California Orders Threat Monitoring After Trump’s Iran Rally Remarks

Trump’s remarks and the White House response

At a Nebraska rally, President Donald Trump said the Iran war’s economic effects, including higher gas prices, were “a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe.” He then said:

“They can take out a city. Let them take, let it — let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. That’s — this is a very small price to pay, and it’s going to be over with very soon.”

The White House’s Rapid Response account asserted that Iran would use a nuclear weapon against Los Angeles and San Diego if it had the chance. It presented U.S. military action as an effort to prevent Iran from gaining the capability to attack the cities.

Audience members cheered after the remarks, ABC News reported. The White House denied that Trump was calling for attacks. Steven Cheung said Trump was not calling for attacks but meant that American cities would have been threatened had a nuclear Iran not been stopped, and he argued that the administration had made America safer.

FactCheck.org judged that the more plausible reading was that Trump meant the Iran war would prevent Iran from threatening American cities. It described his wording as confusing but pointed to the immediately preceding discussion of higher gas prices as a sacrifice for security, along with his past use of similar language.

In analysis reported by The Independent, Daniel Dale said Trump had repeatedly argued that the war’s consequences, including higher gas prices, were a small price compared with what an unchecked Iran could do, though Trump’s speaking style obscured his meaning. Dale rejected a viral paraphrase that Trump had called the destruction of Los Angeles and San Diego a small price to pay. He said that was neither a direct quotation nor a correct paraphrase.

California’s response

Newsom directed California’s State Threat Assessment Center to monitor whether foreign actors interpret Trump’s remarks as an invitation to target California. He said foreign actors might interpret Trump’s comments as an invitation to target California.

Newsom accused Trump of telling foreign enemies to take out Los Angeles and San Diego, calling him deranged and dangerous. His office characterized the comments as advocating an attack on millions of American residents.

Karen Bass said the remarks were dangerous and inconsistent with a president’s constitutional duty to protect and defend Americans, rather than threaten them or encourage attacks. She said the remarks could compromise Los Angeles’s safety.

Todd Gloria said San Diego was neither expendable nor collateral damage and urged Trump to keep it out of reckless war talk. Jim Desmond, a Republican, said he vehemently disagreed with Trump and that no American city or family should be treated as expendable collateral damage. A Navy veteran, Desmond said he had served to protect Americans, not write off cities.

The military presence provided context for local officials’ objections to treating San Diego as expendable or collateral damage.

Security rationale and costs

The White House account described this as its rationale for military action. In a separate assessment of the immediacy of one potential threat, experts cited by FactCheck.org said an Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland was not a particularly imminent threat. Separately, Iran says it is not pursuing nuclear weapons, although it has enriched uranium to near-weapons-grade levels, according to an Associated Press report carried by The Seattle Times.

Steve Lopez, in Los Angeles Times analysis, challenged the security trade-off. He called the Iran war a disaster, arguing that the United States had paid with lives and higher costs without it being clear that the country was safer. He described Trump’s line about American cities as gratuitous and unfunny.

Trump’s earlier comments treated higher gas prices as a security trade-off. Separately, The Independent reported that the Department of Defense estimated the Iran war’s cost at $43 billion (£32.4 billion). Trump also predicted that oil prices would fall once the Iran war ended.