Fox News’ coverage of the Israel-Iran conflict may have influenced President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iranian nuclear sites, The New York Times reported.
Trump announced Saturday that the U.S. struck key Iranian nuclear sites, thrusting the U.S. into Israel’s conflict with Iran. The president has been mulling whether the U.S. should get involved in Israel’s conflict with Iran for days, as many conservatives and Democrats urged him not to get the U.S. involved in another Middle East war.
According to The New York Times, Fox News’ coverage praising Israel for the attack on Iran could have motivated him to authorize the strikes. The New York Times reported that Trump was “closely monitoring Fox News, which was airing wall-to-wall praise of Israel’s military operation and featuring guests urging Mr. Trump to get more involved."
The New York Times also noted that some Trump advisers were upset that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson was no longer on the network, meaning that Trump “was not hearing much of the other side of the debate.” Carlson has been vocally opposed to the U.S.’s possible involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict.
More from The New York Times:
He marveled to advisers about what he said was a brilliant Israeli military operation, which involved a series of precision strikes that killed key figures in Iran’s military leadership and blasted away strategic weapons sites. Mr. Trump took calls on his cellphone from reporters and began hailing the operation as “excellent” and “very successful” and hinting that he had much more to do with it than people realized.
Later that day, Mr. Trump asked an ally how the Israeli strikes were “playing.” He said that “everyone” was telling him he needed to get more involved, including potentially dropping 30,000-pound GBU-57 bombs on Fordo, the Iranian uranium-enrichment facility buried underneath a mountain south of Tehran.
The New York Times report drew attention on social media, with some users noting that Trump has based some decisions off of Fox News’ coverage before. The Times previously reported that Trump backed escalation of the Israel-Iran conflict after he saw Fox News’ glowing coverage of Israel’s attack on Iran.
Trump addressed the nation on Saturday after announcing that the U.S. launched strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran. This comes after Israel and Trump have claimed that Iran has become closer to acquiring a nuclear weapon.
The decision to directly involve the U.S. in the war comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran that aimed to systematically eradicate the country’s air defenses and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities. But U.S. and Israeli officials have said American stealth bombers and the 30,000-pound (13,500-kilogram) bunker-buster bomb they alone can carry offered the best chance of destroying heavily fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear program buried deep underground.
“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,” Trump said in a post on social media. “All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home.”
Trump added in a later post: “This is an HISTORIC MOMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISRAEL, AND THE WORLD. IRAN MUST NOW AGREE TO END THIS WAR. THANK YOU!”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Stories by Lauren Sforza
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