A Tweet For Everything: Trump Predicted Obama Would Attack Iran Before Reelection

President Donald Trump speaks as he meets with Paraguayan President Mario Abdo at the White House on December 13, 2019. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

President Donald Trump once sent out a flurry of tweets predicting that his predecessor would attack Iran to shore up support just before his reelection in 2012. Instead, President Trump appears to have done just that with the fatal strike on Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani Thursday.

Collected by a Bloomberg reporter:

Trump also called President Barack Obama “weak and ineffective,” saying that he would attack Iran due to his lack of ability to “negotiate.”

Trump ordered the strike on Soleimani at the Baghdad airport, the Department of Justice announced Thursday night.

Many Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), issued dire warnings about the consequences of ratcheting up the tension in an already volatile region. Iranian leaders have called Soleimani a “martyr” and are promising revenge.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that there was an “imminent threat” to Americans in the region that prompted the drone strike, and said the administration would do “their best” to release that relevant intelligence.

The State Department is now urging Americans to leave Iraq and stay away from the U.S. embassy as the region braces for retaliation from the Iranian military.

Trump broke with Obama back in May 2018 by pulling the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal, earning a rare public rebuke from his usually taciturn predecessor. Calling Trump’s pull out “misguided,” Obama said that without the pact, “the United States could eventually be left with a losing choice between a nuclear-armed Iran or another war in the Middle East.”

Latest News

Notable Replies

  1. Avatar for jw1 jw1 says:

    Pre-projection. That’s a new one.

    jw1

  2. Yea, comments working again

  3. And where the hell is he? I guess addressing the nation on anything is quaint when you can tweet. And who is really behind this: Putin? Bibi? MBS? Brad Parscale?

  4. Sunny day in Florida, guess???

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

237 more replies

Participants

Avatar for george_c Avatar for austin_dave Avatar for josephebacon Avatar for jw1 Avatar for srfromgr Avatar for littlegirlblue Avatar for maxwellsdemon Avatar for mickeyg Avatar for sniffit Avatar for ralph_vonholst Avatar for danny Avatar for left_in_washington_state Avatar for leftcoaster Avatar for thunderclapnewman Avatar for tena Avatar for jonney_5 Avatar for southerndem Avatar for rickjones Avatar for rhs1963 Avatar for cub_calloway Avatar for carolson Avatar for rascal_crone Avatar for rockitttla Avatar for emiliano4

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: