CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes asked Karoline Leavitt whether any U.S. leadership, aside from President Trump, had mentioned the imminent threat to the United States. Donald Trump has mentioned that Iran was perhaps a week away from attacking the United States. Trump has used this as a justification for the ongoing U.S. military action in Iran.
Cordes’s question was whether these claims were fabricated, which provoked a firm response from Karoline Leavitt. She said, “The president is not making anything up, Nancy. He is looking at this every single day, based on intelligence, based on facts, and based on intelligence that he himself and his negotiators have consumed based on their, again, negotiations, with the rogue Iranian regime over the past year.”
CBS’ Nancy Cordes Accuses Trump Of Lying To Justify Iran War
Cordes: Are there any U.S leaders or Israeli leaders making those same claims? Is he making this up to justify his decision to go to war now?
Leavitt: The President is not making anything up, he is looking at this… pic.twitter.com/eCHSV9vm7w
— Mr Producer (@RichSementa) March 10, 2026
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has said that the strikes against Iran were ‘pre-emptive.’ The Defense Minister said that this was in the interest of removing threats to the State of Israel. Marco Rubio told reporters that the United States acted pre-emptively to protect American forces.
The BBC was told by Israeli officials that months of strategic deception had gone in to catch the Iranian military off guard.
Further, Iran’s nuclear program has been a main focus point in the war. Since the United States bombed Iran’s Nuclear sites in June of 2025, Trump had alleged that the country was in the midst of rebuilding its nuclear capabilities. Attacks from the United States and Israel have targeted multiple Iranian military installations.
“I believe … they were looking to take over the Middle East.”
President Trump said that had Operation Midnight Hammer from June 2025 not taken place, Iran would have “had a nuclear weapon within a matter of weeks.”
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— ABC News (@ABC) March 9, 2026
Another point of interest in the war has been the calls for regime change. Israel, as reported by the BBC, wants Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities stripped, and wants the current regime to be replaced with a pro-Israel one. The United States expressed interest in invading Iran after the regime in the Middle Eastern country violently stamped out dissent.
The US-Israel offensive has had a huge effect on the global economy. Energy prices have shot up as the war drags on, with several oil-producing countries in the Middle East looking to shut down oil production if transportation and production facilities are not secured. Energy authorities around the globe have warned that a prolonged war could cause a lot of damage to oil and energy economies.
Donald Trump had talked about the rising oil prices on his Truth Social account, saying that the short-term spike is worth the lasting stability the operation will bring to the world.
