Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump denounced Iran for detaining two American Navy boats and ten American sailors before releasing them today.

Trump was outraged by the photos released by the Iranian news agency, showing American service members surrendering to Iranian authorities.

“I think it’s an absolute disgrace and it’s a lack of respect for our country and certainly for our president,” he said during an interview with radio host Howie Carr this afternoon.

Trump described the Iranians as “thugs with guns” and said that they should have just helped out the sailors if they had mechanical problems without detaining them and embarrassing the United States.

He criticized Secretary of State John Kerry for not only working on the Iran nuclear deal but thanking their leaders for promptly releasing the sailors.

“They put guns to our guys’ heads and he was thanking them,” Trump said.

The only reason Iran released the soldiers, Trump theorized, was because of the $100 billion of economic sanctions against Iran that would soon be lifted.

“The only reason – they get $100 billion dollars that Kerry gave them,” Trump said. “If they weren’t getting that, you would have never seen them – until I became president and then they would have released them early.”