Donald Trump is backtracking from his earlier statements that he viewed a video showing a cash transfer for U.S. prisoners from Iran. It wasn’t as if he minced words in an Aaron Sorkin-style chat with a journalist. He delivered this statement twice; once in Florida on Wednesday and a second time in Portland, Maine, on Thursday.
The real-estate titan said he saw a tape of prisoners coming off a plane, who were afraid of being shot because money was “pouring off” it. The only problem was how this was not what the footage showed. The video did show three American prisoners arriving in Geneva, and no money was shown, which Fox News made abundantly clear. Trump’s almost cavalier claims of seeing cash exchange on tape was called out in real time by MSNBC, who said the footage was nonexistent. Trump gave a sort of apology on the matter:
The plane I saw on television was the hostage plane in Geneva, Switzerland, not the plane carrying $400 million in cash going to Iran!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2016
Trump seemed to be overconfident in his belief that he saw the money and said the tapes came from Iran to embarrass the U.S. And that didn’t stop people from having a little fun at his expense:
Oh man. Now Trump is claiming to have seen The Day The Clown Cried, "multiple times, in theaters. And it's fantastic!" So shameless.
— Nathan Rabin (@nathanrabin) August 5, 2016
remember when Trump said he saw Muslims dancing in the streets after 911. Now he saw the Plane that took Iran's money back. Ex Ray vision!
— Bobbie Lynn Gore (@bobbiegore) August 5, 2016
Wait, the Iran money plane thing wasn't a joke? Trump is grade school bullshit artist
— Local Deity (@JosephKickass) August 5, 2016
I'm skeptical about the authenticity of the Trump tweet admitting he was wrong about the Iran money plane. Everything is spelled correctly.
— Jean Esselink (@Uncucumbered) August 5, 2016
https://twitter.com/JoeMande/status/761559689372897280
It remains to be seen if Trump’s Twitter statement will be his only “apology” for being wrong about the video, but if we have been paying attention the last few months, fleshed out explanations don’t appear to be in his wheelhouse.
(Via Donald Trump’s Twitter)