President Donald Trump and his White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt are moving in lockstep to defend a war in Iran that’s been defined as much by shifting explanations as the fighting itself, with Trump setting the tone and Leavitt increasingly tasked with selling it, even as the rationale continues to shift.
That tension is spilling into public view, where the administration’s message has grown harder to pin down, veering between conflicting explanations about why the U.S. entered the conflict, what role Tehran is playing in negotiations and how — or even when — it might end.
It all came to a head during the White House daily briefing on Wednesday, March 25, when a combative Leavitt took the podium, forcefully defending Trump, warning Iran to fall in line and insisting the president’s actions were carried out on behalf of the American people.
“President Trump does not bluff and he is prepared to unleash hell,” Leavitt crowed to reporters.
She accused the Islamic Republic of “miscalculating” and that “Their last miscalculation cost them their senior leadership, their navy, their air force and their air defense system.”
She then turned the tables and tried to convince Americans again, which Trump has repeatedly claimed, that the U.S. has won in Iran.
“Any violence beyond this point will be because the Iranian regime refused to understand they have already been defeated and refused to come to a deal,” Leavitt claimed.
Social media wasted no time in calling her out and pointing out that Trump in fact just bluffed when he threatened to annihilate Iran’s power supply if they didn’t open the key Strait of Hormuz by Monday, then he backed down and backed down again.
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“Doesn’t bluff? So he took out all of Iran’s electrical grids on Monday?” this Threads user stated.
Another chimed in, “Does she hear herself? I mean really hear how stupid she sounds?”
Threads poster Lee H. Edgerley wrote Trump clearly bluffs.
“Really? Threats are his ONLY negotiating tool. Russia, Greenland and Canada are proof that he does.”
Another hilariously noted, “He’s didn’t earn the name TACO without a few bluffs,” referring to the acronym for “Trump Always Chickens Out” and coined when Trump continued to back down after wildly threatening to levy improbably high tariffs against friends and foes last year.
Then Leavitt walked right into it when she tossed to political journalist Gabe Fleisher for a question, probably not expecting his hard ball query delivered in a mild and noncombative manner:
“If the war in Iran continues past this first round of peace talks with thousands of troops on their way to the Middle East, is there a point, either the number of ground troops or the number of days, in which the president would consider seeking an authorization from Congress?”
Fleisher was referring to the fact that Trump never bothered to get congressional approval to launch a war against any country, let alone on one in such a volatile region of the world.
Leavitt tried to say “that formal authorization from Congress is not necessary because we’re currently in major combat operations in Iran,” which makes absolutely no sense, before stammering on about the timeline for the attack, which has shifted from any day now, to “soon” to between four and six weeks.
But only Congress can formally declare war on another nation, according to Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution. The President is the commander-in-chief, but the Founding Fathers made a point of restricting the declaration of war to the legislative branch.
She then claimed Trump did notify some members of Congress “as a courtesy” before he launched the military operation on Iran on Feb. 28. Most members of Congress found about Trump and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s attack on Tehran at the same time most Americans did, after it happened.
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She then proceeded to speak out of both sides of her mouth, wildly claiming again that congressional authorization was “unnecessary” for a war but that the administration “would always abide by the law,” which clearly it has not done.
She then boldly called on Fleisher for a follow-up and it was a doozy.
Fleisher pointed out that Trump first appealed to young voters on the campaign trail in 2024 supporting his message of ”no more wars” and “lower prices.”
Now with the administration at war and sky high gas prices as a result, the reporter asked Leavitt what Trump’s message would be to those same young people who no longer support him.
And she delivered another head-scratcher of an answer and a new justification for Trump’s war on Iran.
“President Trump is doing this for you. He’s doing this for young people so that we are no longer threatened by a rogue terrorist regime in the Middle East that seeks to kill the brave men and women who serve in our country and the Middle East, many of them young people themselves … and have been threatened killed and maimed by the rogue Iranian terrorist regime.”
