White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed to reporters on Tuesday that President Donald Trump is “always the final decision-maker” on possible action against Iran.
During an appearance on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning, Leavitt said that US airstrikes in June destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities, even though special envoy Steve Witkoff said over the weekend that Tehran was “probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material.”
According to Leavitt, the success of Operation Midnight Hammer “does not mean that Iran may never try again to establish a nuclear program that could directly threaten the United States and our allies abroad, and that’s what the president wants to ensure can never happen again.”
Leavitt also criticized a recent spate of stories speculating on when or whether Trump would order an attack in the Middle East.
“The president is always the final decision-maker around here,” she said. “And I’ve seen a lot of sensationalist reporting over the past day that is just completely untrue, and anyone speculating to the media, hiding behind an anonymous source, pretending to know what President Trump is thinking or a decision he will make with respect to action against Iran has no idea what they’re talking about.”
Leavitt prefaced Trump’s State of the Union Address by arguing that it will be “a great speech” that will focus on how he’s fulfilling his campaign pledges to the American people.
Leavitt said that the speech will also focus on those individual Americans who contributed mightily to the nation’s development over the centuries, to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday on Independence Day in July.
“He’s going to share the stories of GREAT American heroes who exemplify bravery and the spirit of 1776,” Leavitt told the Fox News program. “And the president is, of course, going to tout his administration’s record-setting accomplishments over the past year while laying out an ambitious agenda to continue making the American dream more attainable for working-class people across the country.”
She added: “It’s gonna be a great speech. There will be some tear-jerking moments as there was last year, in addition to some moments of levity, and so we hope everyone will tune in.”
WATCH:
Several Democrats have said they won’t attend the address, while others will attend with guests aimed at highlighting the so-called Jeffrey Epstein files ‘scandal’ despite the fact that Trump signed a bipartisan bill to release all of the files, with some redactions to protect victims and comply with court orders.
California Democrats Ro Khanna and Robert Garcia both said they would be at the speech with guests who say Epstein abused them or who want the federal government to be more open about releasing related records.
Khanna said he would bring Haley Robson, a woman who has discussed her experience publicly. Garcia said he would bring Annie Farmer, another survivor who is pushing for more files to be made public – though the administration has said everything has been released.
Other Democrats will bring people who say they were detained by ICE during the protests and riots in Minnesota that broke out after Renee Nicole Good died.
Some Democrats have invited family members of the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre and other Epstein survivors to talk about their worries about how the Justice Department is handling the release of millions of pages of documents under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Congress passed – and Trump readily signed – the act late last year, and some 3.5 million documents related to multiple Epstein investigations have been released. Democrats had no interest in the files during Joe Biden’s presidency. Also, Trump campaigned on releasing the files.
Democrat Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar announced she is bringing four guests to President Trump’s State of the Union address.
She claims three were detained by ICE in Minnesota—including Aliya Rahman, who appeared in a viral video showing federal agents pulling her from her vehicle, the New York Post reported.
Omar will be taking Rahman, Mary Granlund, Mubashir Hussen, and Gerardo Orozco Guzman.
