He said the US knew an Israeli strike “would precipitate an attack against American forces and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and, perhaps even higher, those killed and then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act”.
The admission angered Maga hardliners and isolationists who elected Trump to power.
They argued that Trump had become beholden to military interventionists, who he ran against in his election campaign.
Megyn Kelly, a former Fox News host, said on her Maga podcast: “My own feeling is no one should have to die for a foreign country.”
Referring to the six US servicemen who were killed in action over the weekend, she added: “I don’t think those force members died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel.
“Our government’s job is not to look out for Iran or for Israel, it’s to look out for us and this feels very clearly, to me, it’s Israel’s war.”
Mike Cernovich, a pro-Trump influencer, also turned on the administration, saying: “Rubio’s comments are a record scratch moment. He said what most guessed was the case. That he said [this] out loud … is a sea change in foreign policy. There will be massive calls for a walk-back.”
But Trump officials were quick to insist that the President had ordered the strikes because Iran failed to scrap its nuclear programme.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told the news outlet Axios: “President Trump’s courageous decision to launch Operation Epic Fury is grounded in a truth that presidents for nearly 50 years have been talking about, but no president had the courage to confront.
“Iran poses a direct and imminent threat to the United States of America and our troops in the Middle East.”
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