ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd wrongly referred to the Iran nuclear deal as a "treaty" Sunday while bemoaning President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the agreement and reimpose sanctions on Tehran.
Dowd, who calls himself a "proud independent," agreed with reporter Cecilia Vega's fretting on "This Week" about internal divisions within the Trump administration over getting out of the Obama-era accord, NewsBusters reported .
"It does show. Who would have guessed that the first one to violate that treaty would be us and not Iran?" Dowd said. "I mean, we're the first one in violation of this treaty."
The Iran deal is not a treaty. President Barack Obama made an executive agreement in the case of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and ignored calls for the Senate to ratify the agreement as a treaty. Obama didn't have the votes in Congress to get this accomplished, thus making it easier for Trump to withdraw the U.S. from the deal.
No one corrected Dowd in the moment.
Dowd also said the language from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton reminded him of the 2003 run-up to the Iraq War.
"We've been to this rodeo before. It cost us thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, and it feels like we're going to the same place again," he said.
As ABC News' chief political analyst, Dowd has said Trump supporters have done more damage to the U.S. than the Islamic State terrorist group, defended the credibility of Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury book on the White House, and said Republicans "empowered" Bill Clinton's sexual misconduct by putting Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court.