White House on damage control after aide’s magazine profile

Published 11:02 am Monday, May 9, 2016

WASHINGTON — The White House is working to contain the damage caused by a magazine profile of one of President Barack Obama’s top aides.

In a blog post published late Sunday, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes says the public relations campaign he created to sell the Iran nuclear deal was intended only “to push out facts.” Rhodes says outside groups that participated “believed in the merits of the deal.”

The speechwriter is responding to criticism of his comments in a New York Times Magazine article. In the piece Rhodes says he used advocacy groups to create an “echo chamber” of supporters. He describes reporters as uninformed about world affairs.

Sen. John McCain says the article exposes how the White House “manipulated and, in some cases, manufactured facts.”