President Donald Trump claimed on Monday that he spoke with another former president about his decision to conduct a military assault against Iran, with the unspecified leader allegedly saying he wished he had done the same thing while in office.
Every other living president, however, said that this conversation did not happen.
For a report published Tuesday, NBC News reached out to representatives for former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as a source with knowledge about whether or not he had spoken to Joe Biden, all of whom disputed Trump's claim about recent conversations about Iran.
An aide for Clinton told the outlet that, "whoever Trump was referring to was not" him. An aide for Bush, meanwhile, said that the two Republican presidents "haven’t been in touch."
Speaking with an aide for Obama, NBC News reported that there have been "no recent conversations" between him and Trump. Finally, "a source familiar with the matter" told the outlet that Trump had not been referring to Biden, which would have been a notable turn of events, given the vitriol Trump typically reserves for his immediate predecessor.
Trump made the initial claim multiple times throughout the day on Monday.
“I’ve spoken to a certain president — who I like, actually," Trump claimed the first time. "A past president, former president, he said: ‘I wish I did it. I wish I did.’ But they didn’t do it. I’m doing it. Yeah?”
Later on, he said, "I spoke to one of the former presidents who I actually like. I actually speak to some. And he said, ‘I wish I did what you did.’”
When pressed to clarify, Trump declined, saying only that it was not Bush. When asked if it was Clinton, Trump responded, "I don’t want to say."
“I don’t want to say because a member of a party, a member of a party, they have Trump derangement syndrome, but it’s somebody that happens to like me, and I like that person, who’s a smart person, but that person said, ‘I wish I did it.’ OK, but I don’t want to get into who. I don’t want to get him into trouble,” Trump added. “You know, it’s interesting. And maybe he’d be proud. And I could even ask him that: ‘Would you like me to reveal your name?’”
