It’s bad enough that Donald Trump, who probably couldn’t find Iran on a map, is publicly sh*tting on his own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, for giving an opinion that could keep the U.S. out of an unnecessary with Iran. But now his White House has released a video designed to make people think she said something different from what she publicly told Congress in her annual threat assessment in March:
“In the past year, we’ve seen an erosion of a decades-long taboo in Iran on discussing nuclear weapons in public, likely emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decision-making apparatus,” said Gabbard in a clip posted by the White House’s Rapid Response account. “Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.”
While the clip made it look like Gabbard was warning that Iran was close to developing nuclear weapons, it was edited to exclude a moment from just seconds before, where Gabbard declared that the U.S. intelligence community had assessed that Iran was “not building a nuclear weapon” and that neither had Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei authorized the development of one.
“The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003,” she declared in her testimony. “The IC is closely monitoring if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program.”
But instead of standing up for the truth at this critical juncture, Gabbard is folding like a cheap suit to curry favor with her (presumably) fave p***y grabber. The New Republic noted, “Gabbard told CNN Tuesday that Trump ‘was saying the same thing that I said in my annual threat assessment back in March.’ So it seems that Trump didn’t need to edit Gabbard’s words, after all—she’s more than happy to lie for him on her own.”
TNR also pointed out that this whole horror show could have been avoided if Trump had not, in his first term, ditched Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. That deal looks a lot like the deal Trump is trying (and so far failing) to make with Iran now.
God help us.
