Karoline Leavitt Downplays Reports Putin Is Helping Iran Target US Troops: ‘Doesn’t Really Matter’

Fox News anchor John Roberts pressed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Friday about reports that Russia is feeding Iran intelligence to target U.S. troops in the Middle East

Roberts opened the interview by saying that Fox News had confirmed an earlier Washington Post exclusive that Russia is providing Iran with intelligence information to help the regime target U.S. forces.

He then asked Leavitt if President Donald Trump had spoken to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin about it.

In response, Leavitt said that she would leave the question to Trump himself to answer, and “we don’t comment on intelligence reports that are leaked to the press.”

But she went on: “Whether or not this happened, frankly, it does not really matter because President Trump and the United States military are absolutely decimating the rogue Iranian terrorist regime. We are now on Day 6 of Operation Epic Fury. The United States military has impressively established dominance and air superiority over the skies of Iran.”

Read the conversation below:

JOHN ROBERTS: All right, now it’s time for our own private White House briefing with the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. Karoline, thanks for being with us this Friday afternoon, appreciate your time.

KAROLINE LEAVITT: Thanks for having me.

ROBERTS: I wanted to start you off this afternoon because we have confirmed reports from U.S. officials that Russia is providing intelligence to Iran to help it target U.S. assets in the region. I’m sure this is something that does not please the president whatsoever. Has he spoken to Putin about it?

LEAVITT: Well, look, I’ll leave that to the president to answer himself. But what I will tell you, John, we don’t comment on intelligence reports that are leaked to the press. Whether or not this happened, frankly, it does not really matter because President Trump and the United States military are absolutely decimating the rogue Iranian terrorist regime. We are now on Day 6 of Operation Epic Fury. The United States military has impressively established dominance and air superiority over the skies of Iran. We have sunk and destroyed more than 30 of their Navy ships. And of course, the goals of this operation have been laid out and very clear. Completely annihilate Iran’s Navy, which again we are well on our way to doing. Their Navy has now been deemed combat ineffective. Secondly, take out their ballistic missile weaponry arsenal capacity, which we are very much doing. In fact, their retaliatory ballistic missile strikes against the United States and our allies in the region have decreased 90% just over the course of the last six days and of course, the overall mission in this operation is to ensure that Iran can never again possess a nuclear weapon. That was the real imminent threat that was posed by Iran to the United States, and our personnel in the region and President Trump and the United States military are focused on tackling this threat every single day.

Watch above via Fox News.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!