Former Donald Trump adviser David Urban was not a fan of the president’s “riffing” during a rally speech this week.

The GOP operative told Anderson Cooper on CNN that the president’s remarks mentioning the possibility of Iran taking out Los Angeles and San Diego were “sloppy” and a few other unflattering adjectives.

“How did you interpret the ‘take out’ LA remark?” Cooper asked.

“I do think it was a clumsy, sloppy kind of statement,” Urban answered. “Obviously, he’s riffing there. I think that this administration’s intention the entire time has been to preclude Iran from getting a nuclear weapon so that it could do anything against any U.S. city in the future. And so, while it was crude and kind of rough and tumble and he kind of laughed about it, I don’t think the president meant it.”

Trump has yet to comment as of this writing, but he did shoo away a question about it with a hand gesture.

The president alarmed many observers with his defense of high fuel costs caused by his ongoing war against Iran.

“It’s a little bit high,” he said at a Nebraska event. “It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They could take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.”

The latter remarks earned him applause.

But Urban, a senior adviser for Trump’s 2016 campaign, wasn’t clapping.

“As he goes on these riffs, Anderson, sometimes they’re not so artful,” he said. “This is one of those instances.”

The White House insisted the president meant that U.S. cities would have been vulnerable if a “nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped.”

Reaction has been all over the place. Some cable news hosts criticized Trump. But a CNN fact-checker defended him.

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