President Trump to honor Iran strike flight team at the White House
Trump said that he took issue with early media reports suggesting that the strikes on Iran only partially damaged the targets because he considered it an insult to the "great" American military members who executed the mission.
"Remember when CNN said it wasn't obliterated? It was maybe damaged or damaged badly, but obliterated is too strong a word. No, it was obliterated. That's now been proven," said Trump.
"They were trying to demean me by saying that, but they were really demeaning those great pilots and people and mechanics that got those planes over there and were able to shoot from high up in the air, going very, very fast, with potentially a lot of things being shot at them, and hit every single one," he said. "They're trying to demean me, but to me, they were demeaning them. And they got out of the plane, and they said, 'What? We hit every single target.' They know better than anybody."
"These people did one of the greatest military hits and maneuvers in the history of our country, and I want them to be appreciated for it," the president went on. "So, they're coming. They're coming to the White House tomorrow night."
"They're going to be in Washington tomorrow at the White House, and we're going to be celebrating."
Trump said the White House will host not only the pilots, but the entire flight crew, including "the people that flew the other planes" and "the mechanics that had these planes going for 37 hours without a stop."
"China, Russia, they were all watching. Everybody was watching," he said. "We have the greatest equipment anywhere in the world. We have the greatest people anywhere in the world, and we have the strongest military anywhere in the world."
During his address on Thursday, Trump also claimed that Iran called ahead of their retaliatory strike on the U.S. military base in Qatar to clear the attack with the White House.
"They called me to tell me they have to take a shot at us. This was Iran. Very respectful. That means they respect us because we dropped 14 bombs. They said we'd like to take 14 shots at you. I said, 'Go ahead, I understand,'" he said.
"They said where they would do it. I said, 'Good.' We emptied out the fort. It was a beautiful military base in Qatar who treated us really fantastically well," he said.
Trump claimed that Iran went so far as to ask what time of day would be acceptable for their retaliatory strike.
"They said, 'Sir, is 1:00 okay?' I said it was fine, [they said], 'We could make it later.' And we had nobody but four gunners," he said. "So, all of a sudden, they said, 'We're ready.' And they were a little nervous about doing it. I want to tell, you can you imagine, they were nice enough – this is Iran – to call me and tell me that they would like to shoot me at 14 times, so they want to shoot us. And I said, go ahead. And they shot 14 high grade, very fast missiles every single one of them was shot down routinely by these four unbelievable gunmen. And they did their job. And that was the end of that."
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