Last Tuesday, as he was about to depart for China, reporter Reagan Reese of the Daily Caller asked President Trump to what extent Americans' financial situations motivate him during negotiations with Iran, and he answered, "The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about Americans financial situation."
Since that exchange, the media has behaved in a way that harkens back to how they misrepresented Trump's both sides remark regarding Charlottesville, and on CNN's The Arena: Saturday they took it a step further.
Host Phil Mattingly began the segment on Trump's remarks, with a clip of Vice President JD Vance from Wednesday, and his partial answer to a question about what Trump had said.
VANCE: I don't think the President said that. I think that's a misrepresentation of what the President said. But look, I agree with the President that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.
MATTINGLY: Vice President JD Vance this week trying to clean up and clarify a little bit, some comments made by his boss, the President, before he left for China,
Notice something missing from the clip? Mattingly did not present the question that Vance was responding to, nor did he provide the full answer to the missing question. He was doing to Vance, what he media has been doing to Trump since last Tuesday, selective editing and distortion by omission. Yet he was more than happy to mock Vance's response, after playing Trump's complete Q & A from Tuesday.
QUESTION TO TRUMP: When you're negotiating with Iran, Mr. President, to what extent are Americans financial situation motivating you to make a deal?
TRUMP CLIP: Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about Americans financial situation. I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing. We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all. That's that's the only thing that motivates.
MATTINGLY: You can totally see how "not even a little bit" was taken out of context, apparently, according to the Vice President. I've heard better clean-up.
How on earth can the smug Mattingly make any judgement on Vance's response, when the question he was responding to wasn't presented? Here's Vance's Q & A (28:22 into the video) including what Mattingly played and held back.
THE QUESTION: When approaching the war with Iran,. do you agree with the President's position that Americans' financial situation should not be a consideration in that decision making process?
PREVIOUSLY PLAYED PART OF VANCE'S ANSWER: I don't think the President said that. I think that's a misrepresentation of what the President said. But look, I agree with the President that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.
VANCE NOT PREVIOUSLY PLAYED: We're obviously engaged in a very aggressive and very engaged diplomatic process to try to ensure that that doesn't happen. And the President has a lot of options, as he has said repeatedly. There are options diplomatically, there are options on the military side. But the fundamental goal here is the President wants to make the world safe, but particularly the American people safe from Iran having a nuclear weapon.
Nuclear proliferation is one of those challenges that people don't realize, it's the biggest threat to America's national security, and it's not obvious until it is.....But of course the President and I and the entire team, we care about the American people's financial situation....We also have a number of other challenges, the President has to confront all these challenges simultaneously.
That's a good "clean-up." Maybe that's why it didn't air. Meanwhile CNN's liberal contributor Xochitl Hinojosa went on the attack against Trump, and promised that his comments from last Tuesday will be used against Republicans.
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HINOJOSA: It's almost as the administration didn't learn anything from the last administration, you had Joe Biden talking about it, really wonderful economy all of the time....On the Democratic side, I don't know why we don't have ads up running in every swing congressional district with those comments, but they need to be up fast.
Next, former Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) provided accurate analysis and an unfortunate prediction.
McHENRY: The question here was the message to Iran.... and he's saying... I don't care. We're going to stare you down and you're going to cave.... So when he's saying this, the message is not for domestic politics, though we will see it for sure.
You can bet that when we do see it, used by Democrats during campaigns, it will be in the same misleading way the left-wing media is using it now.
