CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Presses Trump on His ‘Imminent Threat’ Claims on Iran

CNN’s chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins challenged President Donald Trump about his frequent assertion that Iran was an “imminent threat” ahead of Operation Epic Fury.

The moment came on Monday as the commander-in-chief held an impromptu press gaggle outside Air Force One and boasted about the success of the B2 bombers that struck Iran’s ballistic missile facilities earlier this month.

“If we didn’t hit them with the B2 bombers, they would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks to a month,” Trump said. “And if they had a nuclear weapon, they would have used it as soon as they got it.”

Collins then asked Trump, “If you obliterated their nuclear sites last summer with your strikes, then how can you argue it was an imminent threat now?”

Trump responded by saying that “we hit them so hard” and “obliterated them,” but that didn’t mean Iranian forces couldn’t dig down and retrieve their nuclear materials with the “right equipment.”

Read the exchange below:

TRUMP: I think it was an imminent threat. I think that Iran, if they- If we didn’t bomb them with the B2 bombers — now that set them back — but if we didn’t hit them with the B2 bombers, they would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks to a month. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they would have used it as soon as they got it.

KAITLAN COLLINS: If you obliterated their nuclear sites last summer with your strikes, then how can you argue it was an imminent threat now?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Oh, we hit them so hard. We oblitted them — obliterated them — but that doesn’t mean with the right equipment you can’t dig down and go get it. We don’t want that, and we won’t have that. But we obliterated that site. They STILL haven’t been able to get it. That was a complete success. But if it wasn’t, they would have had- if we didn’t hit them If we didn’t use the B2 bombers, which are unbelievable — we just ordered 22 more of them, modern version by the way, super modern version — if we didn’t hit them with the B2 bombers, they would have had, within two weeks of that attack — that’s why we hit ’em, because we knew — they would have had a nuclear weapon. They would have used it on Israel and the entire Middle East.

Watch above via CNN.

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