President Trump didn’t hold back when asked about Israel’s latest airstrikes that reportedly took out several top Iranian hardliners. In a brief but blistering phone call with CNN’s Dana Bash, Trump offered a firm message of support for Israel—and a stinging reminder of what happens when enemies of the United States ignore his warnings.
“We, of course, support Israel, obviously, and supported it like nobody has ever supported it,” Trump told Bash flatly. Unlike the Obama and Biden years of waffling appeasement, Trump’s approach to the Middle East has always been clear: strength first, and don’t mess with America or its allies.
According to Bash, Trump went on to say something remarkably pointed: “Iran should have listened to me when I said—I gave them a 60-day warning. And today is day 61.” In other words, the mullahs in Tehran knew exactly what was coming. And now they’re paying the price.
“And then he said, 'They'—meaning Iran—'should now come to the table to make a deal before it's too late,'” Bash recounted. “And then he said something really noteworthy. He said, ‘The people I was dealing with are dead, the hardliners, to which I just wanted to underscore.’”
Bash, clearly taken aback, pressed Trump further on what that meant.
“So what you're saying is Israel has now killed the people who you were dealing with,” she asked him.
“They didn’t die of the flu. They didn’t die of COVID.” No ambiguity. No walking on eggshells. Just the truth.
I wish we got to hear this call. What an epic line.
This kind of response is classic Trump—decisive, sharp, and unapologetically America-first. While the Biden administration (and now, the Trump critics who still infest the media) would normally be hedging and wringing their hands over possible “escalation,” Trump is pushing for something else entirely: decisive de-escalation by way of strength.
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“He is hoping that instead of escalating the situation… this forces Iran to come to the table,” Bash noted. That’s a strategy built on the peace-through-strength doctrine that worked wonders during Trump’s first term—from the Abraham Accords to the decimation of ISIS leadership.
Still, the media can't help but fixate on whether Trump had “signed off” on the Israeli strikes, and Bash was no exception. Bash said flatly that “he definitely did not say ‘I signed off on this.’ He said, ‘I support Israel. We support Israel. We support Israel like no one has ever done before.’”
The distinction matters only to people looking for a gotcha. The Trump administration was notified, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, but the real headline here isn’t whether Trump gave Israel a formal thumbs-up—it’s that Trump had warned Iran, and Iran ignored him. Now, some of the most dangerous figures in Tehran’s orbit are dead.
Trump’s message to Iran couldn’t have been more clear: the era of empty threats and meaningless red lines is over. The days of pallets of cash and bowing to dictators are in the rearview mirror. And if Iran wants to avoid further consequences, the time to come to the table is now.
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