Anderson Cooper suspects that Donald Trump‘s latest fight with Iran and his intelligence community critics are all part of the president’s latest plan for distracting the media from matters like Russia.

The CNN anchor spoke to Washington Post columnist Max Boot on Monday night, who said the real reason the White House doesn’t want to talk about Russia anymore is because it’s “so embarrassing” to talk about Trump’s “servile” deference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As the discussion touched on why the Trump Administration is withholding details from the private summit in Helsinki, Cooper eventually wondered what exactly Trump is getting at by starting new fights today.

“I mean, it’s so interesting- this idea, you know that he’s tweeting suddenly tough talk- trying to be a tough guy vis-a-vis to Iran in a tweet or, you know, talking about taking away security clearances of former intelligence officials and national security officials and FBI officials,” said Cooper. “It is a classic move by President Trump to try to distract. And we’ve seen it time and time again. When things aren’t going well, you lob a Molotov cocktail in one corner of the room and everyone runs over there and looks at it and ignores all the stuff that’s been going on that has not reflected well on the administration.”

Boot lamented the effectiveness of Trump’s ploy, saying the media has no choice but to cover the president’s antagonistic statements to Iran, even if it distracts from other important issues.

Watch above, via CNN.

[Image via screengrab]

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