On Saturday, President Donald Trump told reporters that he was “looking at” a new Iranian peace proposal. Then a reporter reminded Trump that he had said the previous night that the US might be better off not making a deal with Iran.
“Well, I wouldn’t have to. I didn’t say that,” Trump responded. “I said that if we left right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild. But we’re not leaving right now. We’re gonna do it so nobody has to go back in two years or five years.”
In reality, Trump did say — on camera — what the reporter told him he said. His denial was yet another case in which the president wrongly asserted he hadn’t said something he had said in a public forum.
Trump made the remark about Iran during a Friday speech to the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches in South Florida. After mentioning that one of his golf clubs is hosting a PGA Tour tournament, he said: “Yesterday, somebody came up, said, ‘Sir, the tournament is great.’ I said, ‘What tournament are you talking about? I’m so busy with the Iranians calling trying to make a good deal, and we’re not gonna let that happen.’ But … they’ve gotta make a bad deal. But — if they make a deal at all. Because frankly, maybe we’re better off not making a deal at all, do you want to know the truth. Because we can’t let this thing go on.”
Trump did say at a different point of the Friday speech that “if we left right now, it would take them 20 years, 25 years, to rebuild the place.” But that clearly doesn’t negate the existence of his “maybe we’re better off not making a deal at all” remark.
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