MS NOW’s Jen Psaki Torpedoes Trump Barrage of ‘Weird Lies’ About War in Scathing Rant

MS NOW host and former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki torpedoed President Donald Trump over a barrage of what she called “weird lies” about the Iran war in a scathing rant.

During a press event on Monday, Trump claimed that an unidentified former president from a party with “Trump derangement syndrome” told him, “I wish I did what you did.”

On Tuesday’s edition of MS NOW’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki, Psaki keyed in on that claim as the jumping-off point for a commentary on a “pattern” of “weird lying” from Trump:

PSAKI: I’m just going to turn to Donald Trump’s latest attempt to sell his disastrous war of choice in Iran, because despite the fact that this war is incredibly unpopular with the American people, I mean, incredibly unpopular, despite the fact that it is driving up gas prices. I’m sure you all see that when you go fill up your cars, despite the fact that it’s fracturing Trump’s own political party. And we’re going to talk about that too. Donald Trump is now claiming that his war got, well, a surprise endorsement from a former president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, for 47 years, no president was willing to do what I’m doing. And they should have done it a long time ago. It would have been a lot easier. There’s no president that wanted to do it. And yet every president knew. I’ve spoken to a certain president who I like, actually, a past president, former president. He said, “I wish I did it, I wish I did,” but they didn’t do it. I’m doing it.

Yeah.

REPORTER: Mr. President —

TRUMP: I can’t tell you that. I don’t want to embarrass him. It would be very bad for his career, even though he’s got no career left.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: Okay. A lot packed in there. Trump says a former president wishes he would have started this war with Iran. The former president is so jealous. He wishes he could have been as powerful and bold as Donald Trump, wishes he could have been the one to plunge the United States into an open-ended conflict with a country of 93 million people, without feeling really the responsibility at all to think through any of the consequences, as Trump has not thought through.

Of course, Trump can’t say which president it is because that would, quote, “embarrass him,” though apparently he likes this person. There you go.

But look, here’s the thing. There are only four former U.S. presidents still living on this Earth — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. That’s it. Those four. There they are.

Now, MS NOW reached out to spokespeople for Presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden, all of whom confirmed that they have not had any recent conversations with Donald Trump about Iran. And The Wall Street Journal has confirmed, through a spokesperson, that President Bush also did not have a conversation with Trump about Iran.

One, two, three, four. There you go. None of them had a conversation with Donald Trump.

So why is Donald Trump claiming that a former president told him he was super jealous of Trump’s war? Is the current president lying? I mean, entirely possible. Is he confused? Is he both lying and confused?

I mean, my money, my gut is really on option C, as in both. But honestly, we don’t know. What we do know is that this whole weird lying about a conversation with a former president episode is part of a pattern. This is not a one-off.

Every day, Trump seems to say something about this war that is directly contradicted by reporting. I mean, for instance, just yesterday, Donald Trump repeatedly claimed that prior to the start of the war, nobody in his administration knew that Iran might respond by attacking U.S. allied Gulf nations. In fact, they were shocked.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They weren’t supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East. So, they hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait. Nobody expected that. We were shocked.

REPORTER: You said, they hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait. Nobody expected that. We were shocked.

Are you surprised that nobody briefed you ahead of time that that might be their retaliation?

TRUMP: Nobody. Nobody. No, no, no, no. The greatest experts — nobody thought they were going to hit. They were — I wouldn’t say friendly countries. They were like neutral. They were they lived with them for years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: There’s Peter Doocy again asking really good questions. But here’s what Trump said. Nobody knew. Nobody thought they were going to hit those countries. Peter asked him if he was why, if he was angry, he wasn’t briefed on it.

And right on cue, here was the headline, of course, from “Reuters” last night. Here’s what it said. Quote, “Trump was warned of likely Iranian retaliation on Gulf allies, sources say.”

They absolutely did know that Iran would attack those Gulf countries. It would have been a natural part of any briefing.

But Trump claims they were all shocked.

On another example, I have more, I have more. Here was Donald Trump yesterday talking about the possibility that Iran has placed mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We hit, to the best of our knowledge, all of their mine laying ships. Now they can put them on other types of ships, I guess, and drop them in. But we don’t know that any have even been dropped in. We’re not sure that any have been. We don’t know that they have dropped any.

And, you know, we don’t know if they even said any mines. They may have no mine set.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: He says that the U.S. government does not know if Iran is laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. He says there may be no mine set, none whatsoever. It’s a mystery. It’s a mystery to Trump.

Of course, it’s really not a mystery at all. I mean, here’s the headline from The New York Times, “U.S. officials say Iran is laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz.” U.S. officials.

Watch above via MS NOW’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki.

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