CNN Counts the Eye-Popping Amount of Times Trump Has Claimed Iran Deal Is Close

CNN anchors Pamela Brown and Wolf Blitzer reported on the latest developments in the Middle East on Tuesday following President Donald Trump claiming yet again that a deal is near. CNN counted how many times during the conflict Trump has made that claim, landing at a whopping 37 and now 38 times.

Brown reported on the recent news that an Iranian drone brought down a U.S. Apache helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz on Monday night, with both pilots being swiftly rescued.

“And the incident comes as President Trump declares the war with everyone could be over within days as the two sides come closer to an agreement, but President Trump has also made similar declarations about the war at least 37 times before. So let’s go live now to CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes. So is this time any different, Kristen? I think that’s the bottom line question here,” Brown asked.

Holmes replied, “Yeah, and I’m really glad somebody finally took the time to count out how many times, because it felt like we were saying it every single day. And now I know it was at least 37 times in the last two months since the ceasefire began.”

It is unclear right now. We know what we saw yesterday, the White House and President Trump breathing a sigh of relief after we saw this escalation between Iran and Israel, the temperature began to turn down. And then you had these fresh attacks by the Israeli military on the southern part of Lebanon, something that President Trump and the Iranians have warned against. This is what President Trump said on the state of everything last night when he was leaving that Knicks game,” Holmes added before playing a clip from Trump on Monday night:

They were going back and forth, and now they both agreed, through me, to stop, and we’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal that will not allow in any way, shape, or form nuclear weapons, etc., and that it straight will open up right away. It’ll open up immediately upon signing, which could be in two or three days.

Holmes added, “So, until there’s a deal, President Trump also said that the U.S. blockade in the Strait of Hormuz would stay in the same place, it would not lift in any way. They want to see some kind of deal in writing, but we don’t really know where the Iranians stand on this.”

“They have not commented on President Trump’s remarks. And it has been, again, we’ve been through this a number of times, in which we’re seeing an escalation, then President Trump says negotiations are happening behind the scenes, it could happen any moment now, and then it seems to completely fall apart or at least drag out. And that’s how we ended up here,” she continued, concluding:

Now, one key component of all this, again, is Lebanon and what Israel decides to do, because that could really be a turning point here in a bad way against a deal if they continue to have these strikes against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. That is something, again, that President Trump has said that they would not do. He has talked to Benjamin Netanyahu about it. And Iran has warned that that could blow the entire thing up in terms of any kind of deal. So we’ll see how and what happens between President Trump and Netanyahu later today, specifically when it comes to that issue.

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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