Fact check: Trump denied he made this remark about Iran. He made it on camera one day earlier
By Daniel Dale, CNN
(CNN) — On Saturday, President Donald Trump told reporters that he was “looking at” a new Iranian peace proposal. Then a reporter reminded Trump that he had said the previous night that the US might be better off not making a deal with Iran.
“Well, I wouldn’t have to. I didn’t say that,” Trump responded. “I said that if we left right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild. But we’re not leaving right now. We’re gonna do it so nobody has to go back in two years or five years.”
In reality, Trump did say — on camera — what the reporter told him he said. His denial was yet another case in which the president wrongly asserted he hadn’t said something he had said in a public forum.
Trump made the remark about Iran during a Friday speech to the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches in South Florida. After mentioning that one of his golf clubs is hosting a PGA Tour tournament, he said: “Yesterday, somebody came up, said, ‘Sir, the tournament is great.’ I said, ‘What tournament are you talking about? I’m so busy with the Iranians calling trying to make a good deal, and we’re not gonna let that happen.’ But … they’ve gotta make a bad deal. But — if they make a deal at all. Because frankly, maybe we’re better off not making a deal at all, do you want to know the truth. Because we can’t let this thing go on.”
Trump did say at a different point of the Friday speech that “if we left right now, it would take them 20 years, 25 years, to rebuild the place.” But that clearly doesn’t negate the existence of his “maybe we’re better off not making a deal at all” remark.
A history of denying remarks he made on camera
It’s one thing for the president to try to deny having made a remark someone claimed he made in a private meeting. For years, Trump has attempted something more brazen: denying he ever made remarks the public saw him make.
In December 2025, for example, when an ABC News reporter asked Trump on camera whether he would release the video of the US military’s controversial follow-up strike on an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean, Trump said, “I don’t know what they have, but whatever they have we’d certainly release, no problem.” But when another ABC News reporter reminded him five days later that he said he would have no problem releasing the video, Trump falsely claimed, “I didn’t say that. That’s — you said that, I didn’t say that. This is ABC fake news.”
During his 2024 campaign, Trump falsely denied he had said “lock her up” about his 2016 election opponent, Hillary Clinton, though he had done so on multiple occasions at televised rallies attended by thousands of people. During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, he denied having made two remarks he had made on camera the previous week.
Trump has also tried to inaccurately portray the nature of some of his previous public remarks. In an interview with Time magazine in April 2025, he wrongly claimed he had “obviously” been speaking “in jest” and exaggerating when he promised during his 2024 campaign to immediately end the war in Ukraine if he was elected again — though he publicly made the promise on more than 50 occasions in an entirely serious manner.
The-CNN-Wire
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