President Trump decided against carrying out a military strike against Iran that would kill approximately 150 people because he did not believe the response was “proportionate.”
The U.S. military was prepared to strike several radar installations and missile sites in Iran in retaliation for Tehran shooting down a U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said he decided against carrying out the planned strike, contradicting a Thursday New York Times report that said Trump ordered the attack, then abruptly reversed himself.
“Nothing is green-lighted until the very end because things change, right?” Trump said in an interview with NBC host Chuck Todd. “But we had something ready to go subject to my approval.”
“They came and said, ‘Sir, we are ready to go. We’d like your decision.’ And I said, ‘I want to know something before you go. How many people will be killed?'” Trump said, explaining what led him to scrap the planned attack. The U.S. military estimated that the attack would kill roughly 150 Iranians.
“I thought about it for a second and I said, ‘You know what? They shot down an unmanned drone — plane, whatever you want to call it — and here we are sitting with 150 dead people that would have taken place probably within a half an hour after I said go ahead,” Trump said. “I didn’t like it. I didn’t think it was proportionate.”
EXCLUSIVE: In an exclusive interview with Chuck Todd, President Donald Trump says he hadn’t given final approval to Iran strikes, no planes were in the air. pic.twitter.com/qHtTx7Zql5
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) June 21, 2019
