Iconic Democratic strategist James Carville gave President Donald Trump a backhanded compliment on Sunday in response to the president’s controversial remarks last week – remarks, he contended, that were perhaps the “greatest” presidential gaffe in U.S. history.
Standing on the White House lawn last Tuesday, Trump admitted that, when it came to decisions related to his unpopular war against Iran, he did not take Americans’ financial situations into account.
“Not even a little bit,” he said when asked if he thought about Americans’ finances.
The remarks, which received widespread condemnation from political commentators and figures, broke what Carville told The New York Times was a cardinal political rule: “do not confirm an existing suspicion,” the outlet reported Sunday.
“It’s what lawyers call an admission against interest,” Carville said. “It’s the greatest admission against interest in the history of the presidency.”
However, Carville did praise Trump for one aspect of his controversial remarks: they were honest and not “pandering,” he said.
Carville famously helped former President Bill Clinton secure a decisive victory in 1992, having coined the phrase “it’s the economy, stupid,” a campaign message that appears to be at direct odds with Trump’s recent rhetoric regarding the economic pain Americans are increasingly enduring.