White House denies Rubio said that Israel dragged Trump into war with Iran

WASHINGTON (TNND) — White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday denied claims that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Israel dragged President Donald Trump into war with Iran.

“No, Marco Rubio Didn’t Claim That Israel Dragged Trump into War with Iran,” Leavitt wrote in a post on X.

On Monday a tweet from the Rapid Response 47 account went viral of Rubio talking about Israeli action.

“The president made the very wise decision—we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” the tweet reads.

This tweet was shared by different commentators who were critical of the U.S. striking Iran.

Underneath Leavitt’s post, she included another tweet from Rapid Response 47 where Rubio is seen on video saying that the U.S. was not forced to strike Iran because of Israel.

“No… No matter what, ultimately, this operation needed to happen — that’s the question of ‘why now?’” Rubio answered when a reporter asked him if Israel dragged the U.S. into striking Iran.

“But this operation needed to happen because Iran, in about a year or a year and a half, would cross the line of immunity, meaning they would have so many short-range missiles, so many drones, that no one could do anything about it because they could hold the whole world hostage.”

Over the weekend, the U.S. and Israel conducted strikes on Iran over concerns about the Middle East country building missiles.

Iran has responded by launching retaliatory strikes, resulting in other countries also being hit.