President Trump Tells Iran to ‘Take Out Los Angeles and San Diego’

President Donald Trump’s White House was forced into damage-control mode after a startling remark about Iran, Los Angeles and San Diego ignited a political firestorm — and even drew criticism from some Republicans.

Trump made the comments Monday, October 5, during a campaign rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, as he defended the ongoing war with Iran and acknowledged Americans were still feeling the effects of higher fuel prices.

Calling those costs “a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe,” Trump abruptly turned to what could happen if Iran were capable of threatening the United States.

“They can take out a city,” Trump told the crowd. “Let ’em take out Los Angeles. Let ’em take out San Diego.”

The remarks immediately raised eyebrows, particularly because they appeared, when heard in isolation, to suggest the president was willing to accept attacks on two major American cities.

But the White House insists that was not what Trump meant.

Communications Director Steven Cheung fired back at the criticism, arguing that Trump was actually describing the danger America could have faced if Iran obtained nuclear weapons.

“He was saying the U.S. is fighting to STOP Iran from having the ability to take out LA and San Diego with a nuclear weapon,” Cheung said.

Cheung accused Trump’s critics of deliberately twisting the president’s words, saying Trump’s point was that confronting Iran now was preferable to allowing Tehran to eventually develop weapons capable of threatening American cities.

That interpretation is supported by some of the comments Trump made immediately before and after the controversial line. During the same speech, the president repeatedly argued that temporarily elevated energy prices were worth enduring if the war prevented Iran from becoming a nuclear threat.

Still, the confusing wording handed Trump’s opponents an explosive soundbite just weeks before the November midterm elections — and California leaders wasted little time responding.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom called the remarks “disgusting and disqualifying.”

“After sending the National Guard and Marines to occupy California, Donald Trump is now saying our foreign enemies should ‘take out’ Los Angeles and San Diego,” Newsom said, calling the president “deranged and dangerous.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass also condemned the president’s words.

Bass argued that a president’s responsibility is to protect Americans and said rhetoric involving a foreign adversary attacking an American city was dangerous regardless of Trump’s intended meaning.

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria delivered an equally blunt response.

“San Diego is not collateral damage,” Gloria said. “We are not expendable.”

The criticism was not limited to Democrats.

San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond, a Republican congressional candidate endorsed by Trump, publicly broke with the president over the remark.

“I vehemently disagree with President Trump’s comments,” Desmond said, arguing that while America should confront Iran and defend its interests, protecting Americans at home must remain the commander in chief’s first responsibility.

“No American city is expendable, and no American family should ever be treated as collateral damage,” he said.

Rep. Kevin Kiley, who caucuses with Republicans, also described the comments as unhelpful.

The bipartisan backlash made the controversy particularly uncomfortable for the White House.

Los Angeles and San Diego are not simply Democratic political strongholds frequently criticized by Trump. Southern California is also home to strategically important military installations, and the San Diego region has one of the largest concentrations of military personnel in the country.

That made casual talk about an enemy nation potentially “taking out” the city especially jarring to local officials.

There is also an important distinction between Trump’s wording and the way some of his critics characterized it.

Trump did not explicitly tell Iran to attack California, and there is no evidence he was revealing intelligence about an imminent Iranian strike.

Viewed in the broader context of his remarks, Trump appeared to be arguing that the United States must prevent Iran from ever reaching the point where it could threaten cities such as Los Angeles or San Diego — and that economic disruption caused by the war was a comparatively small sacrifice.

But that explanation has done little to quiet the criticism.

The episode illustrates a recurring problem for Trump: his freewheeling speaking style can produce statements that sound dramatically different when separated from the argument surrounding them.

This time, that ambiguity concerned the possible destruction of two American cities.

It also comes at an especially sensitive political moment.

Trump was in Nebraska campaigning ahead of the November 3 midterm elections as Republicans fight to maintain their power in Washington. Democrats, meanwhile, have increasingly sought to make Trump himself a central issue in congressional races across the country.

California has long served as one of Trump’s favorite political foils. He routinely attacks Democratic leaders there over immigration, crime, elections and the state’s progressive policies.

But his latest remarks gave Democrats a different argument: that the president’s hostility toward heavily Democratic parts of the country has crossed a line.

And the fact that Republican officials joined in the criticism could make this controversy harder for the White House to dismiss simply as another partisan fight.

Whether Trump’s words were a badly phrased warning about Iran or something more provocative, the political damage was immediate.

The White House may have explained what the president intended to say.

His critics are focusing on what millions of Americans heard.