9 things Donald Trump invented — in just 300 spoken words — about that fictional U.S.-Iran cash video

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After two days of spouting inaccuracies about a nonexistent video of a $400 million cash transfer between the United States and Iran, Donald Trump did something rare on Friday morning: He acknowledged his mistake.

Fair enough. It's good to be transparent.

But Trump's admission came more than 24 hours after his campaign had already offered the same explanation. And in between those two events, Trump was on the campaign trail Thursday in Portland, Maine, offering the same imagined story.

What's most amazing about all of it, though, is the detail with which Trump described the tape and its origins. He could be forgiven for misinterpreting some b-roll footage of a prisoner release that Fox News aired while talking about the money transfer -- which is indeed how it aired on Fox. But Trump in his brief comments both Wednesday and Thursday offered details and made several inferences about the tape that implied deep knowledge about something to which he clearly hadn't given much thought. And he stated many of these inferences as facts.

He has played loose with the facts many times before, yes. But if you break down his comments in this case, it's pretty remarkable the number of things he simply invents as he goes along. He basically made up nine details about the video over the course of just 300 spoken words. (Indeed, that's why some posited that he might have been sharing information he received in a classified national security briefing.)

Below, we break down both his comments Wednesday and Thursday, and what was wrong with them.

WEDNESDAY IN DAYTONA BEACH, FLA.

"I got up this morning, and I pick up the papers and then I turn on the news and I see $400 million being shipped in cash, and it's being shipped overnight to Iran -- $400 million."

1. The video footage of the prisoners being released was shot in Geneva, not Iran.

2. There is no cash visible, and the video wasn't of the cash transfer.

"I look, and I'll never forget the scene this morning."

3. Trump says he'll never forget this scene he saw mere hours earlier, before he proceeds to misremember or invent several key details of it. At the least, he's overselling how closely he paid attention to it.

"And remember this: Iran -- I don't think you've heard this anywhere, but here -- Iran provided all of that footage, the tape, of taking that money off that airplane, right?"

4. This claim is based on nothing besides Trump's incorrect inferences about the video he saw, and yet he states it as a fact. Given the scene was shot in Geneva -- as Trump now admits it was -- it's very unlikely the tape came from Iran.

"$400 million in cash. How does the president do that? How do you do that? We're going to send $400 million in cash. This is in cash, in currency. Now, here's the amazing thing. Over there, where that plane landed -- top secret, they don't have a lot of paparazzi, you know. The paparazzi doesn't do so well over there, right?"

5. The video is not top secret. And there is no indication that any news outlet presented it as such. Fox News, for instance, merely ran it as b-roll while talking about the $400 million transfer.

"And they have a perfect tape..."

6. The tape is grainy and dark and shot from a distance. You definitely can't make out faces or really anything beyond that it's people getting off a plane.

"... done by obviously a government camera ..."

7. Again, if Trump is referring to the Iranian government, it's not "obvious" that it's a government camera. It's not.

"... and the tape is of the people taking the money off the plane, right? That means that in order to embarrass us further, Iran sent us the tapes, right? It's a military tape. It's a tape that was a perfect angle, nice and steady. Nobody getting nervous because they're going to be shot because they're shooting a picture of money pouring off a plane."

8. First it was a government camera. Then it was a military tape? Both wrong.

"You know, it was interesting because a tape was made. Right? You saw that with the airplane coming in. Nice plane. And the airplane coming in. And the money coming off, I guess. Right? That was given to us, has to be, by the Iranians."

Trump is downgrading his claims here, saying "I guess" it was money coming off the plane and that the footage "has to be" given to us by Iran. The day before, he stated these things as fact. But while he tempers his claims somewhat, by this point his campaign had already said he had mistakenly been talking about video not of cash transfer, but of the hostages in Geneva. Trump apparently didn't get the memo or decided to repeat these claims anyway. Given he's merely repeating previous claims, we won't count these as new ones.

"You know why the tape was given to us? Because they want to embarrass our country. 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."

9. Trump really dives into the motive for releasing the tapes here, but the motive makes no sense when you consider the tape didn't come from Iran.

Copyright: Washington Post