Donald Trump won’t let the deaths of two American soldiers knock him off-message.
In interviews with NewsNation and the New York Post, the president used deadly Iranian attacks in Jordan to reinforce the idea that his ongoing war is focused on keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
An Iranian strike on the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan on Friday left two service members dead and another missing. The United States launched retaliatory strikes on Saturday at Trump’s urging.
“The strikes are designed to further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and swiftly punish Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces who launched attacks against American service members in Jordan,” Central Command explained in a statement.
Speaking to the Post, Trump called the death of US troops “a shame” and claimed their sacrifice was in service of hindering the Iranian nuclear program.
“They did it because they don’t want to see Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
Trump reportedly shared the same justification in a phone call with NewsNation correspondent Hannah Brandt. He called the deaths a “very sad thing.”
“We hate to see it happen. They were in service of our country,” he said. “They’ll fight to the death…never allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
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Trump has repeatedly painted his war with Iran as a way to prevent the country from developing a nuclear weapon. The U.S. and Iran were party to a deal that reduced Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium. Trump pulled the country out of that deal in 2018. He maintains that the ongoing war is necessary to keep Iran from making a nuke, despite his own claims that 2025 attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities had “obliterated” the country’s weapons program.
The U.S. and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding meant to halt the ongoing hostilities last month. In the wake of continued U.S. attacks within Iran and Iranian strikes on regional U.S.-affiliated targets, Iranian officials shared that the agreement is effectively “suspended.”
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