U.S. President Donald Trump told Dana Bash, CNN chief political correspondent, that Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites constituted “a very successful attack,” the network’s anchor stated.
“We, of course, support Israel, obviously, and supported it like nobody has ever supported it,” the U.S. president told Bash, during what she described as a “brief” call.
“Iran should have listened to me when I said—you know, I gave them, I don’t know if you know, but I gave them a 60-day warning, and today is day 61,” Trump said.
The president told the CNN anchor that Iran ought to come to the negotiating table and make a deal “before it’s too late.”
“You know, the people I was dealing with are dead, the hardliners,” he said. Bash wrote that Trump “would not specify which people he was referring to.” She asked him if he meant Iranian hardliners were dead due to Israel’s airstrikes.
“They didn’t die of the flu,” Trump told her. “They didn’t die of COVID.”