What happened
President Donald Trump returned to Washington from Canada early Tuesday morning, leaving the G7 summit in Alberta a day early "because of what's going on in the Middle East," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday night. Trump posted and spoke about the escalating Israel-Iran conflict throughout the day Monday, saying Iran should have taken the nuclear "deal" he had offered, suggesting an accord was still "achievable," then warning, "Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!"
Who said what
It was "not clear what triggered" Trump's "ominous and somewhat cryptic" warning "casually calling for the evacuation of a city of 10 million people," Politico said. He may have been "privy to new plans by Israel to strike at additional targets inside Iran, or simply trying to scare Tehran back into nuclear talks," but the White House and the Pentagon "sought to clarify in nearly identical posts" that U.S. forces in the region remained "in a 'defensive' posture and were not about to join Israel's offensive."
Previous presidents have also "cut short trips to the G7," The Washington Post said, but Trump's abrupt departure "came in a far more ominous context as the United States expands its military presence in the Middle East," sending over the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and more than two dozen tanker planes.
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Trump is returning to the White House for "urgent talks with his national security team" and a "moment of choosing" with "enormous political risk," The Associated Press said. He could help Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "deal a permanent blow to Tehran's nuclear program" by dropping 30,000-pound U.S. bunker-busting bombs on Iran's deep-underground Fordo enrichment facility, or he could avoid "deepening American involvement" in the war — but either choice could cause a "schism" among "Trump's MAGA supporters."
What next?
For now, Trump "can afford to keep one foot in both camps," talking tough to Iran for the GOP hawks while "making one more run at coercive diplomacy" for the "America First" noninterventionists, The New York Times said. "But if the combination of persuasion and coercion fails, he will have to decide whether this is Israel's war or America's."
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