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‘What Was the Plan?’: White House Faces Fury Over Claim Trump Knew Hormuz Closure Risk

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The White House is coming under fire after attacking as “fake news” a CNN report that indicated the administration failed to plan for Iran shutting down the economically critical Strait of Hormuz, which has now been deemed impassable amid Iranian threats of bombing which have helped push the price of oil at times over $100 per barrel despite despite emergency reserve releases.

“The Pentagon and National Security Council significantly underestimated Iran’s willingness to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to US military strikes while planning the ongoing operation, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter,” CNN reported on Friday.

Calling the report “garbage,” Leavitt specifically pointed to this portion of CNN’s report in her harsh criticism:

“Top Trump officials acknowledged to lawmakers during recent classified briefings that they did not plan for the possibility of Iran closing the strait in response to strikes, according to three sources familiar with the closed-door session.”

READ MORE: ‘Quiet Part Out Loud’: Hegseth Slammed for Lashing Out at CNN’s War Reporting

Leavitt insisted that President Donald Trump had been briefed on the possibility that Iran could effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz, and noted that the Pentagon had been planning for that possibility for decades.

“The Pentagon has been planning for Iran’s desperate and reckless closure of the Strait of Hormuz for DECADES, and it has been part of the Trump Administration’s planning well before Operation Epic Fury was ever launched,” Leavitt wrote on social media.

She went on to suggest that it is not Iran that has shut down the strait, but rather, “rogue Iranian terrorists.”

“The President was fully briefed on it, and a goal of the Operation itself, to annihilate the terrorist Iranian regime’s navy, missiles, drone production infrastructure, and other threat capabilities is quite literally intended to deprive them of their ability to close the Strait,” she wrote, despite the Strait is now effectively closed as little commercial traffic is crossing it for fear of being attacked.

“President Trump will not allow rogue Iranian terrorists to stop the freedom of navigation and the free flow of energy,” Leavitt claimed.

READ MORE: Melania Trump Hails Herself as a ‘Visionary’ at Women’s History Month Event

But some critics asked why, if President Trump had been briefed on the possibility that the Strait could be closed, he attacked Iran without an apparent plan to keep the Strait open.

Political commentator Dan Hodges wrote of Leavitt’s remarks: “Not sure why they continue to peddle this line when the whole world has just seen the US Defence Secretary state that he believes the Strait is open, save for the fact Iran keeps firing missiles at vessels trying to transit it…”

“So then what was the plan?” asked Navy veteran Jared Ryan Sears, who writes at The Progressive Capitalist. “Let it happen, let oil and gas prices soar, use up 40% of our oil reserves, help Russia sell their oil, and then tell the American people to suck it up and deal with it? Great plan…”

Award-winning investigative journalist Mike ‘Thomas Paine’ Moore remarked, “Thank you for admitting that you decided to proceed regardless. Thereby jacking up oil prices. You basically just admitted you did this on purpose.”

Some critics pointed to a Wall Street Journal article that noted, “U.S. officials said Wednesday that Iran had laid mines in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carries 20% of the world’s oil exports from the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world. The U.S. Institute for the Study of War estimated that 10 mines had been laid, though President Trump cast doubt on such reports and encouraged shippers to traverse the strait.”

Earlier this week The New York Times reported that “In the lead-up to the U.S.-Israeli attack, President Trump downplayed the risks to the energy markets as a short-term concern that should not overshadow the mission to decapitate the Iranian regime.”

Political commentator Robert Elisberg remarked, “given the administration’s lack of credibility, even if others were briefed on your plans doesn’t mean those WERE the plans. And even if they were – man, were Trump/Hegseth’s plans terrible.”

Commenting on CNN’s report, foreign policy analyst Jimmy Rushton noted: “To my knowledge, every war-game that has ever attempted to simulate a full-scale war between Iran and the U.S. has assumed the Iranians would attempt to close Strait of Hormuz. It is amazing they didn’t understand or predict this.”

Also commenting on CNN’s report, Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) commented, “I worked at Pentagon, State and White House on Middle East and every assessment about possible conflict with Iran started with the real possibility of closing Strait of Hormuz. I guarantee Trump leaders were warned. They just thought they were better than the experts.”

READ MORE: GOP Senator Demands TSA Funding—Then Blocks Bill Funding TSA

 

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Trump: ‘Extraordinarily Brilliant’ — Yet Stumped by Virginia’s ‘Rigged’ Referendum

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President Donald Trump is being criticized for his latest Truth Social post in which he describes himself as an “extraordinarily brilliant person” yet admits he cannot understand the language in Virginia’s redistricting referendum — which more than 1.5 million voters passed Tuesday night.

The president also claimed the election was “rigged,” while offering no evidence, and was frustrated because ballot counting went more heavily in Democrats’ favor (the “Yes” vote) as results were counted.

“A RIGGED ELECTION TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT IN THE GREAT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA!” Trump declared.

“All day long Republicans were winning, the Spirit was unbelievable, until the very end when, of course, there was a massive ‘Mail In Ballot Drop!’ Where have I heard that before — And the Democrats eked out another Crooked Victory!”

READ MORE: ‘Weak, Stupid, and Bad’: Trump Slams Conservative Supreme Court Justices in Wild Rant

“In addition to everything else,” he continued, “the language on the Referendum was purposefully unintelligible and deceptive.”

“As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person, and even I had no idea what the hell they were talking about in the Referendum, and neither do they! Let’s see if the Courts will fix this travesty of ‘Justice.'”

Critics blasted Trump’s remarks.

“I am begging for someone to explain to the President how election returns work,” wrote Sarah Longwell, the founder and editor of The Bulwark.

“You weren’t ‘winning all day,’ you were ahead before counting finished,” wrote progressive commentator Alex Cole. “Those are not the same thing. The real conspiracy is how MAGA convinces itself losing = cheating instead of… losing.”

READ MORE: Republicans Have to Make a Choice Between ‘Reality-Based Data’ and Trump: Benen

 

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Republicans Have to Make a Choice Between ‘Reality-Based Data’ and Trump: Benen

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President Donald Trump’s job approval stands at its lowest point of his second term, and since he won’t be on the ballot in November or in 2028, Republicans will have to ask themselves at what point do they accept “reality-based data” and distance themselves from him?

So asks Steve Benen at MS NOW, where he notes that the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll “found Trump’s approval rating at just 36%, which was roughly in line with the latest NBC News survey. For the White House, the Associated Press’ latest national poll was even worse” — coming in at 33%.

The AP reported that even Republicans are showing less faith in his leadership, and added their findings “show a president who is struggling with unfulfilled promises to tame inflation and testing Americans’ patience with a conflict in the Middle East that has dragged on longer than expected.”

Benen notes that it’s been widely assumed that there is a floor below which Trump cannot sink — his base will never leave him. But, he posits, “the AP poll suggests it’s time to reassess earlier assumptions about just how low his support can go.”

READ MORE: ‘Weak, Stupid, and Bad’: Trump Slams Conservative Supreme Court Justices in Wild Rant

Some believe that focusing on Trump’s approval rating is “misplaced,” since he is constitutionally prohibited from running again.

But the trouble with that argument is that congressional Republicans are indeed preparing for midterm elections “as the American electorate turns sharply against a GOP president — whom those same congressional Republicans have championed since his return to power.”

The lower Trump’s approval rating drops, the lower his support gets, “the more the party confronts a question about what to do with reality-based data,” says Benen. “Do they take new, sizable steps to distance themselves from a failing and woefully unpopular president, or do they continue to carry Trump’s water and take their chances with a dissatisfied electorate?”

READ MORE: How Trump’s Corruption Is Like a Thermonuclear Bomb: NYT Columnist

 

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‘Weak, Stupid, and Bad’: Trump Slams Conservative Supreme Court Justices in Wild Rant

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After delivering dozens of Truth Social posts in a 24-hour period, President Donald Trump is now lashing out at the conservative justices on the Supreme Court — again.

The president appeared to suggest that the conservative jurists should be loyal to his positions, and lamented that liberal justices “stick together like glue, NEVER failing to wander from the warped and perverse policies, ideas, and cases put before them.”

He also attacked Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, although not by name but by calling her “that new, Low IQ person, that somehow found her way to the bench (Sleepy Joe!).”

Calling it “unexplainable” and a “travesty,” the president appeared furious, once again, after losing his tariffs case at the Supreme Court, and was angered at what he expects will be a ruling against his administration on birthright citizenship.

READ MORE: How Trump’s Corruption Is Like a Thermonuclear Bomb: NYT Columnist

He wrongly called birthright citizenship “something which virtually NO OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD IS STUPID ENOUGH TO ALLOW,” and claimed that it “was meant for the babies of slaves, not for the babies of Chinese Billionaires.”

“No,” he continued, “certain ‘Republican’ Justices have just gone weak, stupid, and bad, completely violating what they ‘supposedly’ stood for.”

“If they rule against our Country on Birthright Citizenship,” Trump wrote, “which they probably will, it will be even worse, if that’s possible. It will cost America massive amounts of money but, more importantly, it will cost America its DIGNITY!”

Trump’s Wednesday remarks follow his Tuesday attack on the conservatives: “I put certain people on the United States Supreme Court who totally misrepresented who they were, and the true ideology for which they stand!”

READ MORE: ‘What Evil Looks Like’: Columnist Says Trump Presides Over a ‘Circus of Death and Chaos’

 

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