Trump remark shows he was ‘manipulated’ into war: journalist

President Donald Trump fielded questions about his administration’s ongoing siege on Iran for about 30 minutes on Monday, and one of his remarks was flagged Tuesday by former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan as particularly telling.

In his opening remarks, Trump provided an explanation as to the timing of the joint U.S.-Israel attack on Iran, which, according to a human rights group, resulted in more than 1,000 civilian deaths only four days into the operation.

“The situation was very quickly approaching the point of no return and the United States found it intolerable, in my opinion, based on what [U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East] Steve [Witkoff], and [White House advisor] Jared [Kushner] and [Defense Secretary] Pete [Hegseth] and others were telling me,” Trump said.

“[Secretary of State] Marco [Rubio] was so involved that I thought that they were going to attack us. I thought that if we didn’t do this at the time we did it, I think they had a mind to attack us.”

Trump’s explanation for the timing of the attack – which was unprompted – suggested that he was attempting to do one of two things, according to Hasan.

“Two possible things going on here,” Hasan wrote Tuesday in a social media post on X. “Trump, the man-child, was manipulated into this war by people around him with their own political (Rubio), financial (Witkoff/Kushner), religious (Hegseth) agendas. [Or], Trump is trying to divert the blame for this unpopular war onto others.”

While Trump has refused to call his administration’s attack on Iran a war – calling it on Monday a “little excursion” – the conflict has proven wildly unpopular among Americans, perhaps giving reason for Trump’s apparent attempt to either shift blame for having launched the operation.

A new CNN poll found that nearly 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of the Trump administration’s military action in Iran. Even less – just 12 percent – indicated support for sending U.S. troops on the ground in the region, and in spite of Trump refusing to rule out instituting a draft, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.