Ok, so earlier Tuesday, a series of leaks beginning with CNN and proceeding apace to include the New York Times and then Bloomberg and so on and so forth, appeared to tip Trump’s decision on the Iran deal.
Those stories amounted to competing narratives in terms of what the future holds for sanctions and the White House was immediately at pains to deny the New York Times’ account of a call with Macron. The cynical among you might accuse the administration of deliberately creating chaos in order to set the stage for more “fake news” bashing later on this evening.
The headline hockey whipsawed crude, which plunged on the CNN report and then rebounded a bit on the NYT story. You can read our full account of that here and for further background information regarding what’s at stake you can check out what we posted on Monday evening, but now we have the “official” word.
Trump is calling Netanyahu’s “Iran lied” presentation “conclusive evidence” and he’s again implicitly citing the IRGC/Quds’ activities in Syria, Tehran’s support of the Houthis in Yemen and Iran’s missile program as evidence of bad faith. He also characterized Iran’s efforts to cement the Shiite crescent as a “bloody ambition”.
Most notably, he also suggested that if he doesn’t pull out of the deal, they’ll be a “nuclear arms race” in the Mideast. He called the deal “decaying” and “rotten” and said if he “does nothing, we all know what will happen.” He also says Iran will soon be “on the cusp of obtaining” nukes.
Here are the bullet points (figuratively and literally in this case):
TRUMP: IRAN FUELS TERRORISM, FUNDS TERRORIST PROXIES IN REGION
TRUMP SAYS U.S. WANTS TO PREVENT IRAN FROM GETTING NUKES
TRUMP SPEAKS AT WHITE HOUSE TO ANNOUNCE DECISION ON IRAN DEAL
TRUMP: IRAN DEAL ALLOWED IRAN TO CONTINUE ENRICHING URANIUM
TRUMP, AHEAD OF ANNOUNCEMENT, STRONGLY CRITICIZES IRAN DEAL
TRUMP SAYS IRAN DEAL WAS A GREAT EMBARRASSMENT'DEFECTIVE AT ITS CORE,’ TRUMP SAYS
TRUMP, CITING ISRAEL DOCUMENTS, SAYS IRAN TRIED TO PURSUE NUKES
TRUMP: WE CANNOT PREVENT IRANIAN NUKE UNDER DECAYING IRAN DEAL
IRAN DEAL
TRUMP SAYS U.S. WILL EXIT THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
And here are the videos:
"In theory, the so-called Iran deal was supposed to protect the United States and our allies from the lunacy of an Iranian nuclear bomb," President Trump says https://t.co/LdFkRt50G9 pic.twitter.com/DjAuF8O6UL
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 8, 2018
"At the point when the U.S. had maximum leverage, this disastrous deal gave this regime, and it is a regime of great terror, many billions of dollars, some of it in actual cash. A great embarrassment to me as a citizen and to all citizens of the United States," Pres. Trump says pic.twitter.com/dt2jSufdq5
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 8, 2018
"Today, we have definitive proof that this Iranian promise was a lie,” President Trump says. "The fact is, this was a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made. It didn't bring calm. It didn't bring peace, and it never will.” https://t.co/LdFkRt50G9 pic.twitter.com/o964UonHzF
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 8, 2018
"America will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail. We will not allow American cities to be threatened with destruction and we will not allow a regime that chants 'death to America' to gain access to the most deadly weapons on Earth," Pres. Trump says https://t.co/LdFkRt50G9 pic.twitter.com/Xs0mZNGuSt
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 8, 2018
Forgive me H but I can’t stand looking at the “man-child” let alone listening to his voice so I avoided the videos. Surprised he just didn’t say, “Obama bad.” Stupid man.
Great speech with absolute clarity. The Country and the world will be a better place because of this decision. Nobel coming.
shirley you jest.