White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt took heat from a reporter after announcing that President Donald Trump had punted on whether to attack Iran, giving himself a two-week deadline to decide.
The reporter pointed out to Leavitt that Trump has previously given himself two-week deadlines on other major decisions, particularly related to the Russia-Ukraine war, and then failed to meet them.
“He’s used this phrase about two weeks several times, in terms of ’We expect a two-week deadline,’ and then you give another two-week deadline,” the reporter said. “How can we be sure that he’s gonna stick to this one, making a decision on Iran?”
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Leavitt’s first response was to blame Joe Biden, saying that “these are two different global conflicts that the president inherited from our previous, incompetent president.”
Eventually Leavitt suggested that Trump’s tendency to push his own self-assigned deadlines comes from his desire to broker peace.
“The last time the president said two weeks, you saw [Russia and Ukraine] have direct negotiations for the first time in years,” Leavitt said.
“The president is always interested in a diplomatic solution to the problems and the global conflicts in this world,” she added. “He is a peace-maker-in-chief, he is the peace-through-strength president. If there is a chance for diplomacy, the president will grab it. But he is not afraid to use strength, I will add.”
Questions about how Trump will handle the conflict between Israel and Iran have swirled over the last week, and the president has yet to give a straight answer. The prospect of the U.S. joining the conflict on Israel’s behalf has divided the president’s MAGA supporters.
The last two-week deadline Trump set came on May 28, with regard to determining whether Russian President Vladimir Putin actually wants peace against Ukraine. It came and passed last week with no acknowledgment from the president.
On April 24, Trump used the two-week line to evade a reporter’s question about aid to Ukraine. Three days later, asked whether he trusted Putin, the president said, “We’ll let you know in two weeks.”
And on May 19, Trump was asked whether Ukraine had done enough to foster negotiations. “I’d rather tell you in about two weeks from now because I can’t say yes or no,” Trump said.
Trump’s penchant for backing off of big decisions during his second term has led to the rise of the acronym TACO, short for “Trump Always Chickens Out.” It went mainstream after Trump repeatedly lowered his steep tariff on China.
The president hates the acronym, as he made clear to a reporter who asked him about in May. “Don’t ever say what you said,” Trump told the reporter. “That’s a nasty question.”
