Trump offers Iran war naysayers an extreme endgame: ‘Let them hit us with a nuclear weapon’

President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that Americans worried about rising gas prices should instead fear a nuclear attack, casting the costs of the Iran war as minor next to the alternative. At a White House event announcing a $15bn Iowa steel plant, he was asked whether drivers should expect fuel prices to stay high through October. He answered that real "turmoil" would be a nuclear strike on a city. Almost immediately, he also asserted that Iran's nuclear threat had already been eliminated, according to The Independent.

That contradiction matters because the war, now more than six months old, has strained the economy and pushed gasoline to new highs just ahead of the midterm elections. The Independent reports that nearly three in four U.S. adults do not think Trump has a plan to end the conflict, and that a Quinnipiac poll in March found more than half of Americans doubted the stated justification of an imminent nuclear danger. The administration has offered no evidence that Iranian facilities were being rebuilt after the February strikes, and Tulsi Gabbard, his former director of national intelligence, testified under oath to the contrary.

At the same event, Trump said he knew about five suspects released on bail after arrests on terror and explosive offenses at RAF Fairford, a British base supporting the American effort, but declined to say whether they had Iranian links. U.K. police say all five are British nationals living in London, and Iran's embassy denied involvement.

Summarized by PolitiKool from The Independent’s reporting. Read the full story at The Independent →