--- title: Donald Trump Walks Back False Claim on Iran Video description: Donald Trump appears to have admitted he was wrong when he claimed he saw footage of cash being transferred to Iran canonical: https://time.com/4440468/donald-trump-false-iran-video/ author: Mahita Gajanan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-05T13:14:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:47:39.373Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump Walks Back False Claim on Iran Video og:description: The video showed the released American hostages landing in Geneva, Switzerland og:url: https://time.com/4440468/donald-trump-false-iran-video/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump Walks Back False Claim on Iran Video twitter:description: The video showed the released American hostages landing in Geneva, Switzerland twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Donald Trump Appears to Admit he Was Wrong on Iran Video by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Aug 5, 2016 1:14 PM UTC by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Aug 5, 2016 1:14 PM UTC Donald Trump appears to have admitted he was wrong when he claimed he saw footage of cash being transferred to Iran. “The plane I saw on television was the hostage plane in Geneva, Switzerland, not the plane carrying $400 million in cash going to Iran!” the Republican nominee tweeted Friday morning. At a Florida rally on Wednesday, Trump said he had seen video of cash being taken from a plane, referring to the [$400 million flown to Tehran](http://time.com/4436518/us-sent-iran-cash-hostages/) around the same time Iran released four American hostages in January. President Barack Obama quieted speculation that the cash transfer was a ransom for the release of the hostages on Thursday, saying the [timing was a coincidence](http://time.com/4439884/obama-denies-iran-ransom-payment/). The cash was part of a $1.7 billion settlement of a dispute over an arms deal between the U.S. and pre-revolution Iran. Trump described the video of the supposed transfer in detail to the crowd at the Florida rally, although officials later said there was [no such footage](https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-fact-check-trump-off-clinton-iran-payment-180458387--election.html?utm%5Fsource=twitterfeed&utm%5Fmedium=twitter&ref=gs). His campaign spokeswoman said Thursday the video he saw was B-roll footage shown on TV, and that he did not see a money transfer. The real video Trump saw showed the released American hostages landing in Geneva, Switzerland. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/761511930238496772) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4440468/donald-trump-false-iran-video/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4440468/donald-trump-false-iran-video/"},"headline":"Donald Trump Appears to Admit he Was Wrong on Iran Video","datePublished":"2016-08-05T13:14:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T23:47:39.373Z","description":"Trump saw footage of released American hostages landing in Switzerland, rather than a cash shipment","url":"https://time.com/4440468/donald-trump-false-iran-video/","keywords":["2016 Election","2016 Election topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mahita Gajanan","jobTitle":"Gajanan is an editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4440468/donald-trump-false-iran-video/","name":"Donald Trump Appears to Admit he Was Wrong on Iran Video"}}]}] ```