Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Miley traveled to Mar-a-Lago today to brief President Trump on issues around the middle-east. The three leaders also held a press briefing this evening about U.S. military strikes that took place earlier today.
At the beginning of his remarks Secretary Pompeo stated “we came to Florida today to brief the president on activities that have taken place in the Middle East over the course of the last 72 hours.” Additionally Pompeo said he would let Esper discuss “the military aspects but I wanted to put into context our policy with respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Secretary Pompeo: “The attack that took place against the Iraqi facility threatened American forces. This has been going on now for weeks and weeks and weeks. This wasn’t the first set of attacks against this particular Iraqi facility and others where there were American lives at risk. And today what we did is take a decisive response that makes clear what President Trump has said for months and months and months, which is that we will not stand for the Islamic Republic of Iran to take actions that put American men and women in jeopardy.”