Wolf Blitzer Presses Mark Meadows on Trump Beirut Comments: Why Did He Just ‘Speculate Publicly’ on Explosion?

Wolf Blitzer spoke with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows for a lengthy interview Wednesday and ended confronting him over President Donald Trump referring to the horrific explosion in Beirut as a “terrible attack.”

“Why did the president speculate publicly yesterday that that awful huge terrible explosion in Beirut, in his words, was a terrible attack and possibly a bomb of some kind?” Blitzer asked. “Just a little while ago, the Defense Secretary Mark Esper says most U.S. officials believe this was an accident as the Lebanese authorities themselves are reporting.”

“I can tell you from Secretary Esper’s standpoint, he doesn’t know,” Meadows responded. “I had a meeting with him earlier today. Intelligence is not something that we talk about. But it’s also developing. I can tell you the initial reports was exactly what the president shared with all of you. I happen to know that he was briefed on that. The initial reports looked at it. We still have T totally ruled that out.”

Blitzer said it’s one thing for Trump to hear initial reports, but “another thing to speculate publicly about such a sensitive issue where more than a hundred Lebanese are dead, thousands are injured, and they are hearing from the president of the United States with it was some sort of bomb, it was some sort of terrorist activity.”

“It causes a lot of problems potentially,” he added.

Meadows continued to defend Trump and said, “The president shared with the American people what he was briefed on with 100% certainty I can tell you that. And with that, we still are yet to know the full story on what transpired.”

At one point Blitzer said, “My only point is maybe he shouldn’t have said it publicly.”

You can watch above, via CNN.