Fox News’ Laura Ingraham questioned Donald Trump’s insistence that the U.S. has “decimated” Iran’s military after Tehran shot down a U.S. Army helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz.
In an interview with former Trump State Department official Nathan Sales, Ingraham expressed her frustration at how Iran is continuing to hit U.S. military targets despite the president frequently touting the success of the conflict.
“We keep hearing their military is destroyed, but if their military is destroyed, how are they continuing to hit us? I mean, an Apache helicopter costs about $46 million. Not to speak of a potential injury or loss of life,” Ingraham said.
In response, Sales suggested that Iran has used the shaky ceasefire that has been in place since early April to “rebuild their armed forces and to deploy their armed forces in a way that they can use them to hit us.”
Later in the interview, Ingraham reiterated her point that “one thing that a lot of Americans can’t really wrap their heads around” is how the Trump administration has frequently suggested that Iran’s military has been “destroyed” or “decimated,” yet the fighting seemingly never stops.
“I think the Iranian military threat has been substantially degraded. It hasn’t gone down to zero, but it’s gone from 100 maybe to 10 or 15 or 20 percent of what it was before, so they’re going to continue to be a threat,” Sales said.
Ingraham then interrupted Sales to ask why the U.S. “left any military structure” in Iran.
“Why did we leave any of them standing? If we wanted to just really get this done, why are they still standing at all?” Ingraham asked.
Sales replied that he believes that when Trump agreed to the ceasefire, he decided to “hit the pause button” and see if “we can use that momentum” to get a deal to end the deeply unpopular conflict.
Trump announced that the U.S. would retaliate against Iran for shooting down the gunship.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said the attacks targeting Iranian air-defense systems, ground-control stations, and surveillance radar sites were a “proportional response”.
“U.S. forces remain vigilant and postured to defend against unjustified Iranian aggression,” CENTCOM added in a statement.
The attacks triggered a wave of retaliatory strikes from Iran on Wednesday, with Tehran saying it had carried out missile and drone attacks on U.S. military bases in Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain.
Trump has repeatedly insisted that the war in Iran will end any day now and that Tehran is close to agreeing to a peace deal.
On Tuesday, CNN noted that Trump has suggested Iran is close to agreeing to a peace deal at least 38 times over the past two months, though no such agreement appears to be any closer.
