Fact check: Trump falsely claims Iran didn’t fund terror groups when he was president

Washington CNN —

Former President Donald Trump has falsely claimed over and over this year that Iran was so impoverished because of his policies as president that it did not provide any money to terror groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.

“Iran was, as you know, they were broke. They weren’t funding Hamas, and they weren’t funding anything. They weren’t funding Hezbollah,” Trump, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said in a May interview with right-wing host Dan Bongino.

In a June interview with Phil McGraw, the personality known as Dr. Phil, Trump claimed Hamas would have never perpetrated its October attack on Israel if he had still been president, “because Iran was broke and Iran wasn’t funding Hamas and they weren’t funding any of the terrorists – Hezbollah, all of them, there’s like 28 of them.”

Facts First: Trump’s claim that Iran wasn’t funding Hezbollah, Hamas or any other terror group during his presidency is false. Iran’s funding for such groups diddeclinein the second half of his presidency, in large part because his sanctionson Iran had a major negative impacton the Iranian economy, but the funding never stopped entirely, as four experts told CNN this week. Trump’s own administration said in 2020 that Iran was continuing to fund terror groups including Hezbollah.

Trump could have fairly said that his sanctions on Iran had made life more difficult for terror groups (though it’s unclear how much their operations were affected). Instead, he continued his years-old practice of exaggerating even legitimate achievements.

Pompeo said Iran continued to fund terror in 2020. Experts agree

Research institutions in the US and Israel have reported that