(AFP) – Hunkered down at his luxury Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, US President Donald Trump kept an unusually low profile after announcing the start of huge military strikes on Iran. Trump eschewed the grand Oval Office addresses to the nation favored by his predecessors to announce foreign wars and opted instead for an eight-minute video on his Truth Social network. Posted at 2:30 am on Saturday, the short statement, in which Trump stood at a podium wearing a white baseball cap, was the last the world would see of the US commander-in-chief until another video on Sunday afternoon.
On his way back to Washington on Sunday, the normally talkative Trump then declined to take any questions from reporters traveling with him on Air Force One, including an AFP journalist. Nor did he hold a press conference to explain to Americans why he was going to war. His eagerly awaited first public comments to the media since the Iran attacks finally came when he arrived back at the White House — but they weren’t about the news of the day. “Unbelievable statues, come and look at them,” said the 79-year-old Republican as he admired two new figures adorning the Rose Garden.
Trump’s entire administration has remained equally silent since the launch of Operation “Epic Fury,” raising questions about the way it is making the case for the biggest US intervention in the Middle East for two decades. There was nothing from the heads of the Pentagon or the State Department, while no cabinet members took to the airwaves on US Sunday morning news shows to defend the offensive. What little was revealed came in a series of brief telephone interviews that Trump gave to a number of US media outlets on Saturday and Sunday — but it was often contradictory.
Trump has given largely mixed messages about his end goals for the joint US-Israeli air campaign, including what kind of change of government he wants to see in Tehran. In one interview, he said the war could last four weeks; in another, he said five. He mentioned he had three candidates to lead Iran after the death of Iran’s supreme leader, but then he said his best candidates had been killed. Most of the interviews lasted a few minutes or less. For a man who last week broke the record for the longest presidential address to Congress, it was a curiously subdued performance.
The White House even at one point on Saturday denied a report that Trump would give a full live address, the sort of solemn national event that Barack Obama gave to announce the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011. The Democratic president at the time released a famous photo showing himself and top officials in the Situation Room, the ultra-secure space in the White House, watching the operation play out live. Trump, however, released photos taken at Mar-a-Lago in a makeshift situation room along with his top national security team, looking tired and wearing the same white baseball cap.
The billionaire president for once didn’t play his beloved golf during his weekend in Florida, but he did take part in two Republican fundraising dinners at his club for wealthy donors. Confirming Trump would attend a dinner on Saturday hours after the start of the latest war in the Middle East, the White House Press Secretary said the event was “more important than ever.” Trump also popped into a fundraiser on Friday evening shortly before the strikes but didn’t stay for long, according to a video posted on Instagram. “Have a good time, everybody,” Trump told guests as he left. “I gotta go to work.”
– Danny KEMP
© 2024 AFP
