Trump Claims Intel Officials Were Misquoted, Despite Public Remarks
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: And so Iran's foreign minister today said that this shows -- quote -- "Any deal with the U.S. government is not worth the ink, even treaties ratified by Congress." Regardless of how you feel about the Iran deal, do you think that that's a fair point?</s>MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think it is a fair point. The Trump administration is in the position of the boy who cried wolf. They are so hostile to treaties and so unilateral and so isolationist, they abrogate treaties left and right. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, they abrogated the Iranian Nuclear Accord even though the intelligence said Iran is complying with the Iranian nuclear accord. They have made so many bad and false arguments that people are not prepared to listen, when they have a good case to make on the INF treaty, they do have a good case to make.</s>BALDWIN: On those intel chiefs who testified on Capitol Hill earlier this week and the President apparently in his "New York Times" piece, you know, said they said that they were mischaracterized by the media. Look at the tape.</s>BOOT: It's a joke. Just read the report, which is at odds with Trump time and time again where Trump says the North Korean nuclear threat is over, the intelligence chiefs say, no. North Korea is not going to give up their nuclear weapons. That's not invented. That's an actual conflict.</s>BALDWIN: This is so tricky in this time and space with all these falsities, lies, you're not going to have Gina Haspel or Dan Coats hold out and hold a news conference and say what he said, that's not right.</s>BOOT: I'm sure they're happy to have Trump say what he says. The alternative is he has to pretend the intelligence chief that are misquoted or he has to clamp down on them and start firing people. I'm sure they much rather have this kind of dodge where he claims they were misquoted even though we know they were not misquoted.</s>BALDWIN: Thank you.</s>BOOT: Thank you.</s>BALDWIN: Breaking news out of Washington, D.C. courtroom this afternoon, there he is, there he is, that Nixon victory salute, the judge warning him not to treat this trial like a book tour. We have more from this judge's warning coming up. Also. the "Empire" star who says he was the victim of a hate crime on the streets of Chicago earlier this week speaks out for the very first time. What he wants to say to people who have doubted his story?