the Republican presidential nominee win this November.

“Hillary Clinton essentially offers a third Obama term,” the Indiana governor said. “The stakes are so high. It is change versus the status quo. The other party has nominated someone with the most predictable of names and a stale agenda.”

Obama earlier Thursday slammed critics of a controversial $400 million payment to Iran made last January.

“This wasn’t some nefarious deal,” he said at the Pentagon. “What we have is the manufacturing of outrage on a story that we disclosed in January. We do not pay ransom for hostages. And the notion we would start now, in this high-profile way … defies logic.”

Reports emerged late Tuesday the Obama administration secretly shipped $400 million to Iran earlier this year.

The money, which consists mainly of foreign currencies, was shipped in an unmarked cargo plane around the same time Iran released four American prisoners. Detractors have since blasted the transaction as a ransom. 

The White House contends it is instead part of a settlement over a 1979 arms deal, which occurred before an Iranian regime change.