During Friday’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Josh Earnest consistently said that 99 percent of the world community supported the nuclear deal with Iran.
That figure did not sit right with ABC’s Jon Karl. Karl questioned Earnest on the number and how the White House got to it.
"Well, I guess if you look at the population of the countries that are represented in this particular agreement, the vast majority–the 99 percent of the world, is on the side of the United States and international partners in implementing this agreement," Earnest said.
Karl continued to push on the number and asked if the White House had done the math on the number of U.S. allies in the Middle East that were mostly directly affected by the nuclear deal.
While Earnest did not provide the exact formula that the White House used to get the 99 percent, he did give a readout from Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir’s visit to Camp David about how Saudi Arabia supported the discussions between the P5+1 and Iran.
When asked if the Saudis supported the nuclear deal, Earnest said that he would let each country speak for themselves.
As Karl ran down the list of U.S. allies in the region Earnest deflected on each one except for Israel. Earnest noted that Israel was the most vocal on being against the nuclear deal.
Earnest did highlight every country about of the P5+1 who did support the deal, which were all countries that had pressured Iran into coming to discuss a deal to begin with.