Fox News correspondent James Rosen laid out a case that the Obama administration engaged in mass deception to enact and sell the Iran nuclear deal during an appearance on The O'Reilly Factor Friday.
Rhodes and host Bill O'Reilly discussed a lengthy New York Times profile of White House national security adviser Ben Rhodes published this week, in which Rhodes discussed the deception and outright lies peddled to the public for the advancement of the landmark nuclear agreement.
"What's the headline?" O'Reilly asked of the Times story, which he said he had not read.
"Well, the question here raised is whether there was deception in the selling of the Iran deal to the American public as practiced by Ben Rhodes ... and the answer is unquestionably there was," Rosen said.
Pressed by O'Reilly to reveal what about the story proved Rhodes engaged in deceptive tactics, Rosen discussed in particular one section where author David Samuels wrote Rhodes and the administration willfully manufactured narratives to make the deal more palpable to the American people. This includes the fictional idea that talks with Iran were only happening because of the rise of so-called "moderates" in the Islamic Republic in 2013.
In reality, Obama had wanted to make a deal ever since taking office, regardless of who was in charge in Iran.
"I can attest directly that the Obama administration in the person of then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, of whom I am very fond, Bill, flat-out lied to me in February 2013," Rosen said. "I asked, point blank, 'Are there any direct talks going on between the U.S. and Iran of any kind?' And she said no, at a point when those talks had been ongoing for eight months."
Rosen added Rhodes had also lied about the deal's substance, like when he told CNN last year the U.S. would have "anytime, anywhere" access to Iran's nuclear facilities. Later on, he and Secretary of State John Kerry said that having such access was never sought in negotiations.
"There are numerous such instances of deception on the part of this administration," Rosen said.
Rosen acknowledged spin-masters like Rhodes have been part of the White House scene since the 1960s, but he said the man had entered a "forbidden zone" with the presentation of "false narratives" to make the Iran deal a reality.
In the article, Rhodes also boasts about creating an "echo chamber" of experts he fed White House talking points, mocks reporters who know nothing and will write anything they're given, and lays out the political operation for the U.S. to fully disengage from the Middle East.
The White House press corps was not as interested in the surprising revelations in the Rhodes profile. Given an opportunity to ask Obama about it personally at a press conference Friday, the media instead asked three questions about Donald Trump, one of which concerned his Cinco de Mayo tweet about tacos.