Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that reports Gen. Qassem Soleimani was on a diplomatic mission when he was killed are "fundamentally false" and asserted that the president's actions that led to his death were both legal and appropriate.
As tensions continue to rise in the Middle East, Pompeo answered questions from reporters at the State Department after making remarks on issues that included turmoil in Venezuela and the Australian wildfires, for which he offered his condolences.
Pompeo, the former C.I.A. director, declined to provide evidence of what has been repeatedly described by the White House as an "imminent" threat from Iran that led to the assassination. He further said the timing of the attack was less important than the fact that American lives were threatened.
"If you're looking for imminence, you need to look no further than the days that led up to the strike that was taken against Soleimani," he said.
An American contractor was killed late last month in a rocket attack by an Iran-backed militia in Iraq. After the U.S. ordered a retaliatory missile strike, protesters stormed the embassy in Baghdad on New Year's Eve. Some Pentagon officials have said intelligence did not show an imminent attack.
He added, "And then you, in addition to that, have what we can clearly see were continuing efforts on behalf of this terrorist to build out a network of campaign activities that were going to lead potentially to the death of many more Americans."
"It was the right decision, we got it right," and U.S. intelligence supported that conclusion, Pompeo claimed, defending both the president's authorization of the strike and the broader Iran policy.
Pompeo said the U.S. would also abide by international law. On Monday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper acknowledged that striking cultural sites is a war crime, despite the president tweeting about such potential targets in Iran. When questioned on the subject, Pompeo said "let me tell you who's done damage to the Persian culture. It's not the United States of America. It's the ayatollah."
Meanwhile, U.S. forces were placed on high alert in the Middle East amid military intelligence suggesting Iran is moving equipment to launch drone strikes.
Pompeo said the president had acted in an "entirely legal, appropriate" way that was "perfectly within our strategy," which he described as a "pressure campaign we have in place … diplomatic component, economic component, and military component."
"In the event that the Iranians make another bad choice, the president will respond in the way he did last week," he said.
Last week, President Trump authorized the airstrike killing Soleimani and his adviser Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis at the Baghdad airport, angering Tehran for killing the high-profile commander of the Quds Force and frustrating some American politicians who feel he took his power too far.
The president ordered the strike without giving notice to Congress, seemingly conflicting with the War Powers Act of 1973. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she will hold votes this week when the House of Representatives is back in session to limit the president's ability to act unilaterally. A Senate vote is expected as well.
The school shooting in Texas that left 19 children and 2 teachers dead has reignited the debate over gun control.
The tragedy in Uvalde is the deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade and marks the latest in a string of mass shootings in the country. Jared Moskowitz, Broward County Commissioner and candidate for Congress in FL-23, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss why gun control measures are stalled in the Senate, and where legislation can move forward from here.
Police and detectives are still investigating the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 children and two adults. Cheddar News was joined by Kirk Burkhalter, professor at New York Law School and former NYPD detective to gain some insight on what investigators are looking for and what comes next.
Texas authorities say the gunman who massacred 21 people at an elementary school was in the building for over an hour before he was killed by law enforcement officers.
Join Cheddar News as we break down the top headlines for Thursday, May 26 including updates on the Texas school shooting, President Joe Biden's executive order on police reform, and a recount in the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary.
Representative Morgan Griffith of Virginia rebuked words from the FDA commissioner that could have been construed as blaming parents for stockpiling baby formula exacerbating the shortage.
Cheddar News reporter Megan Pratz brings the latest from the scene of yesterday's horrific school shooting at a Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Now the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history with 19 children and two adults killed, Pratz goes into comments by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, details about the deceased shooter, and reactions from members of the community.
The Robb Elementary School mass shooting killing 19 children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas pm Tuesday was the deadliest school shooting since the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, and came just 10 days after the grocery store shooting in Buffalo, New York. Nelson Vergara, the founder and CEO of 360 Protective Solutions, joined Cheddar’s Opening Bell to discuss. "Right now what law enforcement is concentrating on is trying to trace his steps as to what motivated the gunman to act the way he did. What it boils down to just trying to figure out what led to his motivation to do such a horrific act.”
An recently conducted AP-NORC poll found that majorities of the Black and Hispanic populations in the U.S. still find themselves either somewhat worried or extremely worried over the pandemic, while more than half of white Americans responded with either being not too worried or not worried at all. Dr. Chris Pernell, the chief strategic integration and health equity officer at University Hospital, joined Cheddar News to talk about how perceptions of COVID-19 differ between groups of Americans. "We’re still seeing people get infected, and because of the toll of the disproportionate impact, we have concerns among the Black and brown community about whether or not they have an increased risk of exposure because of where they work, because of the use of public transportation, because they live in homes that they may not be able to safely quarantine and or isolate in, and because they have at baseline chronic health conditions that may make coronavirus more severe in those persons," she said.
Judith Enck, a former regional administrator for the EPA and the president of Beyond Plastics, joined Cheddar News to talk about the role of plastics in the climate crisis and California's investigation of ExxonMobil and other oil companies for misleading the public on the ability to recycle plastics. "The reason why petrochemical companies like Exxon have gotten away with selling more and more plastic is that they've lied to the public and told us don't worry about all those negative upstream impacts and downstream impacts of plastics. Just be sure to recycle it. Well, guess what? Plastics largely are not recycled," Enck said.
