President Donald Trump’s appearance at the White House’s annual family-oriented Easter celebration took a bizarre turn on Monday as he regaled an audience of young children and their parents about the U.S. military’s purported successes in Iran and claimed the Iranian people are unhappy when not being attacked by American bombs.
Speaking to attendees at the White House annual Easter Egg Roll alongside the Easter Bunny — typically a low-level White House staffer in costume — Trump called the yearly South Lawn celebration “a special day” to “celebrate Jesus” and “celebrate religion” before pivoting to boasting of how the country has “broken every record in our military” and praising U.S. forces of successfully rescuing a downed F-15 pilot who’d been forced to eject from his fighter over Iran last week.
“I just want to say we have a great military. We’re the greatest military, the most powerful military any place in the world. You saw what happened with Venezuela, and it’s an honor. I built it in my first term, and I didn’t know I was going to be using it this much in my second term, but it’s my honor,” Trump said.
“And they’re the greatest people on Earth. Our warriors are the greatest fighters on Earth, and they very much appreciate you and love you, and that’s why they do it.”
The president’s remarks came just hours before he was scheduled to take part in a press conference alongside military leaders as the war he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started against Iran enters its sixth week, but as he wandered around the South Lawn to meet with the children who’d come to the White House with their parents (most of whom were political supporters who’d been rewarded with tickets to the event) he repeatedly offered commentary on the war under questioning from reporters.
He claimed the current Iranian leadership — whose identities are not publicly known — are “much more reasonable” than the people who’d been targeted for assassination during Israeli and American decapitation strikes in the opening days of the war.
Those deceased leaders were “lunatics,” he said,” adding that “the people that we negotiated with now in on behalf of Iran, are much more reasonable.”
Trump then proceeded to attack the supermajority of Americans who are currently opposed to the month-old war as “foolish” and claimed once again that the purpose of the massive air campaign is to make sure that Tehran “cannot have a nuclear weapon” while boasting that the combined American and Israeli air power has “obliterated” the country and promising that unless Iranian leaders “say uncle” there will be “no bridges” and “no power plants” and “no anything I want to” left in the country.
He also boasted of his desire to loot Iran’s natural resources and expressed disappointment that the American people would oppose such a course of action.
“if I had my choice, what would I like to do? Take the oil, because it’s there for the taking. There’s not a thing they can do about it. Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us come home. It were up to me. I take the oil, I keep the oil, and would make plenty of money,” Trump said.
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