A new video emerged Friday that purportedly shows a United States payment of $400 million worth of cash delivered to Iran on the day Tehran released several American prisoners in January. The White House has said the payment related to an old arms deal and was a previously negotiated settlement. These payments were announced months ago in January.
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Trump initially claimed to have seen video of the cash being unloaded from a United States aircraft in Iran and repeated the assertion on Thursday even though a campaign aide had told The Washington Post earlier that it was actually footage of a different event.
So while that payment went through at the same time, US officials say it was unrelated to the Americans being freed. “It’s a tape that was a flawless angle, nice and steady”. “Iran released that tape so that we will be embarrassed”. “It’s a military tape, it’s a tape that was a ideal angle, nice and steady, nobody getting nervous because they’re going to be shot because they’re shooting a picture of money pouring off a plane”.
Then, on Thursday, a Trump campaign spokesperson told The Washington Post Trump had not actually seen the alleged top secret footage but footage of the prisoner release in Geneva.
US government officials expressed bafflement about what Trump was referring to – and by late Thursday, the campaign hadn’t responded to a query about why Trump referred to it again, even though it had been debunked. Instead, the campaign said Mr Trump was referring to footage “shown on all major broadcasts this morning”. Fox News played the video from Geneva while reporting on the $400 million payment this week, the Post noted.
“I woke up yesterday, and I saw $400 million, different currencies, they probably don’t want our currency, different currencies”. Trump told a crowd in Portland, Maine, on Thursday. “Maybe because it kind of feels like some kind of spy novel or you know crime novel because cash was exchanged”, he said. “Nice plane”, he continued.
“It’s a military tape; it’s a tape that was a flawless angle, nice and steady, nobody getting nervous because they’re gonna be shot because they’re shooting a picture of money pouring off a plane”, Trump said.
It turns out we don’t have to guess how Iran saw the payment because they told us. The billionaire further stated that the video was provided to “embarrass our president because we have a president who’s incompetent”.
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At a rally in Florida this week, he claimed that he had seen a video of people in Iran unloading money from the plane.
