Trump’s loyal Republican lawmakers don’t often get corrected to their face when they play fast and loose with the facts, but CNN Saturday morning anchor Victor Blackwell had no such patience for MAGA Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.).
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Blackwell derailed Luna’s talking points at the start of the interview after watching her try to explain President Donald Trump calling his Iran Memorandum of Understanding a “win” despite it letting Iran keep missiles that Trump claimed he specifically invaded to remove.
But Luna argued that Trump’s agreement is better because Iran will voluntarily dispose of its missiles out of necessity. “I don’t think that they’re going to need ballistic missiles,” she said.
“Wait a minute. Why wouldn’t why wouldn’t they need ballistic missiles?” Blackwell demanded.
“Well, I think that they’re not going to need to have to engage in war activities as they did previously,” she answered.
“Say again? What do you base that on?” he asked.
Luna argued the new Iranian administration would instead be “trying to open up and maybe establishing better relationships with countries that they typically wouldn’t have.”
The interview then spiraled when the MAGA firebrand made repeated claims that former president Obama was giving Iran “pallets of money” in his old JCPOA agreement with Iran — completely unlike the pallets of money President Donald Trump has agreed to fork over in his own controversial, and much panned, MOU agreement with Iran.
“We’re not paying the Iranians to mothball their nuclear program. They have agreed fully and in writing and signed it, that they will not ever have a nuclear weapon. And I think that that’s the biggest thing,” Luna claimed
“But that was also part of the JCPOA,” Blackwell countered.
“Well, it wasn’t signed and it wasn’t in writing and it wasn’t codified by the United Nations,” she insisted.
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The [International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)], conducted the inspections to determine up until the point that President Trump withdrew the U.S.,” Blackwell pointed out, adding that Iran had also been “in compliance with the elements of the JCPOA.”
“We shouldn’t be paying Iran to mothball a program, period,” Luna repeated. “I don’t want any of our taxpayer dollars going over there.”
“Okay. But they weren’t taxpayer dollars going to Iran under the JCPOA,” Blackwell said, interrupting her. “[T]he $1.7 billion was their money that was returned to them with interest.”
“We should not be paying Iran, sending pallets of cash. Nothing over there, period,” Luna said more forcefully.
At that, Blackwell played her footage of Trump admitting the “we have taken a lot of their money, and we have their money. We have taken their money. It’s not our money. It’s their money. And we froze it at a certain point in time. I guess we’re going to have to give it back.”
“And so what’s the difference between the JCPOA returning the $1.7 billion that was Iran’s money and President Trump there saying that at some point, the U.S. will have to give back their money?” Blackwell said.
Caught in a philosophical tangle, Luna fell back on: “we should have never sent pallets of cash over there.”
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