On Wednesday, Donald Trump described a video showing millions of dollars being unloaded in Iran.
“Over there, where that plane landed, top secret, they don’t have a lot of paparazzi, you know,” Trump said. “The paparazzi doesn’t do so well over there.” But “they have a perfect tape, obviously done by a government camera, and the tape is of the people taking the money off the plane. It’s a military tape. It’s a tape that was a perfect angle, nice and steady.”
Trump’s description was detailed, including a description of Iranian officials moving palettes of cash out of the plane. Problem is … there is no such video. Later the same day, Trump’s campaign admitted that the perfect, detailed video of Iranians unloading money—a video Trump said the Iranians had released to embarrass the United States—was actually grainy footage of three former hostages alighting in Geneva. No Iran. No Iranians. No money.
And then on Thursday … Trump did it again. Despite the statement from his own campaign, Trump once against launched into his vivid recall of the plane landing in Tehran and of the video showing officials pulling down loads of cash. He even made the same assertions about the video being made and released by the Iranians.
“Nice plane. And the airplane coming and the money coming off, I guess. That was given to us, has to be, by the Iranians.
“And you know why the tape was given to us? Because they want to embarrass our country, and they want to embarrass our president,” Trump said.
Just another one of those instances which claims the pitiful United States was embarrassed in front of the world. Except … not really. Because, finally, Donald Trump’s specially spiced KFC seems to have lost its kick.
Donald Trump on Friday morning admitted that he did not see footage of American cash being delivered to Iran after claiming at least twice that he saw video of the cash being unloaded off a plane.
So, the campaign has said it doesn’t exist. Trump has said it doesn’t exist. But will that stop Trump from repeating the same story at his next rally? 50-50 odds.