White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday that he could not say for sure that no senior Obama administration official had publicly lied about the Iran nuclear deal.
"Can you state categorically that no senior official in this administration has ever lied publicly about any aspect of the Iran nuclear deal?" Fox News reporter Kevin Corke asked.
"No, Kevin," Earnest said.
After an intense staring match, Earnest said that the facts of the nuclear deal speak for themselves. Earnest had been answering questions surrounding The New York Times Magazine profile on national security advisor Ben Rhodes throughout the briefing. The piece described the selling of the deal to the public as "misleading."
"No Kevin" @kevincorke asks Josh Earnest if he can say Sr Admin officials didn't lie publicly re: #IranNuclearDeal pic.twitter.com/eWbN0q7EXT
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) May 9, 2016
Rhodes published a rebuttal to the profile on Medium where he defended the controversial nuclear deal.
"The benefits of this agreement make clear that the national security of the United States of America has been enhanced and Iran's effort to acquire a nuclear weapon has been set back," Earnest said. "In fact, Iran has now committed to not seeking to acquire a nuclear weapon and we can now verify that they are not able to acquire a nuclear weapon."
Earnest said that the critics of the deal are the ones who falsely or wrongly suggested that Iran would not go along with the deal.
"I recognize that there is an attempt by those who either lied or got it wrong to try and relitigate this fight," Earnest said.
Earnest again said that the national security of the U.S. and our allies in the Middle East is stronger because of the deal.