Maggie Haberman Calls BS on Trump Blurting ‘We’ve Won’: ‘That’s Hyperbole, Clearly’

CNN commentator and New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman called BS on President Donald Trump’s declaration that “we’ve won” by calling it clear “hyperbole” because “it’s still ongoing.”

As the Iran war rages through a third week and hurtles toward a fourth, Trump told reporters earlier this week that “we’ve won this — this war has been won.”

On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Cooper asked Haberman about reporting on the possibility that the next steps in the war could involve troops on the ground, and Haberman called out the president’s declaration:

COOPER: Maggie, the other way to look at that reporting is that there certainly is a reason why the White House may or people some people in The White House might want the Iranian regime to believe the President seriously considering ground forces if they think that would be something that might impact them at the negotiating table.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: No, Anderson, I think that’s right and I think the President actually has essentially said that. I mean, he will say things like, you know, it’s an option. I’m not certainly wouldn’t tell you if I’m going to do it. He says it almost every time he’s asked a question about this.

But clearly, he wants Iran to think that there could be a maximum pressure effort here that involves ground troops. There’s obviously many, many downsides to that.

There is the human cost to the U.S., in terms of ground forces there have already been a number of service members who are lost. There is obviously the cost associated to a more protracted engagement, but this is indeed not proving to be something that looks like it’s going to wrap up quickly. When the President says, look, he’s clearly frustrated by his coverage, you know, and we see him frustrated by his coverage almost every day. And he follows coverage pretty closely and talks about it quite openly and a lot.

However, when he says we’ve already won, that’s hyperbole, clearly, because it’s still ongoing. But it is true that depending on what happens, although again, the longer this goes on, it is harder, as Brett said, to see this ending without any kind of a ground troop, engagement here.

But it is true that Iran has been pretty severely curtailed in terms of what it can do as a regional power militarily. Could it rebuild eventually? Sure. Is there still enriched uranium? Absolutely. But certain forces have been pretty picked apart, and that is something that the U.S. had wanted, and certainly Israel had wanted.

Watch above via Anderson Cooper 360.

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