WMAL Interview: Eli Lake 05.10.16

INTERVIEW - ELI LAKE - Bloomberg View Columnist

The White House is trying to put out an enormous fire surrounding one of its top aides.. Obama's 'foreign-policy guru' gave a shockingly blunt interview to The New York Times. The White House is scrambling to clean up the political mess created by a New York Times Magazine profile of President Barack Obama's deputy national-security adviser, Ben Rhodes, who offered surprisingly blunt comments about the Iran nuclear deal and other contentious topics. In the interview, Rhodes was candid about how the administration has sought to shape its foreign policy, and went into some detail about how "Beltway insider" experts and reporters helped the White House sell the Iran nuclear deal to the general public. The profile has sparked backlash among those who feel that Rhodes admitted to being part of a campaign to "spin" the narrative and deceive Americans into approving the landmark nuclear deal. Rhodes' comments also angered Washington reporters, whom he characterized as "27-year-olds" who "literally know nothing" or as "handpicked Beltway insiders" who report on the White House uncritically. And he was critical of the Washington foreign-policy establishment, which he apparently refers to as "the Blob."

Eli's work can be found at http://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ASD1bG3hdiI/eli-lake