On Tuesday night, Iran launched over a dozen ballistic missiles on Iraqi military bases where U.S. troops were stationed. The attack was in retaliation to President Donald Trump's order of an air strike that killed Iran's top military official, Qasem Soleimani, as Soleimani visited Iraq.
Trump tweeted that "all [was] well!" later that evening and addressed the nation on Wednesday morning.
Amidst the sniffling and slurred words, Trump blamed his favorite scapegoat for Iran's attack: former President Barack Obama.
Watch below.
Trump said:
"The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration."
As you may have imagined, Trump's claim is comically inaccurate.
The President was referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—colloquially known as the Iran Nuclear Deal—enacted by Obama in 2015.
A pillar of Trump's campaign was to pull out of the deal, which he said only benefitted Iran.
Trump has insisted that the deal "gave" Iran billions of dollars, which he implied today paid for the attack on U.S. soldiers.
In reality, Iran had around $56 billion of assets in the United States. The U.S. froze those assets, using them as leverage to spur Iran's compliance with caps on enrichment levels in the country's uranium supply laid out in the deal.
The U.S. unfroze Iran's assets as part of the deal, but Trump and his Republican allies have falsely implied or outright stated that the Obama administration gave billions of taxpayers' dollars to Iran.
As usual, Twitter called out Trump for his latest lie.
Trump announced the United States' withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal in 2018. After the attack on Soleimani, Iran said it would no longer be bound by the nuclear limitations of the deal.
@michellelprice/X; @WhiteHouse/X
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