White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt swears she is working day and night to ensure Americans know just how well her boss’s war with Iran is going.
Speaking on Fox News to Lara Trump, President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Leavitt continued her campaign against the media, whom she has been criticizing for not singing the administration’s praises.
“We’ve been working 24/7 here at the White House to make sure the American people understand how much of a tremendous success this operation has been over the past two weeks,” Leavitt said.
She added she had spent “nearly an hour on the phone” to CNN this week, rebutting a story that the U.S. had been unprepared for the Iranian regime to blockade the Strait of Hormuz and disrupt global oil supplies.
General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly warned Trump multiple times that attacking the country would see the critical shipping channel blocked by retaliatory attacks.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump acknowledged the risks but decided to plow ahead with his war, which has since cost the lives of 13 American service members and sent gas prices sky high.
“If you picked up The New York Times, you’d think that Iran is crushing the United States. It is quite the opposite,” Leavitt said
Trump’s objectives for the war have fluctuated over time. The 79-year-old president initially spoke about rapid, Venezuela-style decapitation and regime change, but he has since spoken about the potential need for “boots on the ground,” and claimed that the war will only be resolved when he can “feel it in my bones.”
Numerous polls have shown that a majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s war in Iran, with the conflict defying U.S. historical trends in which voters typically back a war in its early days.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening salvo of the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes, and Trump demanded a say in who might lead the country next. The Ayatollah’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has since been chosen and has vowed to continue the war and carry on blocking the strait.
“The United States of America has beaten and completely decimated Iran, both Militarily, Economically, and in every other way,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday, just after a post saying the U.S. military is effectively incapable of stopping Iranian interference in the strait.
“We have already destroyed 100% of Iran’s Military capability, but it’s easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close range missile somewhere along, or in, this Waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are,” the earlier message read.
In a separate justification on Fox News, Leavitt appeared to reverse the principle of cause and effect while explaining why the strait is currently closed to shipping.
“The fact that the terrorists are holding the global oil industry hostage by threatening to shut down the Strait of Hormuz… just underscores the need for President Trump to launch this operation in the first place,” Leavitt said.
“We cannot live in a world where we have radical Islamic terrorists threatening to hold the world’s oil market and global economy hostage like this.”
The 28-year-old press secretary added that Trump had a “plethora of solutions” to open shipping through the strait and that gas prices would plummet once those solutions were implemented.
