Image by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0.
The actual timeline exposes a major problem with Trump’s claim
|
President Donald Trump gave a surprising answer when Fox News host Brian Kilmeade asked him about an FBI bulletin warning of possible Iranian drone strikes hitting California. This was the same story that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had spent two days trying to discredit. The exchange happened during an interview on Fox News Radio’s The Brian Kilmeade Show.
Leavitt had strongly pushed back against ABC News’s report about the FBI alert, which had been sent to law enforcement agencies in California. She doubled down on Friday, even after the story was updated because the original bulletin had been amended.
However, according to Mediaite, Trump’s answer to Kilmeade on Friday was completely different, and came after Leavitt had spent days blasting ABC News over the same report. There was no mention of Leavitt’s objections or any outrage from Trump. He simply told Kilmeade that “everything” is being “watched.”
Trump’s claim that Newsom was the first to raise the drone threat adds more confusion to the story
Kilmeade asked Trump directly, “One of the big stories was the concern about Iran having one of those one way suicide drones somewhere hitting in California. Are you worried about that? And if so, what will we do if that does happen?” This comes amid broader tensions with Iran, with Trump previously signaling that the US could take aggressive military action against Iran over key strategic issues.
Trump responded, “I don’t worry about it, because if you did, you wouldn’t be able to function. OK, so you can’t worry. You have to do something. And we watch everything at a level that it’s never been watched. Our country has never been watched over like this ever before.”
Kilmeade then followed up, asking, “So, but on the drone attack in California, is that real or is that verified? Did that cross your desk that that is a legitimate concern?” Trump replied, “Well, the first we heard about it was from Gavin Newsom, the incompetent governor of California.” When Kilmeade asked, “He told you?” Trump said, “As he said, no, he announced it came out from him or his office. That’s what we heard at first. He was talking about it.”
The problem with that claim is that Newsom did not actually announce the bulletin himself. He was asked about it during a press conference on Wednesday, and he said he learned about it from ABC News. Meanwhile, Democrats have been pushing back against Trump’s Iran moves, filing a War Powers Resolution to limit his ability to take further unilateral action.
This means the bulletin actually originated from Trump’s own FBI, was first reported by ABC News, and was then mentioned by Newsom when reporters asked him about the ABC report. Yet Leavitt spent two days attacking ABC News over the story, while Trump offered shifting and somewhat contradictory answers about it.
