White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back against a reporter’s accusation on Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s administration has not disclosed the “imminent threat” Iran posed against the U.S.
The Independent White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg stated that the administration had not explained what the threat against the U.S. was which required the military to launch strikes against Iran. Leavitt said the decision was made to prevent Iran from “aggressively” building their ballistic missile program and from creating nuclear weapons that would pose a risk to Americans.
“Why is it that across the administration you can’t say what the imminent threat against the United States was that required us to launch this?” Feinberg asked.
“To the first question, I completely reject the premise of your question,” Leavitt began. ” You have had the president of the United States, the secretary of war, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the vice president of the United States, the secretary of State. And now I am out here today to explain to you exactly what led the president to make the decision to launch Operation Epic Fury. And President Trump does not make these decisions in a vacuum.”
“This decision to launch this operation was based on a cumulative effect of various direct threats that Iran posed to the United States of America and the president’s feeling based on fact that Iran does pose an imminent and direct threat to the United States of America, based on the fact that they are the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, based on the fact that they were rapidly and aggressively building up their ballistic missile program to give themselves immunity within their country, alongside their Navy, so that inside their country, they could continue to create nuclear weapons and nuclear bombs which would of course pose a risk to Americans in the region and even Americans one day here at home,” Leavitt continued.
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Leavitt argued that Trump believed Iran would strike U.S. troops in the Middle East because they were “hell-bent on death and destruction.”
“And then another point on this is the president found that through these extensive, exhaustive, failed negotiations with Iran, that they were hell-bent on death and destruction,” Leavitt said. “So again, the president was not going to be just another president on a very long list who sat back and stood by and passed the buck of this direct threat to the next administration. The president had a feeling again based on fact that Iran was going to strike the United States, was going to strike our assets in the region, and he made a determination to launch Operation Epic Fury based on all of those reasons.”
Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials claimed there was an “imminent threat” posed to the U.S., though they have yet to explain what the exact threat was. Trump’s letter to Congress intended to justify the strikes did not specify an imminent threat, but instead mentioned that the strikes were designed to “neutralize Iran’s malign activities” and “advance vital United States national interests.”
Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth outlined their four-point strategy plan against Iran, which included destroying Iranian offensive missiles, eliminating its nuclear capabilities and degrading its proxy terror networks, according to The White House. Six U.S. service members died as of Wednesday after Iranian troops launched retaliatory strikes on a base housing American troops in Kuwait.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his “deepest gratitude” to Trump and the U.S. military for assisting Israel with the strikes. He referred to Trump as “one of Israel’s greatest friends in the White House of all time.”
Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday that that a “big wave” of strikes were forthcoming and that the conflict should only last a few weeks. Hegseth also did not rule out sending troops on the ground in Iran during a Monday press conference, and vowed to take any actions the U.S. deemed necessary.
A CNN poll found on Monday that 59% of Americans disapproved of the strikes, though more recent polling by Fox News and OnMessage Inc. found that the nation is evenly split on the matter.
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