President Trump offered new details about the drone strike that killed Iran’s top military commander Qassem Soleimani.
Trump told donors at a fundraising dinner at his Florida resort on Friday that Soleimani was “saying bad things about our country” before the strike, according to a recording obtained by CNN.
“How much of this shit do we have to listen to?” Trump asked. “How much are we going to listen to?”
Trump also described watching as Soleimani was targeted near the airport in Baghdad earlier this month with a MQ-9 Reaper drone.
“They said, ‘Sir,’ and this is from cameras that are miles in the sky, ‘They’re together, sir. Sir, they have 2 minutes and 11 seconds.’ No bullshit. ‘They have 2 minutes and 11 seconds to live, sir. They’re in the car. They’re in an armored vehicle going. Sir, they have approximately one minute to live, sir. Thirty seconds, 10, 9, 8.’
“Then, all of a sudden, boom. ‘They’re gone, sir. Cutting off.’”
“I said, where is this guy,” Trump continued. “That was the last I heard from them.”
The Trump administration has claimed there was an imminent threat against the United States as justification for the killing. However, officials have been vague about how soon an Iranian attack was planned against the U.S.
Trump’s decision has been scrutinized by Democrats and a few Republicans, who have cited the risk of escalating tensions with Iran and because Trump did not seek congressional approval.
Iran retaliated by firing more than a dozen missiles at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops. The missile strikes injured 11 U.S. troops, the Pentagon acknowledged this week.
“He got hit hard, and he deserved to be hit hard. Because he was bad,” Trump said of Soleimani, who was responsible for the deaths of over 600 U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
