Reporting on the recent nuclear deal with North Korea on the February 13 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, CNN State Department correspondent Zain Verjee claimed that in President Bush's 2002 State of the Union speech -- in which he described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an “axis of evil” -- Bush “made it clear where the U.S. stood with North Korea.” But in an article in the February 19 edition of Newsweek (posted online on February 11), former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson disclosed that North Korea and Iran were included in the speech as part of the “axis of evil” not out of any desire to signal “where the U.S. stood on North Korea,” as Verjee said, but, in Newsweek's words, to “avoid focusing solely on Iraq. At the time, Bush was already making plans to topple Saddam Hussein, but he wasn't ready to say so.”

From the February 13 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:

VERJEE: Wolf, it's a deal: heavy oil for heavy metal. But it's also a shift in the Bush administration's approach toward North Korea's nuclear program.

State of the Union, January 2002. President Bush made it clear where the U.S. stood with North Korea.

BUSH [video clip]: States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil.

VERJEE: But now, a complete turnaround.