In Vicious Rally Rant, Trump Claims Dems Would Have Leaked Soleimani Op to Press and Enabled His Escape

During his Toledo, OH rally on Thursday, President Donald Trump, clearly chafing at the House vote earlier in the day to curtail his war powers against Iran, viciously accused Congressional Democrats of wanting to leak military operational plans to the press to thwart attacks against terrorists.

In a long, rambling rant, Trump began by trumpeting his recent decision to kill Iran’s Quds Force commander, Qasem Soleimani, who was designated a terrorist by the Trump administration, in a U.S. airstrike last week. But he then quickly shifted gears to target a potential 2020 rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and his Congressional foil, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

“Now I see the radical left Democrats have expressed outrage over the termination of this horrible terrorist,” Trump claimed. “Bernie Sanders, crazy Bernie. Has condemned the U.S. military strike on Soleimani, the worlds top terrorist. Think of it. The world’s top terrorist. We are having people like Nancy Pelosi. That’s a real genius. Do you believe that one? Nancy. Nancy. Nervous Nancy. But here’s a guy who slaughtered and butchered civilians all over and military, whoever was in his way. We have Bernie and Nancy Pelosi, we have them all. They are all trying to say how dare you take him out that way?”

In fact, Sanders condemned Soleimani as a “very bad guy” and instead criticized what he called the “mass chaos” of the Trump administration’s Iran policy, which has included withholding supposedly key intelligence justifying the killing of Soleimani. And Pelosi’s successful push for a war powers resolution in the House limiting Trump’s further actions against Iran is not an attempt by Congress to micromanage real-time military operational efforts. However, that is exactly how Trump tried to paint the effort.

“You should come in and tell us what you want to do.” Trump said, before dishonestly misrepresenting the House resolution and smearing members of Congress as wanting to undermine the military by divulging their plains. “You should come in and tell us so that we can call up the fake news that’s back there and we can leak it. That’s a lot of corruption back there, folks. Seriously. So they want me. These are split-second decisions. You have to make a decision. So they don’t want me to make that decision. They want me to call up, maybe go over there. Let me go over to Congress. Come on over to the White House. Let’s talk about it. When can you make it? I won’t be able to make it today, sir. How about let’s say in a couple days. Oh, sure. Come on over.”

“They are so pathetic. So they want us to call them,” Trump continued, before concocting a hypothetical, utterly depraved scenario in which the House Intelligence Committee Chair, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), in concert with Trump’s least favorite cable news network, CNN, intentionally publicize an impending US attack on Soleimani, allowing him to escape. “Schiff is a big leaker. He leaks to crazy CNN, the little red light on. Not too many people are watching CNN. He leaks, so he will say you know, off the record, I’ve got to hurry up because everyone’s watching me in the hallway on my cell phone. Off the record, they’ve got the number one terrorist in the world, Soleimani. They are going to get him. They are going to take them out in the next 10 minutes. Please don’t tell anybody I told you. So we have breaking news. President Trump within the next 20, 25 minutes, looks to be taking out terrorist General Soleimani. He is going to do it. Should be happening in the next 20 minutes…19…18…17. Then we get back to the battlefield. How did you do? I don’t know. He disappeared. I don’t know what happened to him. They want us to tell them so that they can leak it to their friends at the corrupt media. You’ve got to say that’s a lot of media, right?”

Watch the video above, via Fox News.