00:02President Trump is offering a new explanation for why the United States launched strikes on Iran,
00:08one that differs from what we heard from his own administration just a day earlier.
00:13In the Oval Office Tuesday, the president pushed back on the idea that Israel forced his hand
00:18and offered his own justification for the timing of the strikes. Watch.
00:24Mr. President, did Israel force your hand to launch these strikes against Iran?
00:28Did Netanyahu pull the United States into this war?
00:31No, I might have forced their hand.
00:33You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics and it was my opinion that they were going to attack
00:41first.
00:41They were going to attack. If we didn't do it, they were going to attack first.
00:46I felt strongly about that.
00:48That framing contrasts with what Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers and later reporters on Monday
00:55when he laid out the administration's initial rationale for acting when it did.
01:01Here's what he had to say then.
01:02We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.
01:04We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces.
01:08And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks,
01:12we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher than those killed.
01:16After the president's remarks, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth weighed in on social media,
01:22backing the president's explanation, saying he was 100 percent correct.
01:27Later Tuesday, Rubio pushed back on the idea that his earlier comments conflicted with the president's,
01:33insisting he was talking about timing, not intent.
01:37Listen.
01:37This was a question of timing, of why this had to happen as a joint operation, not the question of
01:42the intent.
01:42That once the president made a decision that negotiations were not going to work,
01:46that they were playing us on the negotiations, and that this was a threat that was untenable,
01:50the decision was made to strike them.
01:52That's what I said yesterday, and you guys need to play it.
01:54And if you're going to play these statements, you need to play the whole statement,
01:56not clip it to reach a narrative that you want to do, all right?
02:00Meanwhile, the administration's formal letter to Congress cites broader national security interests,
02:05including protecting American forces and advancing American strategic objectives in the region.
02:11Democrats say the shifting explanations are raising concerns.
02:15Here's Chuck Schumer.
02:17The American people do not want an endless war.
02:20The administration doesn't seem to know what it's doing.
02:24Every hour, there's a different rationale as to why we're doing this.
02:28And America wants this president to pay attention to the problems at home,
02:35not the problems overseas, particularly when no one has any idea of what the real rationale is.
02:41It changes every hour.
02:44All of this is unfolding as the conflict widens,
02:47and Congress prepares to vote on whether the president needs authorization to continue military action.
02:53The central question now, what intelligence underpins the president's assertion that Iran was going to launch a strike first?
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