Trump Backs Off False Iran Video Claim
Donald Trump has doubled down on a controversial claim from a day earlier that his own campaign had quickly admitted was a mistake.
He cited video footage during a rally Thursday in Portland, Maine, which he said showed $400 million in cash being offloaded in Iran on January 17.
The money was a payment from the Obama administration, made at the same time Tehran's mullahs released a group of hostages as part of a prisoner swap.
On Wednesday Trump's campaign quickly walked back his claim in a Daytona Beach, Florida rally about professional-quality video that Iranians had released to embarrass the U.S., admitting he had only seen 'b-roll' archival footage that showed the Americans emerging from a different aircraft in Geneva Switzerland.
But in Maine, Trump again insisted that the video he had described was real. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
'A tape was made, right? You saw that, with the plane coming in. Nice plane. And the airplane coming in. And the money coming off, I guess, right?' Trump asked a capacity crowd in a Portland theater.
'That was given to us has to be by the Iranians. And you know why the tape was given to us? They want to embarrass our country. And they want to embarrass our president. Because we have a president who's incompetent. They want to embarrass they want to embarrass our president.'
'I mean, who would ever think that they would be taking all of this money off of the plane, and then providing us with the tape?' the Republican presidential nominee asked.
'It's only for one reason, and it's very, very sad.'
On Wednesday, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks pointed DailyMail.com to a YouTube video of a morning broadcast from the Fox News Channel, saying the network's 'b-roll' is what her boss had watched earlier in the day.
That video, stamped 'January 17' the day of the prisoner transfer shows American nationals emerging from a plane in Geneva following their release from Iranian custody.
Contrary to Trump's claim, it was neither shot in Iran nor produced by Iranians.
Negotiators familiar with the deal had said they were not aware of any footage like Trump had described after his explosive claim about the payoff video.

Do Trump really understand that he had put his foot in his mouth again with this LIE?
Look at the people in the background as they eat up that LIE that Trump told them, are you one of those people?
All of this is coming out of his mouth and this is what the republican party leadership is worried about.