President Donald Trump has undercut his top diplomat’s explanation for the war in Iran as he provided yet another contradictory rationale for his military intervention.
On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a jaw-dropping admission: the U.S. struck Iran because Israel was planning to strike first—and Washington feared Tehran would retaliate against American forces.
But asked about this on Tuesday, Trump rejected this explanation outright as Rubio sat two seats away in the Oval Office.
Asked if Israel forced his hand, the president replied: “No. I might have forced their hand.”
Trump also made another starting admission: that his actions could ultimately make things worse for the people of Iran after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s autocratic supreme leader, was killed on Saturday.
“I guess the worst case would be we do this and somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person. Right, that could happen?” Trump said.
“We don’t want that to happen. It would probably be the worst, you go through this and in five years you realize you put somebody in who’s no better.”
Trump made his comments during a bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the first foreign leader to meet the president since the war began on Saturday.
But as Trump tried to explain his intervention, which has so far led to six U.S service members being killed, he also admitted that he rejected a diplomatic off-ramp with Iran.
“We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they would attack first,” he told reporters.
“If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that. So if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand. But Israel was ready, and we were ready, and we’ve had a very, very powerful impact, because virtually everything they have has been knocked out.”
Trump’s bombshell comments came as the conflict entered its fourth day, and the administration struggles to explain its reasons or exit strategy.
As the fallout continues, oil and gas prices surged on Monday, the Dow plunged, and Trump’s own MAGA base has also fractured, with firebrands such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, and Megyn Kelly questioning the intervention.
Rubio, who was at the president’s side as he launched the strikes from Mar-a-Lago overnight on Saturday, made a botched attempt to clean up the confusion this week, telling reporters that part of the reason the strikes were triggered was Israel’s plan to launch an attack.
“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” he said on Capitol Hill before briefing lawmakers angered that the administration had not sought Congressional approval for the war.
But Trump’s comments contradicted him and once again had observers scratching their heads.
Earlier, he also threw JD Vance under the bus, rejecting suggestions that his vice president needed to be convinced about entering another foreign war.
In a brief interview with RealClearPolitics, Trump said Vance, whose political reputation was built on his opposition to foreign intervention, “did not take persuading” about supporting the strikes.
The administration has also not ruled out deploying U.S. ground troops in Iran and is unable to say when America’s involvement in the conflict will end.
Since launching the attack, the president has offered numerous contradictory visions of how the war could end and who should take over in Iran.
Asked about this on Tuesday, the president gave a strikingly frank answer.
“Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” he said. “Now we have another group, they may be dead also, based on reports. So you have a third wave coming. Pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.”
