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As Donald Trump prepared to leave the G7 summit in Canada ahead of schedule, the president took a moment to publish an item to his social media platform, which read in part, “Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again!”
He then said it over and over again. Less than an hour later, he published a follow-up missive to add, “Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that, ‘IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!’” In case that was too subtle, six minutes later, Trump again wrote, “IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON.”
Soon after, while talking to reporters on Air Force One, the president said once again, “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, it’s very simple.” But as The Associated Press reported, that’s not all he said.
He also dismissed congressional testimony from National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, who told lawmakers in March that U.S. spy agencies did not believe Iran was building a nuclear weapon. ‘I don’t care what she said,’ Trump said. ‘I think they were very close to having it.’
He appeared quite serious about this.
There are a handful of elements to this that are worth keeping in mind.
Right off the bat, Trump’s own director of national intelligence really did tell the House Intelligence Committee in March that the U.S. intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.”
What’s more, if Trump prefers to ignore that intelligence and believes that Iran is “very close” to having nuclear weapons, he might want to grapple with the fact that he abandoned a successful and effective international nuclear agreement with Iran during his first term, which necessarily made Iran vastly more dangerous.
As for Gabbard, under normal circumstances, when a president publicly declares he doesn’t care what his own director of national intelligence says, that’s generally a sign that it’s time to write a resignation letter.
But as notable as all of these elements are, let’s also not forget recent history: It wasn’t that long ago when the United States had a different Republican president who disregarded his own country’s intelligence and insisted that a Middle Eastern foe had weapons of mass destruction.
If memory serves, that didn’t turn out especially well for anyone.