Trump embraces Israel after ‘successful' Iran attack
President Donald Trump signaled there is no daylight between the United States and Israel after it launched an attack on Iran late Thursday, killing multiple high-ranking military leaders and targeting Iran's nuclear and long-range missile capabilities.
Trump repeatedly praised the attack as 'successful' in a media blitz on Friday, and urged Iran to agree to a deal with the U.S. to shutter its nuclear program.
The president's strong support for Israel's attacks took a noticeably different tone from Secretary of State Marco Rubio's statement immediately following the attacks on Thursday, which stressed the U.S. was not involved in Israel's 'unilateral' actions.
Trump said the U.S. was aware of Israel's plans to strike Iran in advance, but did not clarify if the U.S. sanctioned the attacks or was merely given advance notice. When asked by The Wall Street Journal about whether the U.S. was given a heads-up, Trump said, 'Heads-up? It wasn't a heads-up. It was, we know what's going on.' And he told Reuters, 'We knew everything.'
Trump declined to answer when asked by ABC News if the U.S. was directly involved in the attacks, but praised Israel's use of 'American equipment' in the military operation to NBC News.
Shortly after the attacks on Thursday, Rubio released a statement that appeared to create some distance between the U.S. and Israel.
'Israel took unilateral action against Iran. We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region,' Rubio said in the Thursday statement.
Asked by CNN on Friday about Rubio's statement, Trump reiterated his strong support for Israel.
'We of course support Israel, obviously, and supported it like nobody has ever supported it,' he said.
Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told CNN on Friday that Israel communicated its plans for the strike 'in advance' and 'in real time' to its allies but said the U.S. was not involved in the attack.
U.S. allies around the world have expressed shock at the attacks and stressed the need for deescalation.
A Downing Street spokesperson said United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer held a call with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to discuss 'long-held grave concerns over Iran's nuclear programme' and called on both nations to cease further military action.
'The leaders reaffirmed Israel's right to self-defence, and agreed that a diplomatic resolution, rather than military action, was the way forward,' the spokesperson said.
Danny Danon, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, said Friday morning Israel launched the attack after gathering intelligence suggesting that Iran was 'moving forward' with plans to 'destroy Israel.'
'They were going to initiate another attack like Oct. 7. Once we gathered the information about that, we decided not to wait. We believed their intentions,' Danon said in an interview with 'Fox and Friends.'
In each interview, Trump called on Iran to return to the negotiating table and agree to a nuclear deal. The president told Axios he believes the attacks may help bring Iran closer to a deal — but it wasn't clear in the immediate aftermath of the strikes how negotiations were affected.
In his NBC News interview, the president said the Iranians were 'calling me to speak,' but noted that 'the same people we worked with the last time ... many of them are dead now.'
But just hours before the attacks, Trump said Israel attacking Iran could 'blow' any chance of a deal.
'As long as I think there is an agreement, I don't want [Israel] going in, because I think that would blow it,' he told reporters at the White House on Thursday. 'Might help it actually, but it also could blow it.'
Iranian leaders have reacted with fury to Israel's wave of strikes — and have signaled the country also blames the United States for the actions. A post from Iran's United Nation's mission 'vehemently' condemned the strikes, and said 'the Israeli regime and its backer — namely the United States — shall be held fully accountable for these blatant violations of international law and their grave consequences.'
The Pentagon is moving two warships closer to Israel in the aftermath of the attack to provide additional security, POLITICO previously reported.
Trump told Reuters he is unsure if U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff's scheduled meeting with Iran to continue nuclear talks in Oman on Sunday will still take place in the wake of the attacks.
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