Trump Says Iran Could “Take Out” Los Angeles and San Diego
Speaking at a rally in Nebraska, Donald Trump said of the war on Iran: “It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They can take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles, let them take out San Diego.” Parts of the audience cheered. Gavin Newsom called the remarks “deranged and dangerous” and has directed California’s threat assessment centre to monitor for foreign reaction.
The governor went further than condemnation, calling the words “dangerous — if not treasonous” and instructing the State Threat Assessment Center to watch in case foreign actors read them as an invitation. Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, said they amounted to threats and an attempt to encourage attacks on American lives; Todd Gloria in San Diego said his city was not collateral damage and asked to be kept out of “reckless war talk”. Both cities carry serious military weight — Naval Base San Diego is the home port of the Pacific Fleet, and Camp Pendleton has some seventy thousand personnel — which is presumably why they came to mind, and exactly why naming them is not cost-free. The White House communications director Stephen Cheung called the reaction a “media freakout” “not rooted in reality”, arguing the president was describing what a nuclear Iran would have threatened rather than inviting anything: “America is safer because of the President. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money.” That defence rests on a tense the sentence does not obviously have. Mr Trump had not responded to the Californian officials by early evening. Watch whether he repeats it, because a second utterance would settle the question of whether it was a slip.