Trump ‘locked out of Situation Room’ during Iran rescue | US | News
Trump did not attend important meeting (Image: Washington Post via Getty Images)
Donald Trump was reportedly barred from the Situation Room by military advisors during a high-risk rescue mission in Iran.
It was claimed that the US President was excluded from the critical meeting due to concerns about his temperament.
Trump was kept away from the command room due to the high-risk extraction of an American airman shot down in Iran.
The Wall Street Journal reported that senior administration officials feared his volatile temper could put the mission at risk.
After a US jet was shot down by Iranian forces earlier this month, Trump is said to have spent hours shouting at aides in the West Wing, haunted by memories of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.
“If you look at what happened to Jimmy Carter, it cost them the election,” Trump said, according to people familiar with the matter.
The shooting down of an F-15 jet over Iran on April 3 triggered the high-risk operation.
One crew member was rescued immediately, while the other spent more than 24 hours behind enemy lines before being rescued.
According to WSJ, after learning that two airmen were missing after the incident, “Trump shouted at his aides for hours.”
The President’s top aides and administration officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, joined the Situation Room remotely over the next 24 hours to receive updates.
A senior administration official confirmed that Trump was not at the meeting but was briefed by phone at “meaningful moments.”
“Aides kept the president out of the room while getting minute-by-minute updates because they thought his impatience would not work,” the official told the press.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt added that Trump “remains the stable leader our country needs.”
“President Trump proudly fulfilled his promise to deny the Iranian regime the ability to develop nuclear weapons, which is what this noble operation has accomplished.”
Racing against time to save the second airman, the president was informed that he had been rescued by the United States on the evening of April 4.
During the rescue mission, a senior administration official explained that the operation was made possible thanks to vital CIA support that alerted both the Pentagon and the White House to the airman’s whereabouts.
They added: “This was the ultimate example of the ‘needle in the haystack,’ but in this case it was a brave American spirit in a mountain crevice; invisible but [the] CIA capabilities.”
