Fox News hosts Shep Smith and Chris Wallace said Friday that President Donald Trump’s explanation for why he called off a military strike on Iran doesn’t add up, suggesting that Trump made the entire thing up in order to appear measured and considerate.
Specifically, Trump told NBC News host Chuck Todd that he aborted the Iran mission just 10 minutes before was to begin because he learned 150 Iranians might be killed in such a raid. That, Smith noted, doesn’t make any sense:
“Something’s wrong there.”
Wallace concurred, commenting:
“I talked to a former top national security official in an earlier Republican administration who says this just doesn’t add up.”
And then Wallace got specific, laying waste to what Trump had asserted:
“The president would have been fully briefed by the generals as to, if you hit target A, here are the dangers, or here is the possible collateral damage. So the idea that the president, 10 minutes before the actual go ― and again, The New York Times is reporting that the ships were in place, that the war planes were in the air ― that 10 minutes before you’re learning for the first time that there were going to be 150 casualties, seems pretty unlikely and certainly not the way it’s been done in the past.”
Smith again agreed with Wallace, adding:
“It doesn’t hold together. The timeline for when he learned information and when he decided to act doesn’t make a lot of sense.
“In a sense, maybe that’s the biggest problem. You can argue if you don’t want to strike, don’t strike. If you want to strike, do strike. But don’t send mixed messages that confuse not only your enemies but even your allies and people here in this country, as to what you’re going to do.”
All of this is symptomatic of a much larger problem: That Donald Trump is a pathological liar who isn’t taken seriously by other leaders or nations. And that makes him a threat to the national security of the United States.
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