Trump’s Former Chief of Staff Warns President Has ‘Growing Credibility Problem’ on Iran

Former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney argued Sunday that President Donald Trump is losing credibility when it comes to the war in Iran.

Despite the president’s constant assurances that a peace deal with Iran is on the horizon, the conflict has continued for nearly six months.

The end appeared to be near when the two sides agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding to temporarily end the fighting, but Trump declared the MOU “over” weeks later in response to Iranian forces attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. has since resumed strikes on Iran.

Mulvaney appeared on Australian news outlet News24 to discuss the ongoing war and a variety of other domestic issues.

When asked by anchor Laura Jayes if the U.S. was “closer to a deal today,” Mulvaney bluntly admitted, “We don’t have any clue.”

He added:

I mean, Trump has gone back and forth now so many times on the status of the negotiations with the Iranians, the impending battles, etcetera that you have to wonder if he’s lost credibility right now with all the major players, and if he’s going to have to do something to reestablish that. Because right now, it’s sort of hard to know what to believe. Like, anytime he says something, it seems like some of the actions on the ground don’t bear it out. So, he’s got a credibility problem, at least a growing credibility problem, and he’s going to have to show progress. Either show progress, real progress, at the negotiating table, or show progress, real progress, on the battlefield. Because right now, it doesn’t seem that anything is really changing on the ground in the Middle East.

Iran denied that it is engaged in negotiations with the U.S. on Monday — directly contradicting Trump’s announcement hours earlier that fresh talks aimed at ending the conflict were beginning and that a peace deal was “imminent.”

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