CNN’s Kasie Hunt on Thursday used Donald Trump’s own words to undercut one of the president’s biggest claims about his on-again, off-again, on-again war with Iran.
The “Arena” anchor aired a supercut of Trump repeatedly insisting that Iran was desperate to strike a deal to end the conflict he launched on Feb. 28, even though no agreement has materialized and the fragile ceasefire collapsed earlier this week.
Just hours earlier, Trump had once again claimed Iran’s leaders “called a little while ago” because they “want to make a deal so badly.”
Hunt rolled a montage of Trump’s claims, spanning from March 23 through Wednesday:
“They want to make a deal.”
“And they want to make a deal so badly.”
“They want to make a deal so badly.”
“I do see a deal in Iran.”
“It’s looking very good that we’re going to make a deal.”
“This process should go very quickly.”
“We’re going to end that war very quickly.”
“We’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal.”
“And they wanna make the deal a lot more than I do.”
“We have our deal done with Iran, and it should be successful.”
“We’re, uh, making an amazing deal with Iran.”
“They want to make a deal with us very badly.”
“They’re dying to make a deal. They’re giving us a lot.”
“They wanna make a deal so badly.”
After the montage, Hunt turned to conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg and asked, “What kind of deal has the U.S. gotten out of this?”
“There’s no deal. Even the MOU wasn’t,” Goldberg replied bluntly, referencing the “memorandum of understanding” between the countries that fell apart this week. “It was a deal to talk about coming up with a deal that was going to last 60 days, that was never going to be extended.”