Weld says Trump wants reporters to ‘roam free’ in Iran, but not US

The “one bit of good news” amid mixed claims on intelligence over the recent U.S. drone strike against Iran is President Trump’s call for reporters to be able to “roam free” in Iran, Trump’s Republican challenger Bill Weld said Sunday. 

“The one bit of good news today is we know that he wants reporters to roam free in Iran,” Trump said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” referencing the president’s Sunday morning tweet. 

“The only problem is he doesn’t want them to roam free in the U.S., because he says to us a free press is the ‘enemy of the people’,” Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts, added, noting Trump’s repeated attack on the media. 

Weld continued that Trump appears to “demand not only loyalty but exclusive loyalty from everybody.” 

“You not only got to be loyal to him, you got to not be loyal to the truth,” Weld said. 

“He thinks unless people are exclusively loyal to him, and complimenting him, and praising him all the time, they are the enemy,” he added. “I’m afraid, I mean, the man is beset by demons and I’m glad I don’t have them but I think they include fear and anger and insecurity.”

Questioned over Trump’s claim in a Fox News interview that aired last week that Iran was plotting attacks on four U.S. embassies, Weld said Trump “projects constantly.”

“I think the president has a loose grasp on the truth, and on facts, and I agree with you,” Weld said to CNN’s Brian Stelter, “I do think he does makes things up as he goes along.” 

Several lawmakers have said that Trump’s claim that four embassies were targeted in a plot by the killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani was not supported by intelligence in briefings to lawmakers.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Sunday on CBS “Face the Nation” that he didn’t see intelligence that supported the claim that the four embassies were targeted in potential attacks, but said he shared the president’s view.