Fox News’ Chris Wallace on Friday explained why President Donald Trump and his administration have themselves to blame for the skepticism that’s engulfed their reasons for the recent escalation with Iran.
Wallace told fellow Fox anchor Bret Baier that people “understandably” wanted to know what the “imminent” threat was that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo initially said prompted last Friday’s U.S. assassination of top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Trump has since stated in an interview with Fox’s Laura Ingraham that Soleimani was planning an attack on four U.S. embassies, a claim that has also been met with much suspicion.
If the White House “had been a little more forthcoming right from the start, they might not have allowed this skepticism to build,” said Wallace, the host of “Fox News Sunday,” who is one of the few journalists on the widely watched conservative network who is willing to challenge the president on air.
“And look, to a certain degree, I think the president has himself to blame, because who has been more critical and less sort of just trusting on face of the intelligence agencies than Donald Trump over the last three years?” he continued. “So, you know, why shouldn’t we be skeptical, too?”
Wallace suggested, however, that the now-paused hostilities with Iran had “absolutely” been a “political win” for Trump if “it’s as far as it goes.”
“But we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow,” he said. “And if they strike again, whether it’s directly or through a proxy and you begin to see tensions ratchet up, then some people are going to say, ‘Are we really safer or not?’ But for now, and we hope for a long time, so far so good.”
Check out the clip here: