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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt clashed with a CBS reporter on March 11 after being pressed on whether President Donald Trump invented claims to justify strikes on Iran.
Karoline Leavitt snaps at reporter for Donald Trump question
CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Nancy Cordes confronted Karoline Leavitt about Donald Trump’s assertion that Iran was planning to attack U.S. targets within seven days. Cordes pointed out that no U.S. or Israeli leaders were making similar claims.
“There are no U.S. leaders or Israeli leaders who are making those same claims, so is he making this up to justify his decision to go to war now?” Cordes asked. Leavitt shot back: “The president is not making anything up, Nancy.”
She insisted Trump acted on intelligence. “He is looking at this every single day based on intelligence. Based on facts and based on intelligence that he himself and his negotiators have consumed based on their, again, negotiations with the rogue Iranian regime over the past year,” Leavitt said.
Despite Leavitt’s insistence, the exchange showed inconsistencies in the administration’s messaging. The Pentagon had reportedly told Congress there was no intelligence suggesting Iran planned to strike first. It directly contradicts the White House position.
Earlier in the briefing, Cordes had challenged Leavitt on the same topic, asking where Trump was getting his information. Leavitt responded by framing the president’s decision as instinct backed by evidence. “This was a feeling the president had based on facts,” she said. “Facts provided to him by his top negotiators who had been engaged with the Iranian regime in a good faith effort.”
The press secretary’s defense mirrored Trump’s own language from his Monday press conference in Florida. There, he claimed, “I thought that they were going to attack us. I thought they would if we didn’t do this at the time we did it (via The Daily Beast).”
Originally reported by Devanshi Basu on Mandatory
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