All 4 living #former US #presidents deny #Trump's claim one of them privately endorsed his war on Iran.
After Trump claimed twice on Monday that he had spoken to a former US president who told him that he #approved of his #attack on #Iran, all 4 living former presidents #denied having spoken with Trump about Iran in statements from aides to CNN and other outlets.
Before his hand-picked #KennedyCenter board met to approve his plan to close the living memorial to John F Kennedy he recently had his name added to, Trump defended his war on Iran by claiming that it was a war that every president since the 1979 Iran hostage crisis would have been #justified in starting.
“Every president knew- I’ve spoken to a certain president, who I like actually, a past president, former president, he said, ‘I wish I did it, I wish I did,’ but they didn’t do it. I’m doing it,” Trump said.
When reporters asked, “Which president?” Trump replied: “I can’t tell you that. It would be very bad for his career even though he’s got no career left.”
At an #OvalOffice event later in the day, Trump repeated his evidence-free claim that the attack on Iran was justified because, “if they had a nuclear weapon, they would’ve used it.”
“But they never had the chance, I never gave them the chance to use it,” Trump said, despite widespread agreement that Iran was not close to obtaining a nuclear weapon and might have stopped pursuing one more than two decades ago.
“Other presidents should’ve done - I spoke to one of the former presidents, who I actually like. I actually speak to some, I do like some people, it’d be shocking. And he said, ‘I wish I did what you did.’”
A short time later, the president repeated his #falseclaim that the international #Iran nuclear deal he withdrew from in 2018 “was a road to a nuclear weapon” for Iran, which would have somehow developed one while under international inspections, and then used it to attack #Israel and the #UnitedStates.
“It would’ve been used, I would say, 2 to 3 years ago, and and it would’ve been used in the #MiddleEast. And, by the way, after they were finished that, they were coming over here,” the president claimed, pointing at his desk.
The Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy then tried again to guess who the former president praising Trump’s attack on Iran was.
“Was it George W Bush?” he asked.
“No,” Trump answered.
“Was it Bill Clinton?” Doocy asked.
“I don’t want to say,” Trump replied.
Trump then hinted that it was #Clinton, saying that the former president who praised his reckless, illegal war was “a member of a party, they have Trump Derangement Syndrome all, but it’s somebody that happens to like me, and I like that person who’s a smart person, but that person said: ‘I wish I did it.’”
After Clinton’s spokesman told HuffPost that it was not him, CNN reported that aides to Clinton, #Bush and the other two former Democratic presidents still living, #BarackObama and #JoeBiden, all #denied that their bosses had spoken with Trump about Iran.
Aides to the non-living former presidents could not be reached for comment.
#NeverTrustTrump #uspol #auspol #TrumpRegime
